The Holy Spirit Is in the Creative Process—When We’re Together

As a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration from Wisconsin, Sister Julia Walsh traveled to Rome earlier this month to meet with 187 Catholic Sisters in person (and 108 online) from fifty-five countries. The five-day gathering from June 3-7 was called “Hope 2025,” hosted by the U.S.-based Leadership Collaborative. While there, Sister Julia met the American focolarina Nancy Uelmen, composer, singer, and keyboardist in the all-female international Focolare performing arts group, Gen Verde. Here’s a transcript of part of their conversation. -The Editor

Sister Julia: In the general program, I was completely blown away by your community and your music. And I love learning about your community, based in Loppiano, here in Italy. Is it really nineteen or twenty of you living in four houses together?

Nancy: Yes, we live in Loppiano, which is an international town of the Focolare Movement, near Florence. That’s where we’re based. It was founded by Chiara Lubich herself. 

Sister Julia: Is that also where Gen Verde began? Was Chiara a musician herself?

Nancy: Yes, and no. Chiara wasn’t a musician, but she really understood the power of music. And so, in Christmas of 1966, she gave a drum set and an electric guitar to a group of young women who were in Loppiano. I’m realizing now how that was a kind of prophetic gesture because music has the potential to reach many people and touch their hearts and without a lot of words.

So that’s how Gen Verde started—there, where there were young women from all over the world at the same time, putting together their talents, and especially wanting to sing the experience that they were living. 

Over the years, the group grew. The members have changed, over the years, but the message is always that we’re sharing through our music the values of the gospel.

Sister Julia: It makes so much sense to me to use the arts as a way to communicate across cultures and language barriers. There is so much unity that’s found in music. And it’s a way to evangelize because it is often much more attractive for people to come to a concert than it is for them to go to church, right? 

Nancy: Yes, and a way to reach people who maybe don’t go to church at all.

But for people who want to gather together for religious reasons, we also do that. One of our main activities is our concerts, our workshops for young people, where we want everyone in the audience to feel comfortable even if they’re not people who go to church, even if they’re not necessarily Christians.

But we share who we are, so that it clearly has a Christian basis, based on the gospel. And the language we try to use in our songs is very inclusive. We talk a lot about positive values that we can share together. Building bridges, building peace. Working for harmony. For unity together. So even if there are people in the audience who don't even go to church, they can feel comfortable with that language and that something attracts them to.

Sister Julia: So that’s a way of witnessing too. It makes so much sense to me. How has this experience of being with nearly 190 sisters from around the world been for you?

Nancy: Here, we are also consecrated women united in that commitment to the gospel. Immediately, you feel this connection—because we have so much in common, and we’re all living for the same thing. For the same mission. And coming from all over the world and generally we have members from all over the world, you could really feel a special connection to us. You could really feel that many of the sisters, even if they all come from different charisms, from different congregations, that there was something in it for everyone. It was just so powerful.

Sister Julia: And like you heard Sister Mumbi say last night, I think you now have a huge fan club with all of us. I can say personally, for myself, that the opening night when you sang that Magnificat song called “A Girl on a Mission,” I was moved. I had goosebumps. I had tears flowing down. Music doesn’t normally move me so much.

I think it was because of the energy of being in this group of women who are from around the world, and we all love the Magnificat. It all means something to us.

There was just a fire, tears flowing, because I really felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in your community and in all the sisters in the room. So, thank you for your ministry.

Nancy: We wrote that song looking at Mary as our model. This song is about what we want to be imitating. We are girls on a mission like Mary was. But seeing that yesterday all the sisters—this song is for them. This song is for us. Because it’s about what we share. And we were especially singing it to this group of women. It was so special to sing this to women who give their lives every day for so many people, for the church, for all of humanity.

And I was just thinking of how you can see Mary in that, in each one, each one of these sisters. That’s what we could feel—this reality. As we could feel the Spirit, too. I think that’s why it was such a moving moment.

Sister Julia: Also, in your talks yesterday, when you spoke of the creative process, I was hearing so much about how creativity and contemplation go together. These are topics that I love to explore, too, in my own work. I love how when you create an offering and you give it to others, it takes on a life of its own that you could never imagine.

Nancy: Right. And it’s not just about you. It’s about welcoming the other. You experience this space where you welcome the Holy Spirit. And in the end, I think, the Holy Spirit knows what’s going to happen in the future. So it’s about being open to that, trying to be a channel for that, and being it together.

In fact, I think it’s even more. The gospel says, “where two or three are united in my name,” meaning that that’s the space where God wants to work and be present, and he inspires us. So you can really feel, especially in certain moments, that the Holy Spirit had in mind where things were going to go. It’s just like God makes more than we could ever think of.

Sister Julia: Right. It’s God. Yeah.

Nancy: So to let him work, to create that space, is giving everything we have. Because those are all his gifts inside us. When we share that with others, when we’re open to this creative process together, it becomes super powerful.

You touch people’s hearts, because it’s God working. You’re making space for him and you’re participating in his creativity.

Sister Julia: Amen. That’s what were made for.