Living into Sabbath

Mary Rowell CSJ on behalf of the Ecology Committee

The season of Winter calls us to quiet waiting on life hidden in the dark earth. The liturgical season of Advent similarly invites stillness as we await the re- birth of Christ in our hearts and world; Christ ever-present and yet to come.

The Biblical Tradition echoes the patterns of Earth. Wendell Berry says the Tradition “elevates just stopping above physiological necessity, makes it a requirement, an observance of the greatest dignity and mystery”. It is called, Sabbath. Sabbath is an essential part of the evolutionary and spiritual process. It is a time set aside to honour creation according to the very patterns of creation. We humans must make a choice. Berry asks, “Will we choose to participate by working in accordance with the world’s originating principles, in recognition of its inherent goodness and its maker’s approval of it, in gratitude for our membership in it, or will we participate by destroying it in accordance with our always tottering, never-resting self-justifications and selfish desires?”

These are strong words and yet what a beautiful reflection for living winter and for entering fully into the season of Advent this year.  Earth and Tradition call us into a time of rest and reflection – a time of joy. In his beautiful book, “Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight”, Norman Wirzba says, “Just as God’s Shabbat completes the creation of the Universe – by demonstrating that the proper response to the gifts of life is celebration and delight – so too should our Sabbaths be the culmination of habits and days that express gratitude for a joy in the manifold blessings of God.”

Without a sense and practice of Sabbath how easy it is to forget the gifts of God and to enter into restless, joyless and destructive patterns of being. The personal, social and ecological costs of forgetting Sabbath, Norman Wizba maintains are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. They include stressful living to the point of breaking, a loss of meaningful relationship, a lack of peace, the destruction of Earth and its accompanying rise in human poverty and suffering.

So we are invited to reclaim a sense and practice of Sabbath. Winter and Advent, our waiting times, provide the best opportunities by calling us to rest in the rhythms of life. We are gently challenged to remember who we are and who we are called to be. Like plants that will yield fruit in the Spring only if they lie dormant in Winter we are invited to a fallow season. Wayne Muller writes of this most beautifully; “We must have a period in which we lie fallow and restore our souls. In Sabbath time we remember to celebrate what is beautiful and sacred; we light candles, sing songs, tell stories, eat, nap, love. It is a time to let our work, our lands, our animals lie fallow, to be nourished and refreshed. Within this sanctuary, we become available to the insights and blessings of deep mindfulness that arise only in stillness and time. When we act from a place of deep rest, we are more capable of cultivating what the Buddhists call right understanding, right action and right effort.” May this Winter, this Advent be for us such a contemplative time; a time for God, a time for Earth, a time for one another, a time for gratitude that when Christmas comes we can once again birth Christ in the World in peace and joy. Earth teach us the way!

Why Green Our Faith

Guiding Spiritual Principles For Integral Ecology

In this time of grave ecological crisis, a global cry is rising up shouting, “What must we do to protect and cherish the integrity of the planet?”  Pope Francis, in Laudato Si, is offering one way forward by challenging us to envision integral ecology which holds social justice and ecological justice together as one. This is at the heart of the encyclical’s message.   How will the human family live into integral ecology. It is critical that faith communities actively participate in the dialogue. What is needed are sound guiding principles that will allow us to see more clearly how our Christian faith and integral ecology are interconnected. The emerging field of ecological ethics is striving to do this.

Many principles are being developed to help us as “believers (to) better recognize the ecological commitments which stem from our convictions”. (LS 64).  Following are a few which exemplify the wide range of contexts needing consideration:

Evolutionary Context:  All creation has emerged from an evolutionary process. Humans are not separate beings; rather, we are an integral part of the web of life.

Ecological Context: Humans have a responsibility to care for and protect the existence of and the biodiversity of all life systems now and into the future.

Social Context: Economic activities and institutions must promote human development in an equitable and sustainable manner. Gender equality must be affirmed as a prerequisite to sustainable development.

Spirituality Context: All is sacred. All creation has intrinsic value and dignity within their relationships of inter-relatedness which must be respected, apart from their usefulness.

Sustainability Context:

Every aspect of creation also has an instrumental value. Everything is needed by another to sustain its existence. A self-sufficient community will only use what is required to sustain healthy and balanced eco-systems.

One principle not often referred to is that of Beauty.  Jame Schaffer gives us a profound reflection: “Beauty is constitutive of who we are and manifests as intrinsic generosity expanding our experience of inter-dependence and inter-relatedness with all life.” 1

For the full flourishing of the planet it is imperative that we choose to integrate these principles into our beliefs, lifestyles and actions.  A Covenant Model of Global Ethics 2 offers a ray of hope particularly recalling the covenant with Noah made between humans and all living beings. Covenant means to come together by making a promise. For Integral Ecology there is the promise to protect the common good.  However, we know that we are promise- makers and promise breakers. In humility we acknowledge where we have alienated ourselves from the web of life. In hope we rise up again and again to build a new covenant with Earth, with God’s grace and the good will of all peoples. The Paris Summit is the gleaning of such a covenant as countries search together for a global vision to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Encouraging us, Francis offers another principle:“Caring for eco-systems demands farsightedness.” (LS 36). Yet deeper still is Love for earth and the human family which springs forth from our indwelling and sustaining relationship with the Divine.

1. Jame Schaefer, “Valuing Earth Intrinsically and Instrumentally: A Theological  Framework for Environmental Ethics”, Theological Studies, 66 (2005): 783-814.

2. J. Ronald Engel, “A Covenant Model of Global Ethics”, Worldviews 8, 1 (2004), 29-46

Listening for the Heartbeat of God in the World

Written by Sr Mary Rowell on behalf of Sr Nicole Aubé

In his beautiful book, “Listening to the Heartbeat of God”, J. Philip Newell says, “To listen to God is to listen deep within ourselves, including deep within the collective life and consciousness of the world.”  In childhood, this listening to the “beat of God’s heart” in our surroundings often arises spontaneously.  Most of us have memories of experiencing the “music” of a running stream, the “magic” of new shoots in Spring, the magnificent colours of Fall and the “silence of snow”.  Such experiences commonly gifted us with our first sense of Sacred Presence, the call of God to both intimacy and service.  Yet, as Philip Newell says such experiences will not have been affirmed generally in our religious tradition. 

Despite early Christian tradition, found especially in the Celtic Church, that taught that God is revealed in both the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature a dichotomy between the two, historically occurred.  A dominant Roman tradition emphasizing a spirituality in which God is to be “found” only within the context of the Church, its rituals and formal teachings eclipsed the earlier perspective in which as the Celtic theologian, John Scotus Eriugena, claimed, “all things, visible and invisible can be called a theophany” (a revelation of God).

The Celtic vision was inspired by a devotion to St. John, the beloved disciple, who leaned against “the heart” of Jesus at the Last Supper.  This spirituality, as newell says, lent itself easily to “a listening for God at the heart of all life”, an understanding of a world of wonder and mystery in which the Holy Spirit affirms God’s continual presence in creation.

We discover this in the beautiful prayers and blessings of the Western Isles of Scotland handed down for centuries in the oral tradition and which in the nineteenth century were recorded by Alexander Carmichael in the beautiful texts of the Carmina Gadelica.  Here we read blessings of “the ordinary things of life”, praises of God in nature such as “Behold the Lightner of the stars on the crests of clouds.”  In a Christmas carol is written, “this night is the eve of the Great Nativity, the souls of His feet have reached the Earth” and in response, “Earth and Ocean illumined Him, mountains and plains glowed to Him, the voice of the waves with the song of the strand announced to us that Christ is born.”

This all speaks of a deep sense of incarnation and of a spirituality that perceives elements of the Earth as expressions of God’s grace calling us to a prayer of contemplative listening for the heart-beat of God in all creation, in all people as well as in the Church and to see the whole of life as sacramental.  We are called by this listening, as Newell says, in new directions, “social and political as well as ecological” by “the conviction that God is the life of the world and not merely some religious aspect of it.”  As Pope Francis reminds us in his recent and compelling Encyclical, Laudato Si’, “In the heart of the world, the Lord of Life, who loves us so much, is always present.  [He] does not abandon us, [He] does not leave us alone, for [He] has united [Himself] definitively to our earth, and [His] love constantly impels us to find new ways forward!”  Together we live in the pulsating rhythm of God’s heart in all life – let us listen anew.

(It has been my privilege to write this reflection first suggested by Sister Nicole Aubé and which I am sure had she been able to write at this time would have been so much more inspired, steeped as she is in this beautiful spirituality.  Thank you Nicole for all the grace and wisdom you have brought to your work for the Ecology Committee and more generally for showing us how to live in every place and moment listening to the heartbeat of God.)

From Lent to Easter and Winter to Spring

As I write this short piece for the “Green Window” we are nearing the beginning of Holy Week and looking forward to the joy of Easter and Spring with all the hope that accompanies the liturgical season and the natural season – both times during which we celebrate resurrection and new life.  The Paschal Mystery celebrated in our churches and reflected so clearly in the “nature of things” – of all created life, reminds us of continuity and wholeness: cross AND resurrection, winter AND spring. 

This Lent I have been reflecting on (and trying to practice) some ways in which our traditional Lenten practices have been “greened” in churches. Four years ago, for example, parts of the Anglican Church proposed that rather than fasting from usual things like chocolate or other favourite food items, members consider participating in a carbon fast. Examples included carpooling or taking public transport or being more careful with the use of electricity, shopping for local produce and resisting items from far away requiring long-distance transportation to our supermarkets. All of these practices were recommended in light of the urgent call to Christians to respond to the devastating consequences of climate change

The following Lent, the Roman Catholic bishops of England and Wales recommended a return to Friday fast and abstinence. This was not solely about the externals of a former “Catholic identity” but was closely linked to current environmental considerations. In particular, the conference of bishops suggested that abstinence from meat at least one day each week during Lent as well as being a “spiritual discipline” reminds us that the over-consumption, especially in wealthier countries, of red meat leads to environmentally problematic farming practices and a reduction in grain so necessary to feed the hungry worldwide.

What was of special interest in the Catholic bishops’ recommendations was the proposal that the practice of Friday fast and abstinence be continued beyond Lent. The Lenten practices were about forming new habits spiritually, or conversion, that could be linked closely to ongoing contributions to wellbeing in the world. So rather than putting a “damper” on our Easter celebrations perhaps some reflection on traditional Lenten practices might lead us to a “green conversion” that will truly allow us and the world to rejoice in new life. What if my prayer became a contemplative prayer of thanksgiving and rejoicing in the gift creation? What if my lifestyle were such that my “fasting” from some things becomes “almsgiving” for the wellbeing of the environment and my poorer neighbours? This truly would be a celebration of resurrection: Lent into Easter, winter into spring, love for life!

In the Tradition of Joseph – An Ecological Reflection

As we embrace this time of Advent and Christmas many of the traditional images of our Faith come to the fore, not least the figure of St. Joseph and the story of his role in Christian history.

The narrative is familiar; Joseph the quiet man, the protector of Mary and Jesus. Depictions of the story are ubiquitous in this season. It may seem to be a stretch too far to link the tradition of Joseph with our call to care for the earth today! But this is precisely the link made by Pope Francis in his inaugural homily given on the Feast of St. Joseph, 2013. 

Pope Francis claimed the tradition of St. Joseph as protector. Joseph was a protector “By being constantly attentive to God, open to the signs of God’s presence and receptive to God’s plans … because he is able to hear God’s voice, is sensitive to those in his care. He can look at things realistically and is in touch with his surroundings.”

Francis, like his two predecessors, is acutely in touch with the realities of our current surroundings in which environmental destruction and human suffering are inseparable. Therefore, he can take a radical leap when he invites us to imitate Joseph the protector. He says, “In him we also see the core of the Christian vocation, which is Christ! Let us protect Christ in our lives, so that we can protect others, so that we can protect creation!” An inseparable bond!

Francis continues, being a protector like Joseph “means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world …. It means respecting each of God’s creatures and respecting the environment in which we live. It means protecting people and showing loving concern for each and every person,” especially those who are most vulnerable. Today, some of the most vulnerable are those whose poverty and suffering are a direct result of environmental problems and whose fulfilment of basic needs, in turn, causes further environmental destruction in vicious cycles of depletion.

As we reflect on the gift of our vocation as Sisters of St. Joseph and Associates/Companions, the call to be “protectors” in imitation of St. Joseph, in the environmental and social realities of our time is perhaps especially personal. Our vocation has at its heart the call to protect all of creation.

As we enjoy the images of Joseph in this special liturgical season perhaps we can stretch our limited understandings of tradition, just as Joseph, in his time, was called to engage his deeper questions and listening, to find the courage to risk the next steps in a world of inevitable change and profound need. For as historian of Christianity, Eamon Duffy, has written, tradition is never static. It is “a source of confidence in launching into the uncharted future; a future that in all its complexity and contradictoriness, is abundant evidence that change is a sign of life.” This Christmas may we be filled with the life of Christ and of God’s ever-changing, good creation.

Mining - Resource Extraction - Fracking

An Environmental And Ethical Challenge (Part 2)

In ancient seas, hydrocarbons of coal, crude oil and natural gas were deposited in sedimentary shale rock.  Over the last century the ‘conventional’ shallow reservoirs of these fossil fuels, are being depleted and now hydraulic fracking is used to extract deeper ‘unconventional’ natural gas deposits.  Like the tar sands extraction, fracking is raising new ethical concerns. 

What is Fracking?  A vertical well, reinforced with concrete, is drilled miles beneath the earth’s surface. It is then turned horizontally to run an equal distance into the shale where natural gas is trapped.  Small fissures are made creating perforations in the rock.  Several million gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals to keep the fissures open, are then forced down the well under extremely high pressure, fracturing the rock and creating paths for the gas to flow towards the well. About 70% of the fracking water is brought back to the surface for re-use or as waste water.  Watch YouTube: “Hydraulic Fracturing- Shale Natural Gas Extraction” (3 mins) and “Shale Gas Drilling: Pros and Cons”(7 mins).

Supporters of fracking are motivated by economic growth and the desire for domestic energy security; thus, shifting power from the Middle East to democratic regimes. This is a modern worldview. Scientifically well based, they advocate comparison analysis citing, e.g. using less water than agriculture. However, does this rationale justify the means? To its credit there is research to reduce the volume of water and toxic chemicals. Yet overall, the industry is severely under-regulated and is exempt from federal water management laws and other environmental legal obligations.  Ultimately economic profit from the expansion of fracking remains the goal.

Environmentalists, challenging fracking, are in a post-modern worldview, advocating for ethical sustainable practices and responsible stewardship. Environmental and health issues are primary concerns. For fracking, vast amounts of water are used stressing current reservoirs with competing needs.  The chemicals, many of which are carcinogens, cannot be safely removed from the waste water. A fear is that water not recovered will contaminate aquifers and ground water. The toxic greenhouse gas, methane, often leaks into the atmosphere impacting climate change. Fracking even appears to increase earthquake activity. In an era when the low cost of gas undermines development of renewable resources, new standards of sustainable goals are desperately needed to challenge fracking’s unprecedented pace.

Thomas Berry writes, “We can no longer live spiritually in any adequate manner simply within the limits of our early religious tradition.”1    What is needed is an expanded “spirituality of intimacy with the natural world.”2   As science and technology thrust humans into an increasingly complex world we must develop as “ecological sensitive personalities” with a new understanding of rights that shifts the preferential corporate influence to one that includes both the rights of local communities and of nature. This is the emerging integral worldview.

Beacons of hope are arising, probing the deeper dialogue, to give equal voice to humans, industry and the natural world as Quebec and Nova Scotia declare a moratorium on fracking pending environmental assessment and other countries ban it. As Sisters of St. Joseph of Canada ‘the more’ compels us to be counted among the prophets of an integral worldview with its, sustainable earth community spirituality.  This moves us from polarization to inclusion, recognizing the values and shortcomings of any position.  Inspired by Father Nepper, we are called to live into the “holy disquietude”3 that begs a questioning and discerning heart.

1 Thomas Berry, The Sacred Universe; pg. 19

2 Ibid, pg. 138

3 Fr. Nepper, Portrait of a Daughter/Sister of St. Joseph

Mining: A Turning Point Needed (Part 1)

Perhaps you grew up in a mining town, or in a family who has history of links with mining. For many Canadians over the last century the link was with actual mines. We saw directly both the negative impacts on the environment and the benefits to families. For many Canadians today, the link is with investment and the stock market. We do not easily see how mining impacts the people, the environment or the well-being of the planet and its waters unless we seek out those answers. What we hear most is that mining benefits the economy. We live in a society that ranks economic benefit both as its bottom line and as the ideal in which corporations have more rights than individuals or communities of peoples. As long ago as 2007, Mining Watch Canada stated the following: 

Across Canada, communities and Aboriginal governments are saying they have had enough when it comes to the privileged access mining has to land under the existing system, which grants “free entry” to prospectors and mining companies under the assumption the mining is the “highest and best” use of land. Globally, communities are demanding a say in their own futures, and Indigenous peoples in particular are increasingly demanding free, prior, informed consent for development projects that will affect them. (www.miningwatch.ca)

Canada has the highest number of mining companies in the world listed on our stock market. Canadian mining companies are increasingly accused of violations of human rights and violations of ecological integrity around the world. Development and Peace (www.devp.org) as well as Kairos (kairoscanada.org) and now, the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability (http://cnca-rcrce.ca), continue to call for an ombudsman for the extractive industry sector who could insist on responsible mining at home and abroad. They also seek legislation making Canadian companies liable in Canadian courts for injustices in other countries.

Some of the ecological devastation that has resulted from mining is documented in videos, photos and personal stories on the above websites. You can also type “impacts of mining” into your browser and find hundreds of pictures, some very disturbing.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Currently there is much exploration in Northern Ontario, in what is called The Ring of Fire. I recently heard Bob Rae, the negotiator for the Matawa Tribal Council which represents the nine First Nations in whose territory the mineral deposits lie. He has heard a wide range of concerns. It has moved him to say there is a triple bottom line to which we must attend, if we want the kind of new relationship with the Indigenous people and the land that is needed.  The triple bottom line is: environmental, social and economic. Such a triple bottom line, so essential, can restore our relationship to the environment as well as the relationship with Indigenous Peoples and create a right relationship with the economy as well. New legislation, an ombudsman and the above tri-fold criterion for mining would indeed be a turning point.

(This is Part l of the Green Window on Mining, in the next issue Part ll of Mining will follow on Fracking)

Musing on Living Our Charism

Knowledge of our furry and feathered friends can teach us much. Whether, furry, feathered or human, we are blessed with our own unique DNA. It is my conviction that our CSJ charism of unity is part of our DNA just as the built-in urge to hibernate or fly south for the winter is intrinsic to some mammals and birds. This gift for creating unity is part and parcel of our spiritual DNA. As daughters and sons of the Joseph family, we do not acquire the charism but rather resonate with it. Through deepening faith and lived experience our awareness of the charism increases.  As we become more sensitive to this gift within us, we are better able to release its giftedness. 

Lately, I have been prayerfully reflecting on our CSJ spirituality and wondering how its way of life might be stated in terms more accessible to today’s seekers. I have discovered for myself alternate language in keeping with today’s thinking. I hope I have recaptured the essence of the spirituality which Médaille initially articulated using the terms uncreated Trinity and created Trinity.

Médaille used the concept of the uncreated Trinity and created Trinity to foster fidelity to the charism.  He ascribed respectively active and all inclusive love, self-emptying love and communing love to the Father, Son and Spirit and the virtues of zeal, obedience and cordial charity respectively to Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  Recently, in pondering the link between our CSJ spirituality with the living out of our charism I’ve come to think of our spirituality of communion as the three movements of unsparing compassion, deepening contemplation, and evolving consciousness which bring to life the charism.

But we are not alone, as humans, in this endeavor. All creation is living into this dynamic as the Creator, Son and Spirit are the underlying mystery of the universe which is like an invisible and hidden music that interplays beneath and within the visible familial roles of both humans and creatures. This awareness can bring an intentional manner of being that enables us to live the CSJ spirituality with purpose. Thus our everyday actions put “skin on our spirituality”.

My musing on our spirituality leads me to marvel at how the inborn nature of the animal world mirrors aspects of our own spiritual orientation. We are one!

Earth Church and Christian Discipleship

Since Vatican II, as Christians we have been reminded of the call to “read the signs of the times.” To do so is to root the call to discipleship in the “here and now”. Our “here and now” is our presence in a world, at once sacred and beautiful through which we experience God’s indwelling and divine reflection and simultaneously a world under intense environmental distress that threatens all life systems and results in profound human suffering. In this context it is perhaps little wonder that Pope Francis chose to be named for the patron saint of ecology, Francis of Assisi! 

Like his predecessors, John Paul 11 and Benedict XV1, Francis is a leader wholeheartedly committed to the Christian call to care for the Earth. In the recent Encyclical, Lumen Fidei, begun by Benedict and finished by Pope Francis we read: “Faith, by revealing the love of God the Creator, enables us to respect nature all the more, and to discern in it a grammar written by the hand of God and a dwelling place entrusted to our protection and care”. (#55) Through this Encyclical, Francis adds to the vibrant and evolving tradition of Catholic Social Teaching in which we have seen increasing and urgent calls to Christians to enter into a new consciousness in creation, revitalized environmental responsibility and partnerships with all peoples who have a care and concern for the Earth.

This is not something new but the growing of a tradition steeped in Scripture that tells us that God “fills the world with awe” (Psalm 104) and that Christ is the “image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation”, because the entire universe was created in, through and for Him.” (Col. 1: 15-17).

Building on Scripture the Canadian bishops have recently reminded us that “The wondrous beauty of creation ought to lead us to recognize within it the artistry of our Creator and to give him praise. The created world is not simply a place to live or material for our use”.

The environmental crisis, the Bishops of the Philippines have said is “the ultimate pro-life issue”. Care for the Earth, John Paul 11 stated strongly “is not an option for Christians”. So the formal teaching of the Church is not at odds with the modern environmental movement; rather it is a lively participant in it calling each of us to personal conversion and committed action.

One recent call may especially touch our lives as Sisters of St. Joseph, Associates and Companions. In his inaugural homily, Pope Francis referred to St Joseph as “protector” historically of Jesus and Mary, and as protector of the Church in the world today. Francis then calls each person to learn from Joseph the “vocation of being a ‘protector’”.  He explains that vocation: “Being a protector is not just something involving us Christians alone; it also has a prior dimension which is simply human, involving everyone. It means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and St. Francis of Assisi showed us. It means respecting each of God’s creatures and respecting the environment in which we live. It means protecting people, showing loving concern for each and every person … It means building sincere friendships in which we protect one another in trust, respect and goodness. In the end, everything has been entrusted to our protection, and all of us are responsible for it. Be protectors of God’s gifts!”

Cosmic Reflections on the Pascal Mysteries

I am walking on a path by the river. Ice has now completely silenced the waters. Snow has blanketed the ground. Trees silhouette their bare and mute forms against the grayish sky.  All seems at a standstill: life stymied by some invisible inner forces. I remember witnessing all the letting go, the surrendering, the stripping, the dying that nature underwent as it transitioned from autumn to winter just a few months ago.

Because I am made of the stuff of the earth myself, I know that there is more to earth’s cycles than what I can observe above the ground. Underneath my feet, at this very moment, death is slowly yielding to the same invisible inner forces that brought it about in the first place. A whole new gestation process is underway; new life is taking shape, vibrating, readying to spring forth in new manifold expressions. For, in all of nature, nothing lives that does not die only to be reborn again, changed by the very experience itself towards something ever new. Such is God’s marvelous design.

I see the same birth, death and rebirth pattern imprinted in our evolving universe, from the first flaring forth, through billions and billions of years of evolution, to now. Galaxies collide, implode. Out of the fragments, new galaxies are born, stars are formed and new astral configurations appear, including a Supernova, home of our solar system, of our earth.   Some stars age and die only to have their dust gift us with all the elements that constitute life today, including my own. I am made of star dust. How awesome!

As science gradually elucidates the Creator’s design, evolution emerges as a continuous movement from life to death, to more and more complex life manifestations. It is not a random process but a movement towards a greater level of consciousness and unity, towards what Teilhard de Chardin calls the ‘Omega point’. And for Teilhard, all is a ‘divine milieu’ and Christ is the Omega point. (1) Is He is not, according to the Scriptures, the one ‘with whom and for whom God created the whole universe’ and through whom ‘God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself’? (2) Is he not the cosmic Christ?

As I prepare to ritually remember with my faith community Jesus’ passion and death and resurrection, I can’t but note how fitting it is that, for those of us living in the western hemisphere, the rhythm of our annual celebration of these paschal mysteries should be anchored in the rhythm of the natural world on the cusp of spring. Effectively, since the fourth century, our Resurrection celebration has been set to coincide with the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

In celebrating the paschal mysteries, I also celebrate all that has been life, death and resurrection on our planet earth and in our evolving universe from the moment our Creator set life in motion. I embrace the pattern of life, death and resurrection within my life and around me. I also hear the longings of my own being for greater consciousness of the oneness of all that is in the cosmic Christ.

1. The Future of Man (1957), The Divine Milieu (1960)

2. Col.1:16, 17, 20

Continuous Incarnation

Musing on Living Our Charism

Knowledge of our furry and feathered friends can teach us much. Whether, furry, feathered or human, we are blessed with our own unique DNA. It is my conviction that our csj charism of unity is part of our DNA just as the built-in urge to hibernate or fly south for the winter is intrinsic to some mammals and birds. This gift for creating unity is part and parcel of our spiritual DNA. As daughters and sons of the Joseph family, we do not acquire the charism but rather resonate with it. Through deepening faith and lived experience our awareness of the charism increases.  As we become more sensitive to this gift within us, we are better able to release its giftedness. 

Lately, I have been prayerfully reflecting on our csj spirituality and wondering how its way of life might be stated in terms more accessible to today’s seekers. I have discovered for myself alternate language in keeping with today’s thinking. I hope I have recaptured the essence of the spirituality which Medaille initially articulated using the terms uncreated Trinity and created trinity.

Medaille used the concept of the uncreated Trinity and created Trinity to foster fidelity to the charism.  He ascribed respectively active and all inclusive love, self-emptying love and communing love to the Father, Son and Spirit and the virtues of zeal, obedience and cordial charity respectively to Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  Recently, in pondering the link between our csj spirituality with the living out of our charism I’ve come to think of our spirituality of communion as the three movements of unsparing, deepening contemplation, and evolving consciousness which bring to life the charism.

But we are not alone, as humans, in this endeavor. All creation is living into this dynamic as the Creator, Son and Spirit are the underlying mystery of the universe which is like an invisible and hidden music that interplays beneath and within the visible familial roles of both humans and creatures. This awareness can bring an intentional manner of being that enables us to live csj spirituality with purpose. Thus our everyday actions put “skin on our spirituality”.

My musing on our spirituality leads me to marvel at how the inborn nature of the animal world mirrors aspects of our own spiritual orientation. We are one!

A Story Of Intimacy – “Mary Of The Cosmos”

Mary of the Cosmos

There is a new story to be told, one that requires a vision of the Universe that is alive with creativity and imagination…a story that calls out for new images, symbols, language and structures.  This is the gift of the artists, the poets, and the dreamers – to pull us forward into new perceptions of reality. Inspired by Thomas Berry, artist Bernadette Botstwick, sgm of the Green Mountain Monastery and the Thomas Berry Sanctuary in Vermont has created ‘Mary of the Cosmos’, an icon which “beautifully celebrates the sacredness and holiness of all matter in the cosmos.”  

The representation is rich with symbols:

• The flash of flame circling Mary is the fireball, the first flaring forth at the beginning of creation.

• The three stars represent the cosmological ethics of differentiation, subjectivity and communion.

• The Earth is at Mary’s centre, the planet becomes the birthing bed of Jesus.

• The relationship between Earth and Moon speak of rhythm, tides and the wisdom of the feminine.

• The red cloak that Mary wears points to her humanity, while the blue undergarment reflects Divinity integral with her humanity.

• The universe is flowing through Mary whose body is made of the star stuff of the cosmos.

How would we perceive reality if, like Mary, we envisioned in each droplet of experience, the cosmos flowing through us?   Essential for this transformation is a deep valuing of our experience, well beyond our five senses. Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead insists that every experience must be both “experiential and relational.”  It is the relational that begs attention. As the poet John Keats reminds us: “Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.”  To truly embody an experience is to welcome with awe the amazing intimacy of creativity it holds.

The icon draws us again:

• The straightforward gaze of Mary, as she looks further into the future, reveals a unified vision of matter and spirit, inviting us with outstretched arms, into the fullness of communion consciousness as life bearers for the planet.

Perhaps this is the double union we are now called to as Sisters of St. Joseph, to be earth mystics. Jesus, humanly fully embodied the essential values of Beauty, Truth and Goodness. Our charism compels us to create a space for the more, be it more compassion, more understanding, more caring and more appreciation of the cultural diversity which is now calling us to the deeper relationships of kinship with all of created reality. Every experience of life with all its complexities and paradoxes longs to be taken up into this sacred space.

The image of ‘Mary of the Cosmos’ and symbol descriptions are used with permission from Green Mountain Monastery.. For poster and cards of this icon visit www.greenmountainmonastery.org

Spring Reflections

Spring Reflections On Christology – In Conversation With Ellen Leonard

“In Christ’s Resurrection, the earth itself arose,” declared St. Ambrose of Milan.[1] We take the opportunity of this time of reflecting on the salvific moment of Christ’s resurrection to re-think our Christology. As before, we turn to the work of Elizabeth Johnson. There we learn to re-position our human story within the enlarging horizon of  planetary and cosmic history and recognize that there are far reaching implications for our faith lives. As Johnson relates: 

It rearranges the landscape of our imagination to know that human connection to nature is so deep that we cannot properly define our identity without including  the great sweep of cosmic and biological evolution.[2]

Within this perspective of a new landscape, we realize that we exist symbiotically – and that our very existence depends upon the natural world of God’s entire creation.  In fact our creation issues forth from and is entirely dependent upon all the beings and elements of earth and universe. It is the perspective of a new humility. The sarxor “flesh”of Jesus’ incarnation in John 1:14 indicates for us that Jesus, the incarnate One, was inseparable from earth. Thus born, the genetic material of his body was kin to the grasses, fish and whole community of earthly life birthed in ancient seas. The “flesh” of John reaches beyond Jesus to encompass the whole biological world of living creatures and stardust of the universe. As ourselves, Jesus carried within his being the “signature of the supernovas and the geology and life history of the Earth.”[3]

Re-situating our faith story in this epic landscape has significant implications. The earthly finitude was embraced by our God and thus inestimably blessed and good. It is the perspective of a “deep incarnation” and has considerable moral and ecological implications for the contemporary living of our faith.[4]  This Jesus embodies the hope of “all creation groaning into fulfillment” (Romans 8).  As Schillebeeckx insists, the church, the community of disciples is “the only real reliquary of Jesus.”[5]

The final transformation is the stuff of our very lives bringing the kin-dom of inclusivity and justice to all the beings of earth. This body of Christ, this reliquary, is found in present time, in our lives as we call one another to a deeper justice, knowing that all is interconnected and interwoven. It is no surprise to realize that the places of deepest degradation of Earth are the places of deepest degradation of humans. The poor live near the ash heaps of our consumer society, the women and children suffer at the edges of polluted rivers and fields. Justice for one is justice for the other. All is connected. All bodies matter to God, that is the message of “deep incarnation” that our  emerging theologies of this new landscape beckon us to understand. Social justice, repair of unjust structures and ecological justice, reconciliation of relationship of all bodies merge into a call for integrity of all creation, the peace of the universe. We are called to embody the community of Jesus, the community of Earth in a new and just way for all creation.

[1] Anthony Kelly, Eschatology and Hope, ( Maryknoll:Orbis, 2006), 177.

[2] Elizabeth A. Johnson, “An Earthy Christology,” America April 13(2009), 4.

[3] Sean McDonagh, To Care for the Earth, (Sante Fe: Bear, 1986), 118-119.

[4] Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ: the Experience of Jesus as Lord, (New York: Seabury Press, 1980), 641.

[5] Elizabeth A. Johnson, “Deep Christology: Ecological Soundings,” in From Logos to Christos: Essays in Christology in Honourof Joanne McWilliam,  eds. Ellen Leonard and Kate Merriman, (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2010), 170Ibid., 165.

Autumn Reflections

Autumn Reflections On Christology With Ellen Leonard Csj

Ellen began our conversation by recalling a story by the noted U.S. naturalist John Muir. When Muir came upon a dead bear in Yosemite, he penned a fierce criticism of religious people who make no room in heaven for noble creatures such as this magnificent bear:

Not content with taking all of earth, they also claim the celestial country as the only ones who possess the kinds of souls for which that imponderable empire was planned. To the contrary, he believed, God’s charity is broad enough for bears.[1]

For Ellen the contemporary and emerging Christology is all about enlarging one’s perspective. Christology in the Western church has been almost exclusively anthropocentric or human-centered. Elizabeth Johnson, Ellen notes, points out the need for a wider scope in theology, one which puts Christology back in tune with the basic themes of biblical, patristic, and medieval theologies.[2] In our day, with the widening circles of universe and evolution being mapped out, the human race itself is being repositioned as an intrinsic part of the unfolding story of life’s network -on our planet, in our solar system . In this place we know ourselves within the ever-expanding and entire cosmic story and history.

Repositioning our anthropology within the ongoing wonder of this cosmic scale has far reaching implications as we seek to understand our place in such a millennial history. It fundamentally rearranges the landscape of the imagination of our hearts and minds. As we begin to plumb the depths of such relationship, we begin to realize how the human is  embedded in the natural world. We evolved as part of the universe from its very deepest, wakening inception.

Such repositioning of our anthropology calls us to a new landscape on which to understand the significance of the incarnation.  It is to begin to realize that it is seeing the incarnation as not being relevant just for humankind but for all creation. In Johnson’s article in America, she writes, “for God so loved the cosmos” that all creation was birthed.  It can be called a “deep incarnation,” that radical and divine inclusivity that has touched deep down, calling all beings into a continuous, unfolding relationship with divinity.

Humans are not alone in their suffering and seeking of salvation for “all creation has been groaning in travail together until now” (Romans 8:22). In this widening view of divinity, the circle of redemption reaches out to include all the natural world, giving cause for an ecological ethic. Now divinity can be seen in the light of a cosmocentric and biocentric horizon, not just anthropocentric. We can know this as a vision of “deep resurrection,” extending and expanding in the boundless love of a cosmic God.

In the light of this perspective and returning to Muir’s reflection on the noble bear, we can envision an inclusive heaven, beginning here on earth. As the early church Father St. Ambrose wrote “In Christ’s resurrection the earth itself rose.”

[1]Johnson, Elizabeth, “An Earthy Christology.” America April 13 (2009). http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11566&o=34698[accessed April 15, 2009].

[2] Ibid.

“The Emerging Secret”

Care For God’s Creation And The Social Teaching Of The Church

Long known as the Church’s “best kept secret”, Catholic Social Teaching (CST), with its concern for the poor, families and communities remains largely unknown by many in the Church. Even less known is the recent emergence of concern for God’s creation within that body of Church teaching. 

CST is strong in its call to Christians. As Pope John Paul II stated in his 1990 World Day of Peace Message, “The ecological crisis is a moral issue, the responsibility of everyone – care for the environment is not an option” (#3 and #10).

Scripture is the starting point for the Church’s teaching on the environment. It is based on the recognition that all creation belongs to God: “The Earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it” (Psalm 24: v.1). The creation story in Genesis reminds humans that they have a responsibility to care for the rest of creation of which they are but a part. We read in Scripture that God saw creation as “good” (Genesis 1-28). Pope John Paul II accents this goodness and beauty of creation which he says “is called to glorify God” (#14).

CST also recognizes the sacramental nature of the universe by reminding Christians that in nature God is revealed to us. In their pastoral statement on the environment, “Renewing the Earth” the U.S. Bishops emphasize this point: “For the very plants and animals, mountains and oceans, which in their loveliness and sublimity lift our minds to God, by their fragility and perishing likewise cry out, “We have not made ourselves” (#6).

This grounds our call to respect creation. As John Paul states: “Respect for life and for the dignity of the human person extends also to the rest of creation”(#16). The Bishops of the Philippines in their 1988 document on the environment state that the environment is “the ultimate pro-life issue” thus linking the Church’s teaching on ecology to its teaching on a “consistent ethic of life”. Joining our care for the earth with our concern for the poor, the Canadian bishops remind us in their pastoral letter “You Love all that Exists” that: “We are called as co-creators to join God’s work to repair some of creation’s wounds which have been inflicted due to our ecological sins. We are also called to creative actions of solidarity with those who have less access to the benefits of God’s bountiful creation.” To achieve this they commend a three-fold response; a contemplative response through which we are called to “deepen our capacity to appreciate the wonders of nature as a act of faith and love”; an ascetic response which calls us to adjust our lifestyle choices limiting our consumption for the sake of the earth and its most vulnerable peoples; and a prophetic response which publicly challenges unjust structures. As Pope Benedict states: “The Church has a responsibility toward creation and she must assert this in the public sphere” (Caritas in Veritate #51).

10th Anniversary of ‘The Dream Seed’

Stairwells, like wooded trails and roadways, are places of transition.  It isn’t every day that conversations in a stairwell give birth to a whole new life. Yet that is what happened. Conceived in conversation among Sisters Janet Fraser, Linda Gregg and Gwen Smith in a London Motherhouse stairwell in April of 1999, the Federation Ecology Committee was birthed in Toronto by a Federation leadership decision later that year.

In 1999 the General Superiors of each Congregation invited members to form the Federation Ecology Committee. A communication from Sister Jean Cunningham, Executive Director, to the General Superiors of our Congregations, dated Oct 8, 1999 states that the Committee met in Cobourg on Oct 6th. The letter reads: “At this meeting there was a great deal of concern expressed over the treatment of the First Nations’ rights regarding East Coast fishing.”  Early records are sketchy. We focused on creating and doing, not recording! We realized that “the Spirit caught our hearts.”  Our committee’s record of activities begins with the articulation of our vision: “The Dream Seed,” which we began in earnest in 2000.  Now, in 2010, we celebrate the 10thyear of the birth and development of our vision: “The Dream Seed.”

The Federation Ecology Committee’s Trinitarian vision recognizes the core relationships of the Holy Trinity revealed in creation; especially, the Trinity of principles at the centre of the universe (interiority, diversity and communion). It recognizes that our Charism, as Miriam Therese McGillis reminded us, is irrevocably rooted in the centre of the universe’s creation. Our vision is also Trinitarian in its expression: Ecological Spirituality, Earth Literacy and Ecological Practices for Sustainable Living. We have worked for the integration of theology, spirituality and praxis. This we express as the Trinity of knowing, being and doing.

As we reflect with gratitude on these ten years we recall how the Spirit urged us and guided us to develop and offer ecologically focused retreats. Many of you have participated in the following: Earth Spirit/CSJ Spirit; Water: Life-Blood and Birthright of All Creation; Doorways to the Heart: Aboriginal Perspectives on Ecology; and Walking Sacred Earth: contemplatively, ascetically and prophetically. These were graced moments both for participants and for team members. We also shared eco-focused prayers, most recently the Hamilton Ecology Committee’s Intercessory Prayers for the Care of the Earth. Sister Jeanne Fortin’s reflection: Ecology and the Maxims greatly enriched us. This too we shared with you.

With chuckles and smiles now, we remember the intensity of the struggle to articulate and support the development of the CSJ Earth Literacy program: “Village Earth.”  We affirmed that, although it is hosted at Villa St. Joseph in Cobourg, this is truly a Federation initiative. We are now a few steps closer to having it recognized as a University credit course. We have developed a Village Earth Outreach program for Youth and are currently working on a program for parishes. However, we grieve that we have not yet accomplished our vision to offer the program in our respective Congregations.

Other initiatives have expanded Earth Literacy to include education on the integrity of creation, relationships with wider social justice initiatives, and ecological perspectives on the Millenium Development Goals. The latter was presented in the Federation Newsletter.  We continue to enjoy the privilege and blessing of writing for The Green Window. We have become bridge builders. We have shared resources and raised congregational awareness. We have challenged both you and ourselves, to become more organic, more energy conscious and more ecologically aware. Our hopes of “Greening our Motherhouses” have been expressed in unanticipated ways.

We are graced with the beautiful artwork of two Sisters: Sister Anthony Daniel (SSM) for the Ecology Committee logo and Sister Angela Fleming (L) for the mandala on “sacred earth” which integrates CSJ spirit with earth spirit as expressed in the seasons. We are thankful for this shared beauty and creativity.

We want to acknowledge with gratitude the participation of each Congregation in the work of the Federation Ecology Committee, either as members or as the Congregational Leadership contact.

• Toronto: Sisters Janet Fraser, Gwen Smith and Janet Speth.

• Hamilton: Sisters Jean Cunningham, Isobel Gallotti and Nancy Sullivan.

• London: Sisters Margo Ritchie and Nancy Wales

• Peterborough: Sisters Linda Gregg, Shirley O’Rourke, Marilyn Meraw and Mary Rowell.

• Pembroke: Sisters Nicole Aubé and Marjorie FitzPatrick.

• Sault Ste. Marie: Sisters Rita Godon, Norah Murphy and Priscilla Solomon.

We also acknowledge the on-going interest, support and frequent presence of the Federation Office executive staff over the ten years: Sisters Pat Valeriote, Jean Cunningham, Kathleen Lichti, Veronica O’Reilly, Valerie Van Cauwenberghe and ever-responsive Ms. Margaret Magee. Thank you and God bless you!

As we celebrate we ask: “What if we had known the secret all along?”

For stairwells, wooded paths, transitions, and conversations we give thanks and praise to God. For the gifts of ever-deepening communion expressed in hard work, challenging ideas, meals together, occasional beers or glasses of wine, laughter and tears we are thankful.  Most of all, we are grateful for the blessing of ten years of exploring and communicating together, the vision of knowing, being and doing the vision: that All Creation is One in God and that all creation reflects the Trinity.  May God be praised!

“The kinship model knows that we are all connected. For all our distinctiveness, human beings are modes of being of the universe. Woven into our lives is the very fire from the stars and the genes from the sea creatures, and everyone, utterly everyone, is kin in the radiant tapestry of being. This relationship is not external or extrinsic to who we are, but wells up as the defining truth from our deepest being.”

Elizabeth A. Johnson CSJ

Reconnecting to our Earth Roots

The sun is dappled through the cucumber leaves and the tomatoes are showing the first blush of ripening. We are entering into the season of harvest and are privileged to enjoy the abundance of our earth. The sweet scents of summer are yielding to the ripening of a golden autumn season.

Yet, we know, the harvest is not being shared equitably. As large corporations take over food production increasingly, small farmers are edged out.  Agribusiness uses stealth and science to mask greed and control of the safety and diversity of our earth’s food supply. How did this come about? As human beings we have lost our connections to the sacredness of earth, denigrating in many subtle ways those who work with soil and hands. As we know the hierarchical, patriarchal systems of our Western culture and religions have served to sever the ties to the holiness of women and earth. In a recent Sisters of Earth conference in New York, the Indian food activist Vandana Shiva and her sister Mira, a physician, shared with us the systematic and often ruthless ways global corporations have run roughshod over the poorest and hungriest in countries such as India.

Modern global corporations see the world as something to be owned, a commodity for maximizing their profits.  Egregious corporations such as Monsanto determined that seeds are “intellectual property” and have sought patents. Many thousands have demonstrated against classifying seeds as property with rights of patent, it is a battle still being waged.  In India and in all documented cases, companies lure farmers with extravagant promises of increased crop yield from the use of these seeds. In fact, in India, the reality is that food production has decreased.  Farmers who have saved their seeds for generations are forced to buy the GM (Genetically Modified) seeds and the now necessary Western commercial fertilizers.  Monsanto claims that it “invented” wheat plants derived from a traditional Indian variety, which is nothing less than bio-piracy. Markets have been and are increasingly regulated so that only GM seed products are acceptable. Farmers in India have been incurring debt that has only deepened and spiraled each year, resulting in countless suicides. Such is the harvest in a de-sacralized world

There is, however, a different worldview, one of equality, diversity and respect for all beings.  As Thomas Berry often noted, “the earth is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.”  We live within a sacred global commons where the rights of all beings, human, animal, tree, river and wind have a place in the web of communion. There is much about which to despair but in equal measure there is much from which to draw hope.  We can each have a role in this time where the sacredness of all creation is threatened. Prayer is one deeply important response; our minds and hearts can chart a course each day toward healing of our earth. Key is an appreciation for and support of local farmers, advocating heritage seed saving, or growing a tomato plant. It is time to know that growing food for our sustenance is a holy task, a sacred agriculture.

As this reflection closes, the tomatoes are ripening yet and the harvest is still being gathered. The gift of a home-grown tomato sandwich is a celebration of deepest delight and a grace of holy communion. By this act we are reconnecting to our earth roots. May we bless all farmers and all beings for this gift of life.

See: Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainabilty and Peace, Cambridge, Massachusetts: South End Press, 2005.

Copenhagen Summer

Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change:
A Canadian Youth Perspective

By Laura Tozer and Janet Speth CSJ Toronto

Laura Tozer

“I have been involved in United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change international negotiations since 2005 as an advocate, a communicator, and a student. I work to represent young people who lack a voice in the negotiations that are deciding our future, and to communicate with the public directly about what is going on behind the scenes. I have gained a great deal of experience in this role and I have had the opportunity to work with some amazing young people that are dedicated advocates for action on climate change.

In Copenhagen, the world was supposed to conclude negotiating the new phase of greenhouse gas reduction and climate change adaptation commitments to take place after the first period of the Kyoto Protocol ends. Our leaders failed us and the negotiations sputtered to an end with the Copenhagen Accord drawn up by the US, Brazil, South Africa, India and China, which was not an outcome of the UN negotiation process and has nowhere near the level of ambition and action required to confront climate change.

Canada’s involvement was so shameful that the coalition of over 400 international environmental organizations awarded it the Fossil of the Year award – an ‘honour’ reserved for the country that is the most obstructive to progress on reaching a climate change agreement. Representing a country that so clearly worked against international action on climate change made us harsh critics very quickly. However, we were very frustrated as they accredited 45,000 people but the venue only held 15,000. By the second week non-governmental organizations representatives were barred and so with disappointment we watched voiceless from afar.

In Copenhagen Canada’s representatives did not put forward any money to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change; they stuck with one of the worst greenhouse gas emission targets in the industrialized world, a 3% reduction from 1990 levels by 2020; they expressed a desire to replace the Kyoto framework, and they argued for a 2006 baseline (not 1990) that would forgive the emission growth that has happened in the interim.

It will be the youth of today who will be left to deal with life in a changed world tomorrow, based on decisions made in Copenhagen. However, I feel hopeful because of the amazing people that I worked with that are dedicated to this issue and because I met so many decision makers from other jurisdictions that are acting on climate change, from cities to provinces to the World Council of Churches. We all need to follow this example and start building a hopeful future by addressing climate change boldly.”  …Laura Tozer

We, Sisters of St. Joseph, can join Canadian youth to raise the dashed hopes of Copenhagen out of the arid dust of distrust and denial. To think critically is to counter the culture of denial that is discrediting climate science through the power of corporations and media. This belief states that human activity is not significant in global warming. There is no global emergency and no reason to change attitudes and behaviours. Is this the gospel imperative we embody? No! Together let us be the voice for our wounded earth building relationships of mutual respect and integrity. 

Recommended reading: Heat by George Mondiot, particularly the chapter on “ Denial Industry”