Salesian Peace and Justice

Bridging the Language Gap

2010-12-21T06:04:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: The following entry is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works. Fr. Mike reflects on his experience of trying to learn Spanish in his new ministry in Camden, and the challenges that accompany this new task. It is easy for us to resist anything that takes work, but by embracing the challenge, we can understand more about what it means to be human and enter into meaningful relationships with those who we believe are different from us. Work for justice is meaningless unless we are willing to meet people where they are and enter into their worlds. Language is one important aspect of all people's worlds, and Fr. Mike captures this well in the following entry.

Is there anything closer to us than our language? We use language inside our minds to think. Words enable us to connect to others and to God. They enable us to understand feelings and experiences. We have vocabulary to express everything from the light and fun to the profound and serious. Language is such a complicated and human thing: nearly as close to us as our breath or each beat of our heart.

Language is a huge part of the experience of Camden. Most of our people are new Americans from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, or Mexico. There are also families from other regions of Latin America, and even one French speaking family at Mass each Sunday from Senegal. Though we have been here since August 2008, I have just in September begun leading the celebration of Mass in Spanish. I began gradually, starting with the opening rites: the sign of the cross and the litany of praise at the beginning of Mass, “Senor, ten piedad. Cristo, ten piedad. Senor, ten piedad.” ---Familiar, short and repetitive. Over the months of this semester, I have haltingly expanded the amount of Spanish prayers to the point where I can read the entire Mass---minus gospel and homily---in my new language. “Read” is the correct verb; I barely raise my eyes from the page. One Sunday, I got to the word “merezcamos” toward the end of the Eucharistic Prayer and thought to myself, “Why did I not practice more?” Defeated by the sight of all those consonants, I just said, “and an ‘M. word’ that I can’t say … por tu Hijo Jesucristo. Amen.” Not very professional.

The recent comment of a woman after the Spanish weekday Liturgy encouraged me to plunge into the entire Mass. She said, “You know more Spanish than you think.” (“No,” I thought, “I really don’t.”) She went on, “No matter how badly you pronounce all the words or how many sounds you get wrong, we are grateful that you try.” I was tempted to just let her comment stand as a well-meaning, backhanded compliment. But what she says is true; there is something to just doing it. The fact that I am getting better with the prayers I have been using for a couple months—gives me confidence that there can be progress.

I never studied Spanish in school. I took French beginning in 8th grade and continuing into college. French has been very helpful for pilgrimage to Salesian sites: Troyes, Annecy, and Dijon, and for greeting our African family at Mass, “bon jour.” We had to take Latin in the seminary. I resisted it at the time, but I am now grateful for the exposure.

Language is so complicated. But the woman from morning Mass was right to push me to try more.

My Spanish is emerging from a primordial soup of sounds. Music at our newly combined parish is amazing---uplifting and full of energy. For two and half years I have sung along, making Spanish sounds---more than actually singing. It has been like what babies do learning to talk---cooing, trying out sounds, playing with words. Now that immersion experience is paying off, albeit in the very specific context of the Mass. In addition there are more Spanish words than I realized that are part of U.S. culture: names, place names, names of food, common words and phrases (hola, adios, gracias, nada, vamos, santa, san, amigo, senor) all help. Familiarity with Latin and French give some clues for Spanish words in the soup. Cognates, Spanish words that are similar in English, help a lot.

The analogy with baby sounds brings us to a major issue for people learning a new language. It can be very humiliating---or humbling. Essayist David Sedaris writes about the frustrations and realities of trying to make a new language your own in his book, Me Talk Pretty One Day. He writes that he realizes he sounds like his immigrant Greek grandfather in the U.S. He realizes that his vocabulary and understanding of how things are said is just never going to be anything like natural and smooth. And he is a writer---someone who relishes expressing ideas with crisp and vivid language. There is no way to get around the fact that this is a handicap. He’s an adult, but in his adopted culture, he has to talk baby talk and endure the assumptions that come with that.

My experience of learning another language in this way, gives a partial window into the experience of our immigrant neighbors. The Oblate pastor here, Matt Hillyard, often comments how patient people are about his Spanish language efforts, noting that trying to speak a foreign language is what they do all day. So they know what it is like to make errors---and to just go on doing the best they can.

DSW volunteer, Tim Gallagher, teaches English to four young guys newly arrived from the Dominican Republic. Observing this process has given another window into how complicated language is---even though native speakers can take it for granted. One day I drove them home with Tim, and I listened to them learn to use the words “right” and “left.” What could be more simple? But it was not for them. Listen to how many sounds are involved in “left.” Look at the word “right;” how do we get that sound from that combination of letters? (Another example is the word I messed up recently in a newsletter: medal ---or metal, meddle, mettle.)

This experience in 21st century Camden fits the pattern of immigration to the U.S. since the beginning. People describe neighborhoods in Camden in the 30s and 40s where everyone spoke Italian or Polish or Puerto Rican Spanish. At one point in the 1800s New York City had the largest German speaking population of any city, more than Vienna, second only to Berlin.

Though I try to claim that I am 200% Irish, my father actually is Polish. His parents came from Europe as young adults and learned to speak only very broken English. His parish grade school taught class in both languages. This was bilingual education before the word was invented. But no one taught our generation even a single word of Polish.
This is often the pattern in our neighborhood as well: older people speak only Spanish, working age people speak both, but children understand Spanish, but are most comfortable with English.

Highlighting the other half of my background, I sometimes joke that I grew up speaking Gaelic at home, but of course that is not true. But the experience of the Irish having our very language taken from us, gives some understanding of older generations of Latino people here who morn the fact the youngest generation might lose the language of their people. Language carries the culture and part of their identity. But the Irish have famously made our own the language of our bullying neighbor. Our writers and talkers make masterful use of the English. So Latinos make English their own, enriching the living language in the process.

This experience colors how we might hear comments like, “Why don’t they just learn English?” Or “He/she doesn’t even try to speak English.” Or “This is America; speak English.” Language is a complicated tool; patience and understanding are called for.

A Teen Reflects on Service in Camden

2010-12-17T09:01:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: The following entry is from Emma Dolson, a student at Georgetown Visitation Prep in Washington, DC, who did service in Camden this summer with De Sales Service Works.

This summer, I went to Camden, New Jersey for a week, with the intention of getting 50 service hours. This summer, I left Camden, New Jersey a changed person who gained SO much more than required service hours.

To put it simply, Camden was life-changing. I know most people say that about service trips, but I really, really mean it, as I am sure the rest of the girls that went on the trip would say as well. I’ll tell you one of the many experiences I had, to give you an idea of what we did from August 2 to August 6, 2010.

The first morning we were there, half of us went to the Cathedral to give out sandwich bags to the homeless. At first, all we did was pack the bags with different snacks. But after, we each got a chance to actually hand them out to the people. We were instructed to say hi, and have a smile on, which didn’t seem too hard. For my turn, I went up to the door and began to give bags out.

Most of the people that came up looked homeless. But then a girl came up, and she told me her name was Kelly. She is 24. I had a skewed vision of what I thought homeless people looked like, and she definitely did not fit the profile. She was pretty, young, fit. She looked just like us. I remembered her because of how out of place she looked. The next day, we went to a homeless day shelter. Again, we were instructed to say hi with a smiling face, and try to start up a conversation. This was the hardest part for me, and I think for most girls there. My mom, one of the chaperones, came with us that day. She, like the rest of us, was uneasy, but—I’m sure to try and set a good example for us—sat with a couple and began to talk. It was Kelly and her boyfriend. Apparently, Kelly was from a wealthy family in Philadelphia, and an avid swimmer in high school. However, she got addicted to heroin, and her family kicked her out. So now, she and her boyfriend are living under a bridge and struggling through every day to help each other stop taking drugs. My mom got the whole story, and by the end all three were in tears.

After we left, my mom said she was going to buy them a month’s worth of bus tokens so they could temporarily live with Kelly’s boyfriend’s family, and try and sort their lives out. They only had enough money to pay for medicine to keep them off heroin, but not enough for transportation to his mom’s house. The next day, I saw Kelly again at the sandwich service. I told her who I was, and the look on her face when she remembered my mom was the happiest face I’d seen on anyone in Camden. Both she and her boyfriend could not thank my mom (through me) enough.

So my mom gave Kelly a month’s worth of bus fare. But more than that, she gave the gift of her time and recognized Kelly’s humanity. People in poverty are not used to others listening to their stories, so simply giving your time to listen really means a lot. At that moment, I realized that little acts of kindness can go a long way. You don’t need to do something huge to make a difference. When people have nothing, giving a smile and a happy hello seriously impact that person’s life. My mom made a difference in their lives. All of us there made a difference in the lives of the people that we met. And, most importantly, they made a difference in our lives.
It’s hard to explain a service trip, as most people who have been on one would say. There is just something about the experience that cannot, no matter how hard you try, be put into words. So I can’t really tell you how it feels to go to Camden. I can, however, tell you to go. So go. Go play in an open fire hydrant with kids from the projects. Go talk to a homeless person, give them your story and listen to theirs.

Camden changed my life. And I know it changed my mom’s. Helping others, especially this close to home, and realizing that they aren’t much different from you and me, put my life into perspective, and I am so grateful I participated in this trip.

Thank you!

November Saints of Justice

2010-11-30T09:03:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: The following blog entry is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ.

Two of my favorite saints have feast days in the second half of November. I want to share some highlights of their lives. Each gives us a good example of Christian charity and work for justice in the particular circumstances of his life and culture.

Mission
St. Roque Gonzalez, SJ, served in an amazing project referred to as the “Reductions.” The name comes from the Spanish verb reducciones, “to gather together.” These missions gathered the Guarani Indians together for their protection and advancement in the colonial world. The Jesuits shared the cutting-edge advancements of their day in agriculture, technology, arts, reading and writing and the gospel. They helped the nomadic Indian peoples establish settled communities where they shaped an economy that combined collective ventures with private enterprises, and where there was security from exploitation and enslavement.

Heaven on Earth
Summing up their approach to service, St. Roque wrote, “God does not command the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ to be preached with the noise of arms and with pillage. What he rather commands is the example of a good life and holy teaching.” In fact the sound that accompanied life in the Reductions was most often amazing music, both the highly refined Baroque music of the time and the sound of flutes, pipes, whistles and fireworks that the Indians loved. The movie The Mission tells the story and features Ennio Morricone’s breathtaking music capturing the love of beauty in these communities. http://youtu.be/MuyQQD-EAOQ The missionaries relied on the belief that the beauty, truth and goodness in human endeavors point to the Ultimate, to God, and will lead people to conversion and the rich, full life of the Gospel.

This approach is one that St. Roque shared with St. Francis de Sales, who remarked using a homespun image, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” The attitude stands on confidence that the attractiveness of God will do more to bring people to faith and good life than any amount of argumentation, appeals to guilt, or force. Roque is remembered also as one who worked along side his people, building, farming, healing, and teaching, as well as preaching and leading prayer.

Eventually Roque Gonzalez y de Santa Cruz gave his life with two companions, Juan de Castillo and Alonso Rodriguez, in a remote Reduction. The martyrdom was a tragic end to his life of service, but he really gave his life each day to his people for God, and we can still learn from him.

Make the World
At their highest point, as many as 100,000 indigenous people lived in 57 settlements in Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. They continued until 1768 when the Jesuits were suppressed in Spanish and Portuguese dominions, and the greed of the colonial masters destroyed the communities. The movie The Mission focuses on the events that led to the end. In the movie, after the San Carlos Reduction had been brutally destroyed, and the Indians and Jesuits massacred, the final scene of the movie ends with the papal representative, Msgr. Altamirano, musing with a colonial leader. The legate had agreed to close the Reductions in exchange for promises that Spain and Portugal would not expel the Jesuits from their dominions and thereby shut down all their good works there. Altamirano thought he was sacrificing these communities for a larger good. In the scene, we watch him realize how deeply wrong he was. He speaks with the official about how these communities were a clear example of God’s kingdom begun on earth and how awful it was that they were dismantled in a violent way. The official partially agrees with him, saying that it was unfortunate, but inevitable, “because we must work in the world; the world is thus.” Then the prelate replies, “No, Senhor Hontar, thus have we made the world. Thus have I made it.”

The example of the St. Roque and the Reducations challenges us and encourages us to do our part cooperating with God to make his kingdom in justice, peace, compassion “now as it is in heaven.”

This Latin America Jesuit and St. Hugh of Lincoln have no connection except that they, like all the saints, took the gospel seriously and made it real in their time and place. His world was very different from our own: medieval Europe, which is often treated either as a fairytale world or as dark, ignorant, and corrupt. The Middle Ages should not be romanticized or dismissed, the life of this man of his world has a lot of wisdom and inspiration to offer us in ours.

Rooted in Christ
St. Hugh (c.1140-1200) was a French monk and a member of the strict, monastic order, the Carthusians. He flourished in that life of silence and prayer. Hugh was chosen to establish the first Charterhouse in England, part of the penance of King Henry II for his involvement in the death of St. Thomas a Becket. As abbot, he distinguished himself by organizing the new monastery very effectively. On several occasions he had to oppose the King on issues of justice and Church jurisdiction. In setting up the monastic foundation, the King acquired land by various questionable means; Hugh insisted that he compensate fairly all the people whose land was given for the order, “to the last penny.” Another example: Henry frequently delayed nomination of bishops in order to claim Church revenues for his own purposes. This was particularly notable in the large Diocese of Lincoln, without a shepherd for 18 years. Hugh’s involvement in this justice issue, and his reputation for goodness and able leadership, led Henry to promote him as bishop of Lincoln. It should be mentioned that the king also relied on Hugh for counsel and spiritual guidance, despite the honest fraternal correction (or perhaps because of it.)

I quote Sarah Thomas in Butler’s Lives of the Saints to again illustrate St. Hugh’s deep commitment to justice, in this case related to a minority group facing an outbreak of religious fundamentalism:
"Another salient characteristic was his fearless concern for justice. During the third Crusade, (1189-92), for example, there was a nasty epidemic of anti-Semitism in England, amounting to persecution. In Stamford and in Northampton, as well as in Lincoln, Hugh, alone and unarmed, faced an armed and vicious mob, and managed somehow to lower temperatures and persuade the rioters to spare their intended victims."

I would like to suggest that fearlessness and gentle strength we can observe in the lives of both these saints was connected very directly to their commitment to contemplative prayer and liturgy that grounded them in Christ for whatever they needed to face in work and service. A similar commitment to contemplative prayer and the liturgy in our lives will also inspire us to work tirelessly for justice and peace in our world.

St. Hugh of Lincoln, pray for us.
St. Roque Gonzalez, pray for us.

Finding a Calling in Camden

2010-11-12T09:35:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: The following entry is from Jenny Mayo, Communications Director for Georgetown Visitation in Washington, DC. The article reflects on the experience of students and faculty from different Visitation schools throughout the country who spent a week of servie in Camden, NJ, with De Sales Service Works. The Oblates have a strong connection with the Visitation Sisters because one of the founders of the Oblates, Mother Mary de Sales Chappuis, was a Visitation nun. We both treasure Salesian spirituality and seek to spread this spirituality in everything we do. This post originally appeared in the Summer/Fall issue of Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School Alumnae Magazine.

Camden, New Jersey, sits just across the Delaware River from bright, bustling Philadelphia, Pennsylvania---and yet, it resembles a war zone. Blocks of abandoned buildings crumble like bombed-out targets, and its alleys teem with bits of life left behind: old furniture, overstuffed bags of trash, used syringes. The stats aren’t reassuring either: Nearly half of Camden’s population falls below the poverty line, and its crime rate was the highest of all U.S. cities in 2009.

Beneath its decaying, dysfunctional surface, however----in fact because of it, Camden boasts a sizable community of individuals and organizations seeking to help improve the situation. This summer, students from three Visitation communities spent a week working with and learning from one such group: the inspiring De Sales Service Works, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales ministry that uses Salesian teaching to bring beauty and hope to those who so desperately need it.

The trip was this year’s installment of Vistory, a summertime meeting of Visitation schools for service and sisterhood. Georgetown Visitation’s Christian Service Director Kathleen Looney was instrumental in anchoring this year’s program in Camden and believed that De Sales Service Works had a lot to teach the participating students.

“When we were thinking about this year’s event,” she said, “we saw this ministry as a unique opportunity to experience Salesian spirituality in action. The true immersion into the community would offer us the privilege of seeing and learning first-hand the challenges and hope present there in Camden.”

Students from Georgetown, Minneapolis, and Mendota Heights, Minnesota all saw Kathleen’s vision come to fruition over the course of Vistory 2010. Their temporary residence was the Service Works house in the heart of Camden, which despite the surroundings, immediately felt warm, safe and welcoming---largely due to the tireless work of Service Works director, Father Mike McCue, OSFS, an impossibly kind, respected figure in the community. From this home base, the Visitation women set out to a variety of volunteer placements: passing out lunches and food bags at the Cathedral as part of its Sandwich Service, sharing conversations with the homeless at New Visions Day Shelter, and providing a free Bible camp for area youngsters.

Vistory participants were continually pushed to the edges of their comfort zones throughout their time in Camden, yet they embraced the experience, facing some rather shocking scenarios with courage, patience, and compassion. At New Visions, for example---where students were to provide a “ministry of presence” or be supportive companions for the homeless---one Mendota Heights student, Mary Sicoli, embraced a woman who intimidated even the chaperones. She was 30-something, olive-skinned and dark-haired. In a different set of life circumstances, the woman might have been what some people would consider beautiful. But now, sporting cuts across her face, a tube dress that didn’t stay put, and the most haunting drug-induced nod you’ve ever seen, she was difficult to look at. Mary did more than that; she grabbed the woman’s hand and held it for nearly half and hour, asking her name (Kelly), soliciting details of her life when she could (from a good home in the Philly suburbs, turned to drugs, got kicked out of her house and forced to live on the streets, recently in the hospital for pancreatitis), and telling her things were going to be OK.

“She didn’t want to let go of my hand,” Mary told the Vistory group while walking home with an awed look on her face.

At daily morning and evening prayer services, other students shared similar stories of how they had engaged the downtrodden in a loving, Christ-like manner, and how the people of Camden expressed their appreciation for these interactions. Vistory volunteers described massive smiles on the children at camp, and the heartfelt gratitude they witnessed when they did something as simple as hand out a sandwich. Even amid all the despair, these glimmers of hope and small moments of happiness uplifted and inspired the students. They found it possible to find beauty in ugly situations, and recognized that it felt good to do good.

Guest speakers like New Visions director Kevin Moran and Camden-based painter Brother Mickey McGrath, OSFS, further challenged the young women’s notions of poverty and dared them to do more to help others. Social worker Sister Helen Cole, SSJ, who mostly counsels the families of murder victims, gave an especially powerful, thought-provoking lecture. Her anecdotes encouraged girls to ponder what life might be like as a working, single mother without a washing machine, or as a school child who hasn’t eaten in two days and is coping with domestic violence at home. The unspoken question that lingered: “What do you take for granted in your own life?”

Mendota Heights’ Sarah Neuberger responded to this query during the Vistory closing night ceremony. She’d been pondering the fact that during the service week, she’d gone without many of the creature comforts she’s used to: a stereo, Internet, unlimited cell phone use, and so forth. She told her fellow volunteers, “It was really nice to realize so many things we think we need, we don’t actually need---because I had a very full life without them this week.”

Many other students admitted they also had new perspectives on a lot of things. Georgetown’s Tiffany Ogundipe ’13 said that now she understood that service was much more that just giving someone a meal; it could also be just listening, or even playing cards with someone in need of a friend.

Molly Ledwith ’11 said, “I think that Camden has taught me a lot of things, but mostly, it’s not to judge anything. Before I came here, I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, something bad is going to happen.’ but that’s obviously not the case. I’ve met some really amazing people here.”

One of the last speakers of the evening, Tonia Ogundipe ’13, opened up about her attitude about service before the trip---one that she surely has shared with others----and how that changed. “Starting out, I just wanted to get the service hours required by the school. But by staying here, I wanted to help people.” It is a mission she and many of her fellow Vistory volunteers will remain committed to far in to the future, long after they leave 35ht Street.

To learn more about De Sales Service Works, visit www.oblates.org/dsw.

The Power of the Little Virtues

2010-11-09T09:13:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: The following entry is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ.

Power
The alley near our house provides a quick spot for addicts to shoot up after a drug purchase out on the street. It is hard to know how to deal with people engaged in this activity. Our neighborhood, North Camden, is known as a center for drug activity, being close to highways, the Ben Franklin Bridge, and bus and train lines that allow easy access, in and out, for customers.

During the summer, members of the Mission Club from Bishop Verot High School in Ft. Myers, Florida, put up a stockade fence to keep people out of the yard of an abandoned house off the alley that was a popular spot for drug use. The students painted it a cheerful yellow and printed uplifting quotes from former Camden resident Walt Whitman and from St. Francis de Sales. We were under no illusion that this barrier or its positive messages would end addiction, the drug trade, and poverty, or even stop individuals from finding another place to get high. But we hoped perhaps it could make at least one person pause, and maybe penetrate the fog of addiction enough to help someone imagine another way.

One sure thing is that some people have found other places to take drugs. We continue to see the evidence of drug use all over the alley, especially in corners or anywhere there is not a clear sightline from the street. One place that has become popular is another abandoned backyard near us. Addicts have pealed back enough of the chain link fence to slip into the trash-filled, overgrown lot.

Recently, James, the son of our neighbor two houses away, cleaned up in that abandoned lot behind his elderly parents’ home. He is a tall, very solid looking guy; whenever addicts came to the yard, baseball bat at hand, he chased them away. This made me think.

When I see someone involved in drugs, I generally ask them to stop. Trying to be reasonable and respectful, I’ll say, “Hey, we are asking people not to shoot up here, with the church, and kids here and all.” Frequently I will introduce myself and ask their names to try to show respect, to try to normalize the encounter.

One example: recently I noticed a young woman crouched behind the trash dumpster, syringe in hand, arm out. I interrupted, getting her attention, asked her not to do that. She stopped and slid the orange cap back on the needle and tucked it into her top, as she prepared to move on. “I’m not from here; I didn’t know,” she said. I asked her name. “Lindsay.” “My name is Mike McCue, Father Mike, one of the priests here.” “Is there anyone you could call?” Clearly I was trying to disrupt her anonymity and make her uncomfortable with doing what she is doing. “Are you really addicted?” I asked. “I am sorry you are out here.”

I suppose a non-threatening, middle-aged man dressed as a priest can have that kind of conversation. But I have no idea what affect this approach has on anyone, beyond getting them to move on, especially with individuals whose freedom and reasoning are compromised by potent chemicals. I hope it makes connections that can lead to help.

One reason the Oblates are in this poor city is we bring the spiritual insight of Francis de Sales. Camden is a particularly harsh climate to test the value of little virtues St. Francis de Sales recommended so highly. Over and over we preach the power of the little virtues, but it is healthy to ask questions that examine the validity of axiomatic statements whose truth we take for granted.

Does love really have power? What is the potency of respect, gentleness, loyalty, forgiveness, patience, kindness…? The ultimate, big picture answer is that of course God will set all things right in the fullness of his kingdom. But here and now, what is the power of these virtues? How does it compare with the power of a stern attitude or a baseball bat, which seems to inspire respect, or at least fear and results? And is brandishing a bat necessarily unloving? And conversation, persuasion, kindness are not necessarily impractical or weak. What advances the justice and peace of the kingdom of God? What does the power of love, gentleness, and humility look like?

There is nothing like good questions to provoke thought. This essay represents my thoughts regarding these questions. I invite comment, feedback, disagreement, and sharing of your experience in this area.

Strength
One of Francis de Sales’ most familiar quotes is, “Nothing is a strong as gentleness; nothing as gentle as true strength.” Gentleness provides a good test for the power of little virtues because it is one, along with humility, that De Sales focused on. His quote implies a definition of gentleness that is not passive and “nice” because options with more impact are not available. Before I say any more about what gentleness is not, let me offer a definition. Gentleness is the power to give enough space to neighbors to allow them to be themselves, to let their individuality unfold and be expressed. We can describe gentleness as “strong” because it requires inner discipline to put self-interest, feelings, and ego concerns on hold to allow the other to have space.

Oblates and the volunteers who have joined us in Camden express Salesian gentleness in conversation and respectful encounters that have been our “tools,” so to speak, impacting the difficult situations in our city. This is in line with general Christian life: don’t we often face the dark powers of sickness, death, tragedy, guilt and sin with seemingly insignificant tools at our disposal: sacramental actions, compassion, prayer, faith, and just showing up? Like these, little virtues that seem like nothing have significant power.

Too often it is easy to put aside the Lord’s tools and revert to anger, passive aggression, or devaluing people, sometimes just to get things done. One week during the summer, a group of volunteers put on a vacation Bible camp. On the first day a dozen elementary school aged kids came for the camp. Three young teenaged boys, newly arrived from the Dominican Republic, also came. From the beginning, it was clear that they were not enjoying or getting much out of the day. They made it very clear, projecting an attitude of cool that put off all attempts to connect. I just wanted them to go home; we had enough going on without needing to deal with challenging adolescents. Fortunately, two members of the team had the gentle strength to persist with them. The kids ended up having a great week, teaching the team some Spanish, and opening up enough to begin the long process of learning a new language.

Aim for the Heart
In service we accomplish many tasks, but perhaps the most important goals focus on the interior, where progress or effects are hard to measure. I have a picture cut out from a newspaper. The setting is a civil rights event accompanied by a counter-protest involving skinheads and neo-Nazis. The photo is of a young Black woman physically shielding a young man, a skinhead, who had been taunting and antagonizing members of the gathering. The woman is quoted saying, “you can’t change anyone’s mind by hitting him over the head.”

Most often a “hit over the head” leads to hardening of differences and defenses. But there are times when a good “kick in the backside” can have power, can lead to good because it gets our attention. St. Paul knocked off his high horse provides a vivid example. He moved from being an official with no doubts or questions, to someone with a deep realization of how wrong he was and a willingness to begin again, from ground zero. I imagine most of us can think of times when a correction, an unwelcome truth, a difficult conversation or argument, failure, setback, sin, or humiliation stopped us in our tracks enough to get us to change direction or rethink choices.

A harsh word or a firm hand can come from vengeance or desire to crush. Anger or stern-ness can be defensive, cover for insecurity, all about ego things, expression of alpha male domination, or they can be tools in the service of good. Challenge or harshness from someone motivated by genuine concern for good and growth can make a significant intervention. The Christian range of tools includes firm language, anger, and “kicking in the backside,” when appropriate. Look at Jesus’ approach to some leaders in his time. These confrontations cannot be characterized as nice or weak; Jesus is firm, clear, and on target. I would also argue that he is gentle because he knows these leaders very well and never aims to destroy or delete them. He is all about teaching, bringing them to grace.

Character
Clearly harsh truths delivered in “hit-and-run” fashion, without gentleness, care or commitment can still provide opportunities for self-examination and growth. But the method can undermine the giver. Part of the power of virtues is that they form character. We do actions, and we become a particular sort of person. We act with gentleness, and we become a gentle person, over time. Or we act mostly with an angry, dismissive attitude, impatience, and we become that kind of person.

Atmosphere
I wonder if a baseball bat doesn’t shape dynamics of interactions. It gets a result, but doesn’t it close off conversation? Doesn’t it invite the other party to arm similarly? At the other extreme, a naïve approach almost invites not being taken seriously, being stepped over, stepped around, or stepped on. And of course the need to be liked can compromise ability to stand for anything.

Part of the power of little virtues is how they form us, shape expectations and tone of interactions, and counter the usual way of acting that might be expected. Conversation, respect, humanity, civility, and gentleness can be disarming, could change the expected encounter.

A Good Question
I need to end my reflection for this blog, but I am still going to puzzle over the questions. You are seriously invited to offer your thoughts and experiences about the real power of Francis’ little virtues in real life. Email me at michaelmccueosfs@aol.com or post a comment directly on the blog (it is not very complicated). And while you are there become a “follower” for the blog.

Meet the DSW Volunteers

2010-10-28T09:10:00.001-07:00

Pictured (from left to right): DSW Volunteers Mike Morgan, Tim Gallagher, and Tom Briese.

Editor's Note: The following entry is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ.

De Sales Service Works presently has two aspects to it. First, we welcome groups who come to Camden for a time to serve here and to reflect on the experience in light of their faith. In addition, we have a program for year-long, full time volunteers. I want to take this blog entry to introduce this year’s volunteers. In the near future, look for blog entries from each of them sharing experience and insight from their time here since the end of August.

Tom Briese
Tom found DSW via online advertisement through Catholic Network of Volunteer Service. He is a recent graduate of St. Mary’s University a Christian Brothers school in Winona, MN. Tom graduated with a degree in biochemistry and has several research internships under his belt. In addition to serving as DSW volunteer, Tom has been doing the hard work of applying to medical schools in the Midwest. He is a skilled musician and can basically play anything in front of him. Trombone is his main instrument, but we have witnessed keyboard, guitar, tin whistle and fife. Tom is originally from Rochester MN, the home of the Mayo Clinic---one of his inspirations for a career in medicine.

In Camden, Tom works at a variety of service placements in the neighborhood. In the medical field, he works at St. John’s Pre-natal clinic and at Lourdes Hospital’s mobile clinic, Project Hope. Then he volunteers at Holy Name School and at Camden Center for Law and Social Justice each one day a week. In addition, he shares his musical ability in liturgy at St. Joseph Parish in East Camden and at Holy Name School Masses with Sr. Claire.

Mike Morgan
Mike is a recent graduate of Virginia Tech. He earned a BA is in the field of Public and Urban Affairs. He was a freshman at Blacksburg at the time of the tragic shootings in 2007; he says people always ask. He experienced the efforts at healing and processing of that event facilitated by the Catholic Student Center. Campus ministry also got Mike to Camden. He first served here in May of 2009 with two other guys from Tech and several Oblate Associates. That experience made an impression, and he kept in touch and now is here for the year.

Mike works full time at Hopeworks, the project nearby that uses computer skills and web design to teach life skills and job skills and is, at the same time, a business that designs and runs websites for non-profits around the nation. His has many responsibilities there, but spends a lot of time recruiting trainees for the program.

Williamsburg, Virginia, is his hometown. Mike also plays the guitar, runs, and enjoys woodworking.

Tim Gallagher
Tim has been part of DSW since we moved to Camden. As an Oblate Associate, he was part of the January 2008 service retreat held here. He was back with the Virginia Tech group in May and then participated in several groups that came from DeSales University last year, his senior year at DSU. Tim began his association with the Oblates in high school at Father Judge, a school we staff in Northeast Philadelphia. In June 2008 Tim even spoke about DSW at the annual Oblate Convocation.

Tim hears a clear vocation to teach, evident in his comfort presenting to our convocation and in his service this year as a DSW volunteer. This volunteer year, he works at Guadalupe Family Services, an agency that reaches out to the families of murder victims in Camden. In addition, GFS engages in anger management and conflict resolution training in the community. Tim does this at our parish grade school at all the various grade levels. In addition, he has been teaching English to four newly arrived young men from the Dominican Republic since August.

The volunteers live in a deliberate way as a community for the year. Each has his full time job, and each is involved with the various service groups who come to Camden to serve. They pray together each morning. They study Salesian spirituality and Catholic social teaching book-club style by reading and discussion some very good books through the year.

Camden has so much need, and because of that situation, many people come to serve here. A great thing for DSW volunteers is that there are three other volunteer groups made up of recent college grads in Camden. One group, five members of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, live one block away from DSW on Vine Street . They are great neighbors because of friendship---and also because they like DSW’s internet connection.

Four retreats are part of the volunteer experience. The first one is this weekend at the DeSales Hall in Washington, DC. This will provide an opportunity to check on goals for the year, to evaluate and to reflect on themes of justice and Salesian spirituality.

We will also take advantage of some of the attractions the nation’s capital has to offer including a visit to the Holocaust Memorial and Jon Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity” on the Mall. Mike Morgan will get to try out DC’s new trail that runs from the Brookland section of NE Washington downtown, where it connects with the Mall and all the trails along the Potomac. He will be running 20 miles this Saturday in training for the Philadelphia Marathon on November 21st.

Look for blog entries from the volunteers reflecting on their insight and experience in Camden with DSW.

The Experience of Student Visitors to DSW

2010-10-13T07:57:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: The following blog entry is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ. Fr. Mike shares the experiences of some seniors from Salesianum School in Wilmington, DE, who have been on retreats this semester in Camden. As someone who has participated in all of these retreats, I can attest to the powerful impact the experience of serving in Camden has on the students.

Salesianum School, the Oblate high school in Wilmington, DE, has been a great partner with DSW since we began in Camden. Last year 12th graders came in small groups for service, prayer, and reflection. This year seniors have been here again in groups of around 20 students for Tuesdays and Thursdays in September and October. In February and March juniors will come for service retreats. In addition, we will host two weekend retreats, one in February and the other in April. The school community has also been generous in donations of money and (very practical) socks and underwear. Participating with DSW is one way for the school to demonstrate its commitment to Salesian spirituality and Christian service.

Each service retreat begins with Mass followed by a morning service period where students go to one of three sites: our food service, New Visions day shelter, or working with Ken on the “peace garden.” As noon approaches, we tour part of Camden as we walk from the Cathedral in downtown to North Camden. Just in walking the 7 blocks, students get a picture of life in our city. We pass vacant lots, abandoned houses, graffiti-covered walls, all too abundant evidence of drug use and human desperation.

All this contrasts with the experience at the end of the walk: we join Holy Name School kids in recess. The middle school kids are very lively, friendly, and they enjoy the interaction with the high school students. Each group of Salesianum young men is made up of different individuals, but there is a sense in which the service has become a corporate project. The grade school kids meet new visitors each retreat, but they have come to expect good things from the “high school boys.” The same is true of the peace garden; last year’s seniors began it, transforming an urban desert into an ordered, flourishing garden. The Class of 2011 has taken up where they left off, working with Kenny and enjoying the comments and appreciation of all passers-by.

The retreat finishes with discussion of topics raised by the time in the city. As part of that we ask the seniors to spend a few minutes answering journal questions. I share some of these below, to give a picture of the reaction of these generous students to their time here.

Why is it important for me to be here for this service retreat today?

To see what it’s like to live poor so we understand it better.

When I wake up everyday, I have food to eat, clothes to put on, and a bed to come back to at night. People here do not have these things. We all need to see these things so we can learn how to fix them.

I think that, now that I see what goes on in this city, it means a lot to the people just for us to be here. I think that we also need to see what life is like in the world we do not see.

It is important because it opens our eyes to a completely different world. This place just makes you want to help and to make a change. This is not how America should be and those of us who are fortunate enough should help make a difference here. People need our help, even id it is just to listen to their story.

I need to see how an area so close to me was completely different from my life. I helped people by listening to their life stories; about how they became homeless and why they use drugs.

To learn about the lives of other people who live so differently from the way I live. To walk in someone’s shoes who lives in Camden. To see how someone can fall to the bottom so easily. It’s a learning experience that I will take with me for the rest of my life.

Because some people don’t realize how bad certain areas are in this country. For myself, I have taken my life for granted and have not appreciated the thing I have like a home, clothes, and food. This has certainly opened my eyes.

It is important for me to see how poor of shape Camden is in and see if I can make a difference.

To give people in need something money can’t buy: time. Just to give them some one to talk to.

I think that the importance behind my reason for being here is simple. simple, meaning doing small things like talking to kids at the grade school or making sandwiches makes mw realize how lucky I am to have what I do. All the things I need to live my life. Then a realization opens my eyes even more, looking at the big picture not just seeing what’s in front of me but the people and what they go through every day just to get a meal. It’s the small things I can do that really show the difference

What will I take away from this experience of service and reflections?

The love that everyone around me has shown me and the gratitude I’ve received through my actions.

I now realize all the bad things that can happen to you when you live on the streets. And it’s made me thankful for the family I have and all that they have given me. And I think that I can better understand why it is necessary to get a good education and to be successful so as to one day be able to give back to communities like this.

I have a feeling of how lucky I am for what I have been given. I want to help people and clean up our country. ---Really showed me that I am blessed and shouldn’t take anything for granted.

Coming out of this mind-opening experience, I take away images of people sleeping on the streets and how using drugs will not solve your problems. The kids at the school were smiling the whole time we hung out with them, and I think we made their day a lot better.

To be the best that I can be in any situation I am in because I saw today what can happen if I don’t. It really made me feel how lucky I was to have a nice home, to go to a great school and to live in a great place that I do with a great family.

The love that everyone around me has shown me and gratitude I’ve receive through my actions.

Not every one is a lucky as the next person but they know that they still have their pride and their life. I can take away anything and everything from this opportunity. Respect, forgiveness, humility, gentleness, civility and more.

Salesian Spirituality in Haiti after the Earthquake

2010-10-04T10:56:00.000-07:00

In a recent article in the National Catholic Reporter, Gerard Thomas Straub details the experience of Fr. Tom Hagan, OSFS, in his work in Haiti after the earthquake.

While much of the media coverage that immediately followed the earthquake has died down, Straub notes that the situation in Haiti these days is getting worse. Poverty, disease, and violence continue to be large problems, just as they were before the earthquake. In this pro-life month in the Church, we are reminded that "Poverty is death."

In this violent, chaotic world, Fr. Hagan articulates how Salesian spirituality and his prayer life sustains him in what can be tiring, thankless work. Fr. Hagan notes that Salesian spirituality gives him what he calls a "positive arrogance" because of his unfailing trust in the providence of God.

Straub gives a beautiful description of Fr. Hagan's ministry in the slums of Haiti, "In a world of shadows and despair, Hagan is a gentle ray of light and hope." Fr. Hagan is doing extraordinary things in Haiti, but we all live in a world that can be marked by violence and despair. Being a gentle presence in a violent world in the tradition of Salesian spirituality is a valuable gift we can all offer to the world today.

The complete article can be found here: http://ncronline.org/news/haiti-grace-rubble.

Pro Life Month

2010-10-01T06:49:00.001-07:00

October is pro-life month in the Church, and all Christians are invited to reflect on the threats to the dignity of the human person that exist in the world today. After gaining a deeper understanding of the issues that threaten the dignity of human life, we are challenged to work for change so that human life, in all its stages, will be recognized as a gift from God.

The dignity of human life should be at the center of all of our policy decisions and moral reflections according to Catholic social teaching. We believe that God is passionately in love with every human being God has created, from the womb to the tomb. This "seamless garment" approach to human life prevents us from being co-opted as Christians by one political party or another to promote a limited view of what is important. Abortion is not the only pro-life issue, despite its importance. Poverty is not the only pro-life issue, despite its importance as well. The list could go on and on. Poverty, abortion, euthanasia, affordable health care for all, etc., etc., are all important pro-life issues that Christians must be concerned with. We do not respect human dignity when we only focus on one issue at the expense of others. Further, we also have seen over the past few years how many of these issues are interrelated, and a just response requires looking at how sinful systems affect the dignity of human life. During this month of October, and throughout the year, we pray and work for a respect for the image of God present in all human beings.

Cardinal DiNardo, the chairman of the committee for pro-life activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, stated, "If we allow the dignity of human life to guide the decisions we make as voters and public policy advocates, we can surely succeed in creating a more just and humane society." For the full text of Cardinal DiNardo's statement for pro-life month, please click here: www.usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/10dinardo-stmt.pdf.

St. Vincent de Paul

2010-09-27T06:34:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: Today the Church celebrates the feast of St. Vincent de Paul, a good friend of St. Francis de Sales, spiritual director for St. Jane de Chantal, and tireless servant of the poor and marginalized. Vincent and Francis shared many of the same passions for God and God's people. In today's entry, Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ, reflects on the importance of the witness of Vincent's life for people today. Like Francis, Vincent has a number of powerful quotes that offer much food for thought for people today.

Quotes from St. Vincent de Paul

Let us love God, my sisters and brothers, let us love God. But let it be with the strength of our arms and the sweat of our brow.

Go to the poor: you will find God.

It is from your hands that Our Lord, in the person of the sick, seeks relief.

Lord, help me to make time today to serve you in those who are most in need of encouragement or assistance.

When you are called from your prayers or the Eucharistic celebration to serve the poor, you lose nothing, since to serve the poor is to go to God. You must see God in the faces of the poor.

The poor have much to teach you. You have much to learn from them.

The net result of my experience on the matter is the judgment I have formed, that true religion - true religion, sisters and brothers, true religion is to be found amongst the poor.

The poor are your masters. You are the servant.

Let us, my sisters and brothers, cherish the poor as our masters, since Our Lord is in them, and they are in Our Lord.

Make it a practice to judge persons and things in the most favorable light at all times and under all circumstances.

St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal articulated a classic spirituality in the Church. While Salesian Spirituality offers a distinct gift to the people of God, it does not stand in isolation. Francis and Vincent were friends, and De Sales had a significant influence on the younger man at a key point in his life. Later Vincent was associated with the Visitation community in Paris and was spiritual director to St. Jane. So it is not surprising that the maxims quoted above communicate the same good sense and awareness of God’s presence and action that can be found in the sayings of the Salesian saints.

Three Points from St. Vincent’s Life for Us.

1. Vincent came from a disadvantaged background in rural France. He left the farm at the age of 14 to train for the priesthood. It seems that Vincent was a sincerely religious young man, but it is also clear that his family saw this vocation as a way to advance beyond their economically precarious standing. A patron quickly recognized his outstanding potential, and he advanced to ordination and a comfortable position as chaplain and tutor to a wealthy family. It seems that Vincent also wanted to move beyond his humble background; there is a story that he refused to visit with his father who came to school in his shabby working clothes. There were even some accusations of financial mishandlings on his part during this period.

However, for a variety of reasons, but essentially because relationship with God was a deep part of his identity, he heard the voice of the Lord challenging him. He stepped out of the comfort of his secure upper class position to risk all for Christ. Vincent found ways to reach the poor and had a great way of getting the wealthy involved in helping.

2. Education and formation of the clergy is another area of Vincent’s efforts. He was very aware that so much hands-on work needed to be done, but he believed that ministers need to have thoughtful preparation and grounding in prayer in order to really help anyone, especially the poor.

The attitude anyone brings to charity work is hugely important. This famous quote of his expresses this well: You will find out that charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the bowl of soup and full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give bread and soup. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor. They are your masters, and the more difficult they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give them.

3. He stood as an ally with the Salesian family in opposing the influence of Jansenism in the Church of their time. Jansenists saw God as a harsh judge who had predestined all humanity either to heaven or to hell. This way of approaching Christianity promoted an austere spirituality. It was admirable in the energy of its devotion and commitment, but tragic in its distorted understanding of God. It encouraged an immature attitude toward the love of God that assumed that humans need to earn God’s love, rather than receive it as grace. Fear and guilt were often its motivators, rather than trust in the goodness, beauty, truth and love of God.

Unfortunately, the error that Fr. Jansen articulated still shows up to burden Christians in our time. Salesian Spirituality and the thought of St Vincent continue to guide believers to a true and healthy vision of the living God.

“Forgive the Bread You Give Them”

Almost every day and in every encounter with the poor, I think of this quote of St. Vincent. I can’t say I know exactly what Vincent meant when he said it, but it has several meanings for me encountering needy individuals.

It reminds me that meeting material needs of the poor is important, but it is not the only thing. It reminds me that I have “bread-”things to give and things to meet my needs-but it could be otherwise. I need to be grateful and to take nothing for granted. The quote articulates the incompletion of all service and charity. We may help feed someone or give them kindness and respect, money or clothes, but likely there are other needs. They may still be homeless or illiterate, without job skills, burdened with mental illness or addiction, without good parenting skills, and that is not OK.

St.Vincent de Paul teaches us, despite all the incompleteness, to get out there and do something.

Outpourings of affection for God, of resting in his presence, of good feelings toward everyone and sentiments and prayers like these ... are suspect if they do not express themselves in practical love which has real effects.

Poverty in the US

2010-09-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

In the past week, it has been revealed that 1 in 7 Americans live in poverty. The bishops are responding to this news by calling on Congress to have a preferential option for the poor as they debate tax laws for our country. Read more about this issue here:

http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2010/10-164.shtml

Further Reflections on Christianity and Islam

2010-09-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: Today's post is the second reflection on Christianity and Islam from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ.

Curious not Furious

I remember after the 9/11 attacks reports about the increase of sales of copies of the Koran in the United States. That made me proud to be part of a culture where many people would respond to such an attack with efforts to understand.

Personally, my most frequent interaction with Islam comes just observing women clad head to toe in long black robes, sometimes even wearing dark glasses and black gloves. I do wonder how the anonymity provided by these uniforms could be a good thing. Perhaps women choose this way of dressing chose to stand at an extreme from a way of dressing that often seems better suited for the beach or gym than for business or daily wear. That is a good thing, I think. However, I still do not understand.

I was not one of those who bought and read the Koran in 2001. It remains on the list of classics that I really should read. I did read a good book by Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East that explores some significant interactions between Western European powers and the states that developed from the Ottoman Empire.

I still know very little about Islam, but I do understand that the Catholic faith encourages respect and trust that God’s grace extends out to everyone. Threatening to burn a stack of Korans, or any sort of disrespect directed at a religion, suggests a lack of awareness that the Almighty will not be limited by creed or tradition. The Church has a role to be a sacrament pointing to the fullness of kingdom of God, but God and the kingdom are not any one tradition’s private possession.

This is not to say that all faiths are the same. And clearly not all criticism has to be disrespectful and mal-intended (some of the most devoted Catholics I know are also the Church’s most articulate critics). It is also not to deny that some religions foster some unhealthy attitudes. But God’s desire for good will not be thwarted by the limits of human understanding and articulation of truth.

Attraction

St. Francis de Sales confronted distorted understandings of God and the Church in his time by doing his best to articulate in his words, and in his behavior, what is good, beautiful and true about the Catholic tradition. He promoted the positive and tried to use reason to point out what was distortion in the Calvinist reformers’ and other rigorists’ arguments.

The Name of God

Perhaps you have heard people say in our recent national debate about the place of Islam in the United States that Allah is not the same as “our God.” Is Allah simply the Arabic language word for God the way the word is Dia in Irish or Dios in Spanish? Or is Allah a Being other than the God of Jesus Christ? The answer is that God is one, and God uses every imaginable way to draw his beloved children to himself and to the life he offers.

It is not an accident that the first of the Ten Commandments tells us there is only one God and warns us about false gods. It is not that there are any divine beings other than the one God; but we humans sometimes set up finite things, thinking they have power and truth that they really do not have. The living God is always beyond the grasp of our understanding. But one thing is sure, as St. Augustine observed, because we call God “our Father,” we must look at all God’s children as our sisters and brothers.

Light to the Peoples

In the structure of the Church there is no more sure authority than a universal council united with the pope. I end with a quote from one of the key documents of the Second Vatican Council: Lumen Gentium.

16. Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their ancestors this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues. But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge humanity. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all people life and breath and all things, and as Saviour wills that all people be saved. Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel. She knows that it is given by Him who enlightens all so that they may finally have life. But often people, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator. Or some there are who, living and dying in this world without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, "Preach the Gospel to every creature", the Church fosters the missions with care and attention.

Christianity and Islam

2010-09-09T06:56:00.001-07:00

As Fr. Mike McCue discussed in a post earlier this week, the relationship between Christianity and Islam is a hot topic of public debate these days. As we approach the ninth anniversary of September 11 this weekend, a Florida pastor has also threatened to burn the Koran. This promise has met with outrage from many people throughout the world, and the Church has joined in their condemnation. This week, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue released the following statement:

The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue received with great concern the news of the proposed "Koran Burning Day" on the occasion of the Anniversary of the September 11th tragic terrorist attacks in 2001 which resulted in the loss of many innocent lives and considerable material damage.

These deplorable acts of violence, in fact, cannot be counteracted by an outrageous and grave gesture against a book considered sacred by a religious community. Each religion, with its respective sacred books, places of worship and symbols, has the right to respect and protection. We are speaking about the respect to be accorded the dignity of the person who is an adherent of that religion and his/her free choice in religious matters.

The reflection which necessarily should be fostered on the occasion of the remembrance of September 11th would be, first of all, to offer our deep sentiments of solidarity with those who were struck by these horrendous terrorist attacks. To this feeling of solidarity we join our prayers for them and their loved ones who lost their lives.

Each religious leader and believer is also called to renew the firm condemnation of all forms of violence, in particular those committed in the name of religion. Pope John Paul II affirmed: "Recourse to violence in the name of religious belief is a perversion of the very teachings of the major religions" (Address to the new Ambassador of Pakistan, 16 December 1999). His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, similarly expressed, "…violence as a response to offences can never be justified, for this type of response is incompatible with the sacred principles of religion..." (Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI, to the new Ambassador of Morocco, 6 February 2006).

Interestingly, Pope Benedict XVI has chosen the theme "Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace" for the celebration of the 44th World Day of Peace on January 1, 2011 (http://zenit.org/article-29875?l=english). Rather than thinking that a multiplicity of religions is somehow beneath our dignity or that we need to eradicate other religions, we need to affirm the value of religious freedom as one of our fundamental rights. Actions such as burning a Koran suggest that religions other than Christianity are of no value, and are the cause of violence in the world. Instead, however, these actions contribute to the circle of violence we are working to prevent. The pope will make an important point that religious freedom is necessary for peace, not an obstacle to peace.

The Gospel for today comes from Luke's "Sermon on the Plain," and reminds us that as followers of Christ we are challenged to love our enemies (Luke 6:27-38). While clearly people who follow another religion are not enemies of Christianity, this Gospel teaches us that love must be the motivating force behind all of our actions.

One of Francis de Sales' most famous quotes is that we must do everything out of love, and not out of fear. While a very small minority of people may claim burning the Koran is a Christian act, it clearly is done out of fear and a lack of love. As followers of Christ in the Salesian tradition, we pray for an end to all violence and a deeper respect for all people who authentically seek God in their particular religious tradition. We remember this week all who lost their lives and family and friends in the attacks of September 11. Following Jesus' command in the Gospel today, we also pray for the attackers, and all who choose violence under the guise of religious fervor. As we continue our efforts for peace in the world today, we look forward in hope to the day when the Prince of Peace will return.

"The Mosque at Ground Zero"

2010-09-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: Today's entry is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works in Camden. This is the first of two entries on the current debate about the building of an Islamic center near the site of Ground Zero in New York.

The proposal to establish an Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan, a “mosque at Ground Zero” has generated a great deal of heated debate late this summer. Clearly some are trying to rouse voter attention as the nation approaches this fall’s election season. So we have witnessed political posturing and exaggerations, as well as some thoughtful discussion of important topics for our time.

Level heads point out that the proposed center is neither literally a mosque, nor is it located at Ground Zero. People point out that the neighborhood around 45 Park Place, the former site of a Burlington Coat Factory store, features the typical mix of enterprises found in this densely occupied island. Others highlight that workday Moslems worship in the Pentagon, sharing space with Catholics, Jews, and Protestants in the military chapel just yards away from where so many gave their lives on 9/11. Others shift the debate in the direction of issues of religious freedom in Moslem countries or of concerns about security. Naturally, concern for the sensitivities of families of World Trade Center victims enters into considerations.

The branch of morality called Catholic social teaching is not a place to go for easy answers to complex questions, but it does offer principles that can be helpful in shaping thinking and consciences that contribute to public discussion and development of public policy. I offer two blog entries that bring Catholic social teaching to the issue of the proposed Islamic center. The first will look to the experience of Trappist monks in a community in Algeria. The second will look at religious freedom and relationships among religious traditions.

Monastic life can offer a striking picture of Christian values, because this lifestyle is stripped of distractions, brought down to basics. These lives can be like a parable put in motion. I like scripture scholar C. H. Dodd’s definition of a parable:

A parable is a metaphor or simile
drawn from nature or common life
arresting the ear of the hearer
by its vividness or strangeness
that leaves the mind
in sufficient doubt about it precise application
to tease it into active thought.

The lives of the monks of Our Lady of the Atlas Monastery fit that description; they are, like many of Jesus’ actions (such as eating with sinners and tax collectors), a living parable. Their community of seven Trappists was found in the village of Tibhirine in the dry, remote Atlas Mountains of Algeria. All originally from France, they lived in Algeria as brothers to each other and to the poor neighbors with whom they lived. The goal was not to proselytize but to live a typical monastic life of prayer and labor, and by love and religion to bridge two worlds that so often have been hostile. Their “common life” consisted of work, friendship, prayer, care for the sick, living among the poor, living far from home. This life gives an image of the Kingdom of God, “strange and vivid.” They set aside one of the buildings in their enclosure for use as a mosque for the neighbors so that “the sound of the bells mixed with the Muslim call to prayer.”

These monks knew Jesus very deeply and loved their Trappist and Roman Catholic identity, but they also knew, as Vatican II articulated so clearly, that religious things point beyond themselves to the infinite, all-embracing God. God will never be the tidy possession of one faith or one group. Genuine encounter with the living God expands our hearts so that we love all, even the one who sees things differently, even the one we do not understand, even the one who does us harm, even the one who is enemy to us.

In the 1990s Algeria was plagued by violent unrest from armed groups who opposed the secular government and influence from the West. Things got to the point that these groups demanded that all foreigners leave or be killed. Very aware of the danger, the Trappist community decided leaving would amount to abandoning their people, so they chose to stay.

Distinctions are very important. These monks were able to discriminate between the intentions of terrorists or fundamentalists and those of the great majority of Algerians who lived honest lives in tolerance and respect. But even with those who embrace violence, distinctions can be made between the sin and the sinner.

The leader of the monastery, Fr. Christian de Cherge, wrote a sealed letter that he gave to his family in France to open in case of his violent death. His family had lived in Algeria, and he was born and grew up there, but they left during the bloody conflict that led to independence from France. He wanted people to know why the monks stayed in Tibhirine and wanted to be sure people understood the distinctions and the “strange and vivid” love of Jesus Christ.

I invite you to read his Testament and let the moral insights he shares “arrest” us and inform our “active thought” to contribute to this public policy debate.

When we face an A-DIEU…
If it should happen one day—and it could be today---that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to engulf all the foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church and my family to remember that my life was GIVEN to God and to this country.
I ask them to accept the fact that the One Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure. I would ask them to pray for me: for how could I be found worthy of such an offering? I ask them to associate this death with so many equally violent ones which are forgotten through indifference or anonymity. My life has no more value than any other. Nor any less value. In any case, it has not the innocence of childhood. I have lived long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil that seems, alas, to prevail in the world, even in the evil that might blindly strike me down.
I would like, when the time comes, to have a moment of spiritual clarity which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time forgive with all my heart the one who will strike me down. I do not desire such a death.

It seems to me important to state this. I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder.
It would be too high a price to pay for what will perhaps be called the “grace of martyrdom” to owe this to an Algerian, whoever he may be,
especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam.
I am aware of the scorn which can be heaped on the Algerians indiscriminately. I am also aware of the caricatures of Islam which certain Islamism fosters. It is too easy to sooth one’s conscience by identifying this religious way
with the fundamentalist ideology of its extremists.

For me Algeria and Islam are not that, but rather a body and a soul.
I have proclaimed this often enough, in the light of what I have received from it.
I so often find there the true strand of the Gospel which I learned at my mother’s knee, my very first Church, precisely in Algeria, and already inspired with respect for Muslim believers.
Obviously, my death will appear to confirm those who hastily judged me naïve or idealistic: “Let him tell us now what he think of it!”
But these persons should know that finally my most avid curiosity will be set free.

This is what I shall be able to do, please God:
immerse my gaze in that of the Father
to contemplate with him His children of Islam
just as he sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ,
the fruit of His Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit
whose secret joy will always to establish communion
and restore the likeness, playing with the differences.

For this life lost, totally mine and totally theirs,
I thank God, who seems to have willed it entirely for the sake of that JOY in everything and in spite of everything. In this THANK YOU, which is said for everything in my life from now on, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you my friends of this place, along with my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and their families. You are the hundredfold granted as was promised!

And also you, my last-minute friend,
who will not know what you are doing;
Yes, I want this THANK YOU and this “A-DIEU”
to be for you, too,
because in God’s face I see yours.
May we meet again as happy thieves
in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both.
AMEN! IN H’ALLAH!

Labor Day

2010-09-03T07:05:00.000-07:00

This weekend we celebrate Labor Day, a transition from the relaxing months of summer to the Fall. The weekend marks the beginning of college football season and, traditionally, the start of school for many throughout the country. It is a weekend to spend time with family and friends at the beach, having a barbeque, or relaxing in some way as we enjoy a long weekend.

Labor is an important part of our lives, and this holiday weekend offers us an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of work for us as Christians. The dignity of work and the rights of workers is one of the fundamental principles of Catholic social teaching. Modern Catholic social teaching begins with Leo XIII’s encyclical on human work (Rerum Novarum, 1891) and the rights of laborers, which he called “the question of the hour.” Today, we see that this question remains, as many people seek meaningful work and seek just wages for their labor. Our economy still faces many challenges today, and unemployment was at 9.5% in July.

In honor of this Labor Day, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a document entitled “A New Social Contract for Today’s New Things.” The news release with the link for the entire document can be found here: http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2010/10-151.shtml. In the document, the bishops write,

Workers need to have a real voice and effective protections in economic life. The market, the state, and civil society, unions and employers all have roles to play and they must be exercised in creative and fruitful interrelationships. Private action and public policies that strengthen families and reduce poverty are needed. New jobs with just wages and benefits must be created so that all workers can express their dignity through the dignity of work and are able to fulfill God’s call to us all to be co-creators. A new social contract, which begins by honoring work and workers, must be forged that ultimately focuses on the common good of the entire human family.

The Church takes seriously the dignity of work as participating in the creative work of God. There are various forms of work, but all forms that respect human dignity participate in God’s creative and redemptive work. In our society that values certain jobs much more than others, as seen by the fact that many people do not receive just wages while some CEOs and other high-ranking officials receive exorbitant wages, this is an important point to remember. Francis de Sales highlights the importance that each of us has in offering this world something unique through our work, “We all have a vocation. We must believe that God has called us to fulfill a special mission in this life that no one else can accomplish.” Even if what our job is does not seem to be important to many people in the world, the way we approach our job and interact with others can have a profound impact on others and can witness to the presence of Jesus in our lives.

The ancient principle of lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of prayer is the law of belief) teaches us that the way we pray shapes what we believe. In this vein, it can be instructive for us to hear one of the opening prayers for Mass on Labor Day:

God our Father,
By the labor of men and women you govern and guide to perfection the work of creation. Hear the prayers of your people and give all people work that enhances their human dignity and draws them closer to each other in the service of their brothers and sisters. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

I pray that everyone has a safe, relaxing Labor Day, and is able to reflect on the dignity of work and seek ways to promote justice in the workplace and in the world.

St. Francis Inn' Influence on DSW

2010-09-01T05:43:00.000-07:00

(Pictured: This year's three year-long DSW volunteers: from left to right, Mike Morgan, Tim Gallagher, and Tom Briese).

Editor's Note: Today's blog entry completes the reflections of Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of DSW, on the influences on DSW. This week marks the begininng of the year-long volunteers' ministry in Camden. For anyone interested in participating in a service retreat, alternative break or weekend, or a year of service, please visit www.oblates.org/dsw.

Give Me
So often interactions with the needy seem to be all about, “what are you going to do for me.” Can I have 50 cents? I need a sandwich; I’m starving. I just need to get to Deptford tonight; I don’t want to spend the night here. Do you have any bus passes? I need shoes, deodorant, soap, a pillow, a blanket, pants, socks, another sandwich for my child, wife, friend, or disabled neighbor. This is understandable because so many people here are at a spot where they are simply trying to keep their heads above water. Mental illness, poverty, and/or drug use leads them to extremes just trying to survive.

But it is so dysfunctional: adults acting like kids. The community of St. Francis Inn offers a model with this experience, how to accept the reality of desperate need and to try to move deeper.

St. Francis Inn
St. Francis Inn http://www.stfrancisinn.org/ is a ministry of the Franciscans. The ministry centers around the daily meal at the soup kitchen located at the corner of Kensington Ave and Hagert Street, under the “El” in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. They also sponsor a women’s center, a thrift store, a food pantry, and a clinic. But most of all, the Inn is a community made up of Franciscan friars, sisters, year-long fresh college grad volunteers and years-long, in some cases, decades-long volunteers and then a whole network of supporters who have found a spiritual and service home there. Most importantly, the community includes the needy: “guests,” as they call everyone who comes for food, help, and company.

I first encountered this community in 1992 as campus minister at Bishop Ireton High School. For my next 8 years at Ireton, students and I would go regularly to Philadelphia to work and pray, to be a part of this amazing community, and to bring back insight and commitment to the poor to our own community. This blog entry shares three things we learned that help us now with DSW in Camden.

1. There For You
The experience of community at the Inn teaches the value of enduring, dependable presence. The needs guests have are real, but they do not usually have a quick solution that the person could walk away with. Most often the needs go beyond the emergency of the moment. We experience this very often in Camden: a couple times a week someone will come to the door toward the end of the work day expressing need to get out of the city before darkness falls. I want to ask each time what they did earlier in the day: what was their plan for return home earlier in the day? It can feel good to satisfy someone’s need, especially when it is framed as basically “saving their lives.” But most often, that just leaves more needs for the next day or the next crisis.

St. Francis is a community that is there for people, dependably, day after day, year after year. There is much banter and playing and conversation, all bonding things that move the focus out of the framework of getting things.

Saying “No”
Very often here in Camden, I can hear Fr. Michael Duffy, one of the friars on the leadership team, reflecting that he did not come to Kensington to say “no” to poor people. However, like all the community members, he learned that structure is important, and really necessary. Everyone needs to know what to expect. When Matt Hillyard and I first arrived here in Camden, we gave away food, clothing, and blankets anytime anyone came to the door to ask. It did not take long until that got out of control. We learned the need to set limits, to say “no” to poor people in order to focus on the individual, on deeper needs rather than on simply acting as an ATM or fast food drive-in window.

2. Peace of Christ
Another big thing St. Francis Inn gave us is the image of Jesus absorbing the negative, taking upon himself the weight of others’ sin. So many people we encounter here are nice, kind, grateful. But many are not; some can seem ungrateful or self-centered, can be manipulative, or appear antisocial. That can be upsetting for volunteers, and for us who are here all the time. We might offer peanut butter sandwiches to some people, and they say they want baloney and cheese. We offer baloney to someone who wants peanut butter and jelly. We get so much gratitude and positive feedback about our water, but there will be people who ask where the ice is, or who get upset if we run out of cups or if they find the tank low when they happen to arrive.

The Inn community, learning from the Poor Man of Assisi, takes the anger but does not give it back. They focus on understanding, aware that so many of the guests have no other place where they can ask for something and get it, have some kind of power, or get their own will, or even be angry or demanding. For many poor or homeless women and men, much of the day may be spent in situations where things are not under their control: waiting in line, being put off or avoided, or dealing with officious bureaucrats. So, the Inn community tries to be understanding, or to at least shape responses so that they are respectful.

The peacemaking you can observe at St. Francis Inn is not passive, however. An honesty and willingness to say “no” and to set limits keeps it from merely smoothing over conflict. The key effort is making the choice not to return anger with anger or power with power. Following Francis of Assisi, they commit to the power of Christ’s peace.

3. Mass
Each day The Inn strives to welcome and nourish the hungry. They deal with the disorder, the smells, and the privations of life in the inner city. They also enjoy people, the humor, stories, and the humanity. They endure the various letdowns and tragedies. All of this-especially the effort to understand and not to return anger for anger, violence with violence-gets support from the fact that no individual has to do it alone. St. Francis Inn is a community first and foremost. They work together. They also pray together. The community members describe themselves as a “Eucharistic community” because the sharing of communion in word and sacrament is very important for the group identity.

At Mass typically the priest preaches a homily, and then others are invited to offer reflection on the readings and experiences in the service. This practice seems to keep everyone connected to what is going on with everyone and the Lord. It also seems to connect the work and experiences of each day to values and goals everyone shares.

Welcoming Visiting Coworkers
The reason Bishop Ireton student groups were able to visit is because a good portion of the ministry of the Inn involves welcoming groups who come to share the life and work. This is exactly what we are doing with DSW. I hope we also teach respect and give the opportunity to encounter our wonderful and troubled needy neighbors. Inspired by our Francis-de Sales- we bring what we have to offer for the service of God.

Hurricane Katrina, Five Years Later

2010-08-29T08:46:00.001-07:00

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the destruction of the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina. As we are well aware from the news the past few months, the Gulf Coast continues to be hit hard recently as a result of the BP oil spill. What is clear from both of these tragedies is that the people who are affected most are the poor and marginalized, those who have little to no security in their lives. While Katrina has passed from many of our memories because we do not see the horrific images on the news anymore, there is still much work to be done to help people flourish in their lives in the Gulf Coast.

While Katrina was a "natural" disaster, many commentators have noted that the poor living conditions of the poorest people of the region contributed to the scope of the disaster. We must be careful in blaming all the negative effects of this disaster on nature, and focus on what can be done to prevent catastrophes such as this from happening in the future. Catholic social teaching reminds us that a society is judged by how it cares for its most vulnerable members. Anniversaries such as today remind us that we need to care for the poor not only when a disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane. Poverty itself is a disaster and must be dealt with immediately. Today, we continue our prayers for the people of the Gulf Coast and hopefully will commit ourselves to work for peace and justice in our world so that all people can live fulfilling lives.

Oblate Influence on DSW

2010-08-21T08:16:00.001-07:00

Editor's Note: Today's entry is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ. Fr. Mike continues his exploration of influences on DSW, today focusing on the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales and our founders and patrons. Next week, three recent college graduates will begin a year of service, prayer, and community in Camden. Please keep these three men, and all who come for service retreats, in prayer in the coming year. The blog will highlight the work being done by these volunteers throughout the year. For more information on DSW, please visit http://www.oblates.org/dsw.

Each religious order in the Church has a focus and purpose that contributes to the overall mission of the Church. The particular Oblate charism is to live and spread the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales. Since our founding in 1875, we have done that through every imaginable means. We have been missionaries, teachers, scholars, maintenance men, parish priests, parish team members, traveling retreat directors, artists, preachers, military chaplains, coaches, spiritual directors, counselors, hospital chaplains, and we have worked with prisoners and those recovering from addictions.

So what we do is less central to our existence then our commitment to be Salesian, committed to the wisdom of St. Francis de Sales’ approach to Catholicism. We know God to be in love with his creation, desiring good for us, while challenging us to the core of our being, but not burdened with anxiety or “sweating the small stuff.” We believe in the power of love, which practical Francis breaks down into do-able “little virtues:” gentleness, humility, fun, thoughtfulness, kindness, forgiveness, humor, honesty, loyalty, patience, tolerance, frankness, etc. Often Oblates are noted for being down to earth, easy to connect with.

To describe the Oblates this way is not to say that each of us, each moment, every day, or every year of our lives has effectively integrated Salesian values, or, for that matter, even Christian values. But these things always stand as sacred goals that direct our efforts.

It may seem odd to look at Oblates as one model for DSW since we sponsor the whole project. But, as with the other two models this series has explored, there are specific Oblate characteristics that seem particularly useful in our project in Camden.

Work Ethic

Fr. Louis Brisson http://www.oblates.org/mainfiles/louis_brisson.htm founded the Oblates with a Visitation nun, Mother Mary De Sales Chappuis. They served in Troyes, France, addressing the circumstances of their time: social disruption because of the Industrial Revolution, anti-Church attitudes and public policies in the aftermath of the French Revolution, and Catholicism colored by negative Calvinistic/Jansenistic attitudes. Fr. Brisson did this as a teacher, founder, and builder. He was very interested in the emerging technology of his age, and, at the same time, he was convinced that the insight of our 17^th century bishop had much to offer the circumstances of his world.

The Oblates were to be men of action and “interior men” continually aware of God, formed by Francis’ rule of life, the Spiritual Directory http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=oblate+spiritual+directory&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8. Fr. Brisson often held up medieval Cistercian and Carthusian monks as models for his new community. In classes and sermons, he highlighted how these sturdy men combined effective manual labor with dedication to prayer and study. They had vibrant interior lives and, at the same time, contributed to the vitality of the Church and society.

I have always experienced Oblates to be people who put in long hours, who get involved, who do not expect to be waited on. Often Oblates are the first to lend a hand with whatever task, whether helping someone move, preparing a meal, cleaning up after a meal, or carrying groceries. Oblates staying in a guest room, when leaving, naturally strip the bed, gather the used linens, turn off the ceiling fan, and empty the trash, not expecting someone to pick up after them. Oblates clean, cut grass, prepare class, do laundry, move furniture, paint.

This practical work ethic also connects with St. Francis de Sales who had a vision of church affirmed at Vatican II. In the Church there are different of roles and responsibilities, but we all have an equal dignity and call to holiness. So religious or priests are not somehow separate from the rest of the people of God in a way requiring deference and being waited on. As Jesus “came to serve, not to be served,” Oblates have a particular responsibility to act in solidarity with other people.

In addition, Salesian spirituality encourages us to offer the full range of human activity to God. In this view no clear line divides the ordinary and secular on one side and the sacred on another side. As De Sales puts it in the Spiritual Directory:

The Oblates who wish to thrive and advance in the way of Our Lord should, at the beginning of their actions, both exterior and interior, ask for His grace and offer to His divine goodness all the good they will do. In this way they will be prepared to bear with peace and serenity all the pain and suffering as coming from the fatherly hand of our good God and Savior. His most holy intention is to have them merit by such means in order to reward them afterwards out of the abundance of His love.

They should not neglect this practice in matters which are small and seemingly insignificant, nor even if they are engaged in those things which are agreeable and in complete conformity with their own will and needs, such as drinking, eating, resting, recreating, and similar actions. By following the advice of the Apostle [see 1 Cor.10:31], everything they do will be done in God’s name to please Him alone.

Not Above the Fray

St. Francis highlights the virtue of humility as central to life. Humility is an honest assessment of ourselves: our abilities, liabilities, goodness, accomplishments and our inconsistencies and mistakes. Without a doubt, Oblate community and friends can work to make us humble in this sense. Sacraments and prayer work to form all of us as realistic, humble people. Catholics begin every Mass with a penitential rite, not because we are overly focused on guilt and sin, but because sin, mistakes, and bad judgment are part of each human life. We are asked, on one hand, not to pretend the negative does not exist, and, on the other hand, not to allow sin to be a reason to get discouraged. Faith asks us to put discouragement aside and face all things with humility and optimism.

People frequently comment that this attitude comes out in counseling and in the sacrament of reconciliation with Oblates. I notice it in our preaching. I don’t hear a lot of use of the second person, “you,” as in “you need to do this or that” or “the gospel challenges you to… .” It is much more characteristic for Oblate preaching to use first person plural. “We need to do this or that,” or “the gospel challenges us…” Typically Oblates do not tell congregations what to do, but listen together to what God calls us all to do and to be.

God of Abundance

Everything about Salesian spirituality rests on faith in God who is never nit-picky or petty, but is firmly in love with each woman or man he has created. God pulls for us to have a life that has the peace that comes from trusting in him fully. However, he in no way gives up on us when we focus on things that lead us away from that peace. I want to highlight two things that flow from an awareness of God’s abundance.

First is hospitality, a basic Salesian virtue, and one that people who know us may agree that we embrace wholeheartedly. We welcome people into our homes; our celebrations feature abundant food and drink. Time may be the most valuable thing modern people possess, and I have observed Oblates taking time to treat people with respect: a homeless woman the same as a wealthy parishioner, a guy who can’t read with the same attention as a PhD or a professional. There is a well-known Dorothy Day story that Harvard sociologist, Robert Coles, tells. He visited a Catholic Worker soup kitchen in Manhattan to interview Dorothy Day. When he arrived in the dining room, Dorothy was speaking to a homeless man, giving him her complete attention. After several minutes, with the professor standing waiting, she paused the conversation and asked the waiting Robert Coles if he was waiting to see one of them. Dorothy Day is not an Oblate, obviously, but the story illustrates hospitality in sharing time, not making judgments based on externals, and in being open to service and grace in unexpected places, in seemingly unpromising encounters.

Secondly, we meet the God of abundance in the full range of human activities. St. Francis is a huge promoter of spending time with Jesus in prayer. He encourages meditation on scenes from the gospels as a prime way to observe the Lord and to come to love him. Meditation is an obvious way to meet God, but all of life wants to teach us about God: everything from peaceful prayer to difficult trials to the least promising encounters. Thus, a healthy Christian aims to get the right balance of work, recreation, prayer, service and relationship. Problems arise when any one of these is out of balance, overtaking the others.

It is important to note that enjoyment of life-fun-has to be part of the balance. Often religion is made the enemy of lightness and fun. In reality this is just another setting to encounter God who loves us.

None of us gets this right all the time, but again, these values challenge and form us as we go to work each day. These are values that can help not only Oblates or DSW volunteers in our lives, but all of us as we attempt to thrive in our own particular Christian vocations.

St. Patrick and Life Changing Experiences

2010-08-18T10:43:00.001-07:00

Editor's Note: Today's entry is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ. Fr. Mike reflects on the life of St. Patrick (one of my personal favorite saints, for obvious reasons) and how his experience has paralleled the experiences of many people who have participated in service retreats with DSW. All of the saints have something to teach us, and by trying to follow their example of serving those who are on the margins of society we come closer to the heart of God.

Camden Cathedral

In addition to sponsoring DeSales Service Works, the Oblates staff the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception parish in Camden. People often think of a “cathedral” as any large, stone, usually gothic-style church. But, to use the word precisely, a cathedral is the church for an entire diocese; it is the local bishop’s church. So, many cathedrals actually are big and beautiful to accommodate large gatherings. However, there are very humble and ordinary cathedrals that, none the less, serve as a bishop’s church.

Camden’s Cathedral is one of the pretty humble cathedrals. It was built in the mid 1800s as a parish church by the immigrant people of the time, Irish people. Clearly people at the time put a value on solid construction and on beauty because this church has both. Some of the art reflects the Irish background of the founders. In the front of the building there is a large, colorful window of St. Patrick with shamrock held high, speaking to the heart of the pagan leaders about the goodness and power of the Triune God.

St. Patrick

This is still an immigrant parish, though in this generation people come mostly from Latin America and the Caribbean. Still this saint has much to offer; the man we celebrate each March 17^th is so much more than a friendly leprechaun or the mascot for celebrating and wearing of the green. His life has a lot to teach us. Patrick grew up in a comfortable setting in Roman Britain. All that changed when bandits stole teenage Patrick away to slavery in Ireland. After several isolated, hungry years, he escaped and returned home. Something about his experience changed him, so that he followed a vocation to become a missionary bishop to the Irish people who had enslaved him and had taken away his childhood. Who could blame him if he were angry and bitter toward those who had enslaved him. Instead of becoming a man consumed and shrunken by anger and desire for retribution, he dedicated his life to service and to the God whose gospel commands love of neighbor, and even love of enemy.

The Jesuit Volunteer Corp (the Jesuit version of DSW) has an unofficial motto that captures Patrick’s experience: he was “ruined for life.” There was no way he could live unaware of the people of Ireland and their need, and his awareness impelled him to do something.

Experience of DSW Service in Camden

“Thank you for reminding me how lucky I am. Coming here has made me want to donate more service to the Lord. I will continue to pray for Camden.”

“… a life changing experience”

“… first time I have ever lost sleep over another’s misfortunate circumstances. I’m more motivated to be active in service and faith than ever. You’ll be hearing from me again!”

“…I have learned so much and feel changed for life…”

“Coming to Camden, I have taken a look at the way I live my life. While handing out food to people, I would ask how they were doing, and some would answer with, “I’m alive.” That took me by surprise. If I were asked that question, I would simply say “fine” or something along those lines. Never would I have thought to answer with, “I’m alive.” As my week has gone on here, I learned not to judge people by their outward appearance or their life’s situation, but by the person they are deep inside. Even though the city is dangerous and crime filled, there is something about it that I truly love!

These thoughts represent some of the experience of college and high school students who have come to Camden for a Salesian Service Retreats. The work volunteers do and the people they encounter have an impact. As St. Francis de Sales observers, “nothing is small in the service of God.” Volunteers work with the neighborhood kids, many of whom clearly are happy for attention from youthful volunteers. They clean out the alleyway near the school. With Sr. Claire Sullivan, they visit people’s homes, some fully functioning homes next to burnt-out or abandoned ones. They paint, plant, rebuild, provide food, extend kindness, play cards or checkers and extend respect.

Service in a place as needy as Camden can open our awareness to the world, to God’s grace and action: that can make an impact in our lives. Some may hear a vocation to be involved in full-time service, like St. Patrick. Others will hear a call to find ways to serve in every walk of life.

Needy communities need us all. But every community needs the generosity of heart and unselfishness that the volunteer quotes and the JVC motto convey. Playing with a child whose family can’t provide daily breakfast; cleaning up an alley with a friendly, homeless guy who can find no way to get off the streets; visiting people in a neighborhood where half the houses are vacant lots, burnt out, abandoned or falling in; walking down a sidewalk littered by discarded syringes and postage stamp sized plastic bags; celebrating Mass in Spanish with warmth and devotion. All these things make an impression. “Ruined for life” is another way of talking about the paschal mystery, death and resurrection. Out of sin, defeat, betrayal, hopelessness can come life, second chances, forgiveness, and deeper understanding.

Why did St. Patrick go the way he did, toward life rather than to the dead-end of retribution and anger? Clearly he responded to the God whom he experienced as with him in even his lowest moments. Patrick had the grace to respond, and that made all the difference.

Immigration and Catholic Social Teaching

2010-08-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

One of the most hotly contested issues in our country today is the issue of immigration. People of good will fall on both sides of the issue, and I don't pretend that a blog post will be able to sway people's convictions one way or another. However, it is important to recognize where people are coming from in this debate and to be loving in our dialogue. Frequently in the immigration debate, as with many debates in politics, people stop listening to the other side and demonize their opponents. This is a far cry from the Gospel imperative to love all people, regardless of their beliefs and/or behaviors.

The immigration issue in Arizona has gained much press in the recent weeks. Catholic leaders have spoken prophetically in support of comprehensive immigration reform that respects all parties involved. While Catholic social teaching (CST) does not purport to have all the answers for every political problem, the values we espouse as Christians must influence the way we approach these issues. In particular, CST demands that we recognize that everyone is created in the image and likeness of God and has inestimable dignity, regardless of his/her legal status. How we legislate these issues is open to legitimate discussion and disagreement, but we can never lose sight of this fundamental principle. Further, it is easy for many of us in the first world to overlook all the privileges we have had in our own situations and not be able to see the plight of many people who feel forced to immigrate to our country for a host of reasons, often in extremely dangerous conditions.

The following link provides resources from the Unites States Conference of Catholic Bishops on the Church's approach to comprehensive immigration reform. it is my hope that the bishops' teaching will be prayerfully considered by all thinking Catholics as we together discern the best way to deal with this complicated issue.
http://www.justiceforimmigrants.org/index.shtml

The Impact of the Visitation Sisters on DSW

2010-08-11T14:26:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: The following entry is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ. Fr. Mike traces the impact that the sisters of the Visitation, particularly the community in Minneapolis, have had on DSW. This year the Visitation order celebrates its 400th anniversary of the first group of Visitation sisters begininng in Annecy, France, after being formed by Sts. Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal. Visitation sisters throughout the world keep the Salesian spirit alive in the world today. For more information about the Visitation order, visit http://www.visitationsisters.org/.

Later this month, three recent college graduates will begin a year of service in Camden volunteers with De Sales Service Works. The entry below highlights a number of aspects of this year. In addition to year long volunteers, DSW also hosts individuals and groups for day, weekened, or week long service retreats. For more information on DSW, please visit: http://www.oblates.org/dsw/

Models for DSW
This is the second of three reflections that look at communities that serve as models for De Sales Service Works in Camden. The three are St. Francis Inn in Philadelphia, what I call “the Oblate work ethic,” and the Visitation Monastery of North Minneapolis.

Visitation Sisters
For 20 years a group of Visitation Sisters have lived a monastic life in an unusual setting. These nuns make their community in a very poor section of North Minneapolis, MN. They follow a regular cycle of prayer, Mass, chanted psalms, meditation, community and labor that makes up the schedule of any contemplative nun or monk. But their setting is not a walled enclosure in a remote, pristine location. Their monastery is two big, old houses in their struggling neighborhood.

One of the most vivid ways to describe this Visitation community is to tell the story they tell about getting settled in the neighborhood. Late one afternoon when they had been in the area only a few months, a young man was shot in the street outside their house. The sisters all ran out of the house to help the man. One cradled his head in her lap; another tried to stop the bleeding. They all knelt in the street and prayed and sang for the man while they waited for the police and rescue to arrive. They made an impression in the community by reaching out in this un-scripted way: they reached out naturally; they naturally prayed. People gathered around told the sisters that the man was a drug dealer, a real “bad guy.” He did not deserve their care or the prayers. The sisters said they did not care. He still deserved not to die alone, and they held him and prayed.

That action, somewhat imprudent, definitely natural and generous, established their identity as unafraid and prayerful. Moreover, they were clearly members of the neighborhood who were there to stay.

Natural Prayer
This story illustrates three things that this Visitation community gives to De Sales Service Works. First, they bring prayer into everything in very natural, honest ways. There are dramatic moments like the shooting of the drug dealer. But most often they connect with God in simple Salesian hospitality and kindness. The sisters have been part of the community for so long that many people have been connected and have become friends. So people knock on their door to check-in or just to say hello. These visits provide occasions to catch up and connect, and to offer thanks to God or to ask for help and blessing. Visits, departure, welcome, start of workday, learning news, special occasions: all of these are moments for simple prayers and blessings.

Hospitality
Secondly, day by day, their service involves welcoming people into their home. They welcome kids for tutoring, for reading, and for computer lessons. The windsock that has become the monastery symbol developed as a signal to kids that it was time to stop by for lessons. Neighbors and friends join the community for Mass in their living room a couple times per week. Following Mass everyone present is welcomed to breakfast and conversation. They welcome old friends back and want to know how things are going. They welcome new people as friends: no one is a stranger.

Liturgy and Life
Thirdly, the warmth and wholesome quality of these women comes across in the way they pray the Liturgy of the Hours, the official prayer of the Church. This prayer is made up of psalms, canticles, hymns, and readings. Singing these prayers is a core part of any monastic life, and the North Minneapolis monastery chants all the liturgies. However, what is different about their praying is that after each psalm, canticle, or reading they take time to “faith share.” The prayers are structured so there is silent reflection built in, but this community takes the time to speak aloud their reflections. The sharing connects the scripture with the daily life of their neighbors, with the ordinary tasks of each day, and with insights from contemplative life. This seems like a great way to insure that common prayer does not become a task to complete so we can get on to the next task. Instead, it connects with what goes on in the rest of our lives. This approach clearly encourages finding God in all people and events, in the ordinariness of daily living.

Because the structured prayer connects with life, it is not surprising that these women seamlessly bring prayers and blessings into ordinary days. They are a gift to their home neighborhood in Minnesota, but their example is a blessing for us in Camden. Learn more about this wholesome and amazing community at their web site:
http://www.visitationmonasteryminneapolis.org/

Vacation and Justice

2010-08-03T07:43:00.001-07:00

We are well into summer now and many of us have had relaxing vacations already or are excited for an upcoming vacation. We all need a break from the hard work of our lives and vacations offer the opportunity for us to relax and see the world with new, less-stressed eyes.

However, as Christians committed to promoting peace and justice in the world, there is no such thing as a vacation from this committment. In fact, our choice of how to spend our vacations has an impact on other people and the rest of creation as well. In the Vatican's "Message for 2010 World Tourism Day" (available here: http://www.zenit.org/article-29745?l=english), the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers reminds us of the importance of how we spend our leisure time. I offer the following exceprt for our consideration:

Under the theme of "Tourism and Biodiversity" proposed by the World Tourism Organization, World Tourism Day hopes to offer its contribution to 2010's "International Year for Biological Diversity," declared by the General Assembly of the United Nations.This proclamation was born of the deep concern for "the social, economic, environmental and cultural implications of the loss of biodiversity, including negative impacts on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, and stressing the necessity to adopt concrete measures in order to reverse it."

Biodiversity, or biological diversity, refers to the great wealth of beings that live on Earth, as well as the delicate equilibrium of interdependence and interaction that exists between them and the physical environment that hosts and conditions them. This biodiversity is translated into different ecosystems, of which examples can be found in forests, wetlands, savannah, jungles, deserts, coral reefs, mountains, seas and polar zones.

There are three imminent and grave dangers to them that require an urgent solution: climate change, desertification and the loss of biodiversity. The latter has been developing in recent years at an unprecedented rate. Recent studies indicate that on a worldwide level 22% of mammals, 31% of amphibians, 13.6% of bird life and 27% of reefs are threatened or in danger of extinction.

There are numerous areas of human activity that largely contribute to these changes, and one of them is, without a doubt, tourism, which is among those activities that have experienced great and rapid growth. In this regard, we can look to the statistics that the World Tourism Organization offers us. With international tourist travel numbering 534 million in 1995 and 682 million in 2000, estimates from the organization's "Tourism 2020 Vision" report are 1.006 billion for the year 2010 and reaching 1.561 billion in 2020, at an average annual growth rate of 4.1%. And to these statistics of international tourism one would have to add the even more important internal tourism numbers.

All of this points to strong growth in this economic sector, which brings with it some major effects on the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and the consequent danger of their transformation into serious environmental impacts - especially in regard to the exorbitant consumption of limited resources (such as potable water and land) and the enormous generation of pollution and residues, exceeding the quantities that might be withstood by a determined area.

The situation is seen to be aggravated by the fact that tourist demand directs itself more and more towards natural destinations, attracted by their beauty, which leads to a major impact on the populations visited, on their economies, on their cultural heritage and on the environment. This fact can actually either be a harmful element or, on the contrary, contribute significantly and in a positive way to the conservation of the heritage. In this way tourism lives a paradox. If on the one hand it emerges and grows thanks to the attraction of some natural and cultural sites, on the other hand the very same tourism can become detrimental and even destructive, and as such the tourism sites end up being rejected as destinations for not possessing their original attraction.

For all of this, we must assert that tourism cannot relieve itself of its responsibility to defend biodiversity. On the contrary rather, it must assume an active role in it. This economic sector's development inevitably needs to be accompanied by the principles of sustainability and respect for biological diversity.

Francis de Sales was convinced that "We pray best before beauty," and all of us are naturally attracted to what is beautiful. However, we must always remember that all beauty points us to the beauty that is the love of God, and we demonstrate our love for God by respecting the beauty of all creation. I pray that everyone has a beautiful, relaxing vacation this summer that reverences the Creator behind the created world and renews us for our work to promote justice and peace in the world.

Haiti, Six Months after the Earthquake

2010-07-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

Over six months have passed since the tragic earthquake struck Haiti and changed millions of lives. There was a tremendous outpouring of support from people throughout the world for the people of Haiti, and many friends of the Oblates were generous in their assistance of the Oblates and our ministries in Haiti. However, as time has passed the situation in Haiti has receded to the background in news coverage and in many of our minds. While we may not be as aware these days of the pressing needs of many of Haiti's people, that need still exists.

Today I am linking to a letter from the president of Catholic Relief Services about the efforts of CRS in Haiti in the six months since the earthquake. Much has been done, but the situation is still dire for many people.

http://crs-blog.org/making-progress-in-haiti/

For information on the important work being done by Oblate Fr. Tom Hagan and his co-workers, as well as information on giving and volunteering in Haiti, please visit http://www.handstogether.org/.

God Interrupts Our Lives

2010-07-23T11:48:00.001-07:00

Editor's Note: The following reflection is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ.

Water of Life

Our side porch is the site of a sandwich ministry where volunteers share anywhere from 60 to 140 sandwiches each weekday. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we also give out food bags. Anyone who has been here for a service retreat has made lunches and even participated in the service of distributing sandwiches. Sandwich ministry has evolved and still is developing as more people come for food and we try to offer effective help.

When we began this service, we gave soda and bottled water along with the sandwiches. Last May, two volunteers, Tim Gallagher and Mike Montavon, came up with the idea of self-service water. We now have two water coolers on our porch to provide water for homeless women and men in our downtown neighborhood. Sandwich ministry goes from 10:00 to 12:00, Monday through Friday, but our modest, orange Home Depot water coolers provide water any time of the day or night for people living on the streets around us. This source of water has been very popular, particularly in the hot days of spring and summer.

Encounter

In some ways this service is simple: people in need get water for drink and for washing up. But in other ways, there is a lot more going on.

One thing is that this water has created a place for encounter between two worlds. Perhaps talking about two worlds is too clumsy a way to talk about people; everyone who serves and everyone who is served comes with an individual story. But in a general way, we can talk about one world of “middle class people” with security and resources, andthe other of the “needy” without those basics.

Our needy fall into two general demographics. First, there are poor people trying to make ends meet. Many are new Americans struggling to get a foothold in this “land of opportunity.” There are people with limited income, homeless vets, people with mental illnesses.

The other main group is people on the streets because of drug use. You can read on their faces the length of time they have been living exposed to the all the harshness of outside living. Sometimes people will approach the door, and we are not sure whether they are going to turn out to be volunteers or homeless people. Others appear gaunt and hardened by months or years on the street, the spark of life confused and dimmed by addiction.

God Interrupts Our Lives

I first wrote this reflection when I was preparing to preach on the gospel scene (Luke 7:39-8:3) where Jesus is a guest in the house of a Pharisee, a “sinful woman” comes to the Lord, anoints his feet, bathes them with her tears, and dries them with her hair. Clearly the woman has experienced some sort of interruption by grace. So she comes to the Lord ready for change, extravagantly expressing her love and her desire for a new direction.

The host does not like that Jesus associates with a sinner in this way. We can easily imagine that he thinks he has his life together, that he is happy and complete. Perhaps he is aware of some inconsistencies and contradictions in his beliefs and behaviors, but feels like it is under control. Jesus’ behavior interrupts the assumptions and direction of the man’s life. He gives the man a challenge to look honestly at sin, forgiveness and grace. One subversive thing about the gospel is that it never lets us off the hook. Every challenge is addressed to us. God’s grace interrupts every life.

We hope that our water, the many of the encounters it fosters, and the kindness and respect extended may serve as moments of God breaking into the lives of people in this harsh city. Often, people will express gratitude for the water. In response, sometimes I’ll say, “We wish we could do more; I feel bad that you have to be out here.” What I am looking for is a stronger interruption to break through the resistance that comes with addiction or hopelessness. Perhaps as we spend more time here, we will learn how to do this. For now the simple signs of water and conversation are our tools. Small interruptions can have a cumulative effect.

Billy

This week a man, Billy, stopped by our house. He had been a regular at the door for water, food, and usually with a story about how he needed “just five dollars” to get to his sister’s house in suburban Philadelphia. He also repeatedly asked to use a phone, because he had met someone who was going to take him to a rehab program somewhere. This went on for months, and we could see the toll his drug use and living on the streets were taking on him. He even showed up some days with bruises on his face and cuts on his bald head. In all of our encounters he was polite and easy to engage, even though we knew he was stretching the truth, trying to get by.

He stopped by to see us because he was doing better. Three months ago he had been picked up by the police and had been in jail. He described this as saving his life. He got away from the danger on the street, he was able to detox from drugs and alcohol. And he told us he feels like he is headed in a new direction. God interrupted, and Billy has responded.

It meant so much that Billy went out of his way to tell us that he appreciated the support we gave via the hospitality extended by the volunteers and the Oblates. It means so much to have evidence that we too are cooperating with God’s grace in these ordinary encounters at our door.

Heart-less in Camden?

2010-04-27T09:59:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: In today's entry, Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ, reflects on his experience of living in close contact with homeless people. The fact that some people do not have basic necessities such as housing is a challenge to all Christians, and Mike wrestles with some of the questions this issue raises and different options for how we can respond in love.

Recently, some 300 people with connections to the Oblates in the D.C. area gathered at Bishop Ireton High School for “Live Jesus Day” a morning of reflection, prayer and community in the Salesian tradition. As one of the presenters, I used the occasion to share experiences and insights from life in Camden.

I talked about the experience of having Ken and Barbie live on the front porch of the Oblate residence for the fall and much of the winter of this year. I frequently talk about this particularly poignant experience since they are such nice people, and we have gotten to know them pretty well. They have been our most sociable homeless neighbors since we arrived in August 2008.

When cold weather came, they set up camp on the front porch. Our front door with its floor-to-ceiling stained glass panel became a thin wall separating our two worlds. Because of the glass panel, we could never forget they were out there in the cold and insecurity of homelessness, while we lived and worked warm and secure in our middleclass world inside.

If I have any insight to share from this, it is that it is important to be unsettled as Christians as long as anyone, anywhere, lives without the necessities of life. Beyond that is the insight that there are no quick and easy solutions to poverty, homelessness, mental illness, and addiction that plague our neighbors—near or distant.

I think I may have come across in my “Live Jesus” presentation as heart-less because I lived for months face to face with these neighbors exposed in the cold.

What could we do? We talked about inviting Ken and Barbie in out of the cold: we have three guest rooms. But then would we invite the next people who pick our porch as a home? How about the others in our parking lot or across Market Street in that lot? We have three guest rooms, but I also have a double bed---couldn’t I share? People could sleep on our couches. Our floors are carpeted---even the tiled kitchen floor would be better than sleeping outside. Even our basement would be better.

It sounds like we need a homeless shelter set up to help people in this situation. But even with a shelter, there would be a limit, finite amount of beds, rules for order. Speaking for our area, Camden has far too few shelters for the numbers of homeless in our region. And our entire nation has insanely inadequate mental health and addiction services.

We did not invite our neighbors to live in our house. But we did offer food, kindness, patience, respect, and encouragement to connect with city services. We continued to work with other area Churches and groups to develop some kind of shelter before next fall. But still nothing about the situation can let us rest satisfied. The fact that we live on top of the problem in Camden as literal neighbors to these “least brothers and sisters” keeps the unfinished nature of the situation before us. But really, wherever you or I live and work, our needy neighbors are here, even if they are out of sight or at a distance.

I always replay homilies and talks in my mind after I give them. Replaying this one after “Live Jesus 2010,” there is much I would do differently. Two specific things I would add are these questions for the assembly: “What would you do if two homeless people lived outside your door?” Second, because there is need, whether we see it daily or not, I would ask, “What do you do?”

The answer to “What do you do?” would likely include donations and great support for efforts in inner cities and in poor nations, prayer and study, and direct service. It would likely include support for public policy in our nation to make social structures more fair and just, to offer support for those who find themselves deep in holes, improvement to the U.S. health system, improvement for our education system. There are not quick fixes; justice has a complexity.

Whatever efforts we participate in, the point remains, that as long as anyone anywhere is without what is needed for a decent living, Christians cannot rest satisfied. We will be in that state until the Lord himself comes to establish the fullness of God’s kingdom. Until that “kingdom come,” we do our best to respond to the challenge.

A New Way to Do Business: Profits for the Common Good

2010-04-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: In today's entry, Michael Castrilli, OSFS, continues his series on faith and social justice in the marketplace. Michael directs our attention to a particular business model highlighted by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI that seeks to bring Catholic social teaching into business and recognizes that any economy should ultimately be judged by how it promotes human dignity. The entry offers sage advice from the Salesian heritage on how we can live these values in our own work lives today.

In Part I of this series on Faith and Justice in the Marketplace, we considered how we define a personal business ethic for our daily lives. The overall point was that if we live our daily lives with the Gospel at the core, we live as women and men of integrity and truly change the world around us. In today’s post, I want to look at how we can do this in a more global way, especially as it pertains to the marketplace.

How did Francis de Sales convert so many people in the dangerous Chablais region? He won hearts by talking to people one-on-one, listening to them, and dialoguing in love. He brought the image of God as a loving father and not a harsh critic to so many who desperately needed to hear it. This was an innovative approach to the 16th and 17th Century church. It has been 400 years and we are still talking about Francis de Sales; who out there reading this blog will we be talking about in 400 years? I think the potential number is unlimited. The key is to think in new ways about old ways of doing business. This happens in the marketplace: we get stuck thinking the only way to profit is through productivity, but what happens when we focus on the common good AND productivity?

Have you ever heard of the Economy of Communion? Pope Benedict XVI referred to the “economy of communion” (no. 46) in his encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth, 2009), while discussing business ethics today. I was not familiar with the “economy of communion” but after looking into this project, I found an extraordinary example of the way in which an individual and then a group of people have actively participated in creating dynamic and sustaining efforts to love neighbor and act for the common good in the marketplace. They are truly changing the world around them, one by one, business to business, community by community.

The project all began with Focolare, a lay ecclesial movement, founded in 1943, amidst World War II in Trent, Italy. In May 1991, Chiara Lubich, one of the founders of Focolare, witnessed extreme poverty near Sao Paolo, Brazil. Motivated by Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Centesimus Annus, (On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum, 1991) Lubich launched the Economy of Communion project. The project’s values and principles are extraordinary and one can see why the Pope highlighted this special community. The model is formed around for-profit businesses. First, as an immediate action, the businesses participate by providing jobs and direct assistance to those in need. Second, the businesses promote a “culture of giving” and invest profits freely back into the community. Finally, the participating organizations continue to educate others on the movement and enhance the business for sustained growth (see: www.edc-online.org). The bottom line is that these for-profit businesses are investing in their community by giving jobs and resources to their poorest neighbors. Think of the sustainable improvements for people’s lives by providing them jobs and investing in their future. According to statistics obtained through the organizations’ website, over 750 businesses are participating worldwide. Although the number may seem small, in Brazil and Latin America, as well as Europe, it is spreading fast and having a great financial and communal impact.

Francis changed the world one-by-one by not confining himself to contemporary paradigms, but by creating innovative means to help people – all people, find God. The Economy of Communion project has taken for-profit companies and transformed them to wealth and dignity for-people, especially those that need it most. So, this is our mission, all of us, to use the Gospel as our guide and our Salesian heart that leads with love, to make the world a better place and at the same time to change the way we do business! Business is always better when the common good is the principal profit.

Earth Day 2010

2010-04-15T13:22:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: In preparation for Earth Day 2010, which will be celebrated next Thursday, April 22, Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Servie Works in Camden, NJ, offers the following reflection. Francis de Sales had a particular appreciation for the beauty of the earth as a reflection of the love God has for all of creation. This appreciation lead to one of his most famous statements on how God reveals Godself in creation, "We pray best before beauty." Fr. Mike notes that human behavior can have a negative impact on the beauty of creation. For more information on De Sales Service Works and the work it is doing in Camden, or to learn about how you can volunteer, please visit www.oblates.org/dsw.

“God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good.” Gen 1:31

“The brutal consumption of Creation begins where God is not, where matter is henceforth only material for us, where we ourselves are the ultimate demand, where the whole is merely our property and we consume it for ourselves alone…I think, therefore, that true and effective initiatives to prevent the waste and destruction of Creation can be implemented and developed, understood and lived, only where Creation is considered as beginning with God.”-Pope Benedict XVI, August 2008

This year marks the 40th Earth Day. I can remember the first one, as a 4th grader at Featherstone Elementary School, cleaning out the woods around our school. Cleaning up trash, and not littering in the first place, are important things. But on this 40th Earth Day, we can be very aware that much more is at stake in concern for the environment than bagging up litter and hauling away old tires. There is a consensus among scientific observers that human production of greenhouse gasses will cause significant and disruptive climate changes.

Catholic social teaching looks at the moral implications of the ways that societies structure themselves, paying particular attention to how structures affect people. One of the basic principles of Catholic social teaching deals with the area of how we use and care for the earth that God has given us as our home. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops summarize this principle of Catholic social teaching:

Care for God’s Creation:We show our respect for the Creator by our stewardship of creation. Care for the earth is not just an Earth Day slogan, it is a requirement of our faith. We are called to protect people and the planet, living our faith in relationship with all of God’s creation. This environmental challenge has fundamental moral and ethical dimensions that cannot be ignored.
The moral and ethical dimensions include the reality that people are affected by decisions about how to care for the earth. In addition, these decisions affect the poor, the unborn, and the aged: vulnerable people who are often without resources in a disproportionate way.

This is a commonsense principle that comes from a realization that we can damage the systems of the earth and compromise the health and safety of people. I assert that this is a common sense thing, but in our country, it is one that gets politicized and therefore over-simplified and caricatured. It is often seen as the concern of hippies in sandals and “love beads” and is therefore able to be dismissed as utopian and silly. Additionally, environmental concerns are often placed at odds with economic concerns, offering false dichotomies.

Living in Camden, NJ, I have come to a strong awareness of the effects of careless
use of the earth on communities. This type of thing can be experienced in any
industrial city, any place inhabited by many generations of people. Much of this city
can be described as “brownfield” damaged by decades of industrial use that did
not consider the long-term consequences of contamination, sloppy disposal, and use
of toxic substances. (A brownfield is defined under NJ state law
(N.J.S.A. 58:10B-23.d) as "any former or current commercial or industrial site that is
currently vacant or underutilized and on which there has been, or there is suspected to
have been, a discharge of a contaminant.")

There is a selfishness and laziness in a focus on profit that blocks consideration of
people and of consequences for future generations of the community. These
companies have left our city for other sites, leaving behind a dangerous legacy.
Again, as is the case with so many poor urban areas, parts of Camden are also known for poor air quality. Pollution in Camden comes from various industries in the south part of the city. These include a trash-to-steam power plant, and sewage treatment and scrap metal disposal facilities. These are not located in suburbs with affluent and politically connected residents, but in a poor, often politically disorganized town.

Below I quote from a group called the Catholic Coalition Climate Change
www.catholicsandclimatechange.org. This organization gathers Catholic moral teaching and resources on the topic. What follows is their very clear application of Catholic social teaching to this issue, under three topics: prudence, concern for the poor, and attention to the common good.
.
Prudence
“Prudence is intelligence applied to our actions … a thoughtful, deliberate, and reasoned basis for taking or avoiding action to achieve a moral good.” U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, U.S.C.C.B.

The Coalition accepts overwhelming scientific consensus about climate change. There is nearly unanimous agreement that human actions are creating a warming planet. As stewards of all creation, we must identify wise, careful actions that will reverse this climate change and avoid its potentially dangerous impact on all life—especially human life.

State and local Catholic leaders can play a central role in bringing together scientists, theologians, business and labor leaders, government officials, human service providers and other stakeholders to shape a wise and careful approach consistent with our principles. With such leadership, the Catholic community will answer God’s call to be faithful stewards.

“Prudence does not mean failing to accept responsibilities and postponing decisions; it means being committed to making joint decisions after pondering responsibly the road to be taken, decisions aimed at strengthening that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying."

Poverty

“… any successful strategy must also reflect the genuine participation and concerns of those most affected and least able to bear the burdens … [this] is a moral and political necessity …” —U.S.C.C.B.

Natural disasters take the greatest toll on poor people. Inadequate transportation, lack of insurance, poor housing and little if any cash reserves put them on the edge of the precipice. To survive severe storms, prolonged droughts, extended heat waves and other climate-related events, these vulnerable sisters and brothers must receive assistance—both public and private.
The Coalition seeks to find constructive ways to approach climate change from the bottom up. We strive to bring the voice of the poor to the public debate about climate change and ensure that resources are available to the most vulnerable.

The Common Good

“Responses to global climate change should reflect our interdependence and common responsibility for the future of our planet. Individual nations must measure their own self-interest against the greater common good and contribute equitably to global solutions.” —U.S.C.C.B.

Climate change provides an opportunity to act with courage and creativity as individuals, as people of faith, as a nation. As a wealthy nation and as the top contributor to greenhouse gases, we in the United States must help to shape responses that serve not only our own interests but those the of the entire human family. The Coalition assists the Catholic community in linking personal stewardship and care for creation with our moral responsibilities to practice solidarity.

A Final Quote from Pope Benedict

“…make the responsibilities visible so that we may respond to this great challenge: to rediscover the Face of the Creator in creation, to rediscover in the Creator’s presence our responsibilities for his creation, which he has entrusted to us, to form the ethical capacity for a lifestyle that we must adopt if we wish to tackle the problems of this situation [of climate change] and if we really want to reach positive solutions.
Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth…
My dear friends, God’s creation is one and it is good. The concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity.” -Pope Benedict XVI at World Youth Day, June 2008

Community, Prayer, and Work for Justice

2010-02-15T14:50:00.000-08:00

Pictured: Abandoned Houses in Camden, NJ

In a recent article for the National Catholic Reporter, editor Tom Roberts reports on a movement he calls "new monasticism" in a parish in Camden, NJ. Sacred Heart Parish is located close to the cathedral parish staffed by the Oblates. Bro. Mickey McGrath, OSFS, has his art studio in one of the houses refurbished by the Heart of Camden program. His art helps bring beauty to people who frequently only see the ugliness of living in a poor, violent city.
Roberts makes several interesting points about the importance of the support of a community and a regular prayer life to sustain us in our efforts to promote justice and peace in the world, especially in places where it is a constant uphill battle such as Camden. The example of Sacred Heart Parish is also a challenge to all of us to rethink what it means to be a parish in service to the local Church and the worldwide community.
The article can be found at this link:
http://ncronline.org/news/faith-parish/place-renegades

Further Reflections on the Earthquake in Haiti

2010-02-03T08:01:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: The following entry is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, Director of De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ. Fr. Mike visited Haiti in the summer of 2007 and has been following the situation in Haiti closely since the earthquake. His reflections on the response of people to this tragedy are thought provoking for Christians who try to make sense out of the seemingly meaningless suffering of so many people.
This week, the National Catholic Reporter ran a story from Fr. Tom Hagan, OSFS, that gives a first hand experience of the earthquake and its aftermath. Fr. Tom has lived and worked in Haiti for over a decade now. He also reflects on the faith of the people who lived through this tragedy. The story can be found here: http://ncronline.org/news/global/i-am-humbled-these-people
To help with the Oblate relief efforts in Haiti, please visit http://www.oblates.org/haiti_relief.php

Merci Jesus!
It has now been over two weeks since the earthquake hit Haiti, bringing unbelievable destruction and pain. Images are worth a thousand words; two carry the experience for me. So many people were trapped-for minutes, hours, days, a week or more within a collapsed building. It is painful to imagine the pain, the emotions, the hunger and thirst, the isolation and waiting. I hope I would emerge singing, as one Haitian woman was recorded doing.

Another image that has a hold of me is that of a thirteen year-old girl who after frantically searching, finally found her mother’s crushed body and then witnessed it being carted away with so many others. This young girl, like so many others, is left alone in the world.

Images and stories bring this experience to us who are not there and enable us to feel the anguish and, from our place, to do things we can to help. Communities, schools, parishes, congregations, universities, our government and NGOs are responding generously to assist efforts to help people, first of all, to survive and, secondly, to move into the future.

Responding from a Distance
This week I visited Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria, VA, for Mass. In front of the school there is a “spirit rock” that serves as the place to represent in paint what is going on in the school. Usually the rock reflects the routine events of U.S. high school life: sports, music or drama, tests, congratulations for graduation and achievements. Since the earthquake, the colors of the Haitian flag are there with the words, “Help Haiti.” and “L.C.S.”, for Louverture-Cleary School. The school in Haiti is Ireton’s “sister school,” meaning the two have built up a connection over the past decade. At the Mass, a student who is part of Ireton’s Haitian Alliance spoke beautifully about her experience of visiting Haiti last fall and promoted the school’s response to the earthquake.

Along with reaching out to victims with compassion and with concrete aid, another type of response to Haiti’s earthquake is attempts to make sense of this senseless tragedy. Expressing one extreme answer to questions raised is TV host and past candidate for president, Rev. Pat Robertson. He made a big splash with his televised comments that offered his answer to these big questions. Haiti is cursed, he said, because of a vow they made to the devil. ( !!THE (DEVILS SHEPARD) ROBERTSON SAYS HAITIANS INVOKE EARTHQUAKE IN DEAL WITH ...
01:07 - 18 days ago youtube.com ) He gives a small, tidy “answer” to a huge and un-tidy question. Nothing, absolutely nothing, about his assertion, makes any sense---as people from every direction quickly pointed out. (Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart’s observation is particularly effective Episode #15008 http://www.hulu.com/watch/120794/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-haiti-earthquake-reactions ) In fact every aspect of the assertion actively offends religion and logic. It portrays God as small in love and power, essentially blaming God, while ignoring the sins of injustice, greed and racial prejudice.

In fact God is endlessly loving and powerful, and he is always calling us and drawing us away from self-focus to other-centered focus, to big love that brings us to our truest self, made in the image and likeness of God. Squaring that love and power of God with the recent events in Haiti-or with any human suffering-requires people of faith to say we simply do not understand all things. But we do believe, as the first reading for the
Sunday after the earthquake put it (Isaiah 62:1-5), and as President Obama also put it—Haiti is not “forsaken.”

An article in the New York Times by James Wood, “Between God and a Hard Place” (Op-Ed, Jan. 24) answers the question by basically giving up on faith in a good God, as wishful thinking. This position seems to be opposite of Robertson’s, but both positions are built on a simplistic and anemic view of God. These extremes do not do justice to the big questions: there are many thoughtful efforts to address the big questions raised by this latest tragedy to come upon the people of Haiti. I can recommend the letters to the editor on Jan. 26 that dialog with the issues raised by Wood’s article.

The Kingdom of God
To their thoughts I want to add one more image from Haiti. I visited Fr. Tom Hagan (an Oblate whose organization, Hands Together, runs eight schools, a clinic and radio station in a Port-au-Prince slum neighborhood) two summers ago. We were on the move a lot during my four-day stay. I remember seeing the phrase merci Jesus, “thank you Jesus,” everywhere we went as we visited the various projects. The phrase struck me because I was observing the extreme poverty and hardship of life on this island nation. “What do Haitians have to be grateful for?” I asked myself. At the same time I was humbled by these expressions of gratitude when I, like many Americans, have so much more comfort and security. We can take for granted things that so many Haitians either don’t have, or have to spend enormous amounts of daily energy to get: clean water, sanitation, food, space, stable government, security, a roof over-head.

I wonder how people feel about that prayer now, living with the horror and pain brought by this earthquake. One way to be grateful comes from comparing your situation with others who are worse off than you are. It is possible to pray, “thank you, Jesus,” because I live in the US, or because I have all or most of my limbs, or am not suffering from infected wounds, because I am not trapped, or left without loved ones, because I am not dead: because I am less bad off than others. But the real test is whether someone, no matter how bad off, can make this her or his prayer? Can the person crushed, alone, in severe pain, or depressed-the person dead-find gratitude to give to God?

For Christians trust in God’s goodness and power connects directly to belief in eternal life where all is ordered according to God’s vision and goodness, so that all becomes fully just, loving and true. This heaven is not a members-only, gated community. It is not a “pie in the sky, by and by, when we die” designed to shape passive masses willing to put up with injustice and suffering in this world. It is the Kingdom of God that Jesus preached, and that Kingdom can be experienced in some fashion now when we participate in the love and forgiveness of God, whenever we respond to God at work in us, calling us beyond ourselves to love the other. I hope and pray that each person who is suffering-child, woman or man-can have some contact with the Kingdom through those working for justice, acting with compassion, serving out of faith, carrying on with some measure of trust in God, reaching out to neighbor.

Eventually, Haiti will pass the acute crisis stage, media attention will move on to other situations, and the time will come for Ireton students to repaint the rock in front of their school. But we can hope that awareness of the suffering of others will enlarge all hearts so that we all find ways to care for those in need-all our brothers and sisters as God see things-near or far.

Faith and Justice in the Marketplace

2010-01-21T10:39:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: The following entry is the first in a new series from Michael Castrilli, OSFS, entitled "Faith and Justice in the Marketplace." Michael is a graduate student at Washington Theological Union and a campus minister at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School in Washington, DC. Michael has extensive experience in the corporate world, having worked for Corporate Executive Board and Booz Allen Hamilton Consulting. He utilizes this experience and his love of Salesian spirituality and Catholic social teaching in his writing.

Introduction

When one reads the words faith, justice and market, it would seem that the terms do not go together, especially, when we consider the variety of places we all work. Many people tell me that talking about faith in the workplace is either uncomfortable or inappropriate. However, Catholic social teaching and Salesian spirituality have much to say on this important topic and can really help guide us in our day-to-day lives.

Whether you work in corporate, non-profit, educational, or government entities, or something in between, the Catholic Church and Salesian spirituality speak to us in practical and accessible ways. We all work: whether we are the chief executive officer of a multinational company, a line worker on the factory floor, a stay-at-home mom, or a student, meeting daily responsibilities touches all of us. There is a place for faith and justice in the variety of places we call “work.” It is important to note that the Catholic Church has a long tradition of advocating for the dignity of workers and social responsibility. Most scholars agree that modern Catholic social teaching began with Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical letter Rerum Novarum (The Condition of Labor, 1891). This encyclical was monumental because it advocated for workers’ rights, employee and employer relationships, and an individual’s right to private property. Throughout the 20th century, the Church has been outspoken on economic issues through numerous papal encyclicals (e.g., Populorum Progressio, Paul VI, 1967; Laborem Exercens, John Paul II, 1981 and others) and documents from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (e.g., Economic Justice for All, 1986). When one complements these teachings with the practical advice of the Salesian tradition, we find wisdom that can transform all aspects of our lives.

Contained below is Part I of the new series on this blog discussing Catholic social teaching, Salesian spirituality and the marketplace today. Through this series, we will discuss how we can take the rich Catholic tradition along with Salesian spirituality to help us make sense of our day-to-day economic lives. We will use the Gospel as our guide and the heart of Salesian spirituality to lead us on our journey. Please feel free to comment based on your own experience of trying to live the Gospel in the marketplace.

Gospel Integration – Defining a Personal Business Ethic
This past summer, Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical letter, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth, 2009), addresses issues of the economy and the importance of business ethics in daily life. Caritas in Veritate carries a multi-faceted message to the world on issues of labor, economic justice, globalization, environmental stewardship, and technological development. This encyclical, similar to the other Catholic social teaching documents, is an example of how the Church connects our faith through Jesus Christ to our daily lives and articulates living Gospel values for the world. This first post in this series on Faith and Justice in the Marketplace will consider the ways in which we bring Gospel values to the marketplace and to help us consider our personal business ethic.

Caritas in Veritate contains clear direction on a variety of related subjects and numerous examples of how our business ethic plays out in the market. Although the issues are diverse, the core message is what I term “Gospel integration.” Gospel integration is the intersection between all aspects of our daily life with the message of Jesus Christ. The encyclical discusses the promotion of business ethics that focus not only on stakeholders but also on the community at large (No. 36), governing globalization with the principle of subsidiarity (No. 57), using technology responsibly (No. 70), and an appeal throughout the document for individual responsibility and a focus on the common good (No. 7). Pope Benedict writes, “The Church has always held that economic action is not to be regarded as something opposed to society. In and of itself, the market is not, and must not become, the place where the strong subdue the weak” (No 36).

The question then becomes how do we take the Church’s teaching, apply it to our daily life, and implement Gospel integration? First, like any time we want to make a change or improve an area of life, we must admit that at times, we all can be vulnerable to putting Gospel values aside. It is easy to live Gospel integration when the choice between right and wrong is simple. For example, most people would never consider stealing from their employer. But what about the ordinary moments, when the situation is a bit more grey? Francis de Sales writes in the Introduction to the Devout Life, “While we must resist great temptations with unconquerable courage and while the victory we gain over them is in the highest degree helpful to us, it may be that we will profit more by resisting small temptations…It is easy enough not to steal our neighbor’s property, but it is difficult not to desire and covet it” (IV:8). Francis’ point is clear: the “small” temptations of life can be the most difficult to confront. Related to the topic of business ethics, Francis might caution us to be careful not to rationalize and justify our actions in what we consider small business matters because they all have an effect on our relationship with God, neighbor, and self.

Let me give a personal example of how I see a relatively minor business transaction that could lead someone to believe that it is okay to take advantage of neighbor. As a teenager, I remember my mom taking me to see a movie in the theater. When we approached the box office, I quietly said, “Mom, let’s try to get a child rate instead of the adult ticket that costs more, I look young enough!” I clearly remember my mom’s response. She said, “Michael, we do not lie in order to get a break. If we lie in small things, what stops us from lying in big things?” My mom’s point was well taken and I never forgot what she said. When I think of my personal business ethic, I sure try to live this principle. It can be too easy to say, “Oh, this is no big deal, it is just a few dollars.” But, when we devalue the small matters our deception can grow like weeds in fertile ground.

When one thinks of the major corporate scandals of the last few years, no doubt people engaged in very selfish and greedy tactics. However, I often wonder if some individuals believed, “It is no big deal, I am just moving some money from one account to another, what is the harm, we will make it up and put it back next week/month/year?” The Ponzi- scheme engineered by Bernie Madoff resulted in $13 billion being stolen from people since 1995. The corruption all began at some moment, and some place, when an individual made the decision, and maybe even a minor decision, to pull away from Gospel truth. As Benedict writes, “Economy and finance, as instruments, can be used badly when those at the helm are motivated by purely selfish ends… it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility” (CV, No. 36).

Therefore, what are the core values, formed from our faith that will lead us to honesty, love, and Gospel integration, not only in large or small matters, but in ALL matters? It would serve us all well to consider our personal business ethic, whether it is our activity in the grocery store, the bank, or with our employer. When in doubt, we can recall the words of Jesus to always be women and men of integrity. As written in the Gospel of Matthew, “Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one” (5:37).

The Earthquake in Haiti

2010-01-19T06:46:00.001-08:00

Editor's Note: The following entry is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ. Fr. Mike visited Haiti in 2007 and offers a reflection on that experience and his reaction to the tragedy in Haiti. As reports of how devastating the effects of the earthquake was continue to come out, let us pray for the people of Haiti and be generous in our support of the actions to help the people of Haiti. To help with the relief efforts that Fr. Tom Hagan, OSFS, is coordinating in Haiti, please click here: http://www.oblates.org/haiti_relief.php

The images and stories coming out of Haiti are heart breaking. It was already the poorest nation in our part of the world; it did not need this earthquake.

In the summer of 2007, I visited an Oblate, Fr. Tom Hagen, who heads up a mission in Haiti called Hands Together. This organization sponsors seven grade schools, a vocational secondary school, a clinic, (each of which also serves thousands of meals each week to the kids and to elderly people), and a radio station, all in the Cite Soleil section of Port-au-Prince. We also visited some projects in the country and a school in the city of Gonaives.

The visit made an unforgettable impression. Tom is a man with abundant energy and charisma. During my four days there, we were in near constant motion, visiting each project. He spends over 25 Sundays each year in the US preaching and raising money in parishes across the country. So when he is in Haiti, he regularly checks up on the operation of each Hands Together project. He basically serves as inspector general, and I traveled with him to each project.

When we visited the first school, we pulled into its walled courtyard, and guards shut the solid metal gate behind us. We toured the school with classrooms of 40+ kids, in bright green uniforms, sitting close together on concrete benches, a young teacher at the blackboard of each room. Every building I saw in Haiti looked like it was homemade. The schools are constructed of concrete block, and stairs would appear in odd places. A visitor could see the record of addition after addition to the original structure. Doorways between sections were clearly just broken through walls. I often had to step over the remains of the wall to pass through the doorway, and the floor on the other side would be at a different level than the one on which I was just walking. Despite all this everything was functioning and clean.

At the completion of the school tour, Tom led the way outside the walls and into the neighborhood. He spoke with everyone we passed, promoting the school and explaining that meals are a part of the school day. If the concrete block buildings seem homemade, the houses in the neighborhood can best be described as “shacks.” They are put together from scrap wood, cardboard, plastic and sheet medal. Cite Soleil is waterfront property on a Caribbean Island, but it could not be further from anyone’s idea of a vacation getaway. In fact, the whole slum grew up on land that cannot be more than one or two feet above sea level, so the sea is always a looming threat.

Two Impressions
At each stop, we visited a school and its neighborhood. There is so much I could say, but I want to illustrate my experience with two impressions.

Cite Soleil has no sanitation. Sewage collects in gutters; it sits there or washes to the sea. Calling the structures “gutters” is being very generous. There were just sewage and putrid standing water all over. Little kids were running all over, barefoot, paying no attention to running into the water or not. Tom’s dog accompanied us on this tour, and he, too, walked indiscriminately through all sorts of filth. I would get in to the truck after each tour, and he would climb in on top of me, drying his paws as he went. My impression of the whole place was how dirty and makeshift everything was.

However, as we walked or drove places, I have a clear picture of people cleaning: of men and women using big steel bowls with soapy water to wash. People were either bathing themselves or their children, washing dishes and pots, or soaking and ringing out clothes; everywhere we went this washing was going on. There was no infrastructure to support the cleaning: no running water, indoor plumbing, or sewage system, but people used what they had and did what they could.

Second, the children were striking. Like kids everywhere, they were playful, curious, and smiling. They loved seeing their picture on my cell phone and loved touching and pulling the hair on my arms, the long, light, wavy hair of an Irish-American visitor. In contrast to the children, my impression of adults I met, or simply observed from a distance, was how tired, and worn down they seemed from trying to make a living.

I was there only four days; I always say that if there were not a plane back to the U.S. on that fourth day, I would have swum to Miami to get back home. Despite this feeling, the visit was a very full and valuable experience.

Still Point in a Turning World
My home away-from-home was the Hands Together house in the Delmas section of Port-au-Prince. This house was walled, gated and guarded by a couple of men with rifles. On the ground flood there were people cooking, sweeping, or waiting to talk to Father Tom. Chickens wandered in and out of the house. Twenty-five young Haitian men lived there, along with Tom and any guests passing through. The young men came expressing interest in becoming Oblate brothers or priests, and so they lived and prayed together, and worked as teachers in the Cite Soleil schools. They lived in a dorm in a wing of the second floor. The chapel was there as well, in a covered patio, one wall open to the courtyard below.

I stayed up higher in a freestanding, eight by eight, concrete block room on the roof with a bathroom, bed, and chair. There I could shower and approximate the sanitation I am used to as an American. For the four days this tower was my comfort zone in a tragically poor country, my “still point in a turning world.” Since it was up high, it provided a distant view of the neighborhood and beyond to the city and even to the sea. I could see lights from houses in the hills and the haze of smoke from thousands of fires in the valley and surrounding hills.

That building collapsed in the earthquake. Two young men were killed; four were seriously injured. Tom was in his ground floor office and is OK. My sanctuary room on the roof is gone.

Four Responses to the Earthquake:
Sorrow
There is so much to be sad about looking at the results of this earthquake. Every picture from the site gives us a thousand reasons to mourn. I think of people trapped under debris waiting, hoping in agony, all the injured and displaced. I think of all the good that has been destroyed, the progress and hope set back.

Anger
We can be angry that we have a world set up so that we are either winners or losers, and the winners get to take it all. This pattern must go back to Neanderthals. It was plainly at work in French colonial exploitation of Haiti, in cruel slavery. We can see it looking at our country’s history when leaders in our young republic gave in to racial prejudice and withheld support for Haiti emerging from a slave revolt: the first Black nation to join the U.S. in the experiment of forming a democracy. In our own time this same dark force finds expression in our intractable “military industrial complex.” So we can spend billions on two ineffective wars but can only promise 500 million to our neighbor now in dire need. It’s not about money; it’s about vision and priorities.

Insight
I do not want to try to make an easy lesson out of such enormous tragedy and pain. However, I think one key purpose of middle class people traveling to Haiti or to Camden, or to any tragically needy place to volunteer, even just serving at a local soup kitchen, is so that when we return to our usual place, we are changed. Serving where need is plain-to-see contributes to the good being done in that place, but it can renew our ability to recognize needs and to serve in our ordinary setting. It can bring us to deeper gratitude about our lives: a gratitude that brings us to our knees in humble awareness that so much of our accomplishment and security is beyond us.

The thought of the room that served as my oasis in Haiti, atop Tom’s solid house, now destroyed, serves as a vivid image of how all security is unsure. Disaster can strike anywhere, and does strike everywhere. In the end, God alone, and the values God offers us, stands.

Action
Feelings are real, and we can learn from them, and it is good to take lessons from the events of life. But in this tragedy, at this moment, real people are suffering, and they do not have the luxury of distance to simply feel or learn. They are in the position of having to endure this tragedy. Action in this moment is required of Christians.

I am very proud that the Oblate provincial, Fr. Jim Greenfield (who was just in Haiti with Fr. Kevin Nadolski days before the earthquake, staying in the same rooftop room) has set a goal for us to raise $100,000.00 to give to Tom Hagen and Hands Together. Jim’s intention is to get emergency help to people to get through this crisis. It also will support our efforts in Haiti: there before this earthquake, still there after the attention fades, rebuilding, educating, encouraging, and healing.

Devastation in Haiti

2010-01-15T10:31:00.000-08:00

(Pictured: Fr. Tom Hagan, OSFS, with children from his Hands Together Project in Part au Prince, Haiti)

Editor's Note: The earthquake in Haiti this Tuesday has caused inestimable damage to the country, and particularly to the poor. The Oblates of St. Francis de Sales are present in Port au Prince, living and working among the poor of the area. The week before the earthquake, Oblate provincial Fr. Jim Greenfield and vocation and communication director Fr. Kevin Nadolski visited with the Oblates and their associates in Haiti. After the earthquake, they met with reporters from the Wilmington News Journal to discuss their experience and update people on the situation of the Oblates and their associates in the area. As we continue to pray for the people of Haiti, we are reminded of how interconnected we all are as a Church and as a human family. The earthquake is also another sobering reminder that the people affected most acutely by natural disasters are the poor. The article may be found here:
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201001140345/NEWS/1140350

The War in Afghanistan

2009-12-11T07:45:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: The following entry is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, the director of De Sales Servcie Works in Camden, NJ. Fr. McCue reflects on the human costs of war that often are hidden from out sight, and offers a strong challenge from the Catholic tradition about the morality of this war and all the costs with which it is associated.

At our parish grade school, teachers reported recently observing that one boy in kindergarten was eating more than one of our free school breakfasts in the morning and was caught several times bringing food from breakfast or lunch back to the classroom. He was breaking the rules and did not respond to authority telling him to follow the rules. Our principal discerned that he was doing this because he is hungry. He and his 5 brothers and sisters live with their grandmother and frequently go without dinner. The great thing is that the principal and teachers looked to the source of the problem instead of solely addressing the behavior. They could then address the real issue, or one level of the real issue.

This story gives just one example of what makes me proud of our school: simple attention and care for our students as individuals.

The experience also gives a way for me to offer some thoughts about the war in Afghanistan. I hesitate to write about a public policy issue that is complicated and in an area where I have no direct experience or special competence. However, because democracy is all about everyone having a voice, and blogs are all about exchange of ideas; I write.

To put it simply, I think the course of action chosen by our president, sending more troops to Afghanistan, is unfortunate. Even if all goes forward according to best-case hopes, the many downsides which have accompanied the war so far are likely to continue.

1. The war involves a huge expense of money, and I have to think how we could spend the money better. And where does the money go?

2. Camden, N.J. is an American city that has stood out for its poverty and dysfunction for 40 years. Multiple efforts and plans to lead this community out of its dysfunction have come and gone. There is some progress, but entrenched problems remain. Aren’t we basically trying to do the same thing in Afghanistan? In addition, in central Asia we are not dealing with an American city, but with an area where we are outsiders to the many languages and ancient cultures of the region. How can we count on success there when we can’t do it here?

3. The number of Americans who have died in the war has exceeded the amount who died on 9/11. That comparison does not consider how many non-Americans have died so far, or how many non-combatants. How many young people are injured for life, missing limbs, health ruined or mental health stressed to the limits? The number of soldiers who have returned to the United States and subsequently committed suicide is also sobering.

4. Isn’t this war making enemies for America? Doesn’t the violence and disruption radicalize many people the conflict touches? Every bomb, on target or not, kills or maims someone’s son, brother, friend, nephew, husband, father, grandson, and creates anger and makes enemies of the U.S. As long as conflict provides more jobs than actual productive enterprises (put on hold because of war), there are more young men freed up to get into trouble.

If we bring the classic just war criteria (1) to the situation, my list of concerns raises problems. It is very unsure that other means of addressing the risk of terrorist activity are impractical or ineffective. The chance of success is small. My list of downsides most clearly challenges the criteria that the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver that the evil to be eliminated. Simply put, our war effort is creating more aggrieved people with reason to join in opposition to the United States.

This brings us back to the kindergarten story. The school officials might have simply addressed the problem of a student taking more than his share of food via discipline and punishment. Instead, the school had the good sense and skill to see and address the underlying issue. I want to suggest that an approach to this war in Afghanistan that thinks U.S. security concerns can be effectively addressed by more armed troops fails to address root issues.

Andrew J. Bacevich teaches history and international relations at Boston University. He articulates a critique of what he sees as an excessive dependence on military power to pursue foreign policy goals. I have heard him speak a couple times in radio interviews and have read one book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. His arguments make sense and carry particular weight for three reasons: 1. he is a retired Army colonel, he began his career during the Vietnam War era, 2. His son was killed in this war, 3. He is a Catholic who deliberately brings the insight of this tradition to his thinking.

He also argues that we simply do not have the resources to effectively fight an open-ended, world-wide “war on terror.” He argues that it would be more accurate and effective to treat the terror threat as a law enforcement issue. The terrorists are criminal thugs, rather than national actors, soldiers.

American economic prosperity is not infinite, not something that is guaranteed, he argues. Costly military actions divert resources and economic focus away from medicine, education, infrastructure and technology to things that support what, he argues, is a self-perpetuating reliance on military force. On the topic of American resources, he points out that our soldiers and their families are being asked to bear the burden of “the war on terror.” Isolating the responsibility of defense to a subgroup, distances the human cost of armed conflict from the rest of the nation. Talking about the draft-a structure that was supposed to distribute the burden of defense across economic and cultural lines of the citizenry-he writes, “Whatever the threat posed by Al Qaeda, most parents with teenagers will view the prospect of a draft as posing a greater immediate danger to their children’s well-being.”

What most advances American and world security? I recommend Andrew J. Bacevich’s work as a help to understanding the problem, and to seeing another way.

(1) These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
· the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
· all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
· there must be serious prospects of success;
· the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

Drug Use in Camden

2009-12-02T12:08:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: In today's entry, De Sales Service Works director Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, discusses the rampant drug problems in Camden. Despite the obvious problems and the temptation to despair, he highlights the possibility of hope for people and what some people are doing to help people who suffer from addiction. Frequently, people addicted to drugs can be moved to the margins of society. However, as Christians, we are challenged to follow Jesus who ministered to those who lived on society's margins.

One of the most disturbing things we have experienced living here is the evidence of drug abuse. Illegal, dangerous drugs are all around us here.

We see it in the drug trade carried on “hidden in clear sight” everywhere, at intersections and in the middle of blocks. In fact, for our first year here, until about a month ago, a house directly across the street from the front door of our grade school was a busy drug house. Teenage boys and young men manned the front porch and sidewalk as buyers visited in car or on foot beginning late morning and continuing late into the night. All this occurred with mother and extended family-sisters, cousins, babies-coming and going as well.

We see it in people we meet who are clearly high: either hyper-energetic or just out of it. We see it in people young and old who are wasted away physically: skinny with vacant, distracted eyes. We feel it in conversations that have no energy of commitment: no one is home. This is most shocking and depressing when we see people in their teens or early twenties who clearly just arrived here from their middle class lives. Seeing the look of people caught in this subculture is depressing in everyone, but seeing young people who are not yet wasted away, whose skin in not yet scribbled on with tattoos that are on everyone on the street, often just makes me angry. They have to have other options, I think to myself.

The third evidence of drug use is discarded syringes that can be seen all over in the neighborhood. Every alley or shadowy corner seems to be the place to shoot up. An alley near our house, between us and our grade school, is where we see needles the most. This alley is a disaster, with junk everywhere. For a couple months in the summer the alley even featured chairs, a discarded cooler, and two plastic milk crates with a canopy rigged above it set up for shooting up.

We have to ask how anyone gets to the point in their lives where they are willing to sit in a place like that, for any purpose. And who likes needles, even in a safe and sanitary medical environment? I suppose people get so caught in addiction that they end up here. I suppose some see so few options for themselves that the escape that alcohol and drugs offer seems like a viable option, one that is within reach.

This chilly morning I looked out my office window to the night shelter of a man we see here every day. Sometimes he sleeps with friends or in abandoned buildings, but when he sleeps in our parking lot, he gathers cardboard to construct a box for himself to sleep. He chooses a somewhat sheltered spot against the wall of a tall brick building. He never seems high; he says he has been free of drugs for years. Yet looking at his circumstances, I think that the temptation to simply numb his awareness must haunt him as an appealing option against the cold, loneliness and lack of direction.

I met another man a couple weeks ago here to get a sandwich. He is a young guy, clean-cut, not wasted away, without tattoos. We talked, and he told me he is a vet. He served in Iraq. He is in the reserves (if I got the terminology correct) and is waiting to be deployed overseas again. He can’t be more than 24. His family situation is scattered and chaotic, so he is on his own, living in Camden’s “tent city.” He said he spent much of his downtime during his deployment high, with earphones plugged into loud music just to get through the constant stress of war. So he is here trying to keep things together until his unit re-gathers for training for a deployment in Afghanistan in the spring. I suggested he use the resources of the Veterans’ Administration to treat his drug dependence and the effects of combat. He feels that doing that would jeopardize his career. The only option he sees is holding out until training begins.

That weekend members of the student government of DeSales University were here for a service retreat, and they took on the alley. Graduates of Holy Name grade school joined them, and together they cleared away old tires, mattresses, carpet, weeds: junk and more junk. They filled a construction dumpster with the debris. The pavement still looks like it belongs in a developing country, but clearing the alley has made a huge difference.

These students are aware of a wide horizon of options for their lives. Thank God that service and concern for those with constricted options is on that horizon; our community benefits from that generous vision.

Elizabeth of Hungary

2009-11-17T12:27:00.001-08:00

Editor's Note: Francis de Sales loved the saints and referred to their lives frequently in his writings. Today, Fr. Michael Murray, OSFS, director of the De Sales Spirituality Center, reminds us of the high esteem Francis had for St. Elizabeth, whose feast we celebrate today. This reflection is a good reminder to all of us that we all have a responsibility to our brothers and sisters in need.

On Tuesday, November 17, we remember the life and legacy of St.Elizabeth of Hungary: princess, wife, mother and widow who died in 1231. She is considered the patroness of the Franciscan Third Order and of Catholic Charities.

In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales observed: "St.Elizabeth, daughter of the king of Hungary, often visited the poor. For recreation among her entourage she would sometimes clothe herself like a poor woman, saying to them, 'If I were poor I would dress in this manner.' O God, dear Philothea, how poor was this princess in the midst of all her riches and how rich was her poverty...There is no one who at some time or other has not felt the lack and want of some convenience.It sometimes happens that we are visited by a guest whom we would and should entertain very well but at the time lack means to do so. At other times our best clothes are in one place and we need them to be in another place where we must appear publicly. Again, sometimes the wines in our cellar ferment and turn sour so that only bad or green wines remain. At another time we are out in the country and have to stay in some hovel where everything is lacking and we have neither bed, room, table nor service. In fine, it is often very easy to lack something, no matter how rich we are. This is to be poor in effect with regard to the things we lack. Rejoice on such occasions, Philothea, accept them with a good heart and put up with them cheerfully." (IDL, Part 3: 15)

We remember and admire St. Elizabeth of Hungary because her wealth was only surpassed by her generosity, making her truly rich in the eyes ofGod. Her example calls us to consider that our personal wealth and success is gained best by seizing the opportunities we have each day to share what we have and who we are with others. Leave it to Francis deSales to remind us, however, that true poverty of spirit (being poor inthe midst of riches and rich in the midst of poverty) is a two-edgedsword: it is not only a function of how well we share what we have, but very frequently is practiced by how well we accept what we lack.

Hope Works in Camden

2009-11-06T06:27:00.000-08:00

(Pictured: Students at HopeWorks)

In a number of entries, Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works, has highlighted one ministry in which volunteers in Camden participate, HopeWorks. HopeWorks is a program founded by a Jesuit, Fr. Jeff Putthoff, that is a technology training center for young people in the city of Camden. This week, there is an aritcle from the National Catholic Reporter on Fr. Putthoff and what HopeWorks is doing for Camden.

In the article, NCR editor Tom Roberts explores the questions Fr. Putthoff wrestles with as he engages in this ministry in such a poor area. Fr. Putthoff raises some interesting questions about the future of religious life in our culture today. The article can be found here: http://ncronline.org/news/hopeworks-n-camden.

Friendship and Justice

2009-10-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

(Pictured: Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal, by Br. Michael O'Neill-McGrath, OSFS)

Francis de Sales had a great love of friendship. He recognized the need for healthy friendships for people to grow in their spiritual lives. Francis relied on friendship for his own growth; we see this reflected in the numerous letters he wrote to his spiritual directees and other friends. In the end of his discussion on friendship in the Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis quotes one of the most famous Biblical statements on friendship, “He who fears God shall likewise have a good friendship” (Sir 6:17).

The late Fr. Anthony Ceresko, OSFS, explored Sirach’s understanding of friendship in an attempt to expand our notion of what friendship can mean for people who try to live Salesian spirituality and Catholic social teaching today. One of the most difficult things about work for justice in today’s world is that it is often a thankless task. These efforts can only be sustained if we have healthy friendships with people who share a common vision for humanity and all of creation, because there will inevitably be resistance from some people to our work.

As I have noted at other times on this blog, some people criticize Salesian spirituality for being too “soft” on social justice or for being too individual centered. By his reflections on the meaning of friendship in Sirach, Ceresko also wants to expand our understanding of friendship in the writings of Francis de Sales, seeing that friendship is not something that affects only two people who are friends, but can expand to affect more and more people for the better. Ceresko writes:

“With our modern, over-psychologized notion of “person” today, we too often misunderstand Francis and overlook this social commitment implied in his writings. This modern, over-psychologized understanding of “person” stresses the individual, unique and isolated, focused on the self and interior life, unrelated to the world and the persons around us. This isolated “self”-centered definition of person is in contrast to the relational notion of person as understood by the world of Francis. The challenge for us today, then, is to develop and make more explicit the “social commitment” implied in Francis’ discussion of friendship.”[i]

Ceresko attempts to make this social commitment more explicit through the examination of the Scriptural text Francis uses in his reflection on friendship. The Hebrew word for friend is ’oheb, which comes from the root ’hb, which means “to love.” Ceresko notes that instead of referring to the range of meanings we associate with love in English, the root in Hebrew “includes connotations of political loyalty and covenantal obligations.”[ii] Thus, in order to understand what it means to love or to be a friend for Sirach, we also have to understand the covenantal obligations for the Jewish people at the time Sirach was writing (ca. 180 BCE).

Ceresko explores the historical context of Sirach’s writing in light of the people’s covenantal obligations, noting, “A key element in Israel’s covenant with God was the social and especially economic arrangements within their community. Their commitment to God included the commitment to help and support one another, especially in times of economic distress.”[iii] Thus, love for God was something that demanded a concern for one’s neighbors, especially for neighbors who were in financial straits. In the time Sirach wrote, the Jewish people were under the power of Greek kings who levied heavy taxes on the people. These taxes put many people in precarious financial situations. With this understanding of the situation at the time Sirach wrote his book, Ceresko makes this observation on Sirach’s purpose in his discussion of friendship:

“It is against this background that we can understand the stress on “relationships,” including friendship, in the book of Sirach. The author has a keen interest in fostering and strengthening relationships. It represents part of his strategy to counter the damage done to relationships and family support networks caused by the exploitative economic measures imposed by the Hellenistic kings.”[iv]

Ceresko does not suggest that Francis de Sales had this background in mind when he wrote the Introduction to the Devout Life or anything else on the topic of friendship. However, the background does give us an alternative way to approach the texts of Francis de Sales from the perspective of one Biblical author in a way that can open up new possibilities for us to spread Salesian spirituality today. We too live in a time when the damage done to relationships and families throughout the world as a result of exploitative economic measures makes authentic friendships more difficult. Nevertheless, the challenge to people who follow Christ today is to be united in friendship in a way that allows the love of friends to overflow into love of all people, especially those who are most vulnerable and are most affected by exploitative economic and social policies. Ceresko concludes his article with a sound test for true friendship today, “An important dimension of our personal friendships should include a common commitment, along with our friends, to solidarity with our neighbor in need. Such would be the touchstone and test of true friendship for the follower of Christ today.”[v]

In the picture above, Br. Mickey portrays the friends Francis and Jane as having one heart, with the Eucharist at the center of the heart. This painting is a beautiful image of what friendship can be like for Christians today: two people sharing one heart, aflame for justice, with their lives always centered on the Eucharist.

[i] Anthony Ceresko, “Sirach and St. Francis de Sales on Friendship: Solidarity and the Struggle for Liberation,” in idem., St. Francis de Sales de Sales and the Bible (Bangalore, India: SFS Publications, 2005) 107.
[ii] Ibid., 98.
[iii] Ibid., 101.
[iv] Ibid., 103.
[v] Ibid., 108.

Words to Take with Us into Life

2009-10-21T11:33:00.000-07:00

(Pictured: Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, and De Sales Service Works volunteer Tim Gallagher)

Editor's Note: In a blog entry on Monday, DSW volunteer Meg Weber offered her reflection on her experience of spending her Fall break in Camden. Today, Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, offers his reflection on the experience of these volunteers and reflects on one of the projects the volunteers worked on during their stay. Francis de Sales was a great lover of words, and Fr. Mike's reflection is a good reminder to us all of the power of words in our lives.

This Columbus Day long-weekend four members of DeSales University took an alternative fall break with DSW. Three students, Tim, Helen and Meg, and a member of the University Service Learning team, Latoya, served in a variety of ways over the four days. They helped in the rehab of the parish hall, made and served lunches, participated at New Visions Day shelter, visited Oblate Mickey McGrath’s studio in South Camden, and toured Hopeworks back on our block. All this work encourages the people of Camden and gives volunteers insight into big urban issues. It also gives volunteers the opportunity to get beyond “issues” to the level of people meeting people in Christian service.

This group from DSU initiated a project that will be continued the last week in October. Campbell’s Soup has had a long association with this city. The soup factories that used to employ wave after wave of new Americans and whose aromas filled the downtown air are now gone, but Campbell’s headquarters remains in Camden. They are sponsoring a service week this October for employees and neighborhoods. Our State Street area will benefit from this involvement.

One of the projects involves painting the boarded up windows of abandoned buildings in our neighborhood. The DeSales University Salesian Service team contributed to this by working on a prototype, painting a house’s broken-down porch and adding color to the boards over the windows. We painted Salesian good thoughts to offer the positive, good-sense vision of St. Francis de Sales to this environment. This project does not fix the problem of these buildings---but the bright, clean color and uplifting words make a difference.

St. Francis de Sales is well known for his sayings---expressed in short, memorable phrases:
“Be who you are and be that well.”
“Nothing is as strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as true strength.”
“Be patient with everyone, first of all with yourself.”
“We must do all by love, nothing by force.”
“It is a great part of our perfection to support one another in our imperfections.”
“We must be displeased with our faults in a firm yet tranquil manner.”
“Accept peacefully all the duties that come your way, taking them in order, one by one.”
“There is no soil so barren that diligent tenderness doesn’t bring some fruit.”

I could go on because there are hundreds of these wise sayings. They have some similarity to the Lord’s parables in that they are memorable and often express values that are the reverse of what is expected. They look good painted in the neighborhood. Next week, DSW volunteers and school children from Holy Name School will continue this effort along with volunteers from Campbell’s Soup.

Volunteers also distribute cards with Salesian quotes printed on them out with lunches to the individuals and families who come for food. People seem to enjoy the good sense, positive out-look, and the reminder that God is to be found in every circumstance---guiding, challenging offering blessing. Perhaps the reason De Sales came up with so many, and the reason they have been popular, is that they are memorable and thus can be carried into all aspects of life to put the faith we love into practice.

De Sales University Meets De Sales Service Works

2009-10-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

(Pictured: Helen, Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, Tim, Meg, and Latoya, in front of a Salesian sign they painted.)

Editor's Note: Meg Weber is a senior at De Sales University studying nursing. Over the Fall break at De Sales University, Meg traveled to Camden to work with De Sales Service Works (DSW). Meg had a powerful experience while in Camden and now hopes to serve as a year long volunteer with DSW after graduation this May. She reflects on her experience in the entry below. Meg's entry highlights yet again how we can be transformed through service. Even though we frequently begin to serve others in order to help them, we soon learn that we are gaining just as much, if not more, from the experience. For more information on DSW, please visit http://www.oblates.org/dsw/.

On a cold Saturday morning in October, we departed for what was to become one of the most significantly reflective and life-changing weekends for me. Two other DeSales students, Tim, a senior studying theology, and Helen, a freshman studying to become a physician assistant, Latoya, our group leader, and I packed up a DSU van and started our drive to Camden, New Jersey. Though I was unfamiliar with the city, I soon enough learned of the immense and widespread poverty that Camden suffered. My first thoughts were positive, wanting to be fully open to the experience and therefore to make the best of the weekend. While I have a short history of working with the poor, I knew better than to expect a similar experience.

Our weekend events ranged from making bagged lunches for Sandwich Ministry to utilizing both white and colorful paint to decorate the boarded up windows and doors of a near by abandoned house. We also spent time on the streets, inviting local community members to a street cleanup that was to be hosted by Campbell’s and speaking with families of the parish who wished to be on the Christmas gift donation list. These opportunities were awesome, but just doing those above-mentioned things don’t make my weekend worthy of repeating.

I was definitely touched by the experiences of conversing with others and at the end of the day reflection. In the community, during our walk with Sr. Claire to find out details for the Christmas gift list, the members of the community opened their homes not only to her, but to me too. I had the chance to be in people’s homes, simply talking and praying with them. Now, to me, home is a special place of love and comfort, so to be invited into the homes of families exemplifies the generosity and love that people share in this community. I believe that, while it isn’t always the first thing that one notices on the streets of Camden, there is a huge amount of love: love for the community and love for one another. During one of our days, we visited a place called Hope Works. This place, while humble in appearance, is filled with hearts of young men and women who are immensely compassionate for achieving their dreams. How cool is that! This is a local program, dwelling within the rundown, poor streets of Camden that provides hope and opportunity for local young men and women who need guidance, who want to change their lives for the better.

Love. Such a powerful word, and yet one that is used much too frequently, in ways that deprive it of its true strength. I saw love in Camden… I really did. And I felt it too. I saw love in each person with whom I made eye contact or spoke to, because for me to try to imagine the struggles of their lives would do anything but comfort me. They are strong people. I felt love in the warm way that I was welcomed into people’s homes, and especially in the way that men and women would ask God to bless me, despite the fact that I was overwhelmed with the feeling that they are the ones who need the prayers.

Thus, reflecting at the end of the day would stir emotions of sadness, fear, and extreme joy; I felt an interesting mixture of them all over the weekend. And while my emotions were tossed from one end of the spectrum to the complete opposite, my faith and trust in the Lord matured.

Oblate Founder's Day

2009-10-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: On Monday, October 12, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales celebrated Founder's Day, a day in which we remember the first Oblates beginning their novitiate. On this day in 1873, Bishop Ravinet of Troyes, France, presented the Oblate religious habit to Fathers Brisson, Gilbert, Rollin, Lambert, Lambey, and Perrot as they began their novitiate. In this blog entry, Fr. Jim Greenfield, OSFS, provincial of the Wilmington-Philadeplhia Province, offers his reflections on Founder's Day. Last week, we learned that one of of our oldest ministries, Northeast Catholic High School in Philadelphia, will be closing at the end of the school year. Fr. Greenfield reflects on this development and some of our other ministries in light of our founders' vision, Salesian spirituality, and Catholic social teaching.

Founders’ Day is an opportunity to celebrate who the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales are, where we’ve been and where we are going as a community founded by Fr. Louis Brisson and Mother Mary de Sales Chappuis.

Due to the announcement of the closing of Northeast Catholic High School in Philadelphia last Thursday, I want to reflect on what this decision by Cardinal Rigali—and others like it— could mean for us Oblates as we begin to accept this type of situation, in our Salesian manner, in the providence of God. It really does invite us to celebrate who we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going.

In January of 2008, Stan Dombrowski, pastor of St. Cecilia in Ft. Myers, FL asked me to present the Parish Mission on the topic of Stewardship. I had never done a Mission on this topic so I needed to pull a lot of information together and get to the task of devising three one-hour talks. I have continued to reflect on stewardship, and since the Mission I led was just after my election as provincial, the preparation has been most helpful to me in my ministry.

We know that to be a steward is to care for and manage that which has been entrusted to us – originally understood as a steward for guests on a ship! We hear about being good stewards of our time, talent, and treasure. We are blessed and we are invited to share the blessings we have been given with others in concrete ways.

In this entry, I offer three considerations for our Founders’ Day:
· A reflection on stewardship and the principle of solidarity from Catholic Social Teaching
· An vignette of solidarity at North Catholic shared by Nick Waseline
· An example of solidarity from DSW prepared by Mike McCue

Reflection from Catholic Social Teaching
Our primary responsibility as stewards is to one another. I see this most boldly and clearly in the care of our youngest and oldest members. For our future to be strong, we help—through our prayers, example, and support—to educate and form our young men so that they can serve the Church through our mission. Perhaps more powerfully, I see our stewardship in the care of our retired, sick, and dying members. Again, our prayers for them are abundant, and our allocation of resources for their patient healing and dignified dying is vast. Yes, we are responsible for them. And, for those of us not yet in need of such care, other Oblates will, in time, be caring for us. In large measure, the preparation, cultivation, and investment of the necessary resources for the future are occurring now.

The contemporary moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre says that there are really two qualities of human beings that are indisputable: We are vulnerable and dependent --- vulnerable to disease, hurt, and finally death, and dependent on one another.

It's surely true to say that we all have been vulnerable and dependent. Perhaps we are now, and certainly we will be in the future. MacIntyre notes the importance of our remembering who we are as vulnerable and dependent and that it not be a source of fear.
On this Founders’ Day, I invite us to celebrate our stewardship of one another as we continue to face the challenges of aging, diminishment, and dwindling resources with a new resolve to choose trust and hope in whatever direction the hand of God is guiding us.

The closing of North Catholic raises these similar concerns: The fear that creeps into our province conversations about diminution and death, the questions about our longest ministry now coming to a close, the castles of our youth symbolized by the fortress on Torresdale Avenue poised for closure alongside the faculty house there perhaps on the verge of being razed.

Catholic social teaching underscores the virtue is solidarity. Pope John Paul II defines solidarity as "a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say, to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all" (On Social Concern, 1987, 38). He says further that solidarity is at work when members of society "recognize one another as persons" (On Social Concern, 39) and that "everyone should look upon his or her neighbor (without any exception) as another self'' (Gaudium et spes, 26).

The closure of Northeast Catholic and the way we respond to it will ultimately be a matter of figuring out what it means for us to remain one with the students at North and the alumni. We will be called to recognize that we will always be committed to this inner-city ministry and to discern what the commitment will require of us. Furthermore, at this moment of a deepening of solidarity with those we will not let go of in the North Community, we are called to a greater solidarity with one another, especially as we navigate our way through these issues with the spirit of our Founders.

An example of solidarity from one of our oldest ministries
Nick Waseline (principal of Northeast Catholic) recounts the mood of last Friday, the morning after the closure announcement:
“By 7:00 a.m. the media were conspicuously present on Torresdale Ave. As the students arrived, a spontaneous ‘pep rally’ took place for about 20 minutes. It unfolded as an event of true ‘red and white’ Falcon pride. The students knew from the news of the night before that Northeast Catholic was slated to close its doors in June. Their response in the morning was none other than that of love for their school, solidarity in their identity as Falcons and their loyalty to its tradition and spirit. As this impromptu rally was taking place on the front steps of the school, the faculty was gathered in the Resource Center to plan a strategy for a day of unusual emotion and reaction to the news of closure. They were sad, the pain was evident. After a short period of planning and sharing they joined the students who were, by 8:00, gathered in the auditorium for an assembly. The atmosphere was a combination of so much emotion: sadness, pride, unity, love for North and the Salesian tradition, gratitude for the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales and the dedication of the faculty over the years – it was a celebration of ‘North’ at a very significant moment in its time-honored history.

Those who were present will never forget the experience it afforded - the ‘graced’ power of the presence of the Holy Spirit in lifting a community of faith to a level of hope and confidence in the Providence of God.

The students and faculty left the assembly for a day of classes with a somewhat consoled spirit. However, throughout the day many concerns and emotions continued to emerge and be expressed: Why us? What will happen to us? Where will we go? What will the rest of the year be like? And much more.

We are challenged by this turn of events, but with the help of God, the spirit of DeSales and the two standards by which we follow life at North: ‘Tenui nec Dimmitam’, and ‘Be who you are and be that well.’ We will work, pray through and celebrate the best Salesian year North as ever had.”

An example of solidarity from one of our newest ministries
There is another point from Catholic social teaching that has deep roots in Scripture. That is, in our stewardship for one another, we ought to have a preferential option for the poor. Our attention should be first directed to those most in need, those lacking the basic necessities of life.

Mike McCue (director of De Sales Service Works) writes about Salesian compassion and solidarity
“One of the most striking aspects of Jane de Chantal’s life was the tremendous pain which she encountered. She dealt with the loss of her young husband, three children, her friend and spiritual director Francis at 53, as well as undergoing a lengthy period of feeling God’s absence in her spiritual life. Despite all of this pain, St. Jane was able to open herself to the sufferings of others and recognize that all human beings depend on God’s grace. Her own suffering allowed her to relate to other people in pain and to minister to their particular situations. All of us have experiences of pain in our own lives, but we are not called to isolation as a result of these experiences. We are called to enter into the pain of others and to ease each other’s burdens, regardless of the differences between us that might lead to separation.

Cardboard boxes are common and useful, and usually end up in the trash or recycling bin. Here in Camden used cardboard is a valued item. Flattened out cardboard boxes become the mattress of choice for our homeless neighbors. Homelessness is a problem across our country. Living here, we have encountered it not so much as a national problem, but simply as our neighbors’ situation. Maybe because we are a church---or because the property is well lighted, or maybe because people end up anyplace where they are not chased away—about a dozen men and women with no other place to go, camp out around us. We exchange pleasantries coming and going; we channel food, blankets and clothing; and we intend to communicate respect, patience, and kindness.

A couple who goes by the names Ken and Barbie spend most evenings and nights on our front porch. The front door has a large stained glass panel; so we cannot forget they are there outside, while we are inside. The thin line of that door separates our very different worlds. The two of them sleep on cardboard spread over the cold cement of our front porch, and we sleep on comfortable mattress, in our own space, safe and warm inside.
Because the warmth and security we enjoy is—in a sense—normal, and something everyone should have, I can say that I do not feel guilty. However, this situation raises many feelings and thoughts. It feels uncomfortable and really painful that these neighbors whom we have connected with and whom we like—despite differences of background, education, experience, and expectations—have such pain and burden.

Solidarity is more than a feeling—or is not enough to let it stay on the feeling level. All of the feelings and the awareness bring us to action. We ask what can we do for homelessness or, specifically, for our neighbors—for Ken and Barbie? St. Francis de Sales challenges us to bring respect, gentleness, humility, and gratitude, and to treat our neighbors as adults and equals. Catholic social teaching calls us to work for shelters, aid, housing, and health care—for structures that can lead to better situations for our neighbors. And, all the while, we continue to feel the discomfort and pain that things are not as they should be when people have to sleep on cardboard.

For us in Camden and in so many other places in our world, homeless people are literal neighbors. But few neighborhoods are without homelessness and poverty, and no neighborhood, no community is without people struggling—whether the people be in Camden, or your home or in distant Haiti, Darfur, or Afghanistan. All—near or far— are our gospel neighbors.

We do what we can, we do not forget, we are incomplete and uncomfortable. The kingdom of God is here. It is also not yet fully here.”

Conclusion
We really do need one another and we need to take seriously our commitment to be neighbor to one another. We cannot let go of those who need us to care from them. Solidarity calls us to this. So, do our Founders!

The Catholic Climate Covenant

2009-10-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

Every October 4, the Church celebrates the memory of one of the most famous saints in history, St. Francis of Assisi. Since the feast fell on a Sunday this year, the Church celebrates the liturgy for Sunday instead of the saint. Nevertheless, his feast is an opportunity for us all to reflect on the timeliness of his message for our situation today. One of the principal tenets of Catholic social teaching is respect for God’s creation, and this was a concern for Francis of Assisi as well. In a recent statement Pope Benedict highlighted the Christian’s response to this issue:

“Today the great gift of God’s Creation is exposed to serious dangers and lifestyles which can degrade it. Environmental pollution is making particularly unsustainable the lives of the poor of the world … we must pledge ourselves to take care of creation and to share its resources in solidarity.”

In April of this year, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and other members of the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change launched a new initiative that stressed the need for all Christians to show a greater respect for creation and for the way in which we consume resources. The coalition invited all Catholics to participate in their new effort, the Catholic Climate Covenant. As a part of this initiative, the coalition invited individuals to take the St. Francis Pledge and has renewed this invitation on Francis’ feast day.

While this is not the Francis who is referred to most frequently on this blog, respect for God’s creation is something that was close to the heart of Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal as well. Francis and Jane lived long portions of their lives in the beautiful city of Annecy, France, which helped form Francis’ famous statement, “We pray best before beauty.” When all of creation becomes an invitation to prayer, the way in which we interact with creation is transformed and all humanity can experience the wonder of God’s creation.

The Catholic Climate Covenant covers a number of justice issues. As the title makes clear, the issue of climate change is central. However, the effects of climate change are felt most acutely by the poor, who are least responsible for the causes of climate change. Experts give numbers of poor people affected that are staggering. To give but one example, access to clean water is a hot issue today. According to the World Development Movement, one-sixth of the world’s population will face water shortages in the near future because of retreating glaciers as a result of increased temperatures. Thus, the covenant challenges us with a provocative question, “Who’s under your carbon footprint?”

This question can be helpful for those of us who use the practice of examination of conscience as one of our daily rituals, a practice Francis de Sales suggested to his spiritual directees. Questions such as this one posed by the climate covenant can help us expand our perspectives and see that there are different ways to approach our spiritual disciplines. These questions help us to realize how narrow our approach can be at times as well.

Information on the Catholic Climate Covenant, as well as the St. Francis pledge, can be found at http://catholicclimatecovenant.org/.

I close this entry with a poem called “Earth, Sister Earth” from Dom Helder Camara, the late archbishop of Recife, Brazil. Camara has been called by some people a modern day Francis of Assisi because of his dedication to the poor and all of creation. This poem is a strong challenge for all of us to rethink the way in which we relate to all of creation and how our actions or inactions impact all of creation.

Earth, Sister Earth

Teach us
to continue the creation
to help the seeds
to multiply,
giving food
for the people
and for the beasts.

Teach us
to further the joy
you never tire of offering
when weary travelers find you,
a signpost to their home.

Teach us
to make the horizon
become a beautiful image
of creation’s grandeur.

Teach us
to accept
the mediation of those
who wish to unite us
to our fellows,
as you accept the gift
of the water that binds
land to land,
no matter how great
the distances!

What do you suffer
in the dust of deserts?
How do you look upon
those of us who,
though capable of transforming
the waste to lushness,
prefer to be creators
of barrenness?

And how do you rejoice
in the rain
that brings forth your fruits?
And what pain do you feel
at the storms
that drown you with floods,
destroying plantations,
crushing houses and the lives
of animals, of plants, of people?
How great is the lesson
you give us,

O Earth,
more than sister:
our mother Earth!
All our lives
we walk carelessly across you,
and when life leaves us,
with no shadow of resentment,
you open up to us
your maternal bosom
to keep
our flesh,
our ashes,
for the joy
of the resurrection.

"Ignorance of Scripture is Ignorance of Christ"

2009-09-30T05:48:00.001-07:00

The words above are one of the most famous statements of St. Jerome, the great biblical scholar and doctor of the Church whose feast we celebrate today. One of the main criticisms I hear about Catholic social teaching from a number of people who do not find it relevant for today’s world is that it is based on an understanding of an outdated philosophical framework which few people accept today, namely, natural law. While there is no doubt that natural law arguments do play a large, and I would argue valuable, role in the Catholic Church’s reflection on social issues, in honor of St. Jerome today I would like to explore the use of Scripture in Catholic social teaching. Scripture offers us God’s vision for the potential of all of humanity and all of creation and does not fit neatly into any philosophical outlook. I offer the following reflections on the use of Scripture, as well as some potential misuses, that can challenge us to work for peace and justice in the world today.

Vatican II called for a greater use of Scripture in moral reflection (Optatam Totius 16). This challenge of the council fathers was to move away from the proof texting of many of the moral theology textbooks in existence prior to the council. These texts argued their positions based on tradition and one understanding of natural law, and then at the end threw in a biblical reference or two that would seem, at least on the surface, to support the position for which they had argued. One of the great insights Scripture scholars have offered us from their work is that we all bring biases and presuppositions to the texts of Scripture and frequently we find in the Scriptures only what we want to find there. We often overlook or do not even notice things with which we disagree. How can we reconcile a desire to grow in union with Christ with a closed attitude to Christ speaking to us in the Scriptures? As theologian William Spohn states, “If the reader merely seeks to find biblical support for moral positions arrived at on other grounds, Scripture no longer functions as an authoritative source.”[i]

In addition to the poor use of Scripture in moral reflection before the council, moral theologians also focused predominantly on case studies, applying the principles of natural law and tradition to specific situations. Today, moral theologians are more concerned with the type of person we are trying to become. In the early Church, there was not a distinction of disciplines between spirituality and moral theology; both were interrelated as a way of becoming a better Christian. Theologians highlight this link more today due in large part to the important role Scripture plays in theological reflection. While many of us still view morality as a list of do’s and don’t’s, this perspective limits our possibilities. Spohn states elsewhere, “When we examine how Scripture actually functions in moral reflection we must expand the scope of ethics to include convictions, dispositions, and imaginative models as well as norms and principles. An ethics of universal principles and rules artificially restricts the contribution that biblical materials can make to the moral life.”[ii] This biblical vision for humanity inspired Francis de Sales to be concerned with the formation of the entire human person, working from the inside out. He recognized that individual actions, as important as they might be, do not tell the whole story. Francis was concerned with the type of person people are becoming.

How, then, does this new approach to Scripture help us in our work for peace and justice? I would like to quote at length from an article by noted Scripture scholar Luke Timothy Johnson. Johnson is responding to many Scripture scholars who are obsessed with “truth” in relation to whether or not something in Scripture can be considered historical (e.g., did Jesus ever tell the parable of the Good Samaritan?). Johnson suggests an alternate approach to the question of truth:

“I would like to propose another approach to the truth of the Bible, one which works in and through literary imagination. Such an approach would focus neither on the world that created the Bible nor on the world that the Bible might predict, but rather on the world that the Bible itself creates. We can approach the Bible not as an anthology of compositions locked in the past but as a word that unlocks every present, not as a set of sources for describing reality, not as a set of propositions about the world but as an imaginative construction of a world. In every age and in every circumstance, it is possible to read the Bible as creating an imaginative world in which humans can choose to live.”[iii]

Johnson goes on to say that reading the Bible in this way makes demands on us that neither a fundamentalist approach nor the traditional historical-critical approach makes on its readers: the audacity to try to put the vision of the Scriptures into practice.

“But there is also a moral factor in our reluctance to embrace such a reading, for it demands of us that we put into practice the world thus imagined by the Bible. If the Bible is “true” as description or prediction, it demands nothing of us but intellectual assent; its truth is like that of a weather report or mathematical theorem. But if the Bible is true as prescription, then everything is demanded of us: we are called to embody that imagination, to bring it into existence by the pattern of our lives.”[iv]

It is easy for us to label people who believe in the vision of Scripture idealists, Communists, or utopians. Even the Scriptures do not make the claim that working for justice will be easy (Matt 5:3-10). However, if we are to be faithful to our baptismal call to follow Christ, we must constantly listen to the Scriptures with new ears, identifying and removing our moral blind spots that prevent us from attempting to put the vision of the Scriptures into practice in our own lives and communities. God’s vision for justice and peace will undoubtedly be different from our own, and does not fit neatly into any political party’s outlook. By constantly turning to the Scriptures so that we are not ignorant of Christ but are able to know him more deeply, we demonstrate that God is the Lord of our lives and not an ideology, philosophy, or political system. May Jerome’s love of Scripture inspire us all to that same love of God’s Word!

[i] William Spohn, “Scripture, Use of in Catholic Social Ethics,” pp. 861-74 in The New Dictionary of Catholic Social Thought, ed. Judith Dwyer. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1994. 863.
[ii] Ibid., 868.
[iii] Luke Timothy Johnson, “How is the Bible True? Let Me Count the Ways.” Commonweal, May 22, 2009. 14.
[iv] Ibid., 15.

High School Service Retreats in Camden

2009-09-28T11:23:00.001-07:00

(Pictured: Salesianum students at work in the "Peace Garden" in Camden with Luis, second from right, a Camden local.)

Editor's Note: At the end of Mass yesterday in the Czech Republic, Pope Benedict directed these words to the young people in attendance, "Hope! This word, to which I often return, sits well with youth. You, my dear young people, are the hope of the Church! She expects you to become messengers of hope.” In a city that seems devoid of hope sometimes, De Sales Service Works (DSW) invites young people to come to Camden and offer hope to people who desperately need it. The work these young people do offers hope for the Church as she continues the mission of Christ to bring good news to the poor (Luke 4:18). The blog entry that follows is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works. In this entry, Fr. Mike describes one aspect of DSW, high school service retreats in Camden.

This month DSW has begun hosting groups from the three local high schools sponsored by the Oblates: Salesianum in Wilmington, DE, Father Judge in NE Philadelphia and North Catholic in the Frankford section of Philadelphia.

Salesianum seniors were the first group to come for our Salesian service retreats. The retreat day is made up of a morning service period and afternoon discussion and prayer. This blog entry will describe the three service activities to give a taste of what some people involved in DSW are doing in the Camden community.

New Visions Day Shelter
On each retreat, fifteen students go with Salesianum’s Oblate campus minister Fr. Pat Kifolo to a “day shelter” three blocks away called New Visions. The director, Kevin Moran, meets them and guides them through a tour of operations at New Visions. This shelter offers services that many people from a middle-class background take for granted. Here there are laundry facilities, showers, a thrift store, and a large community room to relax and be off the street. Breakfast and lunch are served each weekday. In addition, because the people served here are either homeless or are shifting between rented rooms, abandoned houses, sleeping in doorways in the city or with various friends and family, New Visions serves as a stable mailing address. The shelter enables guests to receive government aid, veteran benefits, and bills---and any other mail which otherwise would not reach them.

Aside from addressing these base level needs, Kevin Moran and the New Visions staff make an effort to create a welcoming place for community to form, for people to get their bearings and to take steps in a positive direction. This may involve getting in to a program, moving toward a better self-image, or achieving personal goals. For many vulnerable people suffering from mental illness the shelter helps them keep their heads above water. The students participating in service for the morning contribute to this mission by listening to the guests, playing games and sharing community and humanity. In that real way they share the light of Christ---kindness, gentleness, and patience in a hard-edged, rough city.

Sandwich Ministry
Six students staff the cathedral’s sandwich ministry preparing bagged lunches: a sandwich, fruit, napkin and Salesian thought. Between 30 to 75 people come to our door each weekday for a sandwich or for canned goods from our food pantry. All the food is donated by parishioners and by St. Vincent de Paul groups from Our Mother of Consolation in Philadelphia & St. Thomas More here in New Jersey. The parish staff and volunteers usually make and offer the sandwiches, but on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the fall semester Salesinum seniors will do the honors. The nourishment provided by the sandwiches helps people in need, but I think it can be said that the human contact, marked by gentleness and humility, may be just as important. We often give people cards with a good thought from St. Francis de Sales printed on them. People seem glad for the optimistic insights from our saint.

Peace Garden
The final group works on our “peace garden.” Camden fits the prototypical concrete/asphalt jungle one thinks of as a broken-down, inner city landscape. However, because there are so many vacant lots, there is a good amount of potential green space. Usually weeds and derelict trees dominate, but one neglected plot of earth is being transformed by the labors of students doing service here. Digging and planting may not seem like service the way talking to homeless people or preparing food does. But we try to make it clear that the gardens the young men are creating lift the spirits of people who live here---beauty and order replacing weeds, dead plants, trash and disorder. Beauty has a lot of power, and is not something that belongs only in wealthy areas. In addition, the students work with two homeless men, Ken and Luis, who give direction and share about their lives in the city.

There is so much to be learned here: observing, listening to people, taking it all in. One of the garden groups recounted how they were working: digging, clearing weeds and stumps, when a mother with her second grader hurried by, with a couple of the lunches prepared by their fellow Salesianum students, very late for school. The little girl made it clear that she did not want to go to school. Arguing with the child, the mother pointed to the guys doing the landscaping and said to the daughter, “If you don’t go to school, you’ll end up like them. Come on!” and she pulled her off toward the school. It was a funny, ironic comment since these seniors work hard at a good school and are deep into the task of college application and have a life full of options. We all got a laugh out of the irony. But on another level, the comment also highlighted the simple fact of human solidarity. Poor people, people with various mental illnesses, and those with addictions are not a separate species of human being---any of us could be in their shoes if some things were different about our lives. That awareness of unity and connectedness across very real differences is an insight many students have talked about. When you meet and talk to people who are poor or homeless or addicted, you are no longer dealing with abstract problems and issues but with people with stories, complexities and personalities. It is a gift to have the chance to realize this.

In the discussion that follows the service period, many students have also expressed a sense of awareness of blessing and a sense of gratitude, seeing their situation in contrast to the very visible privations here in Camden. The experience of service helps educate young people in ways that are not possible in the classroom. On top of the educational dimension, however, these students are making a concrete difference in the lives of many people in Camden.

A Salesian Approach to the Health Care Debate

2009-09-23T16:04:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: The following blog entry is from Michael Castrilli, OSFS, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales studying theology at Washington Theological Union and serving as a campus minister at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory school in Washington, DC. Michael offers us a balanced approach to the debate based on Salesian spirituality and the teaching of the magisterium. As we all are aware, there is a lot of energy around disagreements in the health care debate. I offer the following poem from the late Archbishop of Recife, Brazil, Dom Helder Camara, as a good reflection on how we can approach all debates with charity. The poem is called "If You Disagree with Me."

If you disagree with me,

you have something to give me,

if you are sincere

and seek the truth

as best you may,

honestly, with modest care,

your thought is growth

to mine, correction,

you deepen my vision.

The health care debate in the United States has been consuming many areas of daily life. Whether we are watching contentious health care town-hall meetings on television news, reading about the variety of perspectives on the matter, or discussing the issues with friends and family around the dinner table, everyone seems to be talking about health care reform. The question that arises for me is what Catholic social teaching and our Salesian tradition offers us in terms of insights into this debate. I would like to highlight two points for discussion. The first point involves our Salesian approach to the debate and the second point highlights the resources available to understand the Catholic Church’s position on this challenging and complex issue.

Unfortunately, there is no quick-fix solution to the health care problem in the United States. If there were an easy solution, the six-decade debate over what to do in terms of access and escalating costs would have been solved many years ago. President Harry Truman, in his address to Congress in 1945 was the first to propose universal health care access. Many years have passed between his declaration and where we stand today on this position. As Catholics and followers of Salesian spirituality, what role are we to take in this debate? I would argue our responsibility is to promote dialogue in love, with love, and through love. Salesian spirituality challenges us to listen well to others, seek to understand a variety of points of view, and reflect on Sacred Scripture and magisterial teaching to help inform our conscience and our viewpoints. However, the central trait that we bring to this discussion is our approach, and that approach is love. To bring the gift of love to this debate is what we as people of faith are called to do. Jesus says, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love…This is my commandment: love one another as I love you” (John 15:9-12). As the health care debate rages in our country, it is difficult not to notice that some individuals seem to be paralyzed by their own point of view, evident in the yelling and screaming at each other in public forums. Whether a person supports or disagrees with health care reform is not my point. However, I would argue that now, more than ever, the public square needs honest dialogue with love as our source, and Jesus Christ as our inspiration.

Throughout the life of St. Francis de Sales, we see him consistently dialoguing in love. As Francis faced contentious, challenging, and dangerous situations, whether as a missionary in the Chablais region or his work as Bishop of Geneva, Francis never tired of listening, dialoguing, and winning hearts through his gentle presence and his loving approach. With love as our approach, this stance can only serve to facilitate and promote respectful dialogue. The outcome of respectful dialogue is a broader understanding of another’s view, and then, whether we agree or disagree, we can meet each other as sister or brother and not as an enemy.

With love as our stance, the second point is to have awareness for what we truly believe as people of faith and to understand how our Catholic Church engages this issue. The Catholic Church has long supported universal access to health care that respects human life and dignity. One of the many reasons I love the Church is that it has never shied away from speaking out on a host of social, economic, political, and human issues faced by the faithful of all generations. To instruct the faithful, over time, the Church has developed a rich canon of magisterial documents in which the Church provides guidance, articulation, and instruction to the Catholic faithful. As health care issues evolved over time, it was Pope John XXIII who spoke explicitly about medical care as an issue of justice.[i] In Pacem in Terris (1963) the Pope articulates the position that proper medical care is a human right. He states, “We must speak of man's rights. Man has the right to live. He has the right to bodily integrity and to the means necessary for the proper development of life, particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and, finally, the necessary social services.”[ii] Therefore, medical care as a human right is not new for the Church, though understanding the complex issues surrounding this debate can be challenging. To meet this challenge, in an effort to assist the faithful, the US Bishops’ have responded with a variety of resources.

In the summer of 2009, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) launched a health care website (www.usccb.org/healthcare) to help clarify issues. The bishops have developed a clear framework from which any health care reform must consider and provide guidelines to instruct the faithful on this important matter being discussed in the nation. The four principles are explicit:

1. a truly universal health policy with respect for human life and dignity
2. access for all with a special concern for the poor and inclusion of legal immigrants
3. pursuing the common good and preserving pluralism including freedom of conscience
and a variety of options
4. restraining costs and applying them equitably across the spectrum of payers

Reading these principles, as well as the variety of resources available[iii] from the USCCB, individuals can come to greater awareness and understanding for this complex debate. As the United States continues to debate health care reform, if we approach the dialogue with love, allowing our faith to instruct us and permit the Spirit to lead us, we simply cannot go wrong. Let us also not forget that what makes us unique as Christian people is how we approach one another, sister and brother, all with love. For when we allow love to rule our dialogue, nothing can get in the way of seeking the common good, respecting the humanity of those around us, and acting as a community of believers dedicated to the message of Jesus Christ, the first and ultimate advocate for all members of the earthly city.

[i] Philip S. Keane, Catholicism & Health Care Justice (New York: Paulist Press, 2002), 6.
[ii] John XXIII, Pacem in Terris (Rome: Vatican, 1963), 11.
[iii] See the 1993 document, A Framework for Comprehensive Health Care Reform: Protecting Human Life, Promoting Human Dignity, and Pursuing the Common Good or the 1981 document entitled Health and Health Care, available at www.usccb.org.

Home Visits in Camden

2009-09-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

(Pictured: DSW volunteers prepare for home visits.)

Editor's Note: The following blog entry is from Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS, director of De Sales Service Works in Camden, NJ. Fr. McCue's entry highlights how work for justice, no matter how great or simple, transforms us as individuals, even when our attempts to articulate the experience seem inadequate. For more information on De Sales Service Works, please visit the website at www.oblates.org/dsw.

“Home visits?” “House blessings?” “Pastoral visits?” “Block collection?” “Walking around the neighborhood with Sr. Claire?”

One of the works of De Sales Service Works (DSW) is visits to people in their homes in our neighborhood of Holy Name Parish in Camden. I know everyone who has participated in these visits will agree with me that it is an unforgettable experience---beneficial for the volunteers and the people visited. The only problem is that I cannot think of a title for the service activity that conveys what a rich activity it is. Tim Gallagher in his blog entry of Wednesday, August19, describes his hesitation about this aspect of DSW service because of my plain failure to name and explain effectively what we would be doing.

I will try to do a better job here. Basically, we visit homes in the neighborhood, visit with the families, and enjoy the hospitality offered. In this simple act we hope to express the parish’s concern for its residents and to connect basically middle-class European Americans with people in our neighborhood who have a Latino background and are mostly in a more precarious economic position. There is often a language difference as well. The things we share in common, however, are more important and bind us together: our faith tradition and our common humanity. Visiting volunteers learn that there are some shockingly poor families---as well as some middle class homes---in this inner city setting.

We have been welcomed to households where a lot of people live: three or four generations, working or out of work, in school or not. On our streets a fully functioning house may be next door to an abandoned house, a vacant lot, or a drug house. Often people we visit are clearly fresh immigrants and being welcomed into their space feels like a trip to Latin America or the Caribbean. These homes bear witness to the pride the people have in their home country with flags on the wall, as well as their devotion to their Catholic faith, with images of the Blessed Mother and the Lord displayed prominently next to the flag.

Sr. Claire Sullivan, IHM, is our guide for these visits. Her role in the parish has provided me and DSW volunteers many opportunities to get to know the area and the families well. Prior to coming to Holy Name Parish seven years ago, she spent decades working among the poor in Peru and Chile. She is fluent in Spanish and is familiar with Latino cultures. As our guide, she used the Biblical image of "holy ground" to remind us to visit as guests, as fellow Christians, and neighbors---not as a tourist or a cultural anthropologist. Let me describe two specific visits to attempt to convey the richness of the experience.

On one occasion, we visited a family whose children attend Holy Name Parish School. One boy, his cousin and a neighbor have a start-up band---guitar, drums, and bass. The kids seem to live in both a Latino and American world---speaking English and Spanish, sharing interests and style that you would find anywhere in the US. But the house fascinated me. It was very simple except for an entertainment center. That cabinet also served as a home shrine with multiple images of the Virgin Mary, holy water, rosaries, a crucifix and family pictures all mixed together. Since this family has a Mexican background, the Blessed Mother pictured as Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared several times. They also had a lovely statue of Mary dressed in yellow with a radiating halo. I asked the name and tried to learn it, repeating the title several times. I did not take the name away with me but did take away an experience of the kindness of the family.

In June, Oblate Associates Tim Gallagher, Ryan Cronshaw and I visited the home of a little boy, Jacob, who was sick with cancer. His family lives in a modest row house with extended family living together. The family had been through a lot in addition to Jacob’s illness. His grandfather died three months before our visit, and a young uncle with special needs died not long after our visit. At their house, it could not have been clearer that, despite the sorrows, his family gave young Jacob a full measure of love and attention.

Later in the summer, Jacob lost his fight against the disease. His funeral was very, very sad because he was only eight and because he had fought hard and bravely against the disease. Jacob wanted to be a fireman, and a family member had connected him to the Camden fire department. Camden’s firemen took him as one of their own, making him a member of their company. Firefighters supported the family throughout the illness and joined family and friends in mourning young Jacob as a brother at the funeral.

Whatever we call these experiences, these visits are very good things that bring us toward the Salesian friendship and real solidarity that are key values in Salesian spirituality and Catholic Social Teaching. We cannot be in solidarity with people if we are not prepared to enter into their lives and attempt to experience life from their perspective. The experience of home visits offers all of us an opportunity to see life in a new way, through the eyes of people who may not have had the same opportunities in life, but still live lives full of faith. Through these experiences, we believe the grace of God is at work, transforming both us and the people we are visiting.

A Bishop Passionate for Justice: Bishop John Minder, OSFS

2009-09-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

(Pictured: Bishop John Minder, OSFS)

In Tuesday’s post, I mentioned that over the past month the Oblates have mourned the passing of two of our leaders in our efforts to promote peace and justice. Today, I would like to remember the life of Bishop John Minder, OSFS, who presided over the local church of Keimoes-Upington, South Africa, for more than thirty years, including the tumultuous years when the country was emerging from the horrors of apartheid.

Bishop Minder was the sixth of a string of Oblate bishops who served the local church in Keimoes, and eventually Keimoes-Upington. He embodied one of the principal tenets of Catholic social teaching, solidarity with the entire human family. For his Episcopal coat of arms, Bishop Minder chose a one word motto for how he envisioned his life as a bishop: condolere, a Latin word meaning “to have compassion.” To have compassion, to “suffer with” other people, is what it means to be in solidarity with people. Bishop Minder did not see his role as a bishop as being separate from or above the people of his diocese. Rather, he understood his vocation as a challenge to serve the people of God by entering into their suffering and suffering with them. In doing this, he followed the example of our patron bishop, St. Francis de Sales.

While bishops are required by church law to submit their resignations to the pope when they turn 75, Bishop Minder did not believe retirement was a time to sit back and enjoy all that he had accomplished in his life, for there were still plenty of people suffering and in need of an experience of God’s compassion. In remarks at Bishop Minder’s memorial mass, Oblate provincial Fr. Jim Greenfield, OSFS, recounted a quote from Minder before his retirement, “Just six years before the pope accepted his resignation for reasons of age, Bishop Minder was quoted in a newspaper article: ‘If I live to be 75 and I am able to retire, I would like to stay here and take over a parish.’ He kept his word, for he worked as a parish priest in Keimoes-Upington for nine years after his retirement, giving flesh to the word compassion.”

Optimism and gentleness are two notable characteristics of Salesian spirituality. Bishop Minder demonstrated both during his time as a bishop in South Africa, especially during the turbulent period after apartheid. He believed in the goodness of all people and that people were open to conversion. Nevertheless, he also spoke the truth and sided with those who were oppressed, not the oppressors. Fr. Greenfield told another story of Bishop Minder’s optimism balanced with a realistic sense of whose side he was on, “In 1994, as South Africa held it first democratic, multi-racial elections which gave the country its first black president after a long history of white rule, Bp. Minder embodied hope and optimism: ‘I think all races are going to do their best to make a success of the new South Africa,’ he said in an interview with the media.

Yet, his optimism did not falsely color the truth of his commitment to equality and the strength of his position. He asserted where he stood on apartheid and how he differed from others:

‘There are, of course, some die-hard white people who are not happy about things. People who are opposed to real democracy are dissatisfied, but I can’t tell you what they are doing or saying, because they are not my friends.’

His ability to clarify his stance with charity, honesty, and gentleness, while not condemning his political foes, speaks to the wider position of respect that he had for all people.”

Bishop Minder was a gift to the Oblates, the Church of South Africa, and the Church throughout the world. We pray that his optimism, gentleness, and passion for justice will continue to inspire people to have a missionary spirit and to witness to the God who always sides with those who are oppressed.

Prophet of Racial Justice: Fr. Joseph Travers, OSFS

2009-09-15T12:43:00.000-07:00

(Pictured: Rev. Joseph Travers, OSFS)

Over the past month, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales have mourned the loss of two of our leaders in the cause for justice in our world and Church today. In this space today, I would like to remember Fr. Joseph Travers, OSFS, a champion of justice for people in the United States and abroad. In particular, Fr. Travers worked for racial equality in a number of his ministries.

From the early days of our founding, the Oblates have worked in the missions. One of our first areas of missionary activity was in South Africa, a country that for much of the time of the Oblates’ presence was under apartheid. Fr. Travers was an outspoken critic of the injustice of apartheid during his missionary period there because he was convinced of the dignity of all human beings as children of God, regardless of their skin color. While the injustice of this system seems obvious to us now, Fr. Travers’ opposition to apartheid did not always make him a popular person in South Africa.

Fr. Travers’ concern for racial justice showed in his parochial ministry in the United States as well. In remarks at the funeral for Fr. Travers, Oblate provincial Fr. Jim Greenfield, OSFS, recounted two reactions of people in response to a homily Fr. Travers preached after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., “Fr. Travers was a gentle, enlightened pastor. Three days after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Joe preached a challenging homily on the social injustice of racism in our country, a message some of his Philadelphia hearers were not excited to hear. He received a stormy letter from a lawyer involved who worked as a political official for the city. While the letter was strong and fierce—calling into question Fr. Travers’ theology, including his respect for the Eucharist, Joe’s gentle response was to type a letter and offer to meet with the man to discuss the issues.

He also received a letter from a woman that weekend thanking him for his homily. She reported that her Jewish neighbor was filled with hope that Catholics are not racists and that important issues of the day are preached in Catholic churches.”

Fr. Travers was a gifted theologian (he also taught at LaSalle University for a number of years) who understood that the Christian life flows from our celebration of the Eucharist, and that we cannot say we are all one in Christ in our sharing of the Eucharist when we treat people of other races as less than human. His gentle response to someone who attacked his prophetic stance demonstrated how the Salesian spirit of gentleness and humility had taken hold in his life. Fr. Travers’ openness to dialogue with people who were critical of him is a powerful example for us to follow, rather than retreating into camps and refusing dialogue with those who disagree with us. His courage to preach against injustice to a congregation in which some members were not prepared to hear the message has inspired many other Oblates to follow his lead on many other issues of injustice in our world.

The Oblates and all of the Church are grateful to God for the gift and challenge that Fr. Travers’ ministry was for the Church throughout his years of service. We pray that the Lord will continue to inspire men and women in the spirit of Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal to be pillars of gentle strength in the face of the injustices of our world.

Justice in Education

2009-09-11T08:07:00.001-07:00

(Pictured: Oblate associate John Leone, a junior at De Sales University, with a student from Nativity School in Wilmington, during the Oblate Associate Nativity Summer Program).

Editor's Note: The following blog entry is from Tim Gallagher, a senior at De Sales University and an associate of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. This past summer, Tim and four other Oblate associates spent a month with the students from Nativity at De Sales University, serving as teachers, counselors, and mentors for the students. Tim's reflection is a good example of how we can learn much about ourselves when we reach out to others in service.

Last year I was lucky enough to serve on the inaugural staff of the Oblate Associate Nativity Summer Program (OANS). The OANS program works in conjunction with the Nativity Prep School of Wilmington, DE. The middle school was opened by the Oblates a number of years ago for lower income families to send their sons, free of charge. The school has extended school days and an extended school year to offer the best possible educational experience for the students. Part of the extended school year is a 4 week summer camp experience, and this is where the Oblate Associates come in. We serve as teachers and coaches to the boys and have the opportunity to form a discernment community for ourselves.

I was asked to serve on the staff again this past July. At first, I was apprehensive and nervous about returning to the camp. My main concern was that the boys would not be happy to see me because the year earlier was a very tough summer and my best qualities were not always the ones that the boys got to see. The first summer I was frustrated, and to be honest I was happy to see the boys leave, because the days were very stressful. This summer though, I learned the meaning of Francis de Sales’ quote “Be patient in all things but most especially be patient with yourself.”

I apprehensively returned to the camp this year and was met with smiles and welcomes from the boys. I was most nervous about seeing one student in particular, Jahmeer, because he and I did not see eye-to-eye at all last year and he thought I was a, well let’s leave it at, less than charitable person. When I found out I had this student in my 8th grade grammar class, I was even more anxious. By remaining calm and gentle with Jahmeer, I was able to establish a relationship with him. On one occasion, we were having a discussion in class about who the boys trusted in their life to give them advice, and my little friend said “I would have to say you, Mr. Gallagher, because you are always there for us and we can talk to you about anything.” He and I had made so much progress from the year before that by the end of camp he came up to me and gave me a huge hug and asked if he could stay in contact with me throughout the year if he ever needed it.

Jahmeer gave me an insight into the true meaning of patience and forgiveness. It is my hope that we can all learn something about patience from this 8th grader from Wilmington, and welcome people back into our lives that may have caused us to hurt, and provide them a second chance to build a relationship with us. We all must be patient with ourselves and learn from our past so that our future may be better.

De Sales Service Works in Camden

2009-09-03T05:10:00.000-07:00

(Pictured: Mike McCue, OSFS, back left, talks with volunteers.)

(Editor's Note: The following entry is from Mike McCue, OSFS, the director of De Sales Service Works, a ministry of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales in Camden, NJ.)

BACKGROUND

My name is Mike McCue and I’m an Oblate working in Camden, NJ. Camden is noted as one of America’s poorest cities, ironically in one of the richest states in the richest nation. The Oblates staff the cathedral parish and do retreat ministry, campus ministry, and hospital ministry in this struggling urban community.

My specific job in the Oblates is to direct our service effort, De Sales Service Works (DSW). For over ten years DSW has invited people to do service in communities with economic hardship. Under the direction of Mark Plaushin (now at De Sales University) and the late Rick Wojnicki, DSW has invited guests to reflect on Salesian spirituality & Catholic social teaching and to bring that reflection to life in concrete service to the needy and poor.

One year ago, in August of 2008, the Oblates moved the program to Camden. Bishop Joseph Galante of Camden has given us the use of a great former rectory in an active immigrant neighborhood as the DSW guesthouse. Since we arrived one year ago, DSW has welcomed groups from high schools, parishes, colleges and universities to work, reflect, pray, and play. This fall we will host small group day retreats from two area Oblate high schools, a group of student leaders from De Sales University, and three groups returning after coming here last spring. This spring the other area Oblate high school and our school in Florida will have service retreats here, along with more parish and college groups. In addition, next year we hope to welcome year-long residential volunteers to the program.

ONE-YEAR EVALUATION

So that is the background of our Oblate project here. This August brought our one-year anniversary and offered opportunity to reflect on what we have learned and experienced living, working, praying and thinking in this poor community of Camden.

It is difficult to convey the richness of the experience in writing. The list that follows attempts to give an impression of our experience:

Young guys down the block exchanging drugs in their tight fist for folded bills from someone else’s fist.
Young and old, Latino, white, black, affluent, poor, men, women buying drugs.
People drunk or high, people with vacant eyes, sleeping all day, falling over, talking to you---but not really there, personalities clouded over by a toxic fog.
People living outside, sleeping in doorways, sleeping on cardboard,
washing up with water in a paper cup,
People with nowhere to stay, no place for their stuff, no one to call on.
Young parents loud and harsh with their small children.
People with obvious mental illness—loose with no one to connect with them. Depression is very apparent, and low self-esteem
People “on the make” saying whatever they need to, people who just need $1.45 to get out of Camden.
People dropping trash anywhere, graffiti, half finished jobs,
overgrown backyards, trash.
Tough faces and eyes. Tough talk.
New Americans in small, old houses that they have made home,
where they welcome us in.
Communities sharing abundant food from their old country.
People proud to be American and Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican, Chilean, or Salvadoran.
People doing an amazing job speaking English when they learned to think in Spanish.

My list means to give snap shots of our experience of this community; poverty is only part of the picture. There is so much more going on than meets the eye. People often laugh and tell stories. So many people express their gratitude for whatever we do. Even when we say “no” to a request, most often, people understand. People are generous in offering hospitality and sharing delicious food. Every scene is complicated and every person involved has a story with origins, motivations and dimensions. There is more to people and lives than meets the eye.

Two of our homeless neighbors are a couple who go by the names Ken and Barbie. Over time we have gotten to know them not as an odd couple, living on the street, making daily rounds of Camden’s two soup kitchens and our own sandwich ministry, charging their phone at our outdoor plug, bickering and bantering, dealing with health issues, each with a history. We have gotten to know them and their stories and have encouraged them to make progress while at the same time enjoying them and their goodness.

Another vivid example is one nearby drug house with lots of teenaged kids. We enlisted the mom and some of the kids to work with DSW volunteers to clean up the parish school playground and to paint over the graffiti-covered cinderblock wall that surrounds the playground. This was part of upgrading the school environment and preparing for a block party. Though drug sales clearly continue, we nevertheless reached across a significant divide and did a small thing well.

Evaluating at the one-year mark, one thing is very clear. We Oblates, and the DSW volunteers who have come to reflect and serve, sometimes look at the situation---all the issues---and want to solve the problem. Hunger, homelessness, addiction, mental illness are like open wounds, and we want to dial 9-1-1, code blue, call in the cavalry: these conditions are unacceptable.

After a year I can say we may not have solved many problems. However we have joined with DSW visitors and other community members here doing small things, while working with efforts for larger solutions. Francis de Sales teaches us that small things matter. “Nothing is small in the service of God,” he tells us. So we give out sandwiches from our side door. We have cool water available at all times. We talk to our neighbors resting on their cardboard “mattresses.” We make it our mission to treat everyone with dignity and respect. We have worked on our parish grade school. We have reached out to new Americans and have been guests in neighborhood homes. While these conditions really are unacceptable and it is a code blue emergency, it is also important to meet people where they are and to bring whatever good we can to the present moment. We have tried to be part of people’s lives, part of this community.

Tim Gallagher’s blog entry (August 19, 2009) about his three weeks in Camden this summer presents Sr. Claire Sullivan, IHM, as a vivid illustration of a very Salesian approach. Her fearless presence in the community shows the power and value of the little virtues that De Sales promotes. She has taught us so much about being here, being with people. I can also say that Tim and all the other volunteers who have come ---college students, high school students, and parishioners--- inspire and also show the power of generosity, service, and respect. Again, these are small things, but things that make a difference---one person at a time. There is real truth to the observation that life is a mystery to be reverenced rather than a problem to be solved. So we are here to put Salesian values in practice---reverencing our least sisters and brothers, and at the same time we work as we can for God’s reign of justice and peace.

Fr. Louis Brisson, OSFS: Champion of the Poor

2009-09-01T06:34:00.000-07:00

(Pictured: Fr. Louis Brisson, OSFS)

The founder of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales was a diocesan priest from Troyes, France, Fr. Louis Brisson (1817-1908). One of Brisson’s first ministries as a priest was as the chaplain to the Troyes Visitation monastery, a community of nuns founded by Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal. The superior of that community, Mother Mary de Sales Chappuis, urged Fr. Brisson to found the Oblates of St Francis de Sales, as well as the Oblate Sisters of St. Francis de Sales with St. Leonie Aviat.

The city of Troyes was an industrial town with much poverty. For Brisson, the care of the poor workers was one of his primary concerns as the leader of the new congregations of Oblates and Oblate Sisters. Brisson saw the devastating effects poverty had on the people of Troyes and sought creative ways to help poor workers lead meaningful lives. In particular, Brisson was concerned with the young female factory workers because they did not have opportunities to learn about their faith and recreate on their days off, and he understood the deleterious effects this neglect had on society. As his biographer states, “He saw the poverty that led to personal disintegration and immorality.”[i] As theologian Gustavo Gutierrez would say in the twentieth century, “Poverty means death.” The evil of poverty affects every aspect of a person’s lives and is in a real sense a type of death.

During the time Brisson worked with the poor of Troyes, Pope Leo XIII published the encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891, which is viewed as the beginning of modern Catholic social teaching. This encyclical dealt with the same issue Brisson was facing, the rights of workers, which Rerum Novarum called “the question of the hour” (#44). Given the difference in the way information was shared in that time, Brisson’s biographer questions whether Brisson actually read the encyclical, “Only a small number of French bishops actually read the encyclical. And Father Brisson? We have no indication. We do know that Brisson was not the type of man who spent hours pondering and studying hefty documents and encyclicals. There are no doubts whatsoever, however, that he spent his entire life caring for workers and their rights, doing precisely what Rerum Novarum demanded.”[ii]

During his life, Brisson built many youth houses, schools, and shelters for young workers in addition to leading his two new congregations of priests and sisters. All of his enterprises were begun in order to help people live more fully human lives. Brisson was inspired by Salesian spirituality’s vision of God being passionately in love with every human being. He is a good example for all of us today that knowledge of Catholic social teaching and Salesian spirituality are great things, but it is by putting those beliefs into concrete practice that the world is transformed and people feel the healing touch of God.

[i] Dirk Koster, Louis Brisson (Noorden: Bert Post Publishing, 2007) 90.
[ii] Ibid, 186.

Direction of Intention...for Justice

2009-08-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

(Pictured: Francis de Sales presents Jane de Chantal with the Spiritual Directory)

The founder of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, Fr. Louis Brisson, believed that the Spiritual Directory of Francis de Sales was the key to interpreting all of Salesian spirituality. The Directory was a rule of life Francis designed for the early Visitation sisters. The rule helped people live in the presence of God at every moment of the day (rising, at meals, before going to bed, etc.). Fr. Brisson highlighted the importance of the direction of intention for the life of the Oblates, and for all people, as the key to performing every action in an attempt to live in conformity with God’s will. As stated for the Oblates (though it should be applied to all who seek to live Salesian spirituality), the instructions in the Directory for the direction of intention read,

“The Oblates who wish to thrive and advance in the way of Our Lord should, at the beginning of their actions, both exterior and interior, ask for his grace and offer to his divine goodness all the good they will do. In this way they will be prepared to bear with peace and serenity all the pain and suffering they will encounter as coming from the fatherly hand of our good God and Savior” (Directory, Article 1).

The direction of intention is a popular prayer in Oblate schools, parishes, and other ministries. Many people familiar with the prayer may wonder what it has to do with a concern for social justice. In an article written a number of years ago, Fr. Anthony Ceresko, OSFS, suggested a new way to interpret the direction of intention given the changed global situations of our time from the time of Francis or Brisson. While noting that Francis focused on individual actions and how those actions brought one closer to or further from God, Ceresko writes,

“Each action in some way possesses the possibility of moving this world and our human community toward a better, more life-enhancing direction or ever deeper into chaos and death…Over and above our “personal advancement in holiness,” each of our actions also involves us in God’s creative and salvific purpose for humankind and for the universe.”[i]

None of our actions occurs in a vacuum: all have an impact on our wider community. Ceresko continues,

“Through a “right intending” of our deeds, God becomes not only the constant companion in our everyday actions. God and God’s plan for our world and our human community becomes more explicitly the end and goal of everything in which we are engaged. Our personal transformation in terms of a closer union with God in prayer and in awareness of God’s presence in each action is joined to the potential of these deeds to achieve a transformation of human society and the creation of a more just and peaceful human community.”[ii]

Ceresko concludes his article with a new form of the direction of intention which he believes captures Francis’ intention and our responsibility as people who live in today’s world:

My God, give me your grace. I offer you all the good that I shall do in this action and all the pain and suffering to be found in it. Stay close to me and help me to see how what I am doing can advance “Christ’s blessed hold upon the universe.” Amen.

A commitment to peace and justice brings with it the reality of suffering: our own suffering and the need to enter into the suffering of other people. Ceresko has done a great service for us by demonstrating how traditional Salesian concepts and prayers can give purpose to our mission to promote justice, while also realizing the costs that any attempt to follow Christ carries with it.

[i] Anthony Ceresko, “St. Francis de Sales’ “Spiritual Directory” for a New Century: Re-interpreting the “Direction of Intention.” In, idem., St. Francis de Sales and the Bible (Bangalore, India: St. Francis de Sales Publishing, 2005) 116.
[ii] Ibid., 122.

Gentle Strength in Camden, NJ

2009-08-19T10:44:00.000-07:00

(Pictured, L-R: Ryan Cronshaw, Bob Killion, Sr. Claire Sullivan, Mike Montavano, and Tim Gallagher)

Tim Gallagher is a senior at De Sales University and a member of the Oblate Associate Program, a discernment program for college-aged men considering a religious vocation with the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. During the summer, Tim has spent a number of weeks working in Camden, NJ, with De Sales Service Works, a Catholic service organization sponsored by the Oblates in Camden. For more information on the Oblate Associate Program, please visit http://www.oblates.org/vocations/. For more information on De Sales Service Works and to find information on how you can volunteer, please visit http://www.oblates.org/dsw/index.php. The following is Tim’s reflection on this experience of service.

At the beginning of this summer I had the opportunity to volunteer in Camden, NJ, with De Sales Service Works. It was a life changing experience of service. As a native of Philadelphia, I knew that Camden was going to be a different and challenging experience, but I had no idea what my feelings were going to be once I was actually living in the city that has such a reputation for violence and crime. I joined three other Oblate associates, two students from Virginia Tech, and the director of De Sales Service Works, Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS. We were informed that we would be walking around the streets of Santo Nombre (Holy Name) Parish and conducting house visits with a religious sister, Sr. Claire Sullivan. Sr. Claire was going to be our guide and “protector” for the next couple of weeks. Knowing the area in which we would be working, I was expecting someone at least a bit bigger than I; what we got was Sr. Claire: a 4’5”, 90lb, well over 70 year old IHM nun. Needless to say, I was a bit uncomfortable with this older nun walking me through the streets of Camden.

On our first night walking around the streets, Sr. Claire’s habit turned into my shield. I found comfort in this seemingly frail nun as we walked through one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the country. We soon realized that it wasn’t her strength or her size that people respected, rather, it was her gentle presence.

On a number of occasions, she walked up to a group of young men on the street corner, a task most of us would avoid at all costs. However, Sr. Claire just walked right into the middle of the group and said “Hello gentlemen, can I give you a Salesian thought for the day?” This one act was probably the most influential experience from my time in Camden.

Sr. Claire embodied the Salesian idea that “Nothing is so strong as gentleness and nothing as gentle as true strength.” Her simple act of just saying hello to a person on the street was her gentle way of bringing the church to the people. I think we can all take a little guidance from Sr. Claire: always treat the people we meet with respect and as if they were a member of our own family, and gentleness is the ultimate strength.

Francis de Sales, Doctor of Love

2009-08-19T08:17:00.000-07:00

How do we make a connection between our faith lives and our commitment as Christians to working for peace and justice? In attempting to answer that question posed to him a number of years ago, noted spiritual writer Henri Nouwen replied,

"You must make the connection between prayer and life. The closer you are to the heart of God, the closer you come to the heart of the world, the closer you come to others. God is a demanding God, but when you give your heart to God, you find your heart’s desires. You will also find your brother and sister right there. We’re called always to action, but that action must not be driven, obsessive, or guilt-ridden. Basically, it’s action that comes out of knowing God’s love."[i]

This blog will explore the ways in which we come closer to the heart of God and to others from a Salesian perspective. The blog is run by the Wilmington-Philadelphia Province of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, a religious congregation of men dedicated to spreading Salesian spirituality and committed to Catholic social teaching.

There are a number of blogs that discuss the link between spirituality and social justice, but none that explores the link from a Salesian point of view. St. Francis de Sales was described by Pope Paul VI as the “Doctor of Divine Love” because of Francis’ penetrating analysis of the love of God for all of humanity. We live in a world today where many people do not believe they are loved or lovable, and this leads to much of the violence and injustice we see around us. The priority of love in Salesian spirituality offers a starting point for approaching social questions that is often neglected in our discourse today. In the most recent addition to official Catholic social teaching, Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate, the pope highlights the importance of love in work for justice, “Love-caritas-is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force that has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth” (#1).

One dimension of this blog will be a look at how this love impacts the lives of people today, inspiring them to work for justice and peace. Stories from people involved in Oblate ministries will capture how people’s prayer lives impact their experience of working for justice and how those experiences also transform their prayer lives. Many of us have new understandings of classic themes of Salesian spirituality because of our experience of working for justice in the modern world.

Today, there are many questions that people of faith must reflect upon in light of the Gospel. In this blog, we will explore the ways people following in the tradition of Francis and Jane are attempting to make connections between their faith life and a commitment to social justice. We hope the blog will offer the opportunity for respectful dialogue among people who are struggling to answer questions about various issues in light of the Gospel and Salesian spirituality. It is our hope and prayer that this dialogue will draw us closer to the heart of God and to each other.

[i] Henri Nouwen, The Road to Peace, ed. John Dear. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998. 159.