Come on, Folks

Come on folks, we can do this….

United Nations Covid response

I feel like Rick Mercer wanting to rant a bit concerning the Covid Pandemic.  We have been on this journey for eight months.  In the beginning, we all felt it would pass like the flu.  But that has not been the case.  This virus, the enemy we can’t see, can kill us.  But why do we seem so ready to tempt fate and ignore the very simple and possible guidance we hear day after day about washing hands, social distancing, wearing a face mask, and stay home?  It is not perfect, but these behaviours can make a huge difference.  I don’t understand why so many seem to ignore or push against this simple guidance.

Those who claim these guidelines are violating my rights, I want to ask what if exercising your rights are endangering me or others around me?  Our rights are not absolute, nor are they only personal.  These human rights assume we live in communal settings and we have to balance the personal and the communal.  We must work together. 

Are these guidelines inconvenient?  Yes, sometimes they are, but we are strong enough and mature enough to weigh what will benefit all of us.   Are we tired of the impact this virus has had on our lives?  Yes, but if we value our own lives, and the lives of loved ones, and neighbours in the towns and cities and rural areas around us, we can encourage each other to keep living in safety. And we know that many scientists working in labs in Canada and other countries are working long hours to find a vaccine to help all of us.  The motto we see on TV in our schools, at our health care facilities, and in our businesses, and written on sidewalks in chalk by children – WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER – are not empty words.  We need to listen to each other, see the multiple perspectives that need to be considered, and we can hang in together until a vaccine is available to help us resume our usual activities.  In the meantime, help each other at home, call a neighbor or friend and family member, facetime or zoom someone you care about, and encourage each other.  And as we all stay close to home in the weeks ahead, we will get through this.  And those of us for whom faith is important, we can turn to those spiritual centres within and find some peace and calm to help us through the day.  Really all we have is the present moment and it can teach us a lot about ourselves, and it is full of many blessings.

-Sister Joan Atkinson, CSJ

Celebrating a Courageous Woman

Mother St. John Fontbonne

As we celebrate the anniversary of the death of Mother St. John Fontbonne on November 22nd may her courage and flexibility inspire us during these trying times.

Covid-19 is certainly not the first set of circumstances to threaten the lives of the Sisters of St. Joseph. We can recall the effects of the French Revolution when our Sisters, and Mother St. John, our Foundress, were imprisoned and facing the possibility of execution on the guillotine when the fall of Robespierre (1794) resulted in the release of the prisoners and the end of the Revolution. Mother St. John left few writings, what has endured are the actions and the traditions she established.

May we embrace the change that these times beckon for the good of all humanity and creation.

““From the first days of her religious life, Mother Saint John had learned to adjust her plans and dreams to respond to the needs that surrounded her. In Salesian terms, she embraced the need to continually adapt herself, ceding her personal desire, and following God’s will as it became manifest through the signs of the times. (page 67)

Instead of conceiving a plan and making it happen, she opened herself so that the plan of God could take flesh and become history - in her and in her neighbour. (page 68)”

-taken from Anything of which Woman is Capable, Volume I, by Mary M. McGlone, CSJ. 2017. Permission granted for reprint.”

View the History of Mother St. John Fontbonne: Part I & II:

12 Steps to a Compassionate Life - A Book Review

Reviewed by Barbara Stanbridge, IHM, Detroit, MI.

Karen Armstrong, prolific author and religion historian, won a TED grant in 2008 to create a process for reinfusing our global society with compassion. Scholars from six major world religions created a “Charter of Compassion” and have been working ever since with nations and groups to sign on.

In this brief but inspiring book, Armstrong shows how compassion is fundamental to all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions and using the scaffolding of 12 steps, lays out a process for individuals and groups to build their compassion competencies.

Each step is examined and illustrated by way of practices: learning about compassion; looking at our world; compassion for yourself; empathy; mindfulness; action; how little we know; how we should speak to one another; concern for everybody; knowledge; recognition; and love your enemies. This is not another self-help, new age book, but rather a deeply spiritual book for the spiritual seeker with the capacity for reflection. It is in the best tradition of Confucius, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, the Dalai Lama, Etty Hillesum, Dorothy Day, Florence Nightingale and Nelson Mandela.

Perhaps there is nothing more important for us to get a grasp of in these days of polarization than compassion. Karen Armstrong lays out a path.

-Barbara Stanbridge, IHM, Used with kind permission.