awareness

Daughters of Charity Daily Routine: Sustaining the Journey

brass Guided Reflections, Vincentian Tradition ,

If you go back and look at the schedule of the Daughters of Charity—the community founded by Louise de Marillac and Vincent de Paul—you will see they were very intentional about their time. Their day started at 4:00 AM and was scheduled to the minute until 8:15 PM, when they prepared for bed.

Something striking—aside from their ability to function at a seemingly superhuman capacity—was that their schedule included designated times for recreation and learning how to read. Even in the midst of curing the ills and woes of the day and tending to a broken society, they prioritized time every day for leisure, respite, and personal development.

Louise understood that these daily routines, which created space to care for the whole person, were essential for sustaining the community’s long-term effectiveness as agents of change.

Reflection Questions:

  • What holistic care practices do you integrate into your daily routines?
  • How are you creating spaces in your life for recreation and restoration?
  • How do you hold yourself accountable to practicing daily habits?

Louise de Marillac’s Last Will & Testament

brass Guided Reflections, Vincentian Tradition

Art by Clara Kuhlman, DePaul Class of 2024 

These are the last words that Louise de Marillac spoke to her community before she died:

“My dear Sisters, I continue to ask God for His blessing for you and pray that He will grant you the grace to persevere in your vocation in order to serve Him in the manner He asks of you.

Take good care of the service of the poor. Above all, live together in great union and cordiality, loving one another in imitation of the union and life of Our Lord.”

Louise had the deep intuition from the start that living together in community was the way forward to sustaining a life of service to others. Even in her last will and spiritual testament, she reminds the Daughters of Charity to “live together in great union and cordiality.”

Reflection Questions:

  • What does it look like today in our context to “take good care of the service of the poor?”
  • If you were to offer your last words of wisdom to the VIA community, what would you share?
  • Share a moment from your VIA experience where you felt like you were working together in great union towards a common mission.

Listen to Your Life  

arampone Prayers and Meditations

By Frederick Buechner

Listen to your life.
See it for the fathomless mystery it is.
In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness:
Touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it,
Because in the last analysis, all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

Frederick Buechner was an American author, Presbyterian minister, preacher, and theologian.

The Summer Day

arampone Prayers and Meditations ,

By Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
how to fall down into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver was an American poet.

Prayer for Radical Amazement  

arampone Prayers and Meditations ,

By Abraham Joshua Heschel

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement.
Get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted.
Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually.
To be spiritual is to be amazed.

Abraham Joshua Heschel was a Polish-American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and philosophers of the 20th century.

Through the Silence of Nature  

arampone Prayers and Meditations ,

By Hazrat Inayat Khan

Through the silence of nature, I attain Thy divine peace.
O sublime nature, in thy stillness let my heart rest.
Thou art patiently awaiting the moment to
manifest through the silence of sublime nature.

O nature sublime, speak to me through silence,
for I am awaiting in silence like you the call of God.
O nature sublime, through thy silence I hear Thy cry.
My heart is tuned to the quietness,
that the stillness of nature inspires.

Hazrat Inayat Khan was an Indian musician, poet, philosopher, and teacher of Sufism.

Civic Engagement

eamaya1 Guided Reflections

Read or excerpt the following quotes:

“Civic engagement underscores the most basic principle of democratic governance. If sovereignty resides ultimately in the citizenry, their engagement is about the right to define the public good, to determine the policies by which they will seek that good, and to reform or replace those institutions that no longer serve.”- Swarnmin Wagle, Claims and Resources: Civic Engagement at the Macro Level

“In many respects, today’s youth are primed for participation. The 2002 Survey of Student Attitudes (SSA) conducted by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics found that 61% of college students claimed to have taken part in some form of community service in the past 12 months…

However, the desire to effect positive social change has not yet been successfully translated into sustained political engagement. The SSA found that only 14% of college students had participated in a government or political organization over the same period of time. The National Association of Secretaries of State reported that in 2000, only 33% of citizens aged 18-24 cast their votes in the presidential election.”-Harvard Institute of Politics, Political Empowerment at the Local Level: A Review of Youth Civic Engagement Efforts in 11 U.S. Cities

Discussion Questions

  • What is civic engagement?
  • If you feel you are civically engaged, what do you do?
  • If you feel you are not civically engaged, why not? What would make civic engagement appealing to you?
  • Is community service a form of civic engagement?