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What Must Be Done to Renew the DePaul Community?

afraser5 Community, DePaul University, Mission Monday , , ,

This past Saturday evening, millions of Christians around the world attended the Easter Vigil, the most important liturgy (or religious worship) of the year. With dramatic use of fire and water, prayer and readings, song and silence, the Easter Vigil celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ and welcomes new members into the Christian faith. A peak moment that combines these elements during the Vigil is the rite of baptism for adults being initiated into the Church. After months of preparation, those seeking baptism are brought before the assembly. They are invited to renounce sin and profess their faith and then are immersed in the holy waters of baptism, symbolizing cleansing and new life.

Just before this solemn ritual takes place, there is a moment during which the priest leads the worshippers in a unique prayer called the Litany of the Saints. With roots dating back to the founding of Christianity, the Litany of the Saints invokes the aid of those who came before us—angels, saints, and martyrs—to pray for and watch over those of us who are gathered. We are joined with this Communion of Saints through prayer and shared faith. We are in spiritual relationship with them as they give us support and guidance to continue our journeys of faith. The Litany of the Saints is a timeless reminder of our desire for community and connection. It encapsulates the human need for relationships, spiritual and otherwise, that provide care and witness in our lives.

Our need to be in community and relationships, to feel that we are cared for and valued, in good times and in bad, is basic and intrinsic. It is part of what motivates people to join faith communities, as witnessed at the Easter Vigil. Our churches, mosques, synagogues, and other social organizations help meet this need for community. So, too, do our schools, workplaces, and communities. At the most fundamental level, our families and friends are witnesses to our lives whose love and acceptance is enduring, even during periods of struggle and disappointment. As shown throughout human history and within our own personal experience, relationships matter. When healthy relationships abound in our lives, we flourish. When they are lacking, we decline.

This belief in the power of relationships is one that no less a person than the surgeon general of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy, endorses. Last year, Murthy issued an advisory calling for all Americans to pay attention to the urgent public health issues of loneliness and isolation that he asserted has reached epidemic levels.[1] In part the result of decades of slowly declining social connectedness as well as the isolating impact of the Covid pandemic, Murthy found that Americans spend more time on the internet and less time with others. They feel less connected with their communities and more alone than ever before. In direct terms, the surgeon general wrote of the importance of rebuilding trust, empathy, and a sense of belonging to help nurture social connections in the face of this growing feeling of isolation.

Despite the vast difference in circumstances between their time and ours, Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac understood this basic human need for community and a feeling of connection. At the heart of the service to which Vincent and Louise gave their lives was devotion to those who were abandoned by others,[2] who were the least visible and most marginalized in society. At the same time, in forming faith-based organizations of service such as the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity, Vincent and Louise placed great importance on their followers living in community and serving shoulder to shoulder with each other. They saw these community relationships as providing both an edifying[3] as well as practical[4] benefit for the men and women who were the first Vincentian Family members.

Today, DePaul University members are just as in need of relationships and communities as were those early followers of Vincent and Louise. That need is even more apparent as our university community has been subjected to the same forces of changing social norms and the damages of Covid that have caused the broader social disconnect identified by the surgeon general. These realities present DePaul with challenges as great as those our university faces in the areas of enrollment, retention, consolidation, budgeting, and the like.

But, as in most things at DePaul, our strengths and advantages provide us with an abundance of resources needed to overcome these issues. First among our assets is our Vincentian, Catholic mission, which values the human being and the common good above all else. If all parts of the university reflect on how they are best guided to live by our mission, we will have ample protection against the forces that lead to disconnect. In addition, we have a history of being a strong and supportive community whose members have always been grateful to be in relationship with one another and to call DePaul home. Taken together, if today’s generation of talented students, staff, and faculty recognize and agree on the basic challenges that exist to our communities and relationships and then commit to operating within their spheres of influence to make a difference, we will succeed at renewing a vibrant, joy-filled, and supportive community at DePaul.

What might our committed response to these challenges look like? As a first step, it could simply be reaching out to a friend or colleague and scheduling a time to be together. Beyond that, you could join a group or go to an event that might allow you to develop your skills and meet new friends. At higher levels, university resources of money, energy, and attention could go toward supporting opportunities for community and relationship building so that members feel heard, valued, and supported. There are probably many other ways—modest or grand—that our DePaul community can reinvigorate our sense of belonging and connection and put the forces that contribute to loneliness at bay. It gives me, and I hope it gives you, real hope to imagine these possibilities!

Questions for Reflection:

How are you feeling about your relationships and community connections at DePaul? Who are people you can turn to when sharing a joy or a sorrow? Do you fill that role for others? How might you cultivate these relationships if they seem lacking?

Why not commit to doing something to help strengthen the bonds of community at DePaul? Could you reach out to a colleague and schedule a check-in? Attend an event or join an organization? Does anything else come to mind?

The Division of Mission and Ministry’s Faculty and Staff Engagement team would be delighted to visit with faculty and staff at DePaul at any time.

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

[1] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community,” 2023, at: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf.

[2] Conference 164, “Love for the Poor,” January 1657, CCD 11:349: “Come then, my dear confreres, let us devote ourselves with renewed love to serve persons who are poor, and even to seek out those who are the poorest and most abandoned.” Available at: https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.‌edu/‌vincentian_‌ebooks/‌37/.

[3] Conference 1, “Explanation of the Regulations,” July 31, 1634, CCD, 9:2: “What a blessing to be a member of a Community because each individual shares in the good that is done by all!” Available at: https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.‌edu/‌‌‌vincentian_ebooks/34/.

[4] Letter 1857, “To Charles Ozenne, Superior, in Warsaw,” April 2, 1655, CCD, 5:349: “The … question is whether you can go alone to visit the sick in the parish. O Jesus, Monsieur, you must be very careful not to go alone! When the Son of God determined that the Apostles should go two by two, He doubtless foresaw the great evils of going alone. Now, who would want to depart from the custom He introduced among His own men and which is that of the Company, which, after His example, acts in this way?” Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/30/.

 

Seasons of Change

afraser5 Easter, Holidays, Hope, Islam, Lent, Mission Monday, Ramadan , , , , , ,

We are in a season of hope and promise here at DePaul. We recently experienced the first day of spring, a time which brings us the hope of renewed life and beauty after a sometimes-desolate winter. Students have come to the end of the quarter and are ready to enjoy spring break. We have a new basketball coach, and we are excited by the vision of a team that can unite and energize our whole community. We are in the season of Lent, a time in which Christians prepare themselves for change and refocus on what is important in preparation for Easter. We are in the month of Ramadan, where Muslims similarly embrace a period of intense spiritual practices in commemoration and gratitude for the gift of the Qur’an.

None of that means that our challenges have disappeared. Our world faces hunger, oppression, and war. Our city continues to struggle with caring for migrants and coping with violence. Individuals struggle with mental health issues, with financial challenges, with loneliness and anxiety. For those able to focus on politics, more uncertainty and anxiety can be found there. Many of us who are used to hearing and dealing with the challenges of higher education see greater challenges in our current environment than ever before. Yet, the renewal spring promises offers a chance for us to reflect.

The Muslim calendar is based on the moon. Muslims determine the start and end of Ramadan based upon its sighting. This provokes continuous debate in the community about what constitutes an accepted sighting, and the role astronomical calculations can or should play. But more importantly in this context, it has us looking to the heavens often around this time. The beauty and cycles of the moon, and many other signs of creation, can evoke feelings of wonder and mystery. In the Qur’an we are encouraged to read these signs as pointing to the Creator, while they also remind us of our kinship with others, especially those we may miss. Looking at the moon, we may think of how people on the other side of the world are seeing that same moon, or perhaps how those who have passed away used to look at that same moon as well.

What do spiritual practices such as Ramadan and Lent invite us to during a time like this? In his Lenten message this year, Pope Francis describes the spiritual practices of Lent as comprising “a single movement of openness and self-emptying, in which we cast out the idols that weigh us down, the attachments that imprison us.”[1] While we often find comfort in prayer or other acts of worship, Saint Vincent once said that “prayer is like a mirror in which the soul sees all its stains and disfigurements.”[2] Ramadan is a time in which fasting and increased worship at night empty us of the superficial distractions that often fill our attention and the small comforts we use to cover our feelings. In such times, we first encounter ourselves as we really are—our human vulnerabilities are undeniable, the tears flow for all the pain in ourselves and our world. But we are not left there … we also envision ourselves and our communities as they could be! We find places of connection with the Divine and with each other; places of radical hospitality and generosity; and places of repentance, forgiveness, and transformation. An imaginative vision of a better future fuels our work toward change and helps us persevere through the difficulties we encounter along the way.

For Reflection:

In what season do you find yourself, personally or in your work at DePaul? What are you learning about yourself in this season? What is the vision of the future that inspires hope and energy for transformation in you?

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

 

For more information on some of the diverse religious holidays being observed at DePaul this spring please visit https://blogs.depaul.edu/dmm/about/1098-2/spring-depauls-season-of-celebrating-religious-holidays/

[1] Message of the Holy Father Francis for Lent 2024, 01.02.2024, at: Through the Desert God Leads us to Freedom.

[2] Conference 37, Mental Prayer, 31 May 1648, CCD, 9:327. See: https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.‌edu/‌vincentian_‌ebooks/‌34/.

Caring for Our Multi-faith Siblings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Easter Season: A Culture of Nonviolence, Resilience and Communal Hope

bcicirel Easter, Hope, Mission Monday, Social Justice ,

With this reflection, we send Easter greetings to all the people connected to DePaul University, people of all religious traditions and none. We come together out of our shared need for meaning, peace, healing, and a space and time of rest for our restless hearts. I invite all of you to enter that place with us.

In the Christian world, Good Friday is full of a cry of suffering, pain, and abandonment: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). This is the cry of the anguish and desperation of the Christ on the cross.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is the painful cry of too many today. When working at the United Nations, I became aware that this cry of anguish and pain of life in all its forms is caused by many different environmental and social realities: missing species, shrinking habitats, collapsed fisheries, bitter seas, soil erosion, plastic apocalypse, the mass-spreading of diseases, rising sea levels, environmental refugees, receding forests, melting glaciers, rising greenhouse gases, massive migrations of species trying to survive, more intense storms, endless winters, growing deserts, arctic meltdown, climate volatility, economic chaos, scandalous inequality, the spread of mental illnesses, inability or lack of interest in outlining an ethic for human-technological interaction, the festering wounds of racism and classism, misogyny and racial, gender, religious, economic hegemony, human trafficking and slavery, economic injustice, inequality and discrimination against minorities of various identities, violence, war, and toxic polarizing politics… and the list goes on.[1]

In this context, it seems appropriate to ask, Where is God? The feelings of abandonment and despair are not far from many of our minds and hearts, even if some may feel uncomfortable thinking this way. When Vincent heard this cry of the most abandoned, he dared to listen. He began a movement of resilient hope, nonviolence, and peace, transforming solidarity. He decided to follow the wisdom and direction of life, not death.

In the Vincentian movement, we are committed to telling people living in suffering and desperation that they are not alone and have not been abandoned and that God is with them. Often the only sign of God that feeds their hope is in the hands, the solidarity, and the compassion of a growing number of people of goodwill who continue to join the human march toward life, hope, reliance, justice, and peace.

We are not exempt from the consequences of the chaos of our interconnected, globalized world. Among us in our neighborhoods and our many communities of belonging here at DePaul University, if we are attentive, we can hear in the cry of vulnerable life a call for help too.

Concretely, during these challenging days, when in conversations and decision-making processes related to Designing DePaul and our projected budget gap, we must always be attentive to hear the cries for help of the most vulnerable members of our community. In this way, meaning, equity, and the sense of belonging will prevail, and we will continue to be rooted in the Vincentian spirit.

The Easter season is full again with good news: The Lord is risen, Alleluia! (Matthew 28:5–7).

According to the Christian scriptures, “very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, [women] went to the tomb when the sun had risen” (Mark 16:2). Amid the darkness, they set out on the road giving company to each other.

Because it is not yet dawn for so many peoples, these women of the morning are calling us to overcome all fear and to set our feet on the road together to witness and actively be part of the triumph of life over death. At every dawn in each corner of the world, millions of humans set out on the road and are the door to each grave; they are witnesses of life, light, and hope.

In the Christian tradition, when we are amid our pain, trials, and anguish, asking why God has forsaken us, God surprises us with a new presence, many times in little signs that we need to identify and translate. The resurrection of the Lord is not a magical experience but a lived reality in the communities that dare to make the call for mutual help and care central to their common survival.

In the Christian paschal mystery, the darkest part of the night is often shortly before the dawn. “The joy comes in the morning” (Ps. 30:5).  The joyful proclamation of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday assures us that the last word lies not with violence, injustice, and inhumanity but with God’s purpose of love, justice, and hope. This purpose runs like a thread throughout history and will find its ultimate fulfillment in the coming fullness of the Kin-dom, the common eschatological place where all cultures and religions and all species in our common home are going.

As a Vincentian, I am excited to be alive this Easter. I see a movement in the Catholic Church that is once again looking for a profound transformation. This Easter season invites us to live and generate a culture of renewal in the heart of the Church as we follow Jesus in our total commitment to the protection, care, and survival of life.

Pope Francis is inviting the Church to embrace the gospel of nonviolence as a concrete expression of our commitment to life in the context of the Easter celebrations of this year: “Living, speaking, and acting without violence is not giving up, it is not losing or giving up anything, but aspiring to everything.” May we spread this culture of nonviolence far and wide. May we all join the world in praying for such a nonviolent culture. May we move forward with great gratitude for this word calling us to the fullness of the nonviolent life “aspiring to everything.” (You can see the original press release here.)

Pope Francis knows that the gospel of nonviolence has not always characterized Christianity. Christians have often been a significant obstacle to God. As a part of our commitment to live as resurrected people, we need to ask for forgiveness for the “holy wars,” the inquisition, for blessing guns and bombs, for attempting to justify and participating in the torture and enslavement of human beings, for holding signs that say that God hates people of various minorities, for starting violent apocalyptic militias, for blowing up abortion clinics, for turning a blind eye to poverty and exclusion, and for the sexual abuse of children by priests and religious. These things, and many others, are not the Christianity of Jesus Christ who publicly forgave his killers. They are a Christianity that has become unrecognizably ill and that does not reflect the paschal mystery in which violence, abuse, exclusion, injustice, and death are defeated.

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

[1] In this list I am using the language I read and heard in United Nations documents, meetings, and conferences.

Change in Systems, Change in People

bcicirel Charity, Lent, Mission Monday, Social Justice , , ,

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

The Sacred Dignity of all Persons

bcicirel Dignity, Diversity, Easter, Folleville, Mission, Mission Monday, Vincentian stories , , , , ,

More than four hundred years ago in the small French town of Folleville, France, Saint Vincent de Paul had a transformative experience that he would later describe as the start of the Vincentian mission, which we continue to this day.[1] While serving as a tutor and spiritual director for the wealthy de Gondi family Vincent was called to the bedside of a dying peasant. The opportunity to facilitate the sacrament of confession and the profound positive effect it had on the man revealed much to Vincent about the conditions and human needs that were widespread in his time. When Madame de Gondi famously asked, “What must be done?” the mission had begun.

The Vincentian mission to honor the sacred dignity of every human being has taken many different shapes in many different environments over the last four hundred years. It is a living legacy that seeks to serve the same goals and purposes in ever-changing circumstances. DePaul University seeks primarily to advance the dignity of every person through higher education, but in doing so, we serve the whole person and the larger community. We find and serve not only the material needs of people but their spiritual needs as well. It is because of, not despite, our commitment to our Vincentian Catholic mission that we honor the spiritual needs of all in our community, inclusive of people of all faiths and none.

Much of our Christian community has just come to the end of the Lenten period with the celebration of Easter.[2] Our Jewish community has begun the observance of Passover. Our Muslim community is in the middle of the fasting month of Ramadan. Others observing sacred holidays during this season this year include the Sikh, Jain, and Baha’i communities. We remind ourselves of Dr. Esteban’s call in the fall to “create an accepting and nurturing environment in which people of every faith are supported and nurtured.”[3] Just as our university closes for Good Friday to facilitate Christians’ observance, we encourage all members of the community to be flexible and accommodating so that people can engage in religious observances and spiritual growth. Doing so enriches and inspires the entire community, as our own Father Memo Campuzano beautifully shared last week.[4] The spirit of accommodation and the honoring of human dignity invites conversation among people about their needs, recognizing that not everyone is the same and all are equally precious. The staff of the Office of Religious Diversity and Pastoral Care is here to serve as a resource whenever we can be helpful in such dialogue.[5]

We invite all of our community to find, as Vincent did, life and beauty in honoring and facilitating the sacred traditions and spiritual needs of each other. Many of us are weighed down by the hardships or just the daily grind of life. We seek these special observances to provide joy and meaning to our lives, as individuals and as communities. Being able to facilitate these moments for others provides a special blessing of its own. The Prophet Muhammad[6] offered this beautiful prayer for those who would provide food for him when it came time to break the fast, “May those who are fasting break their fast with you, may the righteous eat your food, and may the angels pray for you!”[7]

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

[1] Andrew Rea, “The 400th Anniversary of St. Vincent de Paul’s Sermon at Folleville,” DePaul University, January 25, 2017, https://news.library.depaul.press/full-text/2017/01/25/4809/.

[2] Orthodox Christians will observe Easter on April 24.

[3] A. Gabriel Esteban, “Religious Observances: Facilitating a Culture of Respect, Understanding and Civility,” DePaul University Newsline, August 31, 2021, https://resources.depaul.edu/newsline/sections/campus-and-community/‌Pages/‌Religious-observances-2021.aspx.

[4] Memo Campuzano, C.M., “Spiritual Times: Times When We Hope Together,” The Way of Wisdom (blog), DePaul University, April 8, 2022, https://blogs.depaul.edu/dmm/2022/04/08/spiritual-times-times-when-we-hope-together/.

[5] Contact information and a calendar of holidays and religiously significant events can be found here: https://offices.depaul.edu/mission-ministry/religious-spiritual-life/religious/Documents/2021-2022_‌Religious_‌Holidays_Calendar.pdf.

[6] Peace and blessings be upon him and all of the prophets and sacred teachers and guides.

[7] Hadith reported by Abu Dawud.

Moving Beyond Temptation

bcicirel Lent, Mission Monday, Spirituality , ,

Christians throughout the world are entering the first full week of the season of Lent, which stretches this year from last week’s Ash Wednesday through to Easter Sunday (April 17th). These approximately forty days (about six weeks) invite Christians to a time of profound reflection and honest life assessment, as well as to return to a deep trust in and fundamental dependence on God’s provision and care, especially where they may have gone astray. The readings in the first week of Lent draw from the scriptural stories of Jesus’s forty days of temptation in the desert, as well as to the Hebrew people’s forty years of wandering in the desert before reaching the promised land. The number forty in Hebrew and Christian scriptures is shorthand for “a very, very long time.”

The season of Lent corresponds this year to an apparent relief from our very long journey through the COVID pandemic, as infection numbers and deaths continue to drop and hope rises for a return to seeing each other’s faces and smiles more regularly. Like the scriptural stories, after this very long and challenging period of time, we hunger to feel wholeness again individually and collectively. Yet just when we begin to feel some hope about that, we must confront the daily realities of war and death in Ukraine. The brutal violence and abuse of power manifest there is deeply troubling.

The challenges that life brings us can feel relentless. Sometimes, the world’s harsh realities can overwhelm us and tempt us to forget the truth of who we are and what we stand for. Into the midst of these challenges, the season of Lent enters, inviting all to remember what is most essential and who we are called to be.

In times when we are troubled or driven by our deepest longings—for love, for peace, for attention, for recognition, for pleasure, for self-expression—we can also be most vulnerable to the tendency to satiate our hungers with a quick and easy fix. Our desperate desire to be rid of our hunger pangs for moments of rest and peace can lead us to seek satisfaction in short-term or even harmful solutions. This tendency can occur with physical hunger, but it is also true with emotional, psychological, and social hungers. Over time, we can easily fall into habits that orient our minds and actions toward easy solutions, rather than toward that which is good.

Jesus’s forty days in the desert serves as a scriptural entry point into the Lenten season. Presented with the opportunities for comfort, power, and an easy fix to his troubles, Jesus withstands temptation because he is rooted in his fundamental identity as the beloved child of God who is filled with the Holy Spirit and called to be the Prince of Peace and the embodiment of love. Regardless of one’s religious, spiritual, or philosophical background, this Christian narrative and the season of Lent offers an invitation to all of us to reflect on our own life temptations and fundamental sense of identity.

Over these next forty days, how might you make the time and space to reconnect to the deep roots of who you are and what you seek to stand for in your life? As you do so, how might you identify and move away from any habits of mind and living that have taken you off course?

Vincent de Paul’s advice to his followers included the encouragement to be faithful to the practice of daily mental prayer, spiritual reading, or quiet solitude.[1] Vincent understood that without such time and space, we are more prone to seeking easy solutions to the challenges that face us rather than following the lead of Providence.

If making such time and space regularly seems impossible right now, perhaps begin with just thirty seconds of deep, restorative breathing, maybe even multiple times a day, and build from there. In doing so, we can grow more attuned to our emotions and anxious thoughts or reactions that can become patterns or unhealthy habits in our lives. And we learn the patience to sit momentarily still before our anxieties and impulsive desires, thereby becoming more intentional and authentic in our response.

As you remember most deeply who you are, what do you feel called to stand for in your life? What values do you seek to embody as you face life’s challenges and temptations?

What are the times, places or situations when you are most prone to pursue mental or life habits that draw you away from what you know to be best for you and for others?

What would help you in this season to be rooted again in what is most authentic to who you are?

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

[1] See for example: Conference 25, “Love of God,” n.d., CCD, 11:33; and Conference 67, “Meditation,” n.d., CCD, 11:76.

 

 

 

Thanks to God We are Alive!

bcicirel Easter, Holidays, Hope, Mission Monday , ,

As we joyfully embrace the many seasonal, religious, and spiritual celebrations of this beautiful time I would like to share with you a Christian/Vincentian perspective of Easter. This day of life, hope, and connection beyond our own understanding raises a simple question: where is God in everything that is happening?

Thanks to God we are alive! This is the Easter voice that I hear in my heart today. It is a voice I have heard many times in my life from people close to death because of natural disasters, poverty, hardship, violence, etc. And, over the past year I have heard survivors of the pandemic saying again and again… thanks to God we are alive!

I recently heard it said that “more than in other times, our age is characterized by its concern for the future and by wanting to glimpse the human person of tomorrow. Most agree about this: our way of being human needs to be transformed. The real human person is still a project… it is latent in the dynamic of evolution [and transformation]. This search for a new human person has been a recurrent theme in each historic cultural moment.”(1) Today more than ever we are aware that our way of being human is not sustainable. The urgent call for a new person is an Easter call… a call that echoes as a living memory of the resurrection. This is the call from God at the heart of the paschal mystery.

This morning, having endured the pandemic, we begin to see an end to this long day of the passion. The resurrection of Jesus is revealed to us in the real signs of what is happening in our lives, our country, and our world. All can perceive these new signs of life with which God is gracing us. For St. Vincent de Paul one of the primary challenges of Christian faith was to perceive and to live God’s life in our own lives. He expected the members of his spiritual family to conform with essential values that reflected a sustainable human experience. Vincent found these values exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ the evangelizer [humanizer] of the poor, who invites us to awaken dawns of resurrection amid dark nights of history.

“I beg Our Lord, Monsieur, that we may be able to die to ourselves in order to rise with Him, that He may be the joy of your heart, the end and soul of your actions, and your glory in heaven.”(2)

In Christian faith, from a Vincentian perspective, the value of all religious practices depends on their connection with real life. When we celebrate the resurrection, we are invited to experience life in all its forms, and to commit to protecting it. We are asked to defend human life, and all forms of life, now at risk due to our individualistic and consumeristic lifestyle. We recognize God’s life in us, and this life is what we celebrate. This life is what challenges us to change and to give of our own lives.

During these times, the celebration of the resurrection cannot be disconnected from all the essential issues that are challenging our very existence: social and environmental justice, human and communal rights, freedom, racism, and equity in all its forms. All these issues call us to reshape our Vincentian Mission and spirituality. For Christians, then, the celebration of the resurrection is simply a call to advance, giving concrete signs, the agenda of a new humanity and a new world!

“I ask O[ur] L[ord] to be the life of our life and the only aspiration of our hearts.”(3)

1) Cf. Leonardo Boff, La Resurrección de Cristo Nuestra Resurrección en la Muerte, 5th ed. (Editorial Sal Terrae, 2005), p. 9.

2) Letter 1202, To a Priest of the Mission, In Saintes, 27 March 1650, CCD, 3:616.

3) Letter 2433, To Charles Ozenne, Superior, In Poland, 26 October 1657, CCD, 6:576.

 

Reflection by:

Guillermo Campuzano, C.M.
Vice President of Mission and Ministry

Sustaining the Mission

Need a different kind of shot in the arm? Join us for Sustaining the Mission and get a mission booster! Sustaining the Mission is a mission engagement program designed for staff and faculty who have been at DePaul for at least a year.

This 90-minute workshop on Thursday, April 15th from 9:30-11:00 am, will invite you to consider how to practically apply DePaul’s mission to your everyday work and life. Together, we will examine how the mission can provide a deeper sense of meaning to your daily activities. As a member of the DePaul community, our goal is to help you reflect on concrete ways you can contribute to the advancement and sustainability of DePaul’s Vincentian mission within your team, department, area, division, etc. We will also help you to develop a mission integration plan. Please note that this program also meets one of the requirements for those interested in becoming a Mission Ambassador. Register Here.

A Reflection on Providence in the Easter Season

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“Follow the order of Providence. Oh! How good it is to let ourselves be guided by it!” (CCD 1:283-84)

Vincent de Paul often implored his followers to trust in Providence. He fundamentally believed in a God who would provide what was needed for them to fulfill their mission, who would guide their process in carrying it out, and who would bring people into their lives to help them do so. During the season of Easter, Christians throughout the world are now remembering and celebrating the triumph of life, love, and hope over death and despair. This sacred time serves to center trust in their lives on the sustaining presence of this same Providence. One way to understand the substance of our faith is to ask ourselves, “Ultimately, what do we put our trust in?” For Vincent, it was Providence. What is it for you?

Full citation: Letter 198d, To Saint Louise, 1635, CCD, 1:283-84.