Laudato Si as a GPS for navigating through this uncertain time

This week we are invited to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the publication of Laudato Si, this key and prophetic encyclical from Pope Francis. As we are in the midst of a global pandemic and sanitary crisis that acts both as a revelation of our ills, dysfunctions and lights, good practices, this text takes on even more prominence. We can’t deny any longer the depth of our social and ecological crisis. At the same time, we are more aware of our interdependency and connectedness. For instance, the last synod on the Amazon has shown us how our choices and lifestyles in western countries have a great impact on the Pan-Amazon region and other places all over the world. This crisis is emphasizing Pope Francis’ teaching “that “Everything is interconnected” (Laudato si’, §70, 138, 240)  and illustrates that “we are all in the same boat” as Pope Francis reminded us during his meditation Urbi et orbi. We realize that the only way to go out from this pandemic is to act together in solidarity. Thus we are called to be in the crew with others to seek together how to navigate on a stormy sea with a lot of different currents. This crisis is a call to think and act collaboratively to design the course to follow and to implement the right maneuvers to move the boat in the right direction.

But the good news is that we are not lost on the ocean, we have already good roadmaps and GPS!  Laudato Si and the synod on the Amazon’s Final Document with its key words – alliance, conversion, integral ecology, synodality, mission, and dialogue – along with Querida Amazonia structured in four chapters – 1/ A social dream 2/ a cultural dream 3/ an ecological dream 4/ an ecclesial dream - give us clear and interesting guidelines that are proving to be truly prophetic in the face of this crisis. It expresses a strong call to change. It reveals how we are at the end of a system that destroys the earth and generates so many inequalities. And it is noticeable to see that the lockdown reinforces this awareness, as many people staying at home have discovered that they could live a simpler life and that it is good for the environment.

This crisis is a test that requires our creativity and audacity. This time is also a “Kairos”, an opportunity to stop and check in to choose a better future and build a better world. As we need to stay at home, we are confronted more closely with sickness and death, we are experimenting with our personal and communal vulnerability at different levels. So we have to go deeper in ourselves, to reflect on our lives and to discern the signs of the times that mean a common listening of the Holy Spirit through an attitude of decentering to listen to the peripheries. In the course of my religious life and my various ministries I have experienced how important and fruitful is it to cross the borders of our own congregation and to promote synergy, inter-congregational reflection and action, and more broadly, sharing with other sisters and brothers from different culture, vocation, spirituality, faith. May this challenging and uncertain time help us to foster the wave of people of goodwill working for the common good.

Sr Nathalie Becquart, xmcj, Boston May 18, 2020

What is this time teaching us?

危机 The characters for the word “crisis” in Chinese are made of characters meaning both disaster and opportunity.  If you, like myself, have been following some of the news feeds about the Corona-19 pandemic I think we are hearing more about the disaster side caused by this virus and missing the moments that are also presenting opportunity to us.

Some may wonder what I mean by this.  For sure there is a great deal of pain, of loss, and anxiety present in these days and none of us have escaped this.  Our lives feel more confined, more disoriented.  At the same time, we may find moments in which we can ask ourselves questions like, “how do I understand what this moment is teaching me about myself or about the world in which I live”.  Pre-pandemic days were often so full that we didn’t notice questions like this raising up within us.  But in these days questions are very close to the surface.  We have more time to be with them and are discovering more of what is most important.  We are learning that people we may have taken for granted are really essential in helping through day by day - people who stock the grocery shelves, or collect our garbage, or care for our loved ones at home or in a health care facility, or the police and fire departments, or the transit drivers, or the farmers, and truck drivers.  We are all interconnected and working together we discover that all of us are important and we all depend on each other.

My sister sent me a YouTube link that I share here.  The stories we tell ourselves and others are very important.  This a story I want to remember. Perhaps it is a moment in which opportunity is offered to us.

Stay well and be safe.

- Joan Atkinson, CSJ


A Tale of Hope for Uncertain Times

Many of us acquainted with well-written children’s books have observed that just below the surface lies a wisdom that only adults can truly appreciate. One recent example supporting this observation is the whimsical tale, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse penned and illustrated by Charlie Mackesy. This modern-day fable offers numerous mini-lessons on vulnerability and courage, personal significance, forgiveness of self, and friendship.  These lessons are appreciated fully only by adult readers who have the advantage of their life experiences.                

By happenstance, this little book came to my attention through an email from a friend. She thought, I, as an avid reader, might be interested in it. I googled to learn more about this little children’s book. Reviews pointed out that Charlie Mackesy’s tale was quickly becoming adored by its adult readers. Although released in October 2019, predating the onset of the pandemic, it contains messages well suited to these days.

Well, of course, I couldn’t wait to enjoy this book and had it downloaded to my Kindle. It touched my heart as I read the simple but profound dialogue, initially in the encounters between the Boy and the Mole, and their later meetings with the Fox and eventually the Horse. I was not disappointed by the adages delivered in their little nuggets of conversations nestled among  ‘just drawn’ looking images. I found myself being gifted with wisdom akin to the philosophy of life embedded in the lines of Winnie the Pooh, The Wind in the Willows, and The Giving Tree.

What I possess now is a new-found treasure of sixty-seven pages. Perhaps, especially rich was the opportunity provided by the book and the circumstances afforded by the pandemic to share her recommended book over the telephone with my friend now in self-isolation. I know our mutual story time was memorable for both of us. In her self-isolation daily scribbles, she wrote to her contacts:

“Last evening one of my friends who lives just a few doors down the hallway called to read me a bedtime story.  I dimmed the lights, wrapped myself in my prayer shawl, all ears to listen to the tale she was about to read to me, on the phone.”

“To have a story read to you is such an exquisite gift. Listening to my friend’s voice with the lovely inflections as she read and described the magnificent drawings in the book with such tenderness, was balm for my weary soul.  It was magical.”

My friend and I invite you to enjoy this endearing tale. Already translated into seventeen languages, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, is well on its way to becoming a classic children’s book.

-Nancy Wales csj | Magdalena Vogt cps