Building your resume or building your legacy?

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A number of years ago, the political and cultural commentator David Brooks penned a thought-provoking article juxtaposing resume virtues with eulogy virtues.[1] While resume virtues are skills that you bring to the marketplace, eulogy virtues run deeper and define one’s depth of character. Eulogy virtues are the characteristics that we recall at a person’s funeral when we seek to describe the quality of their life.

According to Brooks, although most of us would probably agree that eulogy virtues are the most important, our culture and educational systems tend to put more effort into teaching skills for professional success. As a result, many of us neglect to cultivate the skills necessary to deepen our interior lives. We don’t until life confronts us with situations that require us to wrestle more profoundly with questions of meaning and purpose.

Saint Vincent de Paul’s trajectory seems to mirror the developmental shifts that Brooks lays out. Indeed, much of Vincent’s early experience reveals the ambitions of a young cleric who, motivated by “chances for advancement” and thoughts of “an honorable retirement,”[2] focused on furthering his ecclesial career and “building his resume.” While spiritual and ecclesial formation were certainly an integral part of his theological training, Vincent’s initial priestly motivation stemmed primarily from his desire to escape the financially uncertain life of a peasant farmer. As a result, Vincent, “the eager and ambitious cleric,” sought upward mobility by climbing the ecclesial ladder.[3]

Yet Vincent’s dreams of social advancement did not remain the driving force of his ministry for long. Amid the twists and turns of his vocation, a series of pivotal moments would challenge Vincent’s aspirations and invite him to think beyond himself and consider those in front of him who were living in deprivation. Prompted by such encounters as his visit to a dying peasant in 1617,[4] Vincent began to focus his ministry primarily on the needs and spiritual well-being of those who were poor and abandoned, whose dignity was not often recognized in seventeenth-century French society. He became immensely dissatisfied with the way the world appeared around him.[5] Yet, rather than accept the status quo, he channeled his frustration into a quest to build the world that he wanted to see.[6]

In tangible terms, these spiritual invitations led Vincent to abandon his desire for his own career advancement in favor of seeking a more just and equitable world. Consequently, he spent the rest of his life not merely asking, What must be done?[7] but using his actions as a pathway to live his way to the answer.

As Brooks notes, “some people have experiences that turn their careers into a calling.” While Vincent’s motivation to do good stemmed from his desire to build the Kingdom of God, his trajectory as an ambitious young clergyman might never have changed direction were it not for his ability to listen deeply and respond to what God asked of him. Vincent quite simply longed to serve God faithfully. The cries of those on the margins transformed his heart and motivated him to use “the strength of [his] arms and the sweat of [his brow]”[8]

Reflection Questions:

“We all go into professions for many reasons: money, status, security. But some people have experiences that turn a career into a calling.”[9]

Have there been moments in your career at DePaul when you have experienced your work as a calling? What was it about these moments that transformed your work?

What do you feel called to build in your life right now?

 

Reflection by:           

Siobhan O’Donoghue, Director of Faculty and Staff Engagement, Division of Mission and Ministry

[1] David Brooks, “The Moral Bucket List,” New York Times, April 12, 2015, Sunday Opinion, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/opinion/sunday/david-brooks-the-moral-bucket-list.html.

[2] Letter 0003, “Vincent de Paul To His Mother, in Pouy,” 17 February 1610, CCD, 1:15  Available on line at: https://digicol.lib.depaul.edu/digital/collection/depaul01/id/84/rec/1

[3] Douglas Slawson, C.M., “Vincent de Paul’s Discernment of His Own Vocation And That of the Congregation of the Mission,” Vincentian Heritage Journal 10:1 (1989): 6. Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol10/iss1/1.

[4] Luigi Mezzadri, C.M., and José María Román, C.M., The Vincentians: A General History of the Congregation of the Mission, trans. Robert Cummings (New York: New City Press, 2009), 1:10. Quoted in Scott Kelley, “Vincentian Pragmatism: Toward a Method for Systemic Change,” Vincentian Heritage Journal (2012): 31:2. Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol31/iss2/2.

[5] Edward Udovic, C.M., Ph.D. “St. Vincent de Paul, A Person of the 17th Century, a Person for the 21st Century,” Office of Mission and Ministry DePaul University, YouTube video, January 16, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrwez_neJT4.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Edward R. Udovic, C.M., Ph.D., “’Our good will and honest efforts.’ Vincentian Perspectives on Poverty Reduction Efforts,” Vincentian Heritage Journal (2008): 28:2, 72. Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol28/iss2/5.

[8] Conference 25, “Love of God,” n.d., CCD, 11:32. Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/37/.

[9] Brooks, “Moral Bucket List.”

Vincentian Leaders: They’re All Over the Place!

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Mural at Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Contagem, Brazil

A key to the spiritual transformation of Vincent de Paul was his recognition that only a community of people working together could accomplish the mission he envisioned. Vincent could not do it alone. This insight grounds the Vincentian spirit carried forth in his ministry for the remainder of his life. The Vincentian mission’s sustainability is not the job of one person; instead, it relies on the effective formation of a community that together embodies its spirit and works for its fulfillment. It is the work of a community of people gathered together for the sake of a shared mission.

As we move through another important leadership transition at DePaul, welcoming our new president who officially begins today, this Vincentian insight is timely for us to remember. The ultimate success of DePaul University belongs to every person in our community who carries our mission forward and seeks to make it real in and through their daily actions. Leadership for mission at a Vincentian institution is always a distributed phenomenon. It is characterized by mutuality and collaboration. It is interdependent. In a Vincentian community, we are humble about our personal limitations and our need for others, knowing we lead ultimately by our example and not by our words or the amount of formal authority that we wield. Our effectiveness lies as much in the quality and integrity of our interactions with others as it does in our individual actions or accomplishments.

Who are the Vincentian leaders among us? Ask people to tell you—or better yet, just pay attention to those who inspire both excellence and care, innovation and mutual respect, professionalism and personalism. Vincentian leaders exist in every corner and in every department, among faculty, staff, and students. Look for those who listen carefully and who communicate directly, simply, and clearly. Notice those who, like Vincent, “wear the same cloak” at all times, though they be speaking to the most senior member of the Board or cabinet, or to a student in need. Vincentian leaders face the tough questions head on. They do not play games or pretend to be more than they are. They have the freedom and courage to put service first, responding to immediate needs rather than waiting to have all the answers before they dare to act. They go about the work of doing what is right without unnecessary delay, because they know in their bones what we are about—or perhaps, like Vincent, because they trust that we can always count on Providence to see us through in the end. Through their being and their doing, they inspire others.

As we move through this new transition in presidential leadership, may our shared Vincentian mission continue to inspire and guide the why, what, and how of our work at DePaul. Let it shape the kind of community we are and seek to be together. As we seek to ground our mission deeply in the life and example of our inspirational founder and namesake, may the name above the door continue to say something about who we are and what we aspire to achieve. While we look to our formal leaders—and our new president—to be a source of continued inspiration and guidance, may we recognize that our success will always depend on the way we live our mission as a community of people, all of us together.

What can you do today to lead by your example and to live in the Vincentian way? How do you participate in leadership for the mission of DePaul?

Reflection by: Mark Laboe, Associate Vice President, Mission and Ministry

Lawful Assembly Podcast – Episode 28: Do Not Let Summer Daze Convert Pretense Into Law: End Title 42

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SHOW NOTES

This is an interview with Rev. Craig B. Mousin, an Adjunct Faculty member of the DePaul University’s College of Law, Refugee and Forced Migrations Studies Program and the Grace School of Applied Diplomacy. The podcast examines new attempts to codify the harmful effects of Title 42 through amending the Fiscal Year 2023 spending bills currently before Congress. Please email or call your elected representative and oppose all of these amendments.

ACTION STEP

  1. Email your Senators and Representative to oppose these amendments. The National Immigrant Justice Center provides information and a simple link to register your voice:  https://immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/5-facts-about-title-42-why-congress-should-not-codify-trump-era-expulsion-policy
  2. You can call your elected representatives with this helpful script and background information provided by the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies: https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/our-work/action-center-tell-congress-reject-anti-asylum-amendments

Resources:

Our previous podcast on Title 42’s bad science and bad law, Episode 25 “Stop the Pretense That It Is Just About Public Health,” can be found at:  https://lawfulassembly.buzzsprout.com/1744949/10595081-episode-25-stop-the-pretense-that-it-is-just-about-public-health

The source of Yogi Berra’s “It’s déjà vu all over again” can be found at:  https://yogiberramuseum.org/about-yogi/yogisms/

The National Immigrant Justice Center webpage includes additional background information and resources at:  www.immigrantjustice.org

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

 

“Our good will and honest efforts”: Perseverance as Response to Overwhelming Challenges

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The global Muslim community recently completed the annual Hajj pilgrimage to the sacred city of Mecca.[1] While still allowing far fewer pilgrims than in pre-pandemic times, this was the first time the Hajj was again a truly international gathering since 2019. According to the Qur’an, God commanded the prophet Abraham to be the first to “proclaim the pilgrimage to all people.”[2]

Traditional Qur’anic commentaries say that Abraham asked, “O Lord, how can I convey [this message] to the people when my voice will not reach them?” God said: “Call, and it will be for Me to ensure it reaches the people.” Abraham did the best he could, going to the top of a mountain and calling out to people to make a pilgrimage to the house he had just dedicated at Mecca. It was said that God ensured that this call not only carried throughout the earth but also reached the human family that had yet to be born. Upon reading this verse and these commentaries, Muslims cannot help but marvel that four thousand years later, millions of people respond to this call every year with the chant of “Here we are, God, at your service!”

Whether they seem to come from beyond our control or arise from our own ideals and vision of the future, the challenges we face can seem overwhelming. These challenges may be situations we face as individuals or families, societal problems such as gun violence and extreme polarization, or global problems like climate change, war, and extreme inequality. One can easily imagine Vincent de Paul becoming overwhelmed by seventeenth-century France’s recurrent plagues, religious conflict, and widespread material and spiritual poverty.[3] Facing those same realities, along with the extreme limitations placed on women’s roles, Louise de Marillac could have felt the same.

Certainly, we may have observed in others and in ourselves, some of the common coping strategies for being overwhelmed. These can include selfishness, cynicism, escapism, or wishing for destruction, whether of an idealistic or nihilistic nature. Yet our Vincentian legacy encourages us not to give in to these temptations. As Vincent did, as Louise did, we are invited to make our intentions sincere, to hope for a better future, and to use our “good will and honest efforts” toward securing that future.[4] He taught that our actions are all we can control and that we should leave the rest to forces beyond ourselves. As was the case with Abraham and the call to the Hajj, the work Vincent and Louise started continues today in ways they could never have imagined.

As we face the general challenges mentioned above, or the specific challenges of higher education, or the city of Chicago that we love, let us re-commit ourselves to a beautiful vision of the role DePaul University can play in the present and the future. No doubt challenges foreseen and unforeseen will still find us on our journey. That is the nature of journeys. Yet we may also find ourselves blessed with wonderful companions and miraculous and unexpected openings and transformations along the way.

Reflection: What are some ways in which you feel overwhelmed, personally or professionally? What is your vision of the ways in which DePaul can address the challenges of our time? What does it mean to you to bring your “good will and honest efforts” to your role at DePaul?

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

[1] This year’s Hajj took place from July 7 to July 12 and was marked by a large degree of logistical confusion. See Dustin Jones, “This Eid al-Adha, the New Rules for Hajj Have Left Many Frustrated,” NPR, July 9, 2022, Religion, https://www.npr.org/2022/07/09/1110580296/saudi-arabia-travel-rules-hajj-frustrated-pilgrimage.

[2] Qur’an Surah Hajj Verse 27.

[3] For additional insights on Vincent’s time and the Vincentian approach to the overwhelming challenge of poverty reduction then and now, see Edward R. Udovic, C.M., “‘Our good will and honest efforts.’ Vincentian Perspectives on Poverty Reduction Efforts,” Vincentian Heritage 28:2 (2010), at: https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.edu‌/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1321&context=vhj.

[4] The full quote reads, “Since God is satisfied with our good will and honest efforts, let us also be satisfied with the outcome He gives to them, and our actions will never be without good results.” 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/.

Committing to a Mission beyond Ourselves

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I recently had the good fortune of accompanying leaders from DePaul, St. John’s, and Niagara, the three American Vincentian universities, to France for a Vincentian Heritage tour. The trip was a culmination of their COVID-extended participation in the Vincentian Mission Institute program, and it was the first Heritage tour involving DePaul faculty and staff since 2019.

The trip gave me an opportunity to reflect more intentionally and vividly on Vincent de Paul, Louise de Marillac, Frédéric Ozanam, and others in the Vincentian Family over the past 400+ years and their relationship to our current work at DePaul University. There were many striking insights for me during the experience, often connected to a deepened appreciation for the enduring legacy of Vincent de Paul, the “Lazarists” (Vincentians), and the Daughters of Charity throughout much of France. Certainly, the many churches we visited in Paris and beyond display numerous images, statues, paintings, and plaques that commemorate Vincent and his impact. Yet Vincent’s visible and sustained presence clearly goes beyond church walls. His life and work as a priest had a broader effect on French society, and he even gained the respect of the antireligious revolutionaries of the eighteenth century. He was a public religious figure whose service rippled outward to the peripheries of society where the poor and otherwise forgotten dwelled.

The trip to Vincent’s birthplace in Dax and to the site of his university education in Toulouse invited reflection on his young adult development and early priesthood. We saw the important site of Folleville, on the former lands of the de Gondi family, where Vincent had a transformative experience, where we frequently imagine Madame de Gondi posing the memorable “Vincentian question.” We remembered the foundation of the enduring model of the Confraternities of Charity when visiting Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne. And we walked through the streets of Paris to places that touched on the memory of Frédéric Ozanam and the founding of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. Moreover, it seemed everywhere we went, we found the continued presence and the historical echoes of the Daughters of Charity, including Louise, Catherine Labouré, and Rosalie Rendu.

So, why does all this history still matter so much to us now? Why would we spend extended time in present-day France walking in the footsteps of the founders of the Vincentian tradition?

What ultimately matters in this exploration of our history is that we become inspired to carry on the Vincentian legacy in concrete ways through our lives and work today because, quite simply, our world still desperately needs it. Our Vincentian mission is as compelling now as it was 400 years ago: to sustain and enliven a community of people dedicated to service, charity, justice, and a purpose beyond themselves.

For generations now, Vincent, Louise, Frédéric, and others in the Vincentian Family have asked what it would mean for us to orient our time, our efforts, our intentions, and our vision more radically around the values reflected in the Jesus of the Gospels. Their enduring legacy reflects their response to this question.

Regardless of our religious convictions or the nature of our work, the legacy of Vincent, Louise, and the Vincentian Family invites each of us to ask:

  • How might we orient our lives so that our life and work manifest the generosity, service, and care for others reflected in the living spirit of our Vincentian predecessors?
  • What can we put in place that will outlast us, that will endure for the betterment of the common good?
  • How can we build and inspire the community of people that is DePaul University to be focused on this mission together, and in so doing, to address the larger societal needs of today?

Like those of our predecessors, may our responses to these questions be proclaimed through our actions.

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

Summer is here!

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“May you be forever a beautiful tree of life bringing forth fruits of love.”[1]

Summer is here! Officially. Finally. Though technically summer begins and ends at the same time every year as our planet circles the sun, the spirit of summer can sometime come earlier or later. What marks the beginning of summer for you personally? Is it when the chilly, fresh mornings of spring turn to hot, humid afternoons as you look for cool shelter under leafy trees (or in air conditioning)? Or is it when the days stretch longer and longer, and the sun lingers well past the time it would normally set, creating glowing evenings of fireflies and laughter with friends?

What does summer mean to you? Is it a time of rest and recovery, of slowed-down days in the shade, where your mind can wander, imagine, and create? Or is it a time of hustle and bustle? Do you try to fit in everything you wanted to do throughout the year but didn’t have the time for? Do you try to squeeze every last drop of fun and work from the long sunny days? Maybe a little of both?

Here at DePaul, what marks the beginning of summer for you professionally? For faculty, is it when the last final is submitted and graded? For students, is it when you leave campus, either going home, or to summer jobs, or graduating, going off into the world to chart your future? For staff, is it when all the dreaded financial bureaucracy is wrapped up in BlueSky, when annual reports are polished and published, when the programming for the year is concluded? Whatever the case, summer feels both like an ending and a beginning—a chapter (or book!) is concluded, and the next starts fresh with a new page.

As campus becomes quiet again without the constant buzz of students, the vast, open horizon of sun-soaked days stretches ahead. We’ve just finished a marathon of a year, filled with stress, grief, and exhaustion. Many of us have been looking forward to the relief that summer provides. Others seek time to assess and clean up unfinished business while looking ahead. That is the beauty of summer. It provides the space for closure and recovery, and that clearing brings an opportunity to sow seeds for the future. As we draft our ambitious lists of summer projects and begin to envision and implement plans for next fall, let’s lean into that spirit of summer. We can approach our work with hope, knowing that the seeds we plant during this time can grow, in Vincent’s words, into “beautiful tree[s] of life bringing forth fruits of love” to benefit the whole community.

Reflection by: Alex Perry, Program Manager, Division of Mission and Ministry

[1] Letter 27, “To Saint Louise,” [believed to be July 30, 1628], CCD, 1:46. Available at: https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.‌edu/‌vincentian_ebooks/25/.

A Hall of Fame Journey

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Recently, while DePaul University celebrated Commencement in style—and in person—for over 4,500 students, some members of our community had their attention focused on a different celebration: the induction of DePaul women’s basketball coach Doug Bruno into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. On June 11 in Knoxville, Tennessee, Coach Bruno received the coveted Eastman Trophy and the Baron Championship Ring, signifying membership in an elite club. Surrounded by family, friends, and Blue Demon fans, he joined the likes of basketball legends Pat Summit, Geno Auriemma, and over 150 other previous inductees in being recognized for his exemplary impact—past, present, and future—on women’s basketball and on the game itself.

This milestone is a reminder that the connection between DePaul’s mission and our Athletics Department is long, deep, and uniquely personified in the journey of Coach Bruno. His relationship with DePaul began as a student athlete under the tutelage of legendary men’s basketball coach Ray Meyer (himself a Hall of Famer). Bruno was first named the head coach of the DePaul women’s basketball program in 1976, and he has led them for the past thirty-four years, twenty-five of which have seen the Blue Demons advancing to the NCAA tournament. Coach Bruno has guided teams to championships and star players to the WNBA. At the same time, he has supported his squads as they have earned the Big East Team Academic Award in nine of the last eleven seasons for having the top team GPA. He has assembled a talented coaching staff who are as dedicated as he is to team success on and off the court. His players are known for their commitment to academics, community service, and hard work. Clearly, Coach Bruno has taken Vincent de Paul’s words to heart: “Doing good isn’t everything; we have to do it well.”[1]

Vincent left us this inspiring quote, and many more, while heeding God’s call to serve the poor and to gather companions to serve with him. Despite the worthiness of this aspiration, Vincent and his followers faced grueling challenges. Toward the end of his life and with wisdom based on experience, Vincent said, “Rarely is any good done without difficulty.”[2] Experience also taught him that with faith, community, and an abundance of perseverance and constancy[3] difficulties would be overcome and his community’s goals would be attained.

Vincent probably wouldn’t have had much of value to share with Coach Bruno about the X’s and O’s of basketball. Yet Vincent’s insight about the need for faith and perseverance when meeting challenges and working toward worthy goals is just as sagacious now as it was almost 400 years ago, especially when viewed through the lens of a Hall of Fame coaching career.

Indeed, Vincent said many things in his era that seem to travel through the ages and resonate with our time. For instance, in bidding farewell to a community member, Vincent assured him that “with God’s help, you will continue to succeed in your leadership and in your duties.”[4] May the same be true for you, Coach Bruno!

Questions for reflection: Who are the “Hall of Famers” that you know at DePaul? Who are the people whose commitment to our community and whose perseverance in the face of challenges have inspired you or changed DePaul for the better? How or what could you learn from them? Is there some way you may let them know the gift they have been for you?

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

[1] Conference 201, “Simplicity and Prudence (Common Rules, Chap. II, Art. 4 and 5),” March 14, 1659, CCD, 12:148. Available at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/36/.

[2] Letter 1487, “To Philippe Le Vacher and Jean Barreau,” [1652], CCD, 4:361. Available at https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.edu/‌vincentian_ebooks/29/.

[3] “God allows this to give rise to the practice of two beautiful virtues: perseverance, which leads us to attain the goal, and constancy, which helps us to overcome difficulties.” See Letter 1228, “To Guillaume Cornaire, in Le Mans,” June 15, 1650, CCD, 4:36-37.

[4] Letter 863, “To Jean Martin, in Genoa,” September 27, 1646, CCD, 3:66. Available at https://‌via.‌library.‌‌depaul.edu/‌vincentian_ebooks/28/.

Lawful Assembly 27: Stop the Burning

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SHOW NOTES

This is an interview with Rev. Craig B. Mousin, an Adjunct Faculty member of the DePaul University’s College of Law, Refugee and Forced Migrations Studies Program and the Grace School of Applied Diplomacy. The podcast explores the recent efforts to censor and self-censor books in our public schools and libraries.  It links some of that censorship to a fear of the newcomer and our nation’s failure to legislate comprehensive immigration reform.

ACTION STEP

Thank a librarian and ask how you can help stop the burning.  For more information, the Intellectual Freedom Office of the American Library Association offers resources at: https://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/oif

RESOURCES

The Washington Post article on self-censorship and national statistics was written by Hannah Natanson, March 22, 2022: “Schools nationwide are quietly removing books from their libraries” at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/03/22/school-librarian-book-bans-challenges/

The quote from Fahrenheit 451 can be found at:  Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (Simon and Schuster, N.Y., 2012) (Sixtieth Anniversary Edition), p. 134.

Abraham Lincoln described the moral sentiment of a belief that all are created equal in his speech in Springfield, Illinois on July, 10, 1858.  The Speeches of Abraham Lincoln, Including His Inaugurals and Proclamations (Lincoln Centenary Association, NY: 1908), pp. 72-74.  I previously discussed Lincoln’s support of immigration in “Rescinding DACA: More than Just the Dreamers,” Update: Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities Newsletter, (Fall 2017) which can be found at:  https://works.bepress.com/craig_mousin/47/

You can order a copy of All Are Welcome from your favorite bookstore or find it at:  https://www.womenandchildrenfirst.com/search/site/all%20are%20welcome

You may also find a copy of In My Mosque at your favorite bookstore or:  https://www.womenandchildrenfirst.com/book/9780062978707

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

“Learning in War-Time”: The University in Perilous Times

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It’s likely that in the midst of some recent clerical task, most of us have wondered: What is the point of all this? How can I be asked to go about the daily mundane responsibilities of my job in the face of all that is going on in the world? In the face of war, of plague, of hunger and violence? When people are killed because of the color of their skin, or when people are killed for no discernible reason at all, including precious and innocent children in school with their teachers?

The particular wars and other great events of our time chronicled in the news or on our social media feeds demand our immediate attention, and many strike home. Massive student debt and a widespread mental health crisis related to inadequate healthcare force us to think deeply about the role of higher education in our time and place. Above all these immediate calamities, the long-term environmental crisis calls to us as well. Serious people ask if having children in the face of these realities is even responsible or ethical.

I was recently introduced to a remarkable sermon that was given by C. S. Lewis in October 1939, less than two months after the invasion of Poland and Britain’s entry into World War II. He called it “Learning in War-Time.”[1] Lewis begins by asking his Oxford audience whether the study of academic subjects, the work of a university, is “an odd thing to do during a great war.” Unsurprisingly to those familiar with his work, Lewis’s own answer to this question is a profoundly eloquent Christian one. The essential point Lewis makes is one that can resonate with any one of us, regardless of the nature of our particular faith or lack thereof: the calamities of our time do not essentially change the nature of our predicament as humans; they only bring it into stark relief. They are disillusioning in the positive sense. They take away illusions that prevent us from seeing clearly. We are all mortal, and our lives are short—our task is to fill our lives with meaning.

Vincent DePaul was also no stranger to such existential questions; his seventeenth-century France was a place of frequent war, plague, and desperate poverty. We often tell the story of how Vincent found his mission, his true calling, at the bedside of a dying peasant who was racked with guilt over unconfessed sins and whose soul was liberated by the pastoral accompaniment of Vincent in that moment.[2]

We each have to discern our own calling, our own mission. Prior to his encounter with the peasant, Vincent’s life was about seeking worldly success and upward mobility from his own Gascon peasant background. There was no shame in this, and no shame if that is the focus of many students we serve here at DePaul. Yet there can be an invitation to something greater, to a calling that truly makes sense to pursue in any situation. Once you connect with that greater vision, you can approach any work that you do, regardless of how mundane it may seem to others, in light of the vital role it plays in a greater task of epic importance. It will make sense to you even in times of war, of plague, and of hunger.

Do you see your daily work as part of a larger calling or mission? A way to support and care for your family? Do you connect with and are you inspired by the shared Vincentian mission of DePaul? What can you do to ensure that whatever you are doing is meaningful?

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

[1] C. S. Lewis, “Learning in War-Time,” at: https://www.christendom.edu/wp-content/‌uploads/‌2021/02/‌Learning-‌In-Wartime-C.S.-Lewis-1939.pdf.

[2] Edward R. Udovic, C.M., Ph.D., “History of the Church at Folleville,” The Way of Wisdom (blog), DePaul University, March 31, 2018, at: https://blogs.depaul.edu/dmm/2018/03/31/history-of-the-church-at-folleville/; Andrew Rea, “The 400th Anniversary of St. Vincent de Paul’s Sermon at Folleville,” The Full Text (blog), DePaul University Library, January 25, 2017, at: https://news.library.depaul.press/full-text/‌2017/‌01/25/4809/.

Authenticity: Invitation for Graduating Seniors

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Last week I reviewed a leadership module highlighting an insight first introduced to me when I started working at DePaul: professionalism is Vincentian simplicity.

I learned Vincentian simplicity through my experience first, and only later made connections to its roots in our Vincentian family. The first Daughters of Charity I met showed me that simplicity is authenticity. The authenticity of I mean what I say is woven through work and personal life.

I recall Sister Frances Ryan, who taught in the College of Education (COE), offering me cutting-edge scholarship to address the big questions life was bringing up, accompanied by a phone call or handwritten note keeping my family in her heart and prayers. Sister Katie Norris, who served as director of Catholic Campus Ministry (CCM), brought Vincentian simplicity to our meetings by cutting through tense moments with a courageous, tender question or insight that quickly breathed imaginative, healing oxygen into the room. Sister Judy Warmbold, who shared her leadership and pastoral gifts in the Dax program for housing-insecure students and also with CCM, reminds me of the power of presence when I meet her, so often sitting with students. She centers the personal dignity of those in her midst with her listening heart and her laughter. Sister Betty Ann McNeil, Vincentian Scholar in Residence at DePaul, contributes knowledge and historical context with integrity and rigor in light of the sustained work of our Vincentian mission and legacy.

I feel blessed and grateful to have worked with these Daughters of Charity at DePaul University. Whether I have bumped into them on Halsted Street outside of the COE or at the Marillac Social Center in East Garfield Park, a simplicity of what you see is what you get has consistently been made real through their presence.

I write this reflection with the graduating seniors of 2022 in mind and heart. I join with all faculty, staff, and administrators in the DePaul community to offer this blessing:

As you begin the next chapter of your life, may you allow this Vincentian spirit of simplicity to guide you. May your professional endeavors be filled with an authenticity that breathes healing and friendship into your workplace. May your education be lifelong, ever embracing knowledge and wisdom. And may you continue to center the dignity of all, especially those excluded and marginalized.

Reflection by: Karl Nass, Director of Vincentian Service and Formation, Division of Mission and Ministry