Mission Monday

Entering into the Heart of Another

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“Another effect of charity is to rejoice with those who rejoice. It causes us to enter into their joy.” – Vincent de Paul [1]

Recently, I spent time in the bleachers of Sullivan Athletic Center, cheering on our women’s volleyball team as they faced the Huskies of Northern Illinois. Though I don’t really understand the finer points of the game, I love the intensity, pace, and athletic prowess that are fundamental to volleyball. And, I have tremendous admiration for the competitiveness and teamwork that are so critical to any sport at the elite collegiate level.

There is something else I love about volleyball: the behavior of the players on the court after each point. In those moments, if DePaul wins the rally with a spike or block or great serve, the players quickly gather in something resembling a group hug, rejoicing with the one who made the winning play and celebrating the moment before resuming the set. If DePaul loses the point, the response is very similar— a brief group huddle that is not celebratory but instead seems to communicate support to the player who may have missed a shot and also helps the team refocus for the next point. In both scenarios, despite the different outcomes, players are empathizing with one another. In those few moments, they are strengthening their bonds as teammates and pushing themselves to work together to win the next point and, ultimately, the match.

This simple demonstration of unity and devotion by our volleyball players seems to resonate with the quote that inspired today’s reflection. In the conference from which this quote is taken, Vincent de Paul is addressing members of the still-developing Congregation of the Mission (the Vincentian priests). He is urging them, for the sake of their mission’s ultimate success and sustainability, to ground their communities in virtue, particularly the virtue of charity (or what we might call today love). Vincent believed that the presence of a generous amount of charity within a community would lead to its members being able to “enter in” to the hearts of one another, to rejoice with those members who rejoice and grieve with those who are saddened. In other words, charity would create a community where there is genuine empathy, ever-present support, and abundant compassion among its members for one another.

When I have the privilege of visiting with university colleagues and learning what they value most about being at DePaul, their answers are almost always animated by their gratitude for our community. They speak of the affection they feel for treasured coworkers who are also good friends, the admiration they have for talented colleagues who diligently work on behalf of students, the enjoyment they take at campus-wide events that unite us in celebration, ritual or, simply, fun. On a large-scale and in small, personal ways—and even on a volleyball court—evidence abounds that DePaul, at its best, is a living example of the community grounded in love that Vincent de Paul set out to establish.

But, being a place where the lived norms are empathy, support, and compassion is not easy to achieve or maintain, nor does it automatically result from having a Vincentian identity. To be a community of charity needs to be made a priority both institutionally and individually. Then, it must be backed up by commitment, hard work, humility, equity, shared goals, cordial relationships, placing the good of the whole over that of the individual, and so forth. Although the challenges are real, DePaul has a history of being this type of loving community and a mission that supports this going forward.

Reflection Questions:

  • Are there people you know at DePaul who have recently accomplished something of note or celebrated a joyful experience? Or, alternatively, suffered a loss or are going through a particular struggle?  Consider reaching out to these people to offer congratulations and celebration or support and sympathy.
  • Where have you witnessed examples – either large or small – of empathy, support or compassion that help to make DePaul a more caring community? How might you be called to contribute to or build upon these examples?

Reflection by: Tom Judge, Assistant Director and Chaplain, Faculty and Staff Engagement, Division of Mission and Ministry

[1] Conference 207, “Charity (Common Rules, Chap. II, Art. 12),” May 30, 1659, CCD, 12:222. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/36/.

Seeing the Dignity of Every Person

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“Please continue to serve … with gentleness, respect, and cordiality, always seeing God in them.”  — Louise De Marillac[1]

One of the things I got to do over the summer was offer a few words of welcome and a prayer for incoming students at the Premiere DePaul orientation. I once heard a colleague observe that just as youth is wasted on the young, orientation is wasted on the new people. Without enough context to know what is important and hit with so much information in a short amount of time, it is not always clear how much information is retained. Having said this, I think orientations are wonderful. Being a part of them always awakens the hopefulness in me. While I may not remember the information from my orientation (to be fair it was over 30 years ago now) I still remember moments and emotions from it.

Perhaps that is why Premiere hits me differently. There are times when the thousands of students are numbers to be managed, event attendees to plan for, or, as the first day of class, when they are minds to be engaged. When I look out at Premiere at these students and their families, I just see hundreds of hearts: nervous, excited, playing it cool, bored, unsure, lost, confident, or triumphant. Like young plants, they seem so fragile yet so full of potential. It really calls out my desire to nurture, support, and protect them. I’m ready to be amazed by who they will become.

We are very familiar with the expression that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.[2] One contention here is that beauty is a subjective perception more than an objective reality. Our understanding of this can vary from simply acknowledging that people will differ on what they find beautiful to a suggestion that how we look will affect what we see. Irish poet and spiritual writer John O’Donohue suggests that “if our style of looking becomes beautiful, then beauty will become visible and shine forth for us.”[3]

O’Donohue goes on to say that beauty in fact is “present secretly already in everything” but one needs to beautify one’s gaze to see it. O’Donohue expands on this concept in his work Anam Cara, where he argues that our “style of vision” affects everything we see. To the fearful eye, everything is threatening, to the greedy eye everything can be possessed, to the resentful eye everything is begrudged and so on.

When we talk to students about our Vincentian mission and the legacy of Vincent and Louise, we focus on their honoring of human dignity. There are many profound implications to recognizing human dignity in all those whom we encounter. For Vincent and Louise there was no more profound way to express this in their Catholic Christian conviction that they saw the Divine in those whom they encountered. That was the style of vision they brought to their mission. This is captured in the advice in Louise’s letter to Sister Jeanne-Francois, who in difficult, lonely circumstances was serving the sick poor and orphans left as a consequence of civil war in seventeenth-century France. For some of us, this incarnational theology remains resonant today.

For others, we may find very different ways of capturing the dignity of every member of our community, as I did when I saw the students and families in front of me at Premiere as “hearts” and remembered how I felt when I was in the place they are now. Whatever ways in which you are moved to this recognition, my advice is to make it concrete as opposed to abstract. As we shape the vision with which we see each other, we will surely transform the ways in which we act toward one another and bring forth the beauty that is present all around us.

Reflection Questions:

  • How do I make the dignity of others in the DePaul community concrete for me?
  • How do the ways I see things affect what I see around me?
  • What are practices that shape my style of vision?

Reflection by: Abdul-Malik Ryan, Assistant Director, Religious Diversity and Pastoral Care

[1] Letter 361, “To My Very Dear Sister Jeanne-Francoise,” (June 1653), Spiritual Writings, 421. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/ldm/.

[2] This wording comes from the 1878 novel Molly Bawn by Margaret Hungerford, but phrases with similar meanings go back very far and can be found in the writings of many including Shakespeare and David Hume.

[3] Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (New York: Harper Collins, 2004), 19.

A Joyful Community

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“I will always welcome joyfully any opportunity that comes my way to be of service to you.” [1]

We have moved through many challenges over the last several months, including a number of difficult losses. Now, a new academic year is upon us. What must be done to rebuild and sustain a communal life at DePaul in which it is easier to be joyful and to flourish together? What would this entail in our shared workplace and in the education we seek to offer?

In many settings at DePaul, when speaking about our Vincentian mission, I have shared the maxim that we teach who we are. That is, beyond the content, skills, and knowledge that we share, students learn by observing and interacting with us as human beings. We are always teaching through the kind of people we are and the way we relate to one another, for better or for ill. Would not the joyful person, and the joyful community, then, be teaching something important and of educational significance, whether that be in or outside of the classroom?

Human beings are undeniably social creatures who benefit from living within a community of people that helps to bring out the best in them. This is true of employees in the workplace, and it is true of students within a university. DePaul University employs over 3,000 people in addition to our more than 20,000 students. We are akin to a small town. The experience that people have within our community has a ripple effect, which in turn outwardly affects thousands of other families, communities, and future generations to follow. If those who work and study here have a fundamental experience of joy and flourishing within our DePaul community, we are making a deeply significant contribution to the world.

What constitutes joy and how can we cultivate it? A professor of mine once distinguished joy from happiness by describing happiness as something in the “foreground” of our experience, which may come and go, while describing joy as a more constant state that exists in the “background” of our experience, a constant and creative source of life despite the ups and the downs of our everyday reality. With this understanding, being joyful does not mean the absence of difficulties or challenges, nor the absence of a whole range of emotions, but rather, a way of being that is fundamentally oriented toward hope and a positive vision of life. Joy is a virtue that is cultivated by practicing it over and over with clear intention and with the support of others. We become what we do repeatedly over time. In short, we become joyful by practicing joy and living in ways that foster joy.

Many choose to work and study at DePaul because of our clear sense of a social mission that transcends our individual work or discipline. Together, we are about something beyond our individual roles. Regardless of our discipline, background, or area of work or study, many appreciate being part of a community with a mission to positively impact society and to make life better for others, particularly for those who are marginalized. We gather around our Vincentian mission in large part because it helps to hold these aspirations as a community and keep them as a motivation for what we do each day. Ultimately, like Vincent de Paul, we find a reliable and sustainable source of joy in being of service to each other and to a common good that enables all to flourish.

Reflection Questions:

  • What do you need to do personally to cultivate a joyful way of being, working, or studying?
  • How might you foster a more joyful workplace or classroom?
  • What do you understand to be the place of joy in the vocation of education?

Reflection by:   Mark Laboe, Associate VP, Division of Mission and Ministry

[1] Letter 1230a, “To Monsieur Horcholle, in Neufchatel,” 28 June 1650, CCD, 4:41.

 

Our Mission Needs a Community

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What a blessing to be a member of a Community because each individual shares in the good that is done by all!”[1]

I have been thinking a lot lately about community—what it means, what it looks like, and why it is so essential to us as human beings and as a university, especially in our current context. Looking back on past Mission Monday reflections, it is clearly not the first time I have felt this to be important to identify as an essential focus for an organization like ours that seeks to embody the Vincentian name.

Yet, there are many reasons for the need to re-emphasize the importance of community at this time:

  • the ongoing changes we are moving through as a university community, including the loss of many longtime friends and colleagues;
  • the marked increase in colleagues working from home since the pandemic;
  • the concurrent loss of regular face-to-face interactions in common spaces;
  • the larger cultural divisions and inequities in our society that only linger if not addressed directly;
  • the growing tendency among many to connect with each other and to learn only or primarily via computer or smartphone; and
  • recent public reporting on the rise and deleterious impact of loneliness in U.S. society.

Each of these changes—and there are clearly others—has recently had drastic effects on workplace norms and workplace culture within the patterns of our lives and relationships at DePaul.

Perhaps this draw to focus again on the importance of community also simply reflects my own experience and ongoing hunger for human connection, to feel a sense of belonging, and to participate in something more beyond the daily tasks of my individual work.

Regardless of the source of my musings, I am certain I am not alone. The experience of being part of a community is important for the well-being of humanity and for the flourishing of our workplaces, including and especially our university. Furthermore, here at DePaul, many rightly appreciate the experience of community as being “very Vincentian.”

In fact, how we sustain and continue to build a vibrant communal life is one of the vital, open questions facing us today. Over my eighteen years at DePaul, I believe the intentional work and effort of building community, and the need for it, has never been more important and more at risk. As we look ahead to the summer and the coming academic year, it is essential that we continue to weave and re-weave with great intention and care the fabric of our communal life if our Vincentian mission is to be effective and sustained over time.

I am fond of imagining Vincent de Paul in Folleville, France, in 1617 and what must have been going through his mind at that time. Based on his own retrospective reflections, that particular year and place seemed to represent an important moment in his life, a moment when, with the help of Madame de Gondi, Vincent arrived at a clearer vision of his own calling and the mission that God had entrusted to him.

The year 1617 was the final feather falling on the scales that tipped the orientation of Vincent’s life in a markedly different way. The upwardly mobile and aspirational priest, often rubbing elbows with the rich and powerful, began to focus his energies more and more toward a mission of service to and with society’s poor and marginalized for the remainder of his life. What he realized at that same time is that the mission God had entrusted to him was much bigger than he alone could fulfill. He needed others. In fact, Vincent’s effectiveness grew largely through the work of inspiring and organizing others to work in common to fulfill a shared mission. From the beginning, the Vincentian mission has been a collaborative and communal enterprise.

Simple in its genius, Vincent’s efforts anticipated current day organizational management insights by 400 years. The contemporary organizational and business writer and consultant Christine Porath, for example, has written extensively on how community is the key to companies moving from merely surviving to thriving together.[2] Simply put, her research suggests that when people experience a strong sense of community and belonging at work, they are more engaged, effective, healthy, and creative. This, in turn, leads to positive business outcomes. Many other organizational and business leaders have come to similar conclusions. It turns out that how we relate to each other as a community in the workplace, in fact, matters a great deal.

At DePaul, we speak often of being “a community gathered together for the sake of the mission.” We recognize and must remember that we need each other to thrive. Faculty, staff, administration, students, board members, alumni and donors work together effectively for a shared mission. Furthermore, as Vincent de Paul suggests, we each benefit from the good done by all. At our best, when we are flourishing as a community, we help, encourage, care for, collaborate with, and inspire one another. There is an energizing and vibrant unity that comes in our diversity—the unity of a shared mission to which each person contributes a part. This occurs only through ongoing intentionality and thoughtful daily interactions and efforts to build and sustain healthy and vibrant relationships with one another.

As we move into the summer months, through the many changes we are facing together, and into the new academic year this fall—this is your charge: How will you contribute to sustaining and building a vibrant and healthy sense of community together with your DePaul colleagues?

Submit your own recommendations as a response to this blog post or follow our Mission and Ministry LinkedIn group, which we will begin to use more often in the future as a place to share reflections on the workplace in light of anticipated changes with DePaul Newsline in the summer and the coming year. Perhaps by the time a new academic year begins, we can initiate some new efforts to weave or re-weave the fabric of our communal life and work intentionally toward thriving as “a community gathered together for the sake of the mission,” just as Vincent de Paul first envisioned.

Reflection by: Mark Laboe, Associate VP, Mission and Ministry

[1] Conference 1, “Explanation of the Regulations,” July 31, 1634, CCD, 9:2. Available at https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.‌edu/‌‌‌vincentian_ebooks/34/.

[2] See: Christine Porath, Mastering Community: The Surprising Ways Coming Together Moves us from Surviving to Thriving (New York: Balance Books, 2022); and C.M. Pearson and C.L. Porath, The Cost of Bad Behavior: How Incivility Is Damaging Your Business and What to Do About It (New York: Portfolio, 2009).

DEPAUL UNIVERSITY Class of 2023: A Final Invitation Before You Depart from Us

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The following reflection is directed to DePaul University’s 2023 Graduates.

Most of the days of our lives pass by without leaving a trace. They accumulate in that nameless tomb that is unconsciousness. But there are a few days that we always remember because they mark moments that summarize long experiences, meaningful achievements, or even dramatic losses and sorrow. These few days define us. They are part of us even when we are not remembering them. It almost goes without saying that we are made of memories. I can anticipate that your graduation in June 2023, which most of you will remember forever, is going to be one of those days.

This day will always accompany you. It represents an important rite of passage, yet another representation of the inner liminality of your existence. Graduation day is a beginning and an end. A lot has happened, much more is to happen, more than you could and can ever imagine.

DePaul Class of 2023, during these last few years you have learned several things, some essential, some simply useful, and some unrelated to what you will need in life to find fulfillment and joy. You have made some friends for life, maybe even found first love, or perhaps love forever. You have met some people and events that inspired you, who changed your way of seeing the world, and who helped you find a life purpose that today seems like a destiny. We won’t ever forget that all of you even went through a global pandemic together!

In the past years, you have experienced epiphanies that are now leading your way into a future that we hope you are less afraid of than before. The constant experiences of perplexity, doubt, or simple frustration at the complexity of the world are also there in your growing experience, and they, too, slowly shed light onto the mystery of your life.

You’ve led the rhythm and intensity of your integral development over the past few years, and you’ve been inspired and supported by your families, friends, professors, and even the new people you met during university activities. The sum of all these relationships and interactions has probably been the most impactful dimension of your own epiphany at DePaul University.

I personally hope that in those nights of profound solitude, in moments of intense tension and academic anxiety, in relational, intercultural, interfaith, multiconvictional conflicts at the heart of this fascinating and diverse community, you grew closer to finding yourself. Never forget the moments of tears, fear, anxiety, and even anguish, the moments in which you were exposed to your own vulnerability, nor the moments of laughter, joy, innocence, inner peace, love, solidarity, and compassion—all those moments in which you became more aware than ever of your gift, your potential, your passion, your real purpose in life.

We all hope that after these past years at DePaul, in the Vincentian spirit, you came to understand more clearly the beauty and the challenges we all experience living in diverse communities of thought, faith, and action. I hope that you have learned that ethics belong to the order of relational practice and not simply of theory.

Before you go from our midst, I would like to invite the Class of 2023 to incorporate forever in your ethical imagination, if you have not yet, a Vincentian principle that will help you to be fully human in your thought, faith, and action: the principle of compassion that guided the lives of Vincent and Louise and that was the real engine of their individual and common imagination.

In the past years most of you probably have become aware, as Vincent did when he was young, of the unbearable levels of suffering throughout world history, the scandalous levels of violence and inequity, the progressive and dangerous growth of polarization, and the endless loneliness of millions and millions of people who carry the very heavy weight of injustice, discrimination, misunderstanding, and bitterness.

My friends, in your hearts there is written a human ethos that makes you want to include all those people—who, deep down, are each one of us—in the collective ethos of a humanity that is undeniably walking toward transforming change, real civilization, and a common home where there is radical hospitality. That space where tears can be cried without shame, or kindly wiped away.

The compassion I am talking about is not having pity for others, a feeling that reduces them to a condition of helplessness, without inner energy to stand upright. Compassion means being together in a shared passion. This ethos of compassion gives us the capacity to suffer with others, to rejoice with them, to walk with them together, elbow to elbow. Compassion was for Saint Vincent an ethical and spiritual path.

In your life, how are you be able to free yourself from suffering, loneliness, and fear?

In the Buddhist world tradition, they might respond to this question saying, “through compassion, infinite compassion,” and people from many worldviews could agree. In the Vincentian, Christian world we believe the same and invite others to do so as well, from wherever they stand.

To find your compassionate soul, as you graduate from DePaul University, have the courage to detach yourself from the apparent inner need of possessing things and people. Only in this way will you be able to transition by finding the most profound aspiration of our human existence, which is in communion. This communion always respects otherness and difference. Please be a light in this contradictory age, connect with others to exercise the human ethos of solidarity in all circumstances, let compassion guide your life … be an ethical person in all your words, faith, convictions, and actions. Thank you from all of us to all of you for the grace you share with us when you let us into the beautiful mystery of your lives. Congratulations Class of 2023. Never forget that you belong here at DePaul!

Reflection by: Fr. Guillermo (Memo) Campuzano, C.M., Vice President of Mission and Ministry

 

Where the Streets Have No Name

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“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by.”[1]

DePaul University’s humble origin story began in 1898 when the Vincentians established Saint Vincent’s College to educate “the sons of Chicago’s burgeoning Catholic immigrant population.”[2] Since these early days, DePaul’s understanding of who we are called to be has continued to be formed and informed by pragmatic wisdom and visionary thinking. Indeed, the same innovative seeds that led to the establishment of “the little school under the el” continue to bear fruit today. By participating in processes such as Designing DePaul, we are once again being invited to help shape DePaul’s future.

Innovative thinking is certainly imprinted in our Vincentian DNA. One has only to consider the ministries of Vincent and Louise to see how they used their pioneering and imaginative spirits to develop creative solutions to the complex societal challenges of their day.

A particularly compelling example of this dynamic can be seen in the insightful way in which Vincent and Louise co-founded the community of religious women known as the Daughters of Charity. It is important to note that “in 1633, when Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac assembled the first Daughters of Charity, no community of women existed in France which worked outside the walls of the cloister.”[3] Such a restriction presented a challenge to the establishment of this community, since “Vincent de Paul wanted a company endowed with great mobility, in a position ‘to go everywhere,’ in direct service of the neighbor.”[4] Thus, the Daughters needed to have the freedom to serve on-site, in such ministries as visiting the sick in their homes or in hospitals, caring for wounded soldiers on the battlefield, or tending to the galley prisoners. Consequently, confining the Daughters’ movements to the cloister was incompatible with their purpose.

Confronted with this incongruity, Vincent and Louise chose to break with the norms of the other communities they saw around them and create a different kind of experience: a community of consecrated women who would live and serve “in the world.” In fact, the streets would become their cloister.

As Vincent was keenly aware of the distinctive nature of the Daughters, he would make a point of emphasizing their difference from other religious communities. Hence, he would use the term house instead of monastery or convent, and confraternity or society instead of congregation. Furthermore, one of the defining characteristics of the Daughters of Charity was that they remained secular, yet they pronounced annual private vows.[5] This practice continues to this day.

The new orientation of this community would eventually inspire the growth of many congregations of women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These too would commit themselves to the care and service of their neighbors and achieve official ecclesiastical approval.[6]

At DePaul today, the same spirit of innovation that gave birth to the Daughters of Charity can serve as a beacon as we consider how best to Design DePaul and as we continue to identify new ways to respond to current challenges.

Reflection questions:

What seeds of hope might you take from Vincent and Louise’s approach as they navigated seemingly insurmountable hurdles?

How, in your work, might you find evidence that “love is inventive to infinity?”[7]

Reflection by: Siobhan O’Donoghue, M. Div., Director of Faculty and Staff Engagement

[1] Robert Frost et al., The Road Not Taken: A Selection of Robert Frost’s Poems (New York: H. Holt, 1991).

[2] Dennis P. McCann, “The Foundling University: Reflections on the Early History of DePaul,” in DePaul University Centennial Essays and Images, ed. John L. Rury and Charles S. Suchar (Chicago: DePaul University, 1998), 52. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/20/.

[3] Massimo Marocchi, “Religious Women in the World in Italy and France During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Vincentian Heritage 9:2 (1988). Available at: https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.‌edu/‌vhj/‌vol9/iss2/1205.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., 206.

[6] Ibid., 209.

[7] Conference 102, “Exhortation to a dying brother,” 1645, CCD, 11:131. 

Confronting Absurdity: Slavery and Racism as Historic Disruptors of Our Mission

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In my studies of philosophy, I learned that several existential philosophers, including Albert Camus, asked how we can face and reduce suffering when we ourselves often cause it for others. This profound contradiction is what they call absurdity. Please note that I will be using this existential understanding of profound absurdity throughout this text.

In the context of our Vincentian history, we are now firmly confronting such an absurdity in our complicity in causing, instead of reducing, people’s suffering. Instead of helping people and communities to overcome it, as Vincent de Paul did in his life, we became a significant cause of their pain. The absurdity of Vincentians’ involvement in enslaving human beings and of DePaul University’s engagement in institutional racism needs to be learned, researched, recognized, and confronted with determination. Today we, the Congregation of the Mission, and DePaul University, ought to become partners in the human quest to overcome the systemic harm of racism and discrimination while investing the best of our human, structural, and financial resources to confront all causes of humanity and our planet’s unbearable suffering.

Racism is an affront to humanity. In our current sociopolitical context, the strengthening of racism becomes a specific element of the radical polarization through which minorities are ostracized and blamed for all evil without reason. The white supremacy culture perceives the sociopolitical and economic oppression and disappearance of people of African descent and other minorities as the triumph of the symbolic order of a nation that builds its memory by discursively annihilating others, flatly denying essential elements of their historic collective identity. Slavery and racism dehumanize us partly because they illustrate the absurdity of our human experience. The dehumanization of its victims happens through symbolic, existential, religious, and socioeconomical violence, exclusion, and oppression.

In solidarity with those in the African American community, we must advocate individually and institutionally for their freedom, defend their rights, support their organization, and ally ourselves in constructing a society that makes systemic inequities and racial discrimination increasingly impossible.  This is a concrete and effective way for us to confront our history and contribute to overcoming absurdity in our own institutional identity.

Over the past two years as the liaison of the DePaul task force to respond to the legacy of Vincentian slaveholding, I became strongly convinced that we need to institutionally support an awakening of the Black consciousness that is so present in our midst, in organizations and individuals that fight to rescue the identity and existence of all African American communities. Our commitment calls for supporting the liberation of a denied identity and, simultaneously, invites us to become members of a project that makes explicit and confronts the absurdity expressed in so many forms of racism from a national and globalized perspective.

As a DePaul task force, we have been working with people who bear witness to centuries of enslavement and oppression, and we have been encouraging people to fight so that such inhumanity will not be perpetrated on anyone again. The history of slavery inflames us with the necessary conscience to understand that everyone in our society is also responsible, by action or inaction, for the inequities that continue to disproportionately affect Black people today. We all collectively have the duty of historical reparation and to make real the justice that has not yet arrived.

I have learned during my life as a Vincentian missionary that God’s love for the oppressed is a core element of our Vincentian vision and mission. From this perspective, I again apologize on behalf of my community for our absurdities and moral failing, our sinful participation in enslaving other human beings, and the historical and contemporary bias and perpetuation of racist systems and practices that have denied the very heart of our identity and mission in our relationships with African Americans in the United States of America.

On May 18, at 10:30 a.m., we will rename Room 300 in the Richardson Library and the Belden-Racine residence hall to honor Aspasia LeCompte, a woman formerly enslaved by Bishop Joseph Rosati, C.M., one of the first Vincentian missionary priests in St. Louis. This woman represents the enduring centuries-long resistance and resilience of African American communities. Naming prominent places on campus after her will perpetually lift up the life of an incredible Black woman whose legacy deserves to be known. Through Aspasia LeCompte’s story, the realities of Vincentian participation in enslaving people will continue to be remembered as new people join the DePaul community, and our community will forever be reminded that we need to continue to name and confront racism at our institution and in society.

Join us to continue this journey together and to find new ways to structurally design DePaul for equity.

Reflection by: Fr. Guillermo (Memo) Campuzano, C.M., Vice President of Mission and Ministry

Louise de Marillac and the World of Disability

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With this reflection, we continue our celebration of Louise Week 2023, highlighting Saint Louise de Marillac’s example of transformative leadership and compassionate care for the marginalized.

According to the World Health Organization, 1.3 billion people around the world live with disabilities.[1] Disabled people are much more likely than nondisabled people to live in poverty and to be excluded from societies that do not accommodate their needs. As part of the Vincentian Family, a community dedicated to serving those in need, DePaul University has a special commitment to those who are excluded. Inspired by our recent celebration of “Louise Week,” it is therefore fitting to examine Louise de Marillac’s engagement with disabled people.

Louise de Marillac had a deep relationship with disability. Her son, Michel, was born prematurely[2] and experienced developmental delays and learning challenges.[3] A single parent after the death of her husband, Louise herself experienced intense anxiety over her son that may have been worsened because he was a nontypical child. In fact, she often wrote to Vincent de Paul about this, seeking his advice and support.[4] She herself also had health issues, experiencing frequent migraines and chronic bronchitis.[5] Like many people who are chronically ill, she had to change life plans because of her illness: her health prevented her from entering the Capuchins, which had been a dream of hers as a teenager.[6] Louise knew what it was like to have her daily life curtailed by illness or treatment for illness. Several of her letters contain notes about this: “I took some medication this morning which limits my activity.”[7] She also experienced mental health issues. For instance, she suffered depression so intensely that, as she wrote, “the force of my emotions sometimes resulted in physical pain.”[8]

Louise’s experiences enabled her to better empathize with what members of her community were going through. As she wrote to one Daughter of Charity, “I share in the suffering that I know you are enduring because of your attacks of sadness and depression. … I wish you could share them with me, my very dear Sister, along with the thoughts they have evoked in you. I will try to be of some help to you in this matter having, perhaps, experienced the same difficulties myself.”[9] Many of her letters are filled with remedies for sisters and other colleagues who were sick, and she also cautioned against overexertion for those who were trying to carry out their duties even when they were ill: “Keep Sister Françoise until this evening, but do not let her carry the soup pot because she is not feeling well.”[10] Louise had a very holistic approach to the health of those under her that we would do well to emulate today. She recognized that it would be wrong for a community such as hers, devoted to healthcare and the service of the poor, not to treat its members with the same compassion and concern.

But Louise went beyond empathy and made strides toward inclusion. Although people with preexisting conditions were normally barred from joining the Daughters of Charity, Louise recognized that sick and disabled people could contribute to her community’s work. In the first surviving letter we have from her to Vincent, she speaks of “the good blind girl from Vertus” who was a Lady of Charity—a member of a group that worked with the Daughters.[11]

One of the most trusted leaders within the Daughters of Charity was Élisabeth Martin, who, among other things, oversaw the hospital communities in Angers and Nantes and supervised the new sisters at the motherhouse.[12] The editors of Spiritual Writings tell us that Martin was chronically ill.[13] Improving Martin’s health was a frequent subject of letters, but Louise apparently never considered relieving Martin of her responsibilities. On more than one occasion, Louise told Martin that she was not a burden and encouraged her to make what we today would term requests for accommodations. Consider this letter from Louise to Martin: “State your needs very simply and do not be upset that your illness makes you useless. You are the only one who thinks so.”[14] Louise always wanted a true picture of Martin’s physical and mental state, writing “speak to me openly of your suffering. I will read and understand everything.”[15]

This evidence clearly shows that, although it wasn’t perfect, a tradition of receptiveness and inclusion toward disabled people started with Louise. It’s important to understand the conditions of disabled lives. Disabled people should be able to state the exact nature of their abilities without fear and to request the modifications that they need to thrive. Only then can we build a society that truly serves everyone. We at DePaul should ask ourselves how we can continue Louise’s work toward inclusion.

Reflection Questions:

How can you work toward creating a more inclusive and supportive community for people with disabilities in your life and work at DePaul?

How does the example of Louise de Marillac inspire you to build and sustain a commitment to community?

Reflection by: Miranda Lukatch, Editor, Vincentian Studies Institute

Join us this week for more Louise Week events!

[2] Kieran Kneaves, D.C., “A Woman Named Louise: 1591–1633,” Vincentian Heritage Journal 12:2 (1991): 124. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol12/iss2/3/.

[3] Élisabeth Charpy, Louise de Marillac: Come Winds or High Waters (Chicago: Vincentian Studies Institute, 2018), 14. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/43/.

[4] Charpy, Louise de Marillac, 25.

[6] Charpy, Louise de Marillac, 10.

[7] Letter 20, “To Monsieur L’Abbé de Vaux at Angers,” May 6, 1640, Spiritual Writings, 28. Hereinafter referred to as SW. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/ldm/.

[8] Document A.13, “An Interior Trial,” (c. 1621), SW, 691–92.

[9] Letter 102, “To Sister Claude (Brigide), the First,” (c. June 1642), SW, 74.

[10] Letter 127, “To My Very Dear Sister Barbe Angiboust,” (c. 1642), SW, 83.

[11] Letter 1, “To Monsieur Vincent,” June 5, 1627, SW, 6, n. 1.

[12] SW, 30–31, n. 3.

[13] SW, 39, n. 1.

[14] Letter 58B, “To Sister Élisabeth Martin,” August 7, (1641), SW, 56.

[15] Letter 23, “To Sister Élisabeth Martin,” (1640), SW, 34.

Caring for Our Multi-faith Siblings

bcicirel Diversity, Easter, Holidays, Mission Monday , , , ,

A few weeks ago, as my Easter worship celebration was coming to an end, the pastor offered a series of prayers. As I contemplated the words flowing from her heart, I was struck by one prayer in particular because it was the first time I’d heard an interfaith prayer in my mainline Protestant church. The pastor offered a prayer of blessing upon “our Muslim and Jewish siblings” who, like the Christian community were in the midst of holy seasons: Ramadan and Passover.

This year was unique in that all three Abrahamic faiths celebrated major holidays at the same time. The seasons of Ramadan, Passover, and Easter seldom align and next year, more typically, we will see the seasons once again scattered at varying times in the spring. But for this year, for a few weeks, all three traditions were united through holy weeks of rituals and prayers.

At DePaul, the three Abrahamic traditions along with other faith and spiritual communities are often united, sometimes in prayer and ritual, and at other times through service, a community meal, or dialogue. This is DePaul. Our community is defined by a mission that “compassionately upholds the dignity of all members of its diverse, multi-faith, and inclusive community.”[i] According to Islamicist Antoine Moussali, C.M., Saint Vincent sent members of his own Vincentian community out to a multi-faith world and asked that his missionaries demonstrate “ardent zeal, prudent discretion, patient forbearance, joyful openness to change, active interior life, confident humility, infinite respect for the other person whether Christian or [other], openness and circumspection intelligence of mind and heart.”[ii]

As members of the DePaul community, we are all called to care for our siblings of all faith or spiritual traditions. We are asked to unite with one another and support one another, not just during special holy times, but always. As Vincentians, we are called to infinitely respect everyone within our multi-faith community. May we approach our caring, support, and respect for people of all faiths and all spiritual expressions with ardent zeal, joyful openness to change, and humility.

To ponder: As you go about your daily tasks, how do you show respect and offer support for those whose faith or spiritual lives are different than your own?

Reflection by: Rev. Dr. Diane Dardón, Director, Religious Diversity and Pastoral Care, Division of Mission and Ministry

[i] University Mission Statement, 4 March 2021, at: https://offices.depaul.edu/mission-ministry/‌about/‌Pages/‌mission.aspx

[ii] Antoine Moussali, C.M., “Relationships with Islam in the Time of St. Vincent: History and Attitude of St. Vincent and his Missionaries to Moslems,” Vincentiana 39:3 (May 1995). Available online at https://‌via.‌library.‌‌depaul.edu/‌cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1621&context=vincentiana.

Milestones and Birthdays: Making the Case for Chocolate Cake

bcicirel Mission Monday, Service , , ,

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a knack for remembering dates, and that dates often tend to carry a lot of meaning for me. Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about important dates and birthdays and the rituals connected to them. This introspection is likely because this year my mom, one of my sisters, multiple nephews, and I all celebrate what I will call milestone birthdays. Some of us are a little older than others, but for all of us, these birthdays feel infused with meaning and significance whether we’re turning 10 or turning 80. It also seems apt to be reflecting on a big milestone year of my own in a year when DePaul is celebrating its 125th anniversary milestone. Plus, today, April 24, is the day Vincent de Paul was born in France in 1581. Happy birthday, Saint Vincent—I’m grateful we get to celebrate you at DePaul!

A few years ago, I learned that I share a birthday with another DePaul staff member and that we were also born in the same year. A few times this year we’ve talked about our upcoming summer birthday and what it means to be celebrating this milestone. I’ve felt some trepidation in thinking about the age I’m about to turn, but this wonderful person reminded me during a recent conversation that our birthday is a gift and to be able to celebrate and mark the day is special. Not everyone has the privilege of getting older, as so many of us who have mourned and grieved for family and friends know.

My family doesn’t have elaborate birthday rituals; instead, we like to celebrate with cake. Most of us like to celebrate with something we’ve always called chocolate-chocolate cake, so named because of the special chocolate frosting that covers the cake, a recipe shared by dad’s mom with my mom early in my parents’ marriage. At some point, however, my friends who’d had this cake and knew it was a tradition in my family took to calling it Sullivan chocolate cake and that moniker has stuck. The ritual of this cake has taken on even more symbolism in the 10 plus years since my dad died because he loved it, so he is usually on my mind any time I make or eat it. That’s something I really appreciate about this family ritual—it helps me connect to my dad while also sharing something delicious with others. Plus sharing this cake allows me to tell stories about it—like the first time I made it by myself and got chocolate frosting everywhere—the walls, the counter, even my hair. I’m really looking forward to this summer when I will get to go to Colorado and eat chocolate cake and celebrate with my family.

What are some of the rituals your family has around birthdays?

How have you connected rituals with people you love who are no longer alive?

One of the things I find essential to my work at DePaul is that we build on traditions and rituals that were created in the past and we create new ones to adjust to the times we live in. Rituals and traditions are essential not just to individuals but also to groups and institutions. While DePaul has many, many wonderful traditions, one I’m particularly grateful for came from DePaul marking its 100th anniversary during the 1998–1999 school year. That was the year Vincentian Service Day (VSD) began. This year as DePaul celebrates 125 years of existence, VSD remains an important DePaul event, serving as one of the final cornerstone events of this year’s anniversary celebrations. It feels important to mark the end of this year’s anniversary celebrations with a day tied to DePaul’s mission—a day in which our community can make “positive contributions” to Chicago and a day in which we can engage with community partners who serve “as co-educators who support the development of DePaul students.”[1]

I invite you to join the DePaul community for Vincentian Service Day on Saturday, May 6. Registration closes on Tuesday, May 2, at 11:59 PM. For more information about participating in VSD, visit: http://serviceday.depaul.edu; or email: serviceday@depaul.edu.

Reflection by: Katie Sullivan, Program Manager, Vincentian Service and Formation, Division of Mission and Ministry

[1] “DePaul University Distinguishing Characteristics, Core Values, and Commitments: Public Service,” DePaul University Division of Mission and Ministry, accessed April 17, 2023, https://offices.depaul.edu/mission-ministry/‌about/‌Pages/‌mission.aspx.