‘BEACONS OF HOPE’

Albany Diocese hosts fourth annual Unleashing Love Women’s Conference

The congregation responds to speaker Danielle Bean on the topic of “Renewed in Hope: Finding God in the Struggles and Joys of Daily Life” during the Unleashing Love Women’s Retreat on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, at St. Edward the Confessor in Clifton Park, N.Y. Cindy Schultz for The Evangelist (Courtesy photo of Cindy Schultz)

On a brisk fall morning, armed with cups of coffee and breakfast snacks, dozens of women gathered together in faith and fellowship.

The fourth annual Unleashing Love Women’s Conference drew 200 women from across the Albany Diocese and beyond on Saturday, Oct. 18, at St. Edward the Confessor Church in Clifton Park. 

“These are opportunities for the average woman who is a practicing Catholic and maybe has never participated in some of the extra things we can do,” said Nancy Bielawa, facilitator for the conference and executive director of the Office of Stewardship and Development. 

Robin Anderson with St. Mary’s in Granville, right, joins in the Lord’s Prayer during the Unleashing Love Women’s Retreat on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, at St. Edward the Confessor in Clifton Park, N.Y. Cindy Schultz for The Evangelist 

 Bielawa attended the first women’s conference in 2022, recalling it as “an eye opener for me. It exposed me to a depth or an opportunity to dive into my faith in a deeper way with other women.”

Four years later, and that theme still rings true. The 2025 conference called on women to be “beacons of hope” for the world, and how every woman’s unique experiences and characteristics can be used to strengthen and care for those in need. 

“I’m here today to tell you, you are called to be signs of hope,” said Danielle Bean, one of two speakers at the conference. “Despite our doubts and insecurities, each woman contains the genius and the beauty to shape her community and her world.”

In a quote taken from St. Pope John Paul II’s “Letter to Women,” Bean

Speaker Danielle Bean on the topic of “Renewed in Hope: Finding God in the Struggles and Joys of Daily Life” during the Unleashing Love Women’s Retreat on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, at St. Edward the Confessor in Clifton Park, N.Y. Cindy Schultz for The Evangelist 

discusses how St. Pope John Paul II reinforced that women’s beauty and femininity can be a powerful benefit to those around them.

“He says we are beautiful and needed because we are women,” Bean reads. “He says necessary emphasis should be placed on the genius of women, not only considering great and famous women of the past or present, but ordinary women who reveal their gift by placing themselves at the service of others in their everyday lives. By giving themselves to others each day, they fulfill their deepest vocation, perhaps more than men. Women acknowledge the person because they see the person with their hearts.”

Bean added that this call to be hopeful aligns with a woman’s call to mother one another — clarifying that women don’t need to physically bear children to mother their communities. 

“When we talk about this idea that all women are called to motherhood, I like to think about the word mother as a verb, because mother is what we do,” she said. “Whether you’re a religious sister, a single woman, a married woman, a widow, a teacher, a doctor, a neighbor, a friend. We mother. This is what we do; we are rockstars at it.”

Sister Sue Zemgulis, OP, director of the Dominican Retreat and Conference Center in Niskayuna, led attendees through a meditative talk, discussing how women can practice different ways of prayer in their lives, noting that “there is no wrong way to pray.”

“The circumstances of our life change, so we grow and change with it,” Sister Sue said. 

Holly Schulte, right, shares a sign of peace during the Unleashing Love Women’s Retreat on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, at St. Edward the Confessor in Clifton Park, N.Y. Cindy Schultz for The Evangelist 

 The rosary, journaling, art, knitting, prayer shawls or walking are all options for a woman’s “prayer tool box,” so long as she “consciously makes an intention” before her activity to really listen to God, or ask him to show her what she needs to see. 

That flexibility in prayer, and the need to offer ourselves more grace, was a fitting sentiment for the day. Dozens of heads throughout the crowd nodded when discussing how difficult it can be for women to find time in their days for prayer or for themselves. But giving oneself grace and letting go of what is “the right way” — the right way to pray, to mother, to be a friend, to be a daughter, to be a Catholic — is a crucial step toward embracing that feeling of empowerment and importance in the roles that women offer the world. 

Lida Varone, parishioner at St. Joseph’s/St. Paul’s Church in Greenfield Center, came with three other women from her parish, looking to enjoy a day amongst other fellow Catholic women. 

“This is a good place to just take a deep breath and reconnect,” Varone said. “We can all look at each other and say, ‘Yeah, I get that.’ ”