Tracey Horan

Living into the Jubilee Year of Hope alongside people here at the Arizona-Sonora border, the only kind of hope that makes sense to me is hope that knows the pain of loss even as it embraces beauty and possibility.

"We have a long way to go to undo the patronizing and inaccurate Thanksgiving narratives about Europeans and Native Americans sitting down and sharing a meal," writes Sr. Tracey Horan.

Horizons - As we've kept in touch with graduates of the program, we hear sisters share about their presentations and articles. Sisters are building infrastructure to welcome migrant families at their own motherhouses.

We, as followers of a God so often made manifest through collective liberation, don't have to wait for top-down change. This synodal process is a path that we are all making. 

I was totally aware that my yes to religious life would have both beautiful and painful implications beyond my imagining. And as I recited the vows, there was a deep peace and longing in me to live that out. I wanted it all. 

In the years I have been listening to the Passion narrative read aloud during Holy Week, I don't think I've ever thought much about the people in the crowd yelling for Jesus' death. Who were they? Why were they there?

Horizons - Four Catholic sisters spent a month serving at our migrant aid center in Nogales, Mexico. As I watched them build community together, I saw visions of what religious life has been, is, and is becoming.

A decorative mirror — an external supportive expression and an invitation for reflection — was a perfect symbol of New Ways Ministry's conference and its theme "Lesbian and Queer Religious: Our Sacred Stories Continue."

Horizons - There's no reason to wait for long-range strategic plans. Beautiful, new iterations of religious life in response to the signs of the times are everywhere in the here and now. We simply have to open our eyes and look around.

Horizons - Community life, especially living in an intercultural, intercongregational house, has broken open the meaning of Pentecost and speaking in tongues for me. And it's not just about sounds and spoken words.

Horizons - Here we sit, on this day of goodness and pain, each of us carrying our own devastating losses of the past year; each of us holding the embers of resurrection.

Horizons - Recently I took a hike on a stream-side trail, to reflect on perpetual vows. On that hike, contemplating an imperfect path ahead, I realized: with a lifetime commitment, there's always a leap.

Horizons - Embarking on Advent this year, songs and reflections tug me along toward the season's idyllic waiting. But I am tired of waiting. And some people have been waiting for way too long.

Horizons - Pain and tension invite us to ask important questions about what it means to be Catholic — truly Catholic — in these times when so many are suffering without solace.

Horizons - Amidst lots of other changes — transitioning housemates, learning a new ministry and a new community, living in a language that isn't my first, then experiencing countless shifts during the COVID-19 pandemic — there is one comforting constant.

Horizons - My experience living at the Mexico-U.S. border has added to the hypocrisy I see in our country's pledge to stand for "liberty and justice for all." 

Horizons - I marvel at how smells, tastes and combinations of ingredients connect us so intimately with people and places from the past. They help us remember. I yearned for this connection when my grandma died of COVID-19.

Horizons - Although for some the pain of not belonging is more present in daily life and social structures than for others, we can all fill in the blanks in one way or another, at one moment in our lives.

Horizons - There is something deeply sacred and somehow familiar about being in this place at this time. We hear the story every December: a family seeking refuge, traveling with the hope of finding welcome.

Horizons - Amid the reality of devastating violence, Mexicans still treasure the richness of the place they call home. The more I integrate into the life here, the more I can appreciate why.