Compelled by Restless Love

A spirituality of accompaniment has a beginning and destination. The point of arrival is known but unreachable without the intentionality of the journey and attentiveness to the path. Accompaniment is both an act of presence and mediation. It is never a one-sided affair with one as captain and the other as shipmate. Instead, both are travelers on the same road toward the same goal. The gifts of the one strengthens and complements the gifts of the other. The sharing becomes itself a gift for new insight. Such a spirituality is not by chance but by choice. It is an act of covenanting. The goal of both travelers is the betterment and empowering of the other and it is in that caring for the other shown in moments of participation and mediation that both parties rediscover their own gifts and become instruments of God.

Taking a look at the lives and journeys of St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal offers us a window into such a spirituality of accompaniment. The proof of its authenticity is in its boundless expanse. Both Francis and Jane moved beyond their own journeys and the particular details of their shared road to holiness and offered to the world a model that became immediately intelligible and accessible.

[John Roche]

Presenting virtues in Asian contexts

Tho, Naykham, Seung Hu Jung and Jongsoo Kim
Group discussion

We think that these tasks should be started from family and community.

In Korean culture, these tasks start from family. However, parents have a difficulty to communicate with the young since young people do not like the one way communication. Also, young people do not want to reveal their own secret to their parents. So we think that communication between parents and the young is difficult due to our culture.

It can be approached by providing counselor to help young people. Also, Sunday school is a good opportunity for teachers and pastors to sit and listen to the young stories. Adults need to build up the relationship with the young by sharing and spending time with them in order to understand their interest and talk to them about virtue and holiness.

Living and experiencing between the two cultures American and Asian, we, as educators, need to build a bridge for young people to understand and help them to adjust between the two cultures. We should listen to young people in order to know them better so that we are able to understand their background and where they are from. This is a way that we can help them to discover their virtue and holiness.

India is patriarchal system. It is also a problem that this system support authority that is only one way communication such as when parents talk, children listen. Parents and teachers or adults have never educated the young about sex. They always keep secrets from the young. However, they learn from Western culture that parents and teachers should educate the young regarding sex. But it is difficult because other religious culture (Hindu, Muslim, etc.) do not allow them to do so.

Promoting virtue as a task

Sr. Celia reporting for another group:

• There are things which need to be understood in the task of promoting virtue:
o The desire for God is already present
o Often we cannot articulate it for another person
o The person must come to their own articulation of this hunger
o Perhaps virtues can offer a language, words to frame their experience
o Our challenge is to lead them beyond concepts to commitment
o An important task is to lead people to make a connection between their goodness and holiness
o It is a challenge to relate such holiness to youth (See “Soul Searching”)
o At the level of peers this task is one thing; at the level of adults, there is a need for wisdom and mentoring
o Wisdom figures are needed for sharing experiences
o Specific training that may be necessary in these tasks of promotion could include training to give talks to groups, training of student leaders, offering skills which last a life time (e.g. DSM, CMU)
o Ministers must develop their own skills and their development is a mutual need along with the need to offer development to others
o Such training is not simply skills orientation but life formation!
Br. Tho reporting for another group:

Pragmatic approaches to presenting virtues

Here are some of the discussion points from the three groups which met:
Sr. Grace reporting for one group:
• Virtue can be defined in many ways: characteristics, attitudes, “Imago Dei”in our human nature, good act or deed, habit
• Virtue means different things to different people
• Is there a difference between living virtuously without believing in Christ?
• What is the difference? Everyone is capable of goodness regardless of faith or belief in Christ
• Perhaps a meaningful powerpoint presentation is a good approach
• Inviting young people to share from their experience is another good approach
• Virtue needs to be made experiential in order for it to be internalized, for it to be tried, for efforts to be made to achieve it
• Development of virtue needs to be like wiping a mirror clean; we do not know who we are until we wipe the mirror clean; seeing divine life allows us to see ourselves more clearly; but we cannot approach the divine without virtue
• Without opening the door, we cannot know the divine presence
• There are struggles with holiness: it demands an acceptance of our weaknesses; there is a danger of the struggle becoming the focus rather than God’s love; or there is also the danger of black and white thinking as holiness being perfection
• Sharing virtue requires a knowledge of the audience
• It is about convincing the audience to walk away motivated: “I can do this!”
• A loving community is one that is transformed through loving and forgiveness
• Open hearts are the most powerful means for obtaining and guiding others into virtue

• Struggles with virtue as a concept is the use of words considered old-fashioned and demands a word or expression that captures it better for a particular time and place; perhaps this is about directing characteristics or endorsing certain attitudes for life

Presenting Virtues and Holiness Today…

Presenting Virtues and Holiness Today…
Discussion Notes November 9, 2007

The guiding questions for our discussion were as follows:

• What needs to be understood before these tasks can be undertaken?
• What approaches will be necessary for a meaningful communication?

Some members of the class indicated that these two questions demanded a definition of virtue before any task could be undertaken for a meaningful communication.

• What training will be necessary to carry out these tasks?
• What cultural traps and pitfalls pose threats to this work?
• What cultural characteristics assist this effort?
• Think of your audience for this time with all of its political and religious culture. What can be done to speak clearly and effectively to this audience?

Mission of educating

The following notes are rough outlines of the responses offered to the whole group last Friday, 28 September. We will launch from these thoughts into further discussion around the mission of educating to the experience of God and God’s love.

In Heart Speaks to Heart, author Wendy Wright makes reference to St. Francis’ rootedness in Matthew chapter 11 speaking of Jesus’ invitation to learn from his meek and humble heart. It seems to me that the gentleness and humility found in this root and in St. Francis are virtues that are totally contrary to the world. The world demands that we be assertive. Therefore, within our own present time, to live this gentleness and humility is indeed a challenge! There is a story told of a young person named Jacob who was not very intelligent. This 16 year old could not express himself well, but he was deeply in love with God and all who knew him knew this. He was killed in an accident and died holding the Gospel to his heart. This demonstrates the act of abandonment, much like that made by Francis de Sales as a youth. We are called to the same act of abandonment. This is not about the power of the intellect but the power of love and trust. We are called to the same trust, and not only at times of struggle.

There is a story that tells of a man who was wrapped in a coat. The northwind and the sun decided to compete against each other to determine which would have the greater power over the man. So, the northwind blew and blew and tried to wrench the coat away from the man, but the wind made him colder, so he pulled strongly on the coat to wrap his body against the wind. The sun came out, then, and simply and gently shone down upon the man until, feeling warm and pleasant, the man removed his coat. The sun won the competition, not by force, but by gentleness and warmth. The ideas evoked in this chapter on St. Francis de Sales is reminiscent of this tale.

There are two questions our group chose for its focus in this discussion, the first two questions on page 2 of the discussion guide dealing with the gifts that St. Francis demonstrated and the fact that these gifts were not natural ones for him. It seems that his own family life, his formation as a child, and his early years of schooling formed within him the sense of total immersion within the love of God according to Scriptures. When he refers to “the sacred sleep” this refers to his trust in divine providence believing that God will always step in and help us. This evokes the image in him of the beloved resting his head against the chest of Jesus at the Last Supper.

When Protestantism speaks of Catholic Spirituality it refers to the universal understanding of St. Francis of Assisi and all of the images associated with him. But Francis de Sales changed these images and brought them to the level of common, everyday things and experiences of life. This step in Catholic Spirituality is insightful and significant. It is in this language and imagery that Protestantism finds common ground and dialogue.

Looking at page 24 in the text referring to “sacred sleep,” we are encouraged by St. Francis de Sales to become contemplatives in action. Going further, referring to the rest of the beloved against the breast of Christ on page 27, this concept of “sacred sleep” was uncomfortable for us in our discussion. Many of us think of contemplation as time alone with God without outside disturbance. This is what conjures up the idea of sacred sleep for many of us. But in reading about St. Francis’ concept of sacred sleep, it suggests that sometimes these private moments can actually become selfish and they can be diminished by that selfishness. Going out and serving others, acting on the Gospels is, then, not a distraction but an act of this contemplative action. Yet, as we read further, Francis makes it clear that any such action and any such moment still depends upon the need of the soul to rest in God. So, the desire to withdraw and to reserve special time is not necessarily selfish, but, in fact, enables the contemplative and the contemplative in action to put their trust in God and not their own powers. God wants us to sit with him regularly!

In my life I have come to know people who speak deeply beyond the intellect. I knew a child who had a low intellect and had challenges in this area of his life. However, whenever I met this person, I felt a peace in his presence that indicated to me that this child was filled with the Holy Spirit. Even though this boy probably did not grasp this himself, he was truly filled by God’s Spirit and it was very obvious that his heart did speak to the heart of God and to my own. Hearts to speak to hearts.

There is a thread that ran through all of our conversations today and it is the idea that Francis’ approach to St. Jane was a radical departure from her first spiritual director. Unfortunately, the first spiritual director was more typical of the spirituality for that time, thus underlining the radical nature of St. Francis’ assertions regarding the inner life. We compared St. Francis’ encounter with this spirituality with the encounter of Jesus with the teachers of the Law in his day. Jesus, too, saw too much emphasis upon the responsibilities and requirements of the Law as opposed to the spirit of the Law. It seems that St. Francis cut through all of that to get right to the essentials of loving and serving God and one another without all of the requirements and burdens of observing all manner of duties or winning God’s favor.

In our reading, an image of a well came to the surface. Francis realized that each person is called to be filled, like a well, with the love of God. Yet that filling was never envisaged to stop at itself, but to overflow into others. This love of God, then, is meant to fill us and overflow into the whole of life. This is an invitation to trust the MYSTERY. Even when we do not know exactly what we are doing or how to go about doing ministry, we are called to be aware that it is God who is filling us and inviting us to overflow into others. This is not the workings of monasticism. This is the stuff of everyday life. It is simple, but it is not easy!

Whenever one visits youth in juvenile detention, their questions about God will usually turn to questions of how God could allow them to end up in their present predicaments. Often times, these vulnerable youth will not see God’s answer to their prayers and their questions. Therefore, this trust of which Francis speaks—the trust we are meant to embody in our own faith and experiences of faith—is not an easy thing. It is a challenge for us to help others discover that place of trust and confidence in God, but this seems to be, in the end, our most important ministry! How can we lead those who are lost or discouraged, like these youth, to the place of sacred sleep? This is an important challenge we need to keep in mind.

John Roche