Finding the Human Connection

bcicirel DePaul University, Diversity, Holidays, Islam, Mission Monday, Ramadan , ,

The arrival of March means a few things here in Chicago. It is the arrival of meteorological spring, although I wouldn’t put away the winter coat quite yet. We are in the Lenten season for many Christians, and this year Ramadan will start for Muslims worldwide during our spring break. It also means Saint Patrick’s Day, which turns our hearts toward all things green and Irish. I think the spirit of this season reminds all of us to bring the beauty of our full selves to this community, and to look with special care for those among us who may be a bit lost, but who with a bit of minding could blossom beautifully.

As with any saint, especially one who lived sixteen centuries ago, we know a lot more about the Patrick of hagiography and myth than the one of history. On the bright side, we can learn a lot from hagiography and myth. For many, Saint Patrick represents the plight of those who fall victim to great evil,[1] but who under God’s care can turn evil to good. In his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus, Saint Patrick speaks poignantly against the horrors of slavery as someone who had experienced it himself. In the nineteenth- and twentieth-century United States, Saint Patrick’s Day became a symbol of Irish cultural and religious pride and an honoring of immigrants more broadly.

After its establishment in 1898, DePaul University’s mission was centered upon providing higher education and a ladder to a better life to the children of immigrants in Chicago, many of whom were Irish Catholics. Rev. Francis X. McCabe, C.M., DePaul’s President from 1910 to 1920, oversaw tremendous growth in DePaul’s student body and began coeducation of men and women together over the objections of the archbishop. He also made DePaul the first American university to grant an honorary degree to an international figure when he bestowed one upon Irish leader Eamon de Valera in 1919.[2] De Valera had escaped from an English prison and was touring the United States to raise money and political support as the Irish War of Independence raged.

Given that March is Academy Awards season, it also seems appropriate to note that a commitment to include and honor people from different cultures and identities in a deep way can often best be achieved through the arts. There were three powerful Irish films released last year that also may evoke some mission-related reflection.[3] In The Banshees of Inisherin, we see what appears to be an idyllic Irish village. As the story unfolds, we see that the village contains elements of evil and corruption, but most of all feelings of loneliness and of being trapped. These are brought to the surface when the vital human connection of friendship for one of the residents is cut off without warning. Aisha tells the story of a Nigerian Muslim woman seeking asylum in Ireland who, having already suffered immense trauma and hardship, is now caught in a bureaucratic nightmare. And, in the Irish language film An Cailίn Ciúin (The Quiet Girl), we witness the effects on a neglected young girl spending a summer with distant relatives who truly see and care for her despite her quietness.

Each of these films dramatizes the profound human need for connection. We see how much can lie beneath surfaces. One of the paradoxes of DePaul’s mission is that we emphasize the individual care and attention we call personalism, while also proudly carrying the banner of the nation’s largest Catholic university. There is great potential in this paradox. We can offer the diverse resources of a large school while providing personal holistic attention to each student as well. To fulfill this potential, we need to remind ourselves of the value of connecting with those students who may be quiet, who may feel lost in bureaucracy, who may suffer from traumatic life circumstances, or who merely feel an unmet need for friendship that can make life seem meaningless. Perhaps in a nod to their Irishness, none of these films offers an easy, happy ending, but each demonstrates that even in the midst of difficulty, reaching out for true connection is always worth it for all involved.

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

[1] The predominant understanding has been that Saint Patrick was kidnapped and taken to Ireland as an enslaved person, although as with most everything about his life, the historical accuracy of that has been questioned. See “Was St. Patrick a Slave Trader and Tax Collector?” IrishCentral, March 7, 2022, https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/saint-patrick-slave-trader.

[2] See “DePaul Presidents: Rev. Francis X. McCabe, C.M.,”               The Full Text (blog), DePaul University Library, February 24, 2010, https://news.library.depaul.press/full-text/2010/02/24/depaul-presidents-rev-francis-x-mccabe-c-m/.

[3] By the time you read this, you will know how many of the fourteen nominations garnered by Irish talent resulted in Oscar wins. See Emma Jones, “Oscars 2023: Banshees and the Irish Films Breaking Records,” BBC, March 6, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230303-banshees-and-the-irish-films-breaking-oscars-records.

 

How Would Vincent “Design DePaul”?

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In January of this year, President Rob Manuel formally launched “Designing DePaul,” a process to envision our university’s future. The goal: becoming the national model for higher education. As part of Designing DePaul, our community will engage in meetings, visioning sessions, and other conversations all contributing to making this goal a reality. Given DePaul’s bountiful resources, namely, our talented faculty, staff, and leadership; generous alumni and supporters; vibrant Chicago-setting; rich heritage; and energetic, forward-looking student body, I believe we stand a good chance of achieving this goal.

But, in planning our future, we might be well served to also look to our past and ask: How would Vincent de Paul design the university that bears his name? While he surely never contemplated such an endeavor, Vincent did leave us with a rich store of wisdom, based on experience and infused by faith, that could guide us in answering that question. What follows are principles, highlighted by Vincent in his conferences with the Daughters of Charity and Vincentian priests, as they together first established what is now known, almost 400 years later, as the global Vincentian Family. Perhaps they may help in our design.

  • Be guided by the Mission.[1] Vincent’s sole motivation, for himself and his communities, was to stay true to their mission. For Vincent, this mission consisted of both following the example of Jesus Christ in serving the poor as well as listening always for the will of God. For us, the roots of our mission are fed not only by these Vincentian and Catholic values including service, justice, and human dignity but also by the highest aspirations of a university: to foster the integral human development of our students.[2] If a community were to stray from its mission, Vincent believed, it would ultimately lead to its decline.

 

  • In the treasure trove of correspondence, conferences, and documents left to us by Vincent de Paul, we learn that he communicated frequently, about all manner of things, with his community members. He conversed transparently, listened deeply, shared humbly, and encouraged their commentary. Although today’s popular means of communicating would be unrecognizable to Vincent, his approach to communicating is timeless and worth remembering.

 

  • Believe in what you are doing and the value of each role. To his community members, Vincent often spoke of the goodness of their vocations and the value of their work. In that same spirit, we must believe in the fundamental importance and goodness of what we are endeavoring to do here at DePaul. Moreover, every member of our community must honor and value their own role in that endeavor as well as the role of others.

 

  • In your work, act pragmatically and prioritize the common good. When advising his far-flung communities about their various daily operations, Vincent emphasized good stewardship of resources, conscientious management, and pragmatic responses to the many issues that arose.[3] Importantly, his advice always prioritized the common good, of the community and those they served, over the self-interest of the few.

As we each continue to play our role within the DePaul community—as student, staff, faculty, or supporter—and as our university collectively commits to boldly charting our future, perhaps the above principles will help to light the way. For the moment, it may be beneficial to visit another Vincentian quote on the matter. In writing to one of his far-off missionaries, a person known for his zealous commitment to the mission, but who was then meeting with resistance and struggling with feelings of failure, Vincent reassured his companion that his “good will and honest efforts”[4] were enough. By expending our good will and honest efforts, and drawing upon the wisdom of our heritage, certainly we will have done enough.

Invitation for Reflection:

What do you think of these Vincentian principles both as they might apply to Designing DePaul and more generally? Do you think they are worth following? If so, how might you apply them?

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

[1] Conference 59, “The Preservation of the Company,” May 25, 1654, CCD, 9:536. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/34.

[2] “University Mission Statement,” Division of Mission & Ministry, adopted March 4, 2021, https://offices.depaul.edu/mission-ministry/about/Pages/mission.aspx.

[3] Conference 83, “The Management of the Property of the Poor and of Community Goods (Common Rules, Art. 10),” August 26, 1657, CCD, 10:245. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/35.

[4] Letter 962, “To Etienne Blatiron, Superior, in Genoa,” June 21, 1647, CCD, 3:206. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/28/.

Change in Systems, Change in People

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Last week on February 22, Christians celebrated Ash Wednesday, the traditional start of the Lenten season. Lent is the liturgical season of about forty days that leads to the celebration of Easter by millions of people throughout the world. For them, it is a time of preparing their minds and hearts to receive more fully and to remember again the transformative meaning and power of the Easter story, most notably that of the resurrection of the crucified Christ. This annual ritual of the Lenten season embodies the learned wisdom of the Christian community: humanity benefits from a regular time of “spiritual fine-tuning” to remember and return to what is most essential and to remain open to ongoing transformation.

The season of Lent is in many ways about remembering what we have forgotten and returning to what we already know, which becomes a transformative experience for many. The return to what we know most deeply about self, God, and life becomes a movement toward change, renewal, and a new way of being, doing, and relating. It is something that our entrenched habits may have prevented us from seeing or engaging in previously.

Surprisingly, I thought of the annual ritual practice of Lent during a recent seminar, “Charity, Justice and Systemic Change in the Vincentian Tradition,” led by Father John Rybolt, C.M. In this seminar, Father Rybolt spoke of the necessary relationship between systemic change and the change that must take place within and among people to make participation in systemic change possible. Always fascinated by the question of what makes positive change or transformation possible, I have come to believe there is something important in this insight about systemic change. It connects directly to the spiritual purpose of Lent – that is, the transformation of minds and hearts is necessary for the transformation of systems. They rise and fall with each other.

This insight is central to understanding the tenuous yet profound connection between Saint Vincent de Paul and what we now know of as “social justice,” which was an unknown concept in the minds of those in seventeenth-century France. While Vincent may not have known of the concept of social justice as we know it today, he seems to have clearly understood this fact: for lasting social transformation to occur, we must recognize the unavoidable relationship between the change in systems (economic, political, religious, social) and the change needed within and among persons. Systemic change requires intrapersonal and interpersonal change as well as a change in minds and hearts.

Vincent saw with the eyes of charity, or caritas, which can be translated most meaningfully as love. Vincent paid attention to people and to daily life and events. He recognized what was not right and responded to address the immediate needs of people, while also building new systems that would prove more effective in caring for them. He preached, taught, persuaded, and cajoled his contemporaries, often transforming minds and heart to become more open to encounter the suffering poor of his day. He encouraged the cultivation of habits (virtues) that led to active participation in working for the common good. That said, he did not work for the wholesale teardown of the existing system. He worked within existing systems, and then relationally among and for people, to make change and transformation possible.

Reflection Questions:

  • What is the way in which you believe you can contribute most effectively to the positive transformation of systems and people?
  • What habits or ways of seeing, working, or relating get in the way of your ability to contribute more fruitfully to this transformation?
  • What is the transformation that must take place in you for you to live more fully – perhaps beginning over these next 40 days!?

Reflection by: Mark Laboe, flection by: Mark Laboe, Assoc. VP, Mission and Ministry

Lawful Assembly Podcast: Episode 34 – Support Humanitarian Asylum Welcome

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In this interview, Rev. Craig B. Mousin, an Adjunct Faculty member of DePaul University’s College of Law, Refugee and Forced Migration Studies Program, and the Grace School of Applied Diplomacy interviews Heidi Altman, the Policy Director of the National Immigrant Justice Center (www.immigrantjustice.org).  Ms. Altman discusses a proposed rule that will effectively preclude most asylum-seekers from safely and effectively applying for asylum in the United States. She advocates for humanitarian asylum welcome.  She previously served as the legal director for the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and was a Teaching Fellow in the immigration clinic at Georgetown University Law School.

ACTION STEPS 

1.       Invite friends and family to learn how the proposed rule will undermine refugee protection and encourage them to respond to their elected representatives and the Biden administration urging withdrawal of the proposed rule.

2.      The Sanctuary Working Group of the Chicago Religious Leadership Network currently serves and advocates alongside newly arrived asylum seekers in the Chicagoland area.  There are many impactful ways you can help asylum seekers, from providing sponsorship and temporary housing to covering legal fees and advocating for policy change.  Interested individuals, faith communities, or organizations may contact CRLN staff/consultant David Fraccaro at davidfraccaro99@gmail.com to talk about ways to partner together in supporting and protecting our newest neighbors.

RESOURCES

“Solutions for a Humane Border Policy,” National Immigrant Justice Center, January 17, 2023: https://immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/solutions-humane-border-policy

“Proposed Ban on Asylum Violates US Law and Catholic Social Teaching,” Catholic Legal Immigration Network, February 22, 2023: https://www.cliniclegal.org/press-releases/proposed-ban-asylum-violates-us-law-and-catholic-social-teaching

“Biden Asylum Ban Will Endanger Refugees, Center for Gender and Refugee Rights, February 21, 2023: https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/news/biden-asylum-ban-will-endanger-refugees

The proposed rule is scheduled for publication on February 23, 2023:  https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2023-03718.pdf

Craig Mousin volunteers with the National Immigrant Justice Center. We welcome your inquiries or suggestions for future podcasts.  If you would like to ask more questions about our podcasts or comment, email us at: mission.depaul@gmail.com

Responding to Violence with Peacebuilding

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Neighborhood communities. Elementary schools. Shopping malls. Concert venues. Busy business districts. Nightclubs. University campuses. The evidence has become resoundingly clear that violence affects all and may erupt unexpectedly at any time and in any place. The ripple effect of a shooting, such as that at Michigan State University, or in a Chicago neighborhood community, or anywhere, always ripples outward into the lives of countless others. It can have a lasting impact on generations of people. Grief and trauma rarely stop with the affected persons. As the saying goes, hurt people hurt people, especially if they are not able to find and benefit from a supportive community of care.

College campus violence feels especially close to home for us. This latest incident at Michigan State closer still, perhaps because of its proximity as a neighboring state school. There are many relational ties to people there among those in our expansive university community of students, faculty, staff, and alumni. The repeated nature of such violence, regardless of setting, elicits among us a broad range of reactions and feelings including grief, anger, anxiety, fear, compassion, and a desire to take action. As a community, we stand in solidarity with and support for all those closely impacted by the tragedy at Michigan State, especially our DePaul colleagues and friends. You are not alone.

Many acts of violence, like this most recent incident, are often pre-meditated and planned. So, then, must be our response—intentional, thoughtful, and persistent.

As we work to “Design DePaul,” what is the call to us both as individuals and a university community? How can we better organize our talent, our energy, and our resources to continue to address the root causes of violence and foster lasting solutions that will help to create a different future? Ultimately, how can we better build a community structured upon peace and non-violence that ensures our safety?

We scream aloud, or silently: Not again!!
Another incident of violence
and unnecessary loss of life.
It has become a slow, steady drumbeat
of hurt and pain
that goes on, and on,
wreaking dis-ease and emotional chaos.
More of our human brothers and sisters are now gone
before their time,
as their loved ones are left grieving and troubled,
and a world, at least for another flashing moment,
left again feeling angry, heart-broken… and helpless.

When will our “not again!!” become more of a firm resolve
and less so merely an impotent scream?
When might it finally take the form of
a lasting commitment that builds, works for, and creates
relationships and communities grounded in a peace
made evident and sustained
in persistent and thoughtful action…
cultivating love,
fostering hope,
teaching paradigm-shifting skills, and
modeling care for one another?

We grieve. We are troubled.
We are angry. We are tired.
We are afraid.
Violence hurts the fabric of our very being.

This is true – yet, so also
is the question it poses to us:
What are we building together?

May tomorrow’s society reveal
what we have done –
more than what we have failed to do.

How will you be a peacebuilder?

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

A Related Note on Chicago Survivors:

Many in the DePaul community know the story of Chicago Survivors, a Chicago-based non-profit organization offering free, wrap-around support services to surviving family members of Chicago homicide victims. The organization was initiated by the mother of Frankie Valencia, a DePaul student leader who was shot and killed in 2009 and largely incubated through meetings held on DePaul’s campus. Joy McCormack, together with her family, founded the organization after not finding the support they needed to deal with the grief and loss they experienced after Frankie’s murder. Fortunately, but also sadly, the organization continues today to provide services to well over 500 families each year in the Chicago area. Many DePaul faculty and staff have supported and continue to support the organization through their volunteer engagement. DePaul interns have also played an important role in assisting in services that the organization provides to Chicago families. Chicago Survivors works toward a more compassionate and caring future based on the enduring belief that attending to the needs of those affected by violence can stop the cycle of violence.

Courage and Love for Community

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We live in a time of challenges and change. The future is always unknown, but it seems clear that the future of higher education will have to be different in some ways from the present. We live in a time of dramatic polarization, when almost every event is viewed in completely contradictory ways. Navigating such times successfully requires many virtues, and among them are courage and love of community.

Several years ago, I went to an event with Rev. Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners, and currently the Chair in Faith and Justice and the founding Director of the Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice. He was speaking about one of his books, and I remember what he said when he was asked a really good question, one with which many of us probably often struggle. After hearing Wallis’s impassioned call to be active in the struggle against racism and for social justice, a questioner asked whether people of faith can lead a movement for social change when religious institutions have their own internal problems of injustice, and fewer people are identifying with organized religious movements. Wallis replied to this “What people on the street are drawn to is courage. If people of faith show courage, people will follow them.”

Courage is indeed something that is powerful and inspiring. It can often be enigmatic as well. Sometimes courage is associated with destructive acts of violence, but often such actions are in fact acts of cowardice. Change always requires courage. This is true whether we are talking about individual growth or social transformation. To be an international student traveling to a new land away from family and friends and seeking a college degree in a language that is not your native tongue requires enormous courage. To be a first-generation college student balancing work and study in a world in which you are sometimes not sure you belong requires magnificent courage. If one looks at the writings of many of those we honor as the greatest of social justice thinkers and orators, from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King, Jr., to Malcolm X, we find that many of them were obsessed with courage. They knew that it was attractive, and they knew that it was necessary.

Recently (February 7) we celebrated the Feast Day of Blessed Rosalie Rendu, the great nineteenth-century Daughter of Charity. Sister Rosalie is often associated with courage because she lived during a time of great turmoil in France, of violent political revolutions and repeated cholera pandemics. She lived at a time when anticlericalism often ran rampant. Amid this, Sister Rosalie stuck to a principle of serving all in need of help and assistance, no matter their politics.[1] She observed a firm commitment to a preferential option for the poor but didn’t hesitate to embrace the rich or powerful when they could help in the service of those poor. Her courage and her commitment to what she believed won her respect and even love from many sides, something which is rare in polarized times.

We are nearing the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, the remarkable African American religious leader and human rights advocate.[2] Although Malcolm X later became a celebrated cultural and political figure and even received a commemorative United States postal stamp, during his life he was highly marginalized and often vilified. He was also someone who evolved and was open to change and growth. This requires as much if not more courage than simply speaking against one’s enemies, because it sometimes means speaking an uncomfortable word of truth to one’s friends and allies, or even sometimes to oneself. Malcolm X was able to maintain the love and credibility of the masses because they knew he was true to his principles and true to his love for them. As Ossie Davis said in his eulogy, he was “our own black shining prince!—who didn’t hesitate to die, because he loved us so.”[3]

The love of community is built through mutual care for each other. This is what inspires love and loyalty. The guiding reminder of Sister Rosalie’s advice to the Daughters of Charity was that they “must be like a milestone on a street corner where all those who pass by can rest and lay down their heavy burdens.”[4] When you are confident that someone loves you and then that person shows courage and commitment to principle, you will follow them. Courage is creative, it wins over hearts, it inspires hope. Love and courage feed each other and become contagious in community. Connection to the transcendent and connection to the immanent combine to form the leaders who are needed in times like ours.

We invite all of the DePaul community to join the Division of Mission and Ministry and UMMA, the United Muslims Moving Ahead for our Annual Fast-a-Thon, “Love of Community” which will be held February 14, 2023. Program starts at 5:00 p.m. We invite people to try fasting that day as one way of building connection to the transcendent, but whether you can fast or not, please join us for a meal together at sunset, around 5:30 pm. Registration is through DeHub.

Reflection Questions:

  • What connections do you have which give you courage?
  • What issues or situations do you feel call out for or require your courage?
  • What are ways we can build the type of community that makes us courageous in facing challenges and disagreement?

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

[1] Louise Sullivan, DC, Sister Rosalie Rendu, A Daughter of Charity on Fire with Love for the Poor (Chicago: Vincentian Studies Institute, 2006), 155. Available online: https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.‌edu/‌vincentian_‌ebooks/‌5/.

[2] Malcolm X was assassinated in New York City on February 21, 1965.

[3] Ossie Davis, “Eulogy for Malcom X,” Faith Temple Church of God In Christ, New York City, February 27, 1965, radio broadcast, https://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/blackspeech/odavis.html

[4] Sister Rosalie attributed this maxim to her godfather, the Sulpician superior general Father Jacques Andre Emery.

Busy Person’s Retreat Day Five: Friday, February 10

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Freeing Yourself

Go, learn how to free yourself and to be open to God’s Will; let that be your lesson.[i]

Vincent de Paul was very familiar with retreats. Not long after founding the Congregation of the Mission (better known to us as the Vincentians), he began to develop and lead retreats for those about to be ordained as priests, a responsibility he greatly honored and a singular ministry of the Vincentians that lasted long after his death.[ii] Vincent and his community recognized something almost 400 years ago that we still value today: the importance of setting time aside and creating space for learning and reflection that is apart from our ordinary lives. This is so we can free ourselves, as best we can, from worries and distractions, to be led by the spirit where we are intended to go.[iii] Despite the passage of time and the differences in delivery, this week’s online Busy Person’s Retreat has provided a similar opportunity for you that Vincent’s retreats provided to their participants.

Before our retreat draws to its close, we want to invite you to reflect one more time. To pause and consider: what will I take with me from this experience? What lesson have I learned? How has God (however I may conceive of God: the Spirit, the Universe, my Higher Power, or that pure, quiet voice within), been revealed to me through the Busy Person’s Retreat?

Perhaps, upon reflection, this week did not reveal to you the need for any sort of life-altering change. Maybe you felt God’s presence more quietly, implicitly. That is appropriate … and even to be expected. Vincent de Paul himself recognized that many things, including the workings of God, happen little by little and that beginning small is probably for the best.[iv]

What is true is that you had an impulse to participate in this Busy Person’s Retreat and you said yes to this impulse. In the future, you will have more opportunities, more invitations, for personal growth and spiritual renewal. Vincent de Paul would urge us to say yes to these opportunities. By doing so, we will become more and more able to hear and welcome the voice of God.

Reflection

When you feel you’ve finished this Busy Person’s Retreat, reflections and all, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. End your experience with a moment of gratitude … gratitude for connecting, even briefly, with yourself and with something bigger than yourself. Sit with this feeling of gratitude for a few moments.

There are multiple opportunities within our DePaul community and beyond for you to continue to nurture your spiritual self. Sign up for the Division of Mission and Ministry’s e-newsletter to learn about programs and services for faculty and staff. Make a point of starting your week by reading our Mission Mondays in DePaul’s Newsline every Monday for more chances to reflect and connect with our mission.

Perhaps this Busy Person’s Retreat has motivated you to think about habits or behaviors that you would like to introduce into your life. Or, alternatively, you may have identified those that you wish to minimize. A helpful exercise to assist you in identifying both life-giving and draining activities is called Stop – Start – Continue. Take a look!

Reflection by: Tom Judge, J.D., Chaplain, Division of Mission and Ministry

[i] Conference 205, “Indifference (Common Rules, Chap. II, Art. 10),” May 15, 1659, CCD, 12:197. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/36/.

[ii] For a brief summary of Vincent’s life, visit “St. Vincent de Paul, Apostle of Charity,” St. Vincent de Paul Church, accessed February 2, 2023, http://www.svdp-richboro.org/vincent.htm.

[iii] As in the quote that opens my reflection: “Go, learn how to free yourself and to be open to God’s Will; let that be your lesson.” Conference 205, CCD, 12:197. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/36/.

[iv] As Vincent once wrote, “God’s works are not done all at once, but little by little” (letter 2774, “To Jean Martin, Superior in Turin,” January 17, 1659, CCD, 7:454. Available online: https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.‌edu/‌vincentian_‌ebooks/‌32/). Vincent also said, “It is … fitting, therefore, for you to undertake this work [mission] in a humble way. Begin with something small and have great love for your own abjection. That is the spirit of Our Lord; that is how He acted, and that is also the means of attracting His graces (letter 1972, “To Jean Martin, Superior, in Turin,” December 10, 1655, CCD, 5:485. Available online: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/30/).

 

Busy Person’s Retreat Day Four: Thursday, February 9

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Who Brings Out the Best in You?

Our wellness and thriving are not isolated or solo tasks. Rather, our well-being has very much to do with the network of relationships within which we live and give preference to in our daily lives.

As we think about individual wellness, an important contribution to our thinking can come in the simple recognition that we are not monads. Our well-being and emotional health consist of far more than only our personal efforts to master our inner domain of thoughts, feelings, and decisions. It has far more to do with whether or not we fulfill our New Year’s resolutions.

Vincent de Paul once said, “What a blessing to be a member of a Community because each individual shares in the good that is done by all!”[i] And in fact, much evidence seems to point to the fact that our well-being may be far more about the people and communities within which we live our lives each day—that is, the network or “social matrix” of relationships that daily impact our environment and that support and enrich us … or not. We are undeniably social beings.[ii]

Therefore, today we move to consider the people in our life. Who are those in your social network currently? While this network might certainly include your online friends to some degree, the deeper question being asked is about who are those you physically see and interact with on a regular basis? What is the overall net effect of your current relationships? With whom would you love to spend more time? Are there relationships that are either life-giving or draining for you? If so, what makes them so? How might your current network of relationships, and the use of your time with them, change to fall more on that life-giving side of the equation?

Now may also be a moment to dive a little deeper to better understand the relational or social patterns that have been established in your life. How have your habits or tendencies impacted the way you spend your emotional time and energy? Do they indicate positive and healthy patterns, which contribute in good and meaningful ways to your overall wellness?

As always, with such probing, introspective questions about our life, we benefit from beginning with gentle acceptance. Many of us are our own worst critics. Moving into healthier relationships with others and building a life-giving social community involves also building a healthier relationship with ourselves. Developing the habit of practicing gentleness with ourselves in this process can go a long way to moving us in the right direction.

What is one step you can take today or this week to move toward establishing or building upon a positive and generative social network of friendship and support?

 

Reflection Exercise:

Complete the “Explore Your Purpose” activity entitled, “Reflecting on People and Relationships.”

Reflection by: Mark Laboe, Associate VP for Mission a

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

[ii] See also: David G. Myers, “The Funds, Friends, and Faith of Happy People,” American Psychologist 55:1 (2000): 56, https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.56; Ed Diener and Martin E. P. Seligman, “Very Happy People” Psychological Science 13:1 (2002): 81–84; Nicholas Epley, Mindwise: Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want (New York: Vintage, 2014); Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder, “Mistakenly Seeking Solitude,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143:5 (2014), 1980–1999, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037323; and Erica J. Boothby, Margaret S. Clark, and John A. Bargh, “Shared Experiences are Amplified,” Psychological Science 25:12 (2014): 2209–16.

 

 

Busy Person’s Retreat Day Three: Wednesday, February 8

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Don’t you remember … what I told you before, that someone who has learned a motet of music and then wishes to learn a second and a third finds it easier to learn the second than he did the first, and much easier to learn the third from the first or even the second? So, today, we have a little difficulty performing a certain act of virtue or religion; the second time we’ll have less, and the third even less than the second, and in this way, we become more and more perfect.[i]

Do your daily habits nurture wellness?

Today we are going to do a check-in on our daily habits, and hopefully empower ourselves to intentionally begin new ones.

We all have them—good, bad, neutral, and occasionally weird routines, repetitive actions, or reactive patterns that have left channels in our neural pathways, like grooves in a vinyl record. They are what help us navigate the busy-ness, sometimes cope with harm, and create productive, structuring order out of the chaos of life. To be human is to have habits! However, while not all habits are helpful, it is possible to change them with a little bit of intentional reflection, and a fair bit of hard work!

I’m sure that we can all easily identify one or two habits that we wish we didn’t have. For some of us, it’s our dependence (some might say addiction!) to our smartphones or electronic devices. Despite the occasional shaming alert from the devices themselves (“you’ve spent an average of 3 hours a day, up 10% from last week on your phone”), the lure of checking email, checking social media, playing games, diving into the rabbit hole of Wikipedia … it’s just too much to resist. For others, it might be the three cups of triple espresso shots in the morning, the four-season binge watch on the weekend, or the “just two glasses” of wine with dinner. And for a rare few of us, there are some habits that might seemingly be benign, but can in the end not lead to holistic wellness—like being addicted to working out, extreme dieting, and overcommitting socially.

There’s absolutely no shame in any of these! Shame sometimes has a way of negatively reinforcing bad habits, as we find comfort in them. However, a little bit of reflection into why we do these things and whether these habits deliver their intended purpose in our lives can help us reevaluate them. Take smartphones as an example. Why do some of us seem to have become symbiotically tethered to them, unable to function without their presence? Is it accessibility to email? To work? If it’s after normal work hours, do we really need to be connected? Or perhaps it is social media and news—we just need to know what is happening in the world right now. Admittedly, it’s a marvel that we have—in our hands—a magical device that has opened the past and the present to us. However, we can quickly get lost from the world right in front of us. Or, to quote Yoda from Empire Strikes Back, we will spend our lives looking away, “Never [our] mind on where [we are], hmm? What [we are] doing!”

Reflection Exercise:

Pick one habit you have. Ask yourself:

  1. What propels you to perform this habit on a daily basis?
  2. Why did you start doing it in the first place? What do you hope to get out of it? Is it life-giving? Do you feel more whole, or healthier after?
  3. Is there a better, healthier, more balanced action to replace it with? Try replacing the habit for a week. It will be difficult, but it’s only a week! You can do this!

Reflection by: Alexander Perry, former

[i] Conference 126, “Repetition of Prayer,” July 28, 1655, CCD, 11:197. Available online: https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.‌edu/‌vincentian_ebooks/37/.

Busy Person’s Retreat Day Two: Tuesday, February 7

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“In Dreams Begins Responsibility”[i]

For the second day of our retreat, we move from discernment to hopes and dreams. We will come to more practical matters later, but for now let us open ourselves to visions of the future. Whether one is hoping to lead a community or just oneself to somewhere new, a vision of the hoped for destination is necessary. Ideally this vision should be of a place not quite like anything one has experienced before but still vivid enough to pull us toward it.

I invite you to clear your mind of distractions and of all the tasks and anxieties that are calling to you. Take some deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Close your eyes and try to feel some kind of calm.

Now, I invite you to read a few short passages about different experiences relating to this topic of dreams, of hopes, of visions. These can be used to describe different though perhaps related experiences. For example in Arabic the word ru’ya can be translated as “dream” or “vision.” When we speak of our highest hopes for the future, we often refer to them as “dreams.”

One of the most profound examples of such a dream or vision in our Vincentian tradition is the Lumière experience of Saint Louise de Marillac. During a time of great turmoil and doubt in her life and her soul, Louise was not only gifted with a calming certainty in her spirit but a vision of her future:

On the Feast of Pentecost, during holy Mass or while I was praying in the church, my mind was instantly freed of all doubt. I was advised that I should remain with my husband and that a time would come when I would be in a position to make vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and that I would be in a small community where others would do the same. I then understood that I would be in a place where I could help my neighbor but I did not understand how this would be possible since there was to be much coming and going. I was also assured that I should remain at peace concerning my director; that God would give me one whom He seemed to show me. It was repugnant to me to accept him; nevertheless, I acquiesced. It seemed to me that I did not yet have to make this change.[ii]

This profound experience would serve as a comfort and guide to Louise for the rest of her life. Her description is taken from a piece of worn, many folded paper. She would apparently carry this around with her and take it out whenever she needed to be reminded, and on the back she had written the word lumière (French for light).

In the Muslim tradition, the following is narrated about the beginning of Prophet Muhammad’s[iii] prophetic experiences:

The beginning of the Revelation that came to the Messenger of Allaah was good dreams; he never saw a dream but it came true like bright daylight. Then seclusion was made dear to him, and he used to go to the cave of Hiraa’ and worship there, which means that he went and devoted himself to worship for a number of nights before coming back to his family to collect more provisions, then he would go back again. Then he would go back to Khadeejah to collect more provisions.[iv]

It was the regular practice of the Prophet to sit with his companions after the dawn prayers and ask them to share their dreams with him.[v] In a description brimming with many possible implications of meaning, the Prophet also was reported to have said, “The most truthful of dreams are seen shortly before dawn.”[vi]

In American cultural memory, one of the most powerful invocations of dreaming a vision for the future comes from what is known as the “I Have a Dream” speech of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Although we know the speech by that title, the phrase did not appear in King’s prepared text.[vii] In fact, what has become the most famous portion of the speech was improvised by King in response to a call from gospel legend Mahalia Jackson to “tell them about the dream, Martin!” She was calling on King to bring to that enormous stage his inspiring vision of the beloved community toward which he wanted the nation to strive.

Pope Francis speaks of a powerful vision of fraternity and social friendship across all the borders that divide us in his Encyclical letter, Fratelli Tutti:

Here we have a splendid secret that shows us how to dream and to turn our life into a wonderful adventure. No one can face life in isolation … We need a community that supports and helps us, in which we can help one another to keep looking ahead. How important it is to dream together … By ourselves, we risk seeing mirages, things that are not there. Dreams, on the other hand, are built together.[viii]

As we draw near to the end of today’s reflection and perhaps are feeling that painful anticipation of having to wake from a beautiful dream, let us close with a moving description of dreams and of peace and of comfort from Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead:

I went up to the church to watch the dawn come, because that peace does restore me better than sleep can do. It is as though there were a hoard of quiet in that room, as if any silence that ever entered that room stayed in it. I remember once as a child dreaming that my mother came into my bedroom and sat down in a chair in the corner and folded her hands in her lap and stayed there, very calm and still. It made me feel wonderfully safe, wonderfully happy. When I woke up, there she was, sitting in that chair. She smiled at me and said, “I was just enjoying the quiet.” I have that same feeling in the church, that I am dreaming what is true.[ix]

 

Questions for Reflection:

  1. As you hear these stories about other famous people and their dreams, what are the dreams or ideas that begin to emerge for you about your own life and what you feel drawn or called to explore?
  2. We may think of dreaming as something very solitary or focused on the individual. Is that the case in these examples? What are some of the ways in which dreaming can be communal as well as individual?
  3. From where do alternative visions of the future come? What do you need to be connected to in your own life or what practices do you engage in to nourish your dreams and visions and hopes? What do you think is the relationship between hopes and dreams and the creation of new realities?

Reflection by: Abdul-Malik Ryan, J.D., Assistant Dire

[i] Epigraph, attributed to “Old Play,” to W.B. Yeats, Responsibilities and Other Poems (London: Macmillan, 1916).

[ii] Document A.2, “Light,” Spiritual Writings of Louise de Marillac, ed. and trans. Louise Sullivan, D.C. (New York: New City Press: 1991), 1.

[iii] Peace and blessings be upon him and upon all of the prophets of God.

[iv] Sahih al-Bukhari, hadith 3.

[v] Sahih al-Bukhari, hadith 7047.

[vi] Sunan al-Tirmidhi, hadith 2274.

[vii] Emily Crockett, “The Woman Who Inspired Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech,” Vox, updated January 16, 2017, https://www.vox.com/2016/1/18/10785882/martin-luther-king-dream-mahalia-jackson.

[viii] Available online at: Fratelli Tutti.

[ix] Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004), 132–33.