Love, the driving force: a journey of discernment

prophets of peace

Like many people, I have been glued to the tv and to online streaming over the past few days to watch Pope Francis’ visit to the U.S. It has been a delight to witness (even from behind a screen) his addresses to Congress and the U.N., and his outreach to the homeless and poverty-stricken in both Washington and New York City. He is inspiring, with his loving yet challenging words, and his authentic presence. To me, he embodies the Jesus that I recognize from the Gospels.

In his whirlwind day in New York City today, he made a stop at the 9/11 memorial to participate in an inter-religious prayer service. I wasn’t able to catch his remarks online but I found the transcript later. His words are deeply moving and are made even more so by the beauty and simplicity of the memorial. I am posting his words here so that I can look back on them later.

******
Interreligious Meeting
Ground Zero Memorial, New York
Friday, 25 September 2015

Dear Friends,

I feel many different emotions standing here at Ground Zero, where thousands of lives were taken in a senseless act of destruction. Here grief is palpable. The water we see flowing towards that empty pit reminds us of all those lives which fell prey to those who think that destruction, tearing down, is the only way to settle conflicts. It is the silent cry of those who were victims of a mindset which knows only violence, hatred and revenge. A mindset which can only cause pain, suffering, destruction and tears.

The flowing water is also a symbol of our tears. Tears at so much devastation and ruin, past and present. This is a place where we shed tears, we weep out of a sense of helplessness in the face of injustice, murder, and the failure to settle conflicts through dialogue. Here we mourn the wrongful and senseless loss of innocent lives because of the inability to find solutions which respect the common good. This flowing water reminds us of yesterday’s tears, but also of all the tears still being shed today.

A few moments ago I met some of the families of the fallen first responders. Meeting them made me see once again how acts of destruction are never impersonal, abstract or merely material. They always have a face, a concrete story, names. In those family members, we see the face of pain, a pain which still touches us and cries out to heaven.

At the same time, those family members showed me the other face of this attack, the other face of their grief: the power of love and remembrance. A remembrance that does not leave us empty and withdrawn. The name of so many loved ones are written around the towers’ footprints. We can see them, we can touch them, and we can never forget them.

Here, amid pain and grief, we also have a palpable sense of the heroic goodness which people are capable of, those hidden reserves of strength from which we can draw. In the depths of pain and suffering, you also witnessed the heights of generosity and service. Hands reached out, lives were given. In a metropolis which might seem impersonal, faceless, lonely, you demonstrated the powerful solidarity born of mutual support, love and self-sacrifice. No one thought about race, nationality, neighborhoods, religion or politics. It was all about solidarity, meeting immediate needs, brotherhood. It was about being brothers and sisters. New York City firemen walked into the crumbling towers, with no concern for their own wellbeing. Many succumbed; their sacrifice enabled great numbers to be saved.

This place of death became a place of life too, a place of saved lives, a hymn to the triumph of life over the prophets of destruction and death, to goodness over evil, to reconciliation and unity over hatred and division.

It is a source of great hope that in this place of sorrow and remembrance I can join with leaders representing the many religious traditions which enrich the life of this great city. I trust that our presence together will be a powerful sign of our shared desire to be a force for reconciliation, peace and justice in this community and throughout the world. For all our differences and disagreements, we can live in a world of peace. In opposing every attempt to create a rigid uniformity, we can and must build unity on the basis of our diversity of languages, cultures and religions, and lift our voices against everything which would stand in the way of such unity. Together we are called to say “no” to every attempt to impose uniformity and “yes” to a diversity accepted and reconciled.

This can only happen if we uproot from our hearts all feelings of hatred, vengeance and resentment. We know that that is only possible as a gift from heaven. Here, in this place of remembrance, I would ask everyone together, each in his or her own way, to spend a moment in silence and prayer. Let us implore from on high the gift of commitment to the cause of peace. Peace in our homes, our families, our schools and our communities. Peace in all those places where war never seems to end. Peace for those faces which have known nothing but pain. Peace throughout this world which God has given us as the home of all and a home for all. Simply PEACE.

In this way, the lives of our dear ones will not be lives which will one day be forgotten. Instead, they will be present whenever we strive to be prophets not of tearing down but of building up, prophets of reconciliation, prophets of peace.

Bearing Fruit

I would like to follow up on a post I wrote earlier this year about being a child of an alcoholic. I wrote then about seeking transformation – shining a light on old wounds and allowing them to be healed. I am happy to report that I am making progress. It’s not quite the instant transformation I was hoping for, but a slow and intentional one.

I began meeting with a counselor in the summer. At first it was really awkward and difficult. Who wants to dredge stuff up again with a stranger? And I also worried that I was being self-indulgent. Things weren’t that bad. I can handle it on my own. It’s self-centred to be so focused on myself and my struggles.

But the more I think about it, and the more I see the counselor, the more I recognize how necessary it is. It’s necessary for my discernment, and frankly, necessary to live happily and healthily. I find it hard to put into words eloquently (I’m reduced to a cavewoman-like “Be me better: love more.”). Luckily, Anthony De Mello, SJ says it for me (again, taken from Seek God Everywhere):

…the child needs to receive love. That is what is happening to us, since so many of us are still children. We need to look after the child in us; we need to give ourselves the love we have been deprived of for so many years. Unless we realize that, we will jump into love with others in a forced and strained way. If I sacrifice myself for others, that is the most pernicious thing I can do because there is a subtle pride in that; there is a kind of resentment. I am not a cheerful giver. I am tinged with guilt, with an ideal. In reality, I do not love you, I love the ideal. When our needs are met and we have grown, the tree bears fruit. Love comes spontaneously, we do not produce it. George Soares said to us once: “The New Testament is against good works. Christ did not say, ‘I am sending you out to do good works,’ but said, ‘I am sending you out to bear fruit.’”

I am beginning to bear fruit – at this point I feel like a small wizened Rudolph crabapple, but in time I will be majestic.

*****

Also, I’m learning that it’s important to balance the serious with the light so here’s a video of Stephen Colbert living out my dream! Doing the whistle solo on Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdx8G2iZq-M

God went mad out of love for us

I’ve been reading a lot these days (admittedly, this is not new behaviour).

I just finished an excellent biography of Flannery O’Connor (Flannery by Brad Gooch) and I’m partway through Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint by W.W. Meissner, SJ. It’s a weighty book, both physically and mentally, but very interesting. On my subway journeys, however, I am reading Seek God Everywhere: Reflections on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius by Anthony de Mello, SJ. (Can you sense my current Ignatian theme?) Anyway, this morning I became totally engrossed in it (so engrossed, in fact, that I missed my subway stop and had to loop around back – whoops!). This passage had me caught up:

At the root of pure creation there is an act of infinite love. God falls for us; this is the unbelievable news. That means he would lose himself for us. This is too shocking that God would be a victim of the passion that we call love. Then we are told the shocking thing that God loves us so much that he gave up his goodness for our sake! Hello! This is a bit too crazy. God went mad out of love for us. Then we must be very lovely. What we have stressed in the past is how lovely God must be that he can love us like this. But nobody has yet said how lovely we must be, that God could fall for us like this. Both are true.

Think of it! God went mad out of love for me and you!

That’s something to savour on the way to work each day.

Praised be

Today is the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. What better way to pray than to pray with St. Francis of Assisi? This poem of his is one of my favourites.

The Canticle of Brother Sun

Most High, all powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honor,
and all blessing.

To You alone, Most High, do they belong,
and no man is worthy to mention Your name.

Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and you give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon
and the stars, in heaven you formed them
clear and precious and beautiful.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene,
and every kind of weather through which
You give sustenance to Your creatures.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,
which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you light the night and he is beautiful
and playful and robust and strong.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth,
who sustains us and governs us and who produces
varied fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

Praised be You, my Lord,
through those who give pardon for Your love,
and bear infirmity and tribulation.

Blessed are those who endure in peace
for by You, Most High, they shall be crowned.

Praised be You, my Lord,
through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no living man can escape.

Woe to those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those whom death will
find in Your most holy willl,
for the second death shall do them no harm.

Praise and bless my Lord,
and give Him thanks
and serve Him with great humility.

AMEN

Back to my roots

This prairie girl has been back and forth to her favourite province, Saskatchewan, a couple of times this month. The first time for summer vacation and the second for a funeral.

Both trips gave me the opportunity to reconnect with family members I hadn’t seen for a long time and to be reminded of how wonderful they are and how much I love them and miss them.

I spent my summer vacation visiting family in a little town called Rosthern. I have been there many times. Saskatchewan has been the destination of choice for most of my vacations growing up – either in the summer or at Christmas – fluctuating between Rosthern and Saskatoon. The annual (sometimes biannual) pilgrimage to visit grandmas, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

In Rosthern I visited my paternal grandmother. She is the grandmother of homemade chicken noodle soup, of dough dogs and doughnuts. Of Scrabble and Skip-bo and Phase 10. I always feel like I am entering a protected space when I am visiting her, where everything is safe and feels very wholesome.

Grammy is getting older now and it’s harder for her to be as active as she used to be so instead of her pampering me, this time I tried to do my part to pamper her (although I admit I was still spoiled by her). We took a few road trips, going down to southern Saskatchewan to Lumsden to visit my cousin and her family (where I finally got to meet her adorable little girl), over close to the edge of Alberta to check out the Great Sand Hills, and then along through central Saskatchewan to visit a Benedictine Abbey and a Marian shrine. I made a special trip to Batoche as well.

The South Saskatchewan River

Just outside of Leader, Saskatchewan

The Great Sand Hills

For me, it was a chance to see more of the province I love, to experience the slow, rolling hills of the prairie, which are beautiful and in stark contrast to the province’s reputation for boring flatness. More importantly, it was a chance to spend time with my grandma before I start my novitiate year in the Philippines, and to make sure she knows that I am still me. I wanted to reassure her that my year with the Loretto Sisters hasn’t turned me into some unrecognizable version of the girl she used to know. The week, as all vacations tend to do, went by far too quickly. All too soon I was boarding the plane back to Toronto and I felt a tugging on my heart. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

While I was in Rosthern I found out that my maternal grandmother had died. My mom’s mom is the grandmother of the American South, of hominy grits, and milk gravy on toast. She is the family storyteller, sharing tales of her childhood during the Depression in North Carolina, and her great love story – marrying my grandfather and moving to Montreal after the Second World War. She always made me feel that our family had exotic roots.

Although she passed away in Calgary, she wanted to be buried in Saskatoon with my grandfather. And so it was with deep sadness, and an anxious need to be with my family, that I returned to Saskatoon. It was hard to say goodbye to the woman who had been the symbol of the family for so long. My grandmother was a true matriarch. She built a family legacy. And even though she lived to an honourable age (91), it was still hard to let her go.

Woven in to her death was the death of my mother. My grandma had been a strong link to my mother. After my mom’s death, my grandma would tell me stories about my mom’s childhood, helping me to know the sides of her I had never seen. I even have a cassette tape she made me of her memories of my mom. So my grandmother’s death felt like two deaths, in a sense.

I am blessed to have a very close and supportive family and the time together brought much comfort. Even though we were only together for a couple of days, I felt very close to them, reconnected. After the funeral we visited many familiar sights – the university campus where my grandfather had taught and my mom and aunts and uncles had studied, the old houses where they had grown up, even parks I had visited as a child. It felt good and right to see those places again; they hold so much sentimental value. I am grateful that I have my aunts to maintain the family traditions and our family history.

As I get ready to enter the novitiate and move to the Philippines for a year (though I still have a few months before that happens), I am already thinking about my family and starting to dread that I will have to leave them. A lot can happen in a year. Birth, death, all kinds of change. I have to admit that I feel some anxiety about being so far away from them for 12 months. I’ve lived away from them for the past 11 years but I’ve always been a fairly short plane ride away. Being with family also rekindles in me a longing to move back west. I hope that at some point I will be able to spend more time with them, more than just vacation time, to actually live close to them again and be part of the regular family rhythm.

Ultimately, I trust that God knows what is best for me. And right now (or, in the near future), what is best for is going to the Philippines, joining my companions there, and journeying through at least the first year of the novitiate together. And I trust that God will be watching over my family and will find ways for us to stay connected across distance and time.

The Shrine at St. Laurent de Grandin

The Great Sand Hills

Happy Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola!

Today is the feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). I have a real soft spot for St. Ignatius and his spirituality. Even though it was only fairly recently (just over 3 years ago!) that I discovered him, his methods of prayer and discernment have changed my life, helping me to find God in all things.

Mary Ward, the IBVM foundress, had a deep understanding of Ignatian spirituality and many of the practices of Ignatian spirituality permeate the Institute’s way of life.

Check out this great video about St. Ignatius to learn more about this amazing saint!

The View from the Box

I’ve completed three shifts at the UN GIFT box so far over the course of the Pan Am Games with two shifts to go during the Parapan Am Games. There have been many volunteers on hand to greet people, share information about human trafficking, and encourage people to sign our petition asking the Ontario provincial government to develop an action plan to address human trafficking.

This experience has been my first as a sort of streetside evangelist. It offered me a lot of food for thought as I had plenty of time to observe the people passing by on the sidewalk.

The first thing I noticed was how individual focused our society has become. This was not a total revelation, of course, because our society has been heading this way for a long time, but this was my first experience observing it in action for a prolonged period. Just standing on the lawn of St. James Cathedral, I got a real eyeful of the kind of society we have become.

People of all generations strode past me purposefully, avoiding any kind of eye contact, ignoring my friendly “Good morning!” and “Hello!” and completely focused on getting to their destination. Some wore headphones and sunglasses to block out the noise and the sights around them, some were busy talking on their phones, and some just didn’t want to engage.

A lot of the time I felt invisible.

(Though one instance made me laugh out loud: some guy burst out, “I have a girlfriend!” when he walked past me a second time and I said hello to him again.)

And to be honest, it didn’t bother me a whole lot. Mostly because I saw myself when I looked at these people. I am guilty of being self-absorbed a lot of the time. On my way around the city, I have dodged the energetic Plan Canada and Medicins Sans Frontiers volunteers many times. I walk quickly and purposefully, sometimes looking at my phone, not really noticing the people around me.

Standing there, as Sarah-the-streetside-human trafficking-evangelist, I realized that that is NOT the kind of person I want to be. I don’t want to rush through life ignoring other people. I don’t want to make other people feel invisible or ignored. Instead, I will try to walk more slowly (although it’s very hard) and force myself to stop and spend a few minutes chatting with the people who are trying to get my attention and see where the Holy Spirit leads.

The second thing I noticed was how open and friendly many of the homeless people in this city are. They have a voice that they want to share and it is beautiful, though usually heart-breaking. More often than not, the men and women who were living on the streets were more ready and interested to engage with me and talk than the more affluent-seeming people walking down the street. And quite often they would share their stories with me. I was moved by their openness and I sensed that they don’t really have the opportunity to talk to people who will just listen to them. No one asked me for money, they just wanted to talk. They signed the petition. They wished me good luck and then kept on with their day.

The view from the box revealed God at work in the most unexpected ways.

Panamania!

The Pan Am Games are in full swing and the city is enjoying the party! There’s a lot more colour and life in the downtown core these days.

¡¡

I was also busy at the UN GIFT box this weekend…more to come on that experience later this week. But for now, some photos.

GIFT Box @ Toronto Pan Am Games

London 2012 GIFT box
http://www.un.org/wcm/content/site/sport/home/newsandevents/pastevents/london2012/template/news_item.jsp?cid=36523

The Pan Am and Parapan Am Games are taking place in Toronto this summer (10-26 July and 7-15 August, respectively)! 250,000 visitors are expected to descend upon the city for the Games (some of them are already here – I’ve met them on the subway). With a crowd that size, this is a great opportunity to spread the word about human trafficking in Canada and around the world.

Over the next two months I will be volunteering at the UN.GIFT (United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking) box located at St. James Cathedral at 65 Church St. (King/Church) in downtown Toronto. Created by STOP THE TRAFFIK and UN.GIFT, the Faith Alliance to End Human Trafficking here in Toronto is the driving force bringing the GIFT box to Canada. Versions of the GIFT box have been featured at other international sporting events like the London 2012 Olympics and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland. GIFT boxes have also appeared in Brazil, Slovakia, and the U.S.

What do you know about human trafficking?

Human trafficking is the recruitment of movement of a person, by deception or coercion, for the purpose of exploitation.
People who are trafficked are often bought or sold for forced labour, sexual exploitation, forced street crime, domestic servitude or even the sale of organs and human sacrifice.

Did you know that Ontario has the highest level of human trafficking in Canada? 511 people reported to have experienced human trafficking in only three years. Human trafficking is an underreported activity so this number is expected to be much higher.

If you want to combat human trafficking in Canada and raise awareness of this issue, go the Faith Alliance website or look for a local organization fighting human trafficking in your city.

In the newsletter!

The Canadian IBVM Province’s newsletter this month is chock-full of interesting information. Take a look Newsletter 2015 Junel