ARTICLES

The Labyrinth

WHO SUPPORTS THIS PLACE?

By Elizabeth Schumacher

In February of 1999 I visited La Providencia, and Sister Millie showed me around the house and grounds. I noticed mandalas (a circular design of concentric geometric forms symbolizing wholeness in Hinduism and Buddhism) on walls of the house. Sister Millie informed me they had to move a picture of the Blessed Virgin to make room for one large mandala. The picture was moved to a less prominent location, but, said Sister Millie, "I don't think Mary would mind." I was shown a display of crosses and crucifixes from around the world mounted on a wall in a hallway, but did not see any of these in a prominent place. In the front room of the house I observed several different colored bells on the floor. I asked what they were for and was told that they were chakra bells, that each bell had a different tone and each tone touched a different energy spot that we all have within us. Sister Millie then picked one up and said, "That touched one of your energy sources." When I responded that it did not and that I thought it was nonsense, she said, "Well, I don't really know that much about it anyway."

In her August 12 interview Rosemary Gerard asked Sister Millie about chakras being a Hindu belief: "Most world religions recognize that [the existence of chakras], except the religions of the West. It's nothing to be afraid of. It's just one more thing used to glorify God."

I was shown a massage table in one of the bedrooms that is used for Reiki. I was told that Reiki is a type of healing massage wherein spiritual guides are called upon. One of La Providencia's flyers advertises that Sister Pat is a Reiki instructor. In an effort to find out more about Reiki, I consulted Moira Noonan, herself a former Reiki healer and master trainer. She explained, "To be a Reiki healer, who then can teach the beginnings of Reiki, you would have had to be certified by another Reiki master, and Reiki masters have handed down the symbols used for Reiki healing (which are not written symbols) in an apprenticeship fashion. It is understood that the Reiki master is using spirit guides."

Gerard questioned Sister Millie about Reiki's use of spirit guides: "Well, that's just what guardian angels are. I think you can call them what you want, but it's just that people can become conscious that they do have God's helpers helping them. Sometimes words like 'spirit guides' can kind of throw Catholics off. We forget that's part of our [Catholic] teaching. We've always believed in guardian angels."

Sister Millie seemed proud of the labyrinth behind the house, which is 42 feet in diameter. I asked her what its meaning was, and she explained that people walk it symbolically as a journey of their life, to the center, which is where they are supposed to find God. I asked her how God works through the labyrinth, and she said, "They walk the labyrinth and God just zaps them." I asked her how the sisters might direct someone who was about to start a labyrinth walk and if they tell people about Jesus. She told me they give only a little direction, because not everyone who comes to La Providencia is Catholic and "we meet everyone where they're at."

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune ("Mazing Grace" by Sandi Dolbee, March 15, 1996), interest in the labyrinth as "an ancient, mystical tool" owes its resurgence to Lauren Artress, an Episcopalian priestess at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, who launched the Labyrinth Project there in 1991. (Grace Cathedral has been the site of ex-Catholic priest Matthew Fox's "Planetary Masses.") Dolbee reports that Artress claims her devotion to the labyrinth is modeled on the Chartres labyrinth and inspired by a Christian mysticism movement that has died out. Shortly after Artress visited San Diego in 1996, Dolbee also wrote, "She [Artress] talks about a 'sacred geometry' that represents balance and harmony.... Artress regards the writings of the cabala, the ancient Jewish mysticism movement, as a kind of elongated labyrinth, the Hopi medicine wheel as a Native American cousin and the Buddhist sand mandala as a 'labyrinth created through a meditative state.'"

Sister Millie acknowledged to Gerard that the two sisters had been inspired by Artress to promote the labyrinth.

The Wanderer newspaper (July 8, 1999) has reported that the labyrinth is showing up in Catholic schools, retreat centers and churches. The weekly quoted from an article written by Lee Penn, a Catholic convert from the Episcopal Church, which will be published this fall in the Journal of the Spiritual Counterfeits Project ." Penn says that the labyrinth's meaning "is free of any link to Christian tradition or practice.... According to Artress.... 'You walk to the center of the labyrinth and there at the center you meet the Divine.' Since 1995, Artress has promoted the labyrinth as a means for connecting to the Divine feminine.' A friendly reviewer of Artress' ... book written in 1995, quotes one of Artress' descriptions of the labyrinth: 'The labyrinth is a large, complex, spiral circle which is an ancient symbol for the divine mother, the God within, the goddess, the holy in all creation.'"

Upcoming events at La Providencia are announced in the bulletins for Queen of Angels Church in Alpine, and Sister Millie teaches a Church history class at the parish. In their summer 1998 newsletter the sisters reported that they spoke after all the Masses at the parish on May 16­17, to tell parishioners about La Providencia. La Providencia also had a booth at the 1998 diocesan church ministers conference. A perusal of eight La Providencia newsletters, spanning the period from the autumn of 1996 to the summer of 1999, indicates that the retreat center has received donations of services and/or money from Father Matthew Spahr, the pastor of Queen of Angels; Queen of Angels Parish; Queen of Angels Knights of Columbus; and Justin and Irene Rael. Justin and Irene are listed in the parish bulletin as the contact persons for lectors and Eucharistic ministers, respectively, and they are listed as donors in all eight newsletters. Other local priests who have assisted La Providencia in the last few years include Father Bill Springer, Father Bill Rowland, CJM, Monsignor Raymond Kirk, and ex-Catholic priest Doug Regin. Local nuns who have contributed to La Providencia at least twice include Rose Brausam, OSF; Josephine Breen, RSM; Miriam Eckery, CSJO; Margaret Eilermann, CSJO; LaSalette Trevilyan, RSM; Elizabeth Wekall, RSM; Marilyn Dietz, RSM; Margarita Jimenez, CSJO; Maria Luisa Valdez, OLVM; Mary Jo Anderson, CHS; Margaret Ann Altmiller, OLVM; Cheryl Blanchard, MMM; Mary Jo Maes, OLVM; Mary Jean Pejza, CSJO; and Katharine Heidkamp, MMS. A total of 58 nuns were listed as having donated at least once. The same newsletters indicate that organizational support for La Providencia, from outside Queen of Angels parish, has been forthcoming from each sister's order, Our Lady of Angels Church in San Diego, and Our Sunday Visitor.

I contacted Father Spahr in mid-March of 1999 to inform him of concerns about New Age influences at La Providencia. He told me he "had no doubts about the sisters personally," that "labyrinths are a Christian tradition, not New Age" and that I "could look elsewhere for a retreat house" if I was not happy with La Providencia. He mentioned that he did not know about everything that takes place at La Providencia. Sister Millie told Gerard that Father Spahr visits La Providencia "regularly." He was on vacation when Gerard called Queen of Angels to request his comments for News Notes . However, a parish secretary forwarded Gerard's e-mailed letter to him, to which he had not responded by press time, six days later. Father Spahr eulogized Sisters Pat and Millie in the homily he delivered at a special Mass on April 25 at Queen of Angels, in honor of their 50th and 60th jubilees, respectively. His remarks were general, with the exception of one intriguing statement: "New forms of religious life are emerging and perhaps as Church we must be willing to discern calls to priesthood in those who are not celibate males." Afterward a reception was held for the sisters at the parish. On the previous day a jubilee celebration was held for the sisters at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Lakeside. The Lakeside parish has been the site of fund-raisers for La Providencia. When I shared my concerns with Monsignor Neal Dolan, its pastor, he told me that "it [La Providencia] seems to be all right. These things are always being studied by the diocese. I'll pass the information on to the diocese."

La Providencia holds retreats for St. Vincent de Paul Village's homeless clients about twice monthly. La Providencia's spring 1997 newsletter mentions that Sister Jeanette Van Vleck, CSJ, a chaplain at St. Vincent de Paul's, "realized that ... the homeless ... needed individual spiritual help." In mid-March of 1999 I left a message for Van Vleck, but my call was not returned. Sister Van Vleck was enthusiastically supportive of La Providencia's programs when she spoke on August 12 to Gerard, who contacted her for News Notes : "We love La Providencia. It has been an incredibly wonderful experience for our residents, a breath of fresh air.... We have people lined up to go out there." Some of the St. Vincent de Paul clients return to La Providencia on their own later, and some of these become volunteers. The quiet, natural beauty surrounding La Providencia, its home-like environment and its individual attention to retreatants are very therapeutic for homeless clients, Sister Van Vleck explained. A crucial advantage of La Providencia, she said, is that it can meet the individual spiritual needs of people with widely varying beliefs, stressing that most of her clients are non-Catholics. If there were clients who requested a more exclusively Catholic retreat environment, St. Vincent de Paul would accommodate that need, she added. Sister Van Vleck described La Providencia's labyrinth walks as deriving from medieval Christianity and its spirituality as Catholic "in the wonderful, universal sense," commenting that God's Spirit is at work in various ways. Sister Van Vleck and Father Joe Carroll, who runs St. Vincent de Paul's, are listed as donors of services and/or money in La Providencia newsletters.

On the issue of incorporating non-Christian beliefs at La Providencia, Sister Millie told Gerard that "all through the ages Christianity has recognized things from different cultures and religions ... and ... integrated the things within these cultures.... God is truth, so there's nothing that is true or good or beautiful that isn't from God. It's just that it takes people a while sometimes to figure out how that comes about. That's why we say that these things -- like Reiki and the chakras and so on -- of course they fit into the whole scheme of Christianity, because it recognizes the good, the true and the beautiful of God.'' In defense of La Providencia's Catholicity Sister Millie told Gerard that Our Sunday Visitor is "very traditional, very conservative, and yet Our Sunday Visitor gave us a grant to work with the homeless. So they know what we're doing. We had quite a detailed report to give on our Catholicity at the time that we applied for the grant. But they gave it to us." They also submitted letters of recommendation from Bishop Brom and Father Carroll. "We've invited the bishop, but he never has come.... He regularly receives our newsletter and we've talked to him. It's no secret what we're doing." Father Carroll also has a standing invitation, "but so far he hasn't come. He knows us well; he talks to us over the phone occasionally, but he knows what we're doing."

Sister Millie told me that La Providencia has been in existence for about ten years. Before that time the two sisters directed other houses of prayer, which closed due to lack of funds or the houses being sold. According to their summer 1998 newsletter, La Providencia had then been established in Alpine for seven years. When I visited in February of 1999 there was a "for sale" sign on the property. The sisters rent the property, and they now seek a new rental property in Alpine where they can continue La Providencia's apostolate. A check of county assessor's office records in late July of this year revealed that the property had not been sold.

Another call I made in mid-March of this year was to Father Edward McNulty, assistant to Bishop Brom. I wanted to inform him of my concerns about La Providencia's spirituality being inconsistent with Catholicism, particularly since it is listed in the diocesan directory. He said, "I will pass this information on to the one in charge."