St. Mary of the Assumption

Maple Park, Illinois

 

This past week I have attended the National Council of Catholic Women 2019 convention in Atlanta.  The theme this year was Caring for God’s Creation.

The National Council of Catholic Women has its roots in 1920, when the American Catholic Bishops wanted to gather the energy and talents of American Catholic women to serve the needs of both the Church and society.  Next year NCCW, as the National Council is known, will celebrate its 100 ^th anniversary, and its convention will be held in Arlington, Virginia, next to Washington DC.

The mission of NCCW is very important for the Church and Catholic women.  It is expressed officially in these words:

to act through its members to support, empower and educate all Catholic women in spirituality, leadership and service.

NCCW provides and programs to local Catholic women’s groups, such as our Cenacle Guild at St Mary in Maple Park, so that they may respond with Gospel values to the needs of the Church and society in the modern world.  We can complain about how “bad” the world and society are, but just complaining about it is useless.  It is important to address the things that we see need attention.  The problem often is that we don’t know what to do or how to do it.  That’s why NCCW is important: it can offer programs we can use on the local level, and it can use its nationwide talents to address things that are too large for a local group to deal with.

I have attended the NCCW conventions for many years, and I am constantly inspired by the Catholic women who are part of NCCW.  It’s only when we get beyond the world of our local parishes or diocese that we can discover the amazing women who are part of our Church family. 

NCCW operates in circles: the National Council, which provides resources and addresses issues which can best be met by a national response...Archdiocesan and Diocesan Councils, which work on issues which are best met by a diocesan effort...and the local Councils (which are called by different names such as Cenacle Guild, Altar and Rosary Society, and other names of parish women’s organizations), which focus on issues best met by local attention.  With many Catholic parishes no longer having specific women’s groups, it is now possible for Catholic women to join NCCW as an individual, and I highly recommend that women in our parish do so.  When you do this, or join your local parish women’s group, you become “part of the solution, not part of the problem.”

It’s easy to take for granted the tremendous value of Catholic women in their parishes and on diocesan and national levels.  One of the ways in which we honor the work of Catholic women on the local level is through the “Women of Inspiration” dinners held in various deaneries in our diocese.  We are just getting started in doing that in the DeKalb Deanery, of which Maple Park and Virgil are members.  Our deanery dinner will be on Sunday, September 22 at Sorrento’s restaurant.  I encourage you—women and men—to attend this year’s banquet, to show our appreciation for the work of women in our parishes.  The honorees at the dinner represent the work of all our parish women, and we are privileged to honor and recognize them for the valuable women they are.