Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

“Widen our love, good Spirit” is one of my favourite lines from J.R. Peacey’s hymn Filled with the Spirit’s Power. Perhaps you will sing it or hear it sung over the next week as we focus our prayer and conversation on Christian Unity. This annual week in January gives us a chance not to omit our concern for all peoples of faith and spirituality, but to settle into one of the pews of knowing God and seek deeper relationships. Those of us who gather as sisters and brothers in Christ, know that Christianity is only divided by the lines of separation that we humans make. As Sisters of St. Joseph we live with an underlining principle that all are one, so we keep trying to widen our tent of welcome and hospitality.

From January 18 – 25, wherever Christians gather in Canada, there will be services prepared by the Canadian Council of Churches, Canadian Centre for Ecumenism and the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism. These adapted materials from the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for the Promoting of Christian Unity, this year develop the theme “They showed us unusual kindness.” (Acts 28:2) Scripture relates the story of hospitality shown by islanders to those who had been shipwrecked.

Hospitality usually entails not only reaching out to the other, but providing a safe place to listen to the life stories of each other, to share food and establish a rapport. Who will you meet this year? What gifts will you share? Will you let spirit widen your love?

https://www.weekofprayer.ca/

https://www.hymnlyrics.org/lyricsf/filled_with_the_spirits_power.html

submitted by Sr. Loretta Manzara

Our Distorted 20/20 Vision

Our fragile world seemed to be on a path of destruction, from day one of this new year, this new decade. Raging fires continued to ravage large parts of Australia. As if that inferno wasn’t enough, three days into 2020, the killing of Qasem Soleimani resulted in Donald Trump pushing the U.S. and Iran to the brink of war. If that isn’t starting a new decade with a bang, then I don’t know what is. Isn’t it ironic that with our supposedly 20/20 vision we are displaying such impaired, myopic vision?

Then, merely eight days into this new year, the Ukraine International Airline Flight 752 crashes over Iran shortly after take-off. There are no survivors. Among the 176 people whose lives were abruptly ended there were 57 Canadians. There were also 82 Iranians, 11 Ukrainians and nationals from Sweden, the UK, Afghanistan and Germany. After days of denial, Iran has claimed it unintentionally shot down the Ukrainian plane, attributing the crash to radar activity and fear of U.S. retaliation. 

What a fragile world we live in! While still shaken by this horrendous tragedy, and reeling with heightened fear of war, a further tragedy unfolded. Two earthquakes hit Puerto Rico and several islands. Now, we could argue that all these tragedies happened far away, and do not touch our lives here in Canada.  Not true.  Canada is mourning the tragic death of the Canadians who died in the plane crash.  Across Canada, flags have been lowered to half-mast to honour those who died, and vigils are being held in many cities.  Several Canadian universities, among them Western here in London Ontario where I live, are grieving for the faculty members and students who died in the crash.  

As disturbing as the beginning of 2020 has been, there has also been a great deal of good. There are, for example, the myriads of caring, generous people, like the many Canadian and American firefighters, who travelled to the other side of the world to help curtail the raging inferno ravaging Australia.  These people are shining examples of what the fox told the little prince about the ability to see, namely that “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye” (Saint Antoine de Exupery; The Little Prince).  Though this year unfolds so painfully, instead of cursing the dark, these amazing people set aside their own agendas to reach out to those in need.  These people warm our hearts, fill us with hope and encourage us to believe in the good which resides in our broken world.  I am writing this blog on the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus, when God called Jesus his Beloved.  While pondering those words, I turned to Henri Nouwen’s book, Life of the Beloved, in which he assures his reader that all of us are the beloved of God. He writes, “Once we deeply trust that we ourselves are precious in God’s eyes, we are able to recognize the preciousness of others and their unique places in God’s heart.”

As 2020 continues to unfold day by day, let us pray for 20/20 vision, looking at everyone through God’s glasses. This will ensure that we see with the heart, since “what is essential is invisible to the eye.”  Let us pray for each other, for our friends, our enemies, for world leaders, that they, too, may see with the heart, and peace can envelope all peoples.

- Sr. Magdalena Vogt, cps

 

Listen my people, your hopes are answered.

Listen, and hear my voice: your hopes are answered.

 

God waits for his people to cast off their cloak of fear,

And to walk upon this earth. God is so near.

 

(Paul-Andre Durocher in the Catholic Book of Worship III; No. 309)

 

 

 

Restorative Justice

Recently I listened to a radio interview in which a high school principal described the beneficial outcomes of her school’s restorative justice approach to problems such as conflict and violence in her school.  She reported that when students and their parents gain an understanding of each other and grasp their differing perspectives, then reconciliation and community building replace divisions.  The interview caused me to reflect on my observations of community justice practiced in northern Canada, and of some situations I encounter as I speak with inmates at the Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre in Ontario.

In the small, isolated communities in the Northwest Territories and in Yellowknife, I observed how some criminal offenses were diverted from the courts to community justice committees.  In Yellowknife I frequently sat as a member on such a committee.  An offender considered eligible by the crown prosecutor and others would appear before the Justice Committee. Prior to the hearing committee members would review the police statement describing what had occurred and consider how we would proceed.  Proceedings would then begin; the offender and persons whose lives he or she had impacted such as parents or friend of a teenager may be present.  A police person, store owner, employer, property owner, or other person victimized by the offender might also attend the session.

In the hearings, members of the Justice Committee questioned the offender and all others present. The goal of the restorative justice program was to restore unity in the community. Attitudes of offenders changed as they learned of suffering their actions had caused for parents, employers, home owners and others. The attitudes of committee members and victims often softened as they observed changed perspectives in the offender, circumstances of his or her life, and regret for having caused hardship for others.  The Community Justice Committee would then decide on whether to send an offender back to court to face charges or develop a plan for restitution and learning.  This may include assigned reading and an essay, community service, or other remedy.  When the offender completed the assigned actions charges would be dropped and the offender would avoid having a criminal record.  

Prior to the advent of airplanes, electricity, phones, snowmobiles, RCMP, etc. in the far north, community was essential for survival; No one could survive alone, especially in the long winter months. Community members actively worked to bring about reconciliation and peace when harm occurred.  Offenders who failed to change their ways were banished from the community and thereby rendered at risk of death.  It is not surprising that restorative justice flourished in the north and evolved in modern times to community justice committees.

I wonder what it would take to change the focus of our justice system, to adopt restorative justice in appropriate cases in place of retributive justice.  Is it possible for us to find ways of building unity and peace rather than using methods that deepen divisions among us?

- Sister Patricia McKeon, csj

Some related articles: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/opinion-eggleton-saint-germain-restorative-justice-1.4884839

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/restorative-justice-system-criminal-cases-youth-1.5213583

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/racist-facebook-posts-restorative-justice-1.4982510

https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2008-03-lmrj/2008-03-lmrj-eng.pdf