Love Cannot Be Silenced

Sister Kathy Sherman, composer

The sisters were stunned, angry and confused.
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious,
a voice for most of the nuns,
had spoken its beliefs-  health care for all,
concern for the poor in their care.
The Vatican fathers condemned the nuns
for their “radical feminist themes.”
For focusing too much on poverty!
On economic injustice!
Who is the Christian here, who practices the Way?
Whose feet are out on the streets,
side by side with the poor?
Two days after the condemnation,
Sister Sherman felt a song coming,
on the wings of the spirit dove.
“Love Cannot Be Silenced,”
she heard, and wrote it down.
“It never has, it never will.”
She sang for her sisters at supper,
and they felt the spirit dove too.
The people emerged on the streets of Iowa and Illinois,
everywhere the sisters had reached their hands in love.
Thanking them, defending them, the hands and feet of Christ:
Rise up, sisters, rise up!
“God Bless the Sisters,”
Holy fire in their eyes!

Annelinde Metzner
December 7, 2012


Click here to listen to Sister Sherman's song, "Love Cannot Be Silenced," and to see protests from all over the US.


Read more about Sister Sherman and the LCWR here.