Creating a Community of Care

Mother Teresa once suggested that the world is hurting because “we have forgotten that we belong to one another.”[1] It occurs to me that whenever we have an opportunity to remember we are part of the same human family, and to respond to one another with love, the best of our shared humanity is revealed.

There is a lot of talk today about the importance of self-care. Indeed, a billion-dollar industry has emerged around this concept with self-help books, spas, life coaches, spiritualities, and myriad lotions and potions to address every kind of ailment that one could ever possibly imagine.

Without a doubt, self-care is important. To thrive as humans, we must tend to our physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual needs. A balanced life is something we all deserve, and we owe it to ourselves to strive to attain this. Moreover, it is essential if we wish to function to the best of our ability.

Judging from his letters, Saint Vincent de Paul would probably have agreed with this advice. He certainly encouraged his confreres and friends to find balance in their day-to-day lives and to take care of their health, “I ask you once again to work a little less and take care of yourself.”[2] Furthermore, he believed that healthy habits and behaviors were integral to realizing one’s purpose. In the name of Our Lord, Monsieur, do all you can to regain your health and take good care of it so that you can serve God and the poor for a longer time.[3]

At the same time, Vincent was also keenly aware that one cannot hope to grow spiritually if one’s focus remains within. As all the major world religions emphasize, a life well-lived requires us to listen deeply and respond to the voices that cry out from the wilderness, the margins of society. The Abrahamic traditions echo this message by urging us to care for the most vulnerable, namely, the “widows, orphans and strangers.” Taking care of those who are poor and marginalized is likewise firmly rooted at the very heart of Vincentian spirituality and DePaul University’s mission.

Additionally, Vincent believed that when he was in relationship with those on the margins, he most fully encountered Jesus Christ. Grounded in an incarnational faith, any opportunity to be of service to those in need allowed Vincent to enter more deeply into communion with God.

I have to love my neighbor as the image of God and the object of His Love, and to act in such a way that people, in their turn, love their Creator, who knows them and acknowledges them as His brothers [and sisters], whom He has saved, and that by mutual charity they love one another for love of God, who has loved them so much as to hand over His own Son to death for them.[4]

In centering the dignity and worth of each person to whom he ministered, Vincent was able to see that person as a brother or a sister in Christ rather than simply someone who was asking for help. This positionality enabled Vincent to relate to the person with mindfulness and presence, and to experience a level of kinship with them as he might a friend or family member.

To be a Christian and to see our brother [or sister] suffering without weeping with [them], without being sick with [them]! That’s to be lacking in charity; it’s being a caricature of a Christian; it’s inhuman; it’s to be worse than animals.[5]

Thus, charity became real for Vincent by entering into relationships with people whose names and real-life circumstances he knew. Such meaningful connections with “kinsfolk” ensured that care for those on the margins was never an abstract ideal based on an erudite theology. Instead, it was a lived response to a call he felt deep within to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. Vincent answered this call through concrete actions to love and care for the most vulnerable. His journey represented a spiritual, ethical, and inclusive path. A path, which would never let him forget the essential truth that we belong to each other.

For reflection

  1. How do I find balance between responsibility to self and responsibility to others?
  2. How have you benefited from being part of a community of care at DePaul?
  3. What elements are integral to creating a sense of belonging in the workplace? How can these be created and sustained at DePaul?

Reflection by: Siobhan O’Donoghue, PhD, Director of Faculty and Staff Engagement, Division of Mission and Ministry

[1] “Mother Teresa Reflects on Working Toward Peace,” see: https://www.scu.edu/mcae/architects-of-peace/Teresa/essay.html.

[2] Letter 1988, To Edme Jolly, Superior, in Rome, 7 January 1656, CCD, 5:506. Available at: https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.edu/coste_en/

[3] Letter 343, To Bernard Codoing, in Richilieu, 29 August 1638, Ibid., 1:491.

[4] Conference 207, Charity (Common Rules, Chap. II, Art. 12), 30 May 1659, Ibid., 12:215.

[5] Ibid., 12:222.

 

Inspiration for Sincere Dialogue in Difficult Times

Resources, News, Events and Happenings related to the integration of DePaul’s Vincentian mission into the ongoing life and work of the university community.

Mission Monday

Martin Luther King, Jr., meets with President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Public Domain

Inspiration for Sincere Dialogue in Difficult Times

As we face the challenges of our time is there some inspiration we can take from the diverse examples of Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Vincent de Paul? …read more

 

 

 

Mission-Related Events and Happenings This Week

 Lunch With Vincent

Join us for a robust conversation with this year’s Presidential Diversity Fellows, faculty members Stephen Haymes and Jess Westbrook!

RSVP Here

 

2024 Winter Sock Drive

Join us as we collect new socks of all sizes and varieties to help spread warmth this winter!

 

 

 

 

Service Day with Vincent

Join us for “Service Day with Vincent” available to all DePaul faculty and staff!  Our day will begin with a light breakfast and fun kick off then we head out to spend time at our sites.  Service sites will include agencies engaging with children, migrants, the elderly and people with special needs.  After service, we will return to campus for lunch and shared reflection.  Join us for this unique opportunity to experience DePaul and Chicago at their very best!

RSVP Here!

 

Lenten Groups

During the six weeks of Lent, participants will be invited to reflect on Lenten scriptural readings through the lens of Vincentian spirituality.   Groups will meet once each week via Zoom throughout Lent (a total of 6 times). Choose between Mondays (February 19-March 25, 12pm – 1pm) or Thursdays (February 15-March 21, 12pm – 1pm).

RSVP for Monday meetings here

RSVP for Thursday meetings here

 

Foundation Day Celebration

This week on January 25th, we celebrate what Vincentians have come to know as “Foundation Day,” which is the day Vincent de Paul identified as the day in 1617 when the Vincentian mission began.

Inspiration for Sincere Dialogue in Difficult Times

Martin Luther King, Jr., meets with President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Public Domain

“We live at a time when the world is full of violence, oppression and conflict.” “We live in a time of deep division in our own country.” Perhaps both these statements are true of many times, maybe even all times, but they are certainly true of this one. The communication technologies of our period also can serve to make these realities seem closer to us or harder for many of us to escape, even if we’d like to.

One of the reasons we honor and celebrate certain special individuals is because we hope that in their lives, we can find wisdom and inspiration for our own times. In the span of a few weeks at the beginning of the year, we mark the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., the celebration of Foundation Day (the commemoration of the start of the Vincentian Mission), and the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. So much could be said about each of these days and the men and the movements they commemorate. Today, let’s consider what they might suggest to us about relationship and dialogue in difficult times.

In reading the highly acclaimed new biography of Dr. King by Jonathan Eig (who happens to live near DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus), I was struck by King’s relationship with President Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson reached out to King three days after the assassination of President Kennedy seeking his assistance.[1] Johnson was a highly skilled political operator and said he was committed to civil rights but he knew he needed the help of King, who was then at the height of his mainstream popularity and success. They remained in close contact although neither publicized their dialogue, and both were wary of the other. (In fact, both knew that elements of the federal government were spying on King and seeking to destroy him.) King wept after watching Johnson’s powerful address to Congress after the civil rights movement was met with violence in Selma (and after Johnson had met in the White House with Alabama’s segregationist governor George Wallace).[2] The address called Congress and the nation to pass the Voting Rights Act. Despite what they were able to accomplish in this arena, as Johnson continued to escalate the Vietnam War, King would not remain silent, despite the advice of many who considered themselves his allies in the movement.[3]

In his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” King stressed the importance of dialogue and negotiations (along with research to identify injustices and to engage in self-purification). Yet King rejected the idea that direct action was in opposition to dialogue and negotiations. King argued that while destructive violence must always be opposed, the constructive tension created by nonviolent direct action was often necessary to force those in power to engage in dialogue and negotiations with the marginalized. King said that while he initially disliked being the label of extremist, he now embraced the need for “creative extremists” for love, truth, and justice.[4]

While the time and place of Vincent was not one of direct action or of democracy, I would argue that Vincent and the organizations he founded relied not only on service, but also on creative calls through words and actions for those in power to accept their responsibility for those on the margins. The call for the powerful in France to live up to the Christian example and not ignore those in poverty stood in stark contrast to the injustices of French society. When Vincent was transformed from a smart young man who was motivated to make a better life for himself to one utterly committed to serving God and those living in poverty, he did not cut off relationships with the elite and powerful in society. Instead, he continued to cultivate them with the aim of using those relationships to fulfill his mission.

I have also been reading a compelling recent book on Abraham Lincoln by NPR’s Steve Inskeep.[5] While Lincoln, like King, is remembered for his powerful oratory, this book focuses on Lincoln’s relationships and dialogues. Each chapter focuses on a different account of encounters between Lincoln and another person who came from a different background than him and with whom he had a significant disagreement. What stands out in each encounter is Lincoln’s willingness to engage with those with whom he disagreed. The results of the dialogue were rarely about one convincing the other, but Lincoln used the dialogues to understand others better. He was a quintessential politician and believer in democracy, and he could use his understanding of the others’ interests to define priorities and create coalitions to accomplish his most important goals. Although as a politician Lincoln would often choose to remain strategically silent as part of this process, Inskeep’s book takes its title from something Lincoln wrote in a letter to his close friend Joshua Speed. Speed came from a slaveholding family and Lincoln “chided [him] for admitting the “abstract wrong” of slavery but failing to act accordingly.”[6] Still, Lincoln remained in relationship with Speed, signing off the letter with “your friend forever.”[7]

We all have different roles to play in life and in the university. Just as the roles and perspectives of a prophetic preacher leading a movement for social change, a politician in an era of civil war, and a saintly founder of a religious order in an absolute monarchy may differ greatly, we may see our own roles differently based on our positions, personalities, or other commitments. I see in each of these examples a call to remain in dialogue and relationship with others, even those with whom I may have profound differences or disagreements. I have seen a call to sincerity in that dialogue which means a willingness to express difficult truths and to listen to them. Finally, I appreciate the role that constructive, creative tension can play in individual and communal transformation when we are willing to channel that tension into dialogue and negotiation.

I am inspired by the people and spaces in the university that help form students to engage in these types of difficult, sincere ongoing dialogues. Among those with which I am most familiar are the Interfaith Scholars program and the Grace School of Applied Diplomacy, but I know there are many others. What are the ways in which you think DePaul engages these questions best and what are ways in which we might be able to do better?


REFLECTION BY: Abdul-Malik Ryan, Muslim Chaplain and Assistant Director, Office of Religious Diversity, Division of Mission and Ministry.

[1] Jonathan Eig, King: A Life (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023), 351.

[2] Ibid., 435.

[3] Ibid., 514–30.

[4] See Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” August 1963, https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf.

[5] Steve Inskeep, Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America (New York: Penguin Press, 2023).

[6] Ibid., xiv-xv.

[7] Ibid., xv.

Busy Person’s Retreat

Resources, News, Events and Happenings related to the integration of DePaul’s Vincentian mission into the ongoing life and work of the university community.

Mission-Related Events and Happenings This Week

Busy Person’s Retreat

Deepen your sense of wellness and spirituality while exploring the meaning and impact of our collective work. Join us in our 2024 Busy Person’s Online Retreat!  RSVP Here

 

 

2024 Winter Sock Drive

Join us as we collect new socks of all sizes and varieties to help spread warmth this winter!

 

 

 

 Lunch With Vincent

Join us for a robust conversation with this year’s Presidential Diversity Fellows, faculty members Stephen Haymes and Jess Westbrook!

RSVP Here

Calling Your “Best Self”

Resources, News, Events and Happenings related to the integration of DePaul’s Vincentian mission into the ongoing life and work of the university community.

Mission Monday

Calling Your “Best Self”

The new year offers us a convenient opportunity to commit anew to a path of growth, healing, goodness, and hope…read more

 

 

Mission-Related Events and Happenings This Week

2024 Winter Sock Drive

Join us as we collect new socks of all sizes and varieties to help spread warmth this winter!

 

 

 

Busy Person’s Retreat

Deepen your sense of wellness and spirituality while exploring the meaning and impact of our collective work. Join us in our 2024 Busy Person’s Online Retreat!  RSVP Here

 

Calling Your “Best Self”

While only a simple turn of a calendar page from one month to the next, the beginning of a new year offers a conspicuous invitation to begin again with renewed vigor on the path to become the people we aspire to be. It is a convenient opportunity to re-commit to growth, healing, goodness, hope, and possibility.

I have often found inspiration in a line that’s apparently common in Zen Buddhist circles, which simply states, “This is it!” This moment. This situation. Now. Here. All of it. Because I am so prone to “fast-forwarding” in my imagination to an ideal future, this line reminds me to stay present to the reality before me. As a person of faith, I view the present as exactly where God has placed me to do the work entrusted to me. The present is a place to grow into the person I am called to become.

One of the frequent reminders we can take from the words and example of Saint Vincent de Paul echoes this insight. For Vincent, the calling and presence of God, that is, the movement of what he often named “Providence,” emerges in the circumstances of daily life. Vincent looked for this. He tried to pay attention to life events, to relationships, and to the challenges and opportunities before him because he understood that this was exactly where God was leading him. Vincent was also a lover of putting his ideals and values into practice in concrete ways—what he understood to be the practice of virtue.

We might say then that the “most Vincentian thing” for us to do as we begin this new year is to bring forth our “best selves” as we face the realities that surround us. To create spaces for the goodness in us and in others to come to the light of day, to be nourished and cultivated, shared, and put into practice in concrete ways. To begin again to work with energy and zeal toward the vision of life and community that reflects what we most value, and to leave behind all that works against it.

Let’s do this together for the benefit of all and for the flourishing of our DePaul community. And let me/us know in Mission and Ministry how we can work with you to do so!


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

The Potential Already Present

There are times in life when we may struggle to see light in darkness or when we are overcome with doubt. Occasionally, it may seem that the entire world is going in the wrong direction, that hardship is around every corner, or that we may not make it through the present in one piece.

The Christian season of Advent, now upon us, invites us to see with hopeful eyes the presence of grace and the latent potential for goodness waiting to be actualized. Whether in our home lives, in our communities, in our workplace, or in the larger world, each moment offers us this opportunity.

What gets in the way of our realizing it?

I acknowledge many times my underlying feelings get in the way. Maybe I’m sad, irritated, or confused. Or it could be my habitually self-absorbed thought patterns get in the way and prevent me from seeing the opportunities before me.

If I pause to consider it, I know that my feelings at any moment in life are the result of many complex factors that are at once internal and external, objective and subjective, individual and communal, rational and intuitive. Feelings may be caused by what we see, but in every case, they are also likely to color the lens through which we see, and thus accentuate or distort certain aspects of our reality. Likewise, my thought patterns are likely to hold many preconceived expectations and biases that impact what I see as I face new situations and thus how I interpret them.

Thus, I consider the seasons of Advent and Christmas to be an annual gift that invites me into a beneficial communal practice of the Christian community. This annual practice helps to foster the emotional and spiritual readiness necessary to perceive and encounter all that is before us with hopeful expectation. Through story and ritual, this liturgical season reminds us that the present moment is always pregnant with emergent life and goodness.

I share these reflections in this space because they offer lessons for us that are helpful in the workplace, too. What gets in the way of your seeing? Seeing your co-worker with deep respect and care? Seeing past some of the prejudicial biases or defensive personal habits you have developed over time? Seeing with hope? Seeing the opportunity to accentuate or contribute to the goodness of our university community during your day? And what might help to restore you to seeing more clearly?

As we approach a time that may allow a bit more space for rest and rejuvenation from our regular work and life patterns, how might you ready or restore yourself to be able to see the new life that is emerging for you, within you, and around you? In your work situation, in your home life, or in your community, how might there be latent potential for goodness and new life?

Your answer to these questions may be exactly one of the gifts you are meant to receive this holiday season. May you recognize it, receive it, and give thanks for the way it calls you forward to new life and hope in the year ahead!


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

Day with Vincent at Art Institute

Resources, News, Events and Happenings related to the integration of DePaul’s Vincentian mission into the ongoing life and work of the university community.

Mission Monday

Struck by Beauty

Can you recall a time when you were struck by beauty or joy around you? …read more

 

 

 

Mission-Related Events and Happenings This Week

Day with Vincent Retreat: Finding Light in Darkness

DePaul Faculty and Staff are invited to join us on December 7th for a cozy lunch, hot chocolate, cider, and a discussion of finding light in darkness, followed by a private guided tour of the Art Institute of Chicago!    Learn more and RSVP

 

Winter Clothing and Blanket Drive

Join us in supporting the migrant community in Chicago. Your donations of new or gently used winter apparel and outerwear will warmly welcome new arrivals during the chilly season ahead – running November 13th through December 8th.

 

 

 

Bereavement Notices

Remembering Eric Frank Hoerdemann

Eric Hoerdemann, the brother of Carolyn Hoerdemann, faculty member of the Theatre School, passed away on November 21, 2023 at the age of 60.

 

DePaul University Bereavement Notices will now be found here.

Struck by Beauty

 

What can compare to the beauty of God, who is the source of all the beauty and perfection of creatures? Is it not from God that the flowers, birds, the stars, the moon, and the sun derive their luster and beauty?[1]     —Vincent de Paul

 

On a recent November weekday morning, I was going through my usual routine, frantically hustling around my apartment, trying to get myself together and then out the door and into work. Back and forth from bathroom to bedroom to kitchen, collecting what I needed for my day—notebook, lunch bag, workout clothes, keys, phone, wallet. As I was just about ready to depart, I glanced at the clock and thought, If I run down the stairs and speed walk to the train, I just might have a chance to make it to the office reasonably on time.

All of a sudden, while I was shoving my laptop into my backpack, something made me pause and look up and out my third-floor bedroom window. As I think back to that moment now, it is surprising to me how much a mind is able to take in in just a split second. Outside of my apartment, the sun was bright and the air was clear. The leaves on the trees were translucent shades of orange and gold and were so close to the windowpane that I could almost make out the veins on each leaf. Through the branches and around the trees, below and across the street, the familiar trio of well-maintained Victorian homes were so vivid to me that I could see clearly the autumn wreaths that hung on their front doors and the mum plants that sat on their broad porch stairs. At that moment, standing in my bedroom and taking in the scene on the other side of my window, I was conscious that the world outside—the world that I was about to enter—was beautiful and inviting.

No sooner had that realization made itself known to me than a very slight breeze passed through the trees outside. In response, multitudes of leaves detached from their branches and began falling gracefully to the ground below. Then, as spontaneously as it began, the gentle rustling of the leaves ended.

The breeze had been natural, even predictable, and the falling leaves had had a beauty uniquely their own. Yet, in that moment, the feelings of joy and awe that had just welled up inside of me were pushed aside by something else. A different, surprising feeling rose up. I felt a sense of loss.

When I finally left my apartment a few minutes later, I continued mulling over the experience I had just had. Its sensations had seemed so much bigger and more profound than the simple moment called for.

Most of us learn, from witness or experience, that our lives, blessed and privileged as they may be, will contain some portion of sadness and pain. Sorrow tempers joy. Abundance and scarcity coexist. Light gives way to darkness. The truth is that these can be cold and bitter realities. The simple shedding of a leaf from a tree is nothing compared to the real suffering and loss taking place in the world.

But, as challenging and fearsome as these experiences are, they do hold potential for something good, for the growth of compassion and empathy and the strengthening of faith and resilience. The writer Kahlil Gibran put it this way: “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”[2]

Vincent and Louise knew something of both the joys and sorrows in our world.  DePaul’s Vincentian mission reflects this in our commitment to peace, justice, and equity and to upholding the dignity of all especially the underserved and underrepresented. We, the Vincentians of today, need to be reminded of these commitments and values, whether those reminders come from the words in our mission statement or from a chance encounter with the world’s beauty and brokenness through our window.

INVITATION FOR REFLECTION:

  • Can you recall a time when you were struck by beauty or joy around you? What was this like for you?
  • Has there been an experience in your life at DePaul, or elsewhere, that has been challenging for you but that has also provided you with a gift or has helped you become a more compassionate person?

Take a moment to honor the gifts that you took from your experiences.


REFLECTION BY:  Tom Judge, Chaplain, Mission and Ministry

[1] Document 43, “Reflections on the Beauty of God,” n.d., CCD, 13a:160.

[2] Kahlil Gibran, On Joy and Sorrow, from The Prophet, p 28(New York: Knopf, 1923).

Bereavement Notice – Eric Hoerdemann

Eric Hoerdemann, the brother of Carolyn Hoerdemann, faculty member of the Theatre School, passed away on November 21, 2023 at the age of 60.  Eric enjoyed spending time with his family, traveling, and sports.  He is survived by his wife, three children, four siblings, and extended family and friends.  He will be greatly missed.

Services were held on November 24.  Online condolences may be posted at https://www.carmodyflynn.com/obituaries/Eric-G-Hoerdemann?obId=29952590&fbclid=IwAR3h3gygRFkDSa7fLkrvCL08_04TK_8mx-zEANntuJcJrvcBXNIWjK2pUIw