Photo by Maria Cimperman rscj (USC)
Maria Cimperman rscj, who was recently named Director of the Center for the Study of Consecrated Life at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, reflects on three questions:
- From what must the world awaken? (Wake up from what?)
- What must the world awaken to? (Wake up to what?)
- How shall you offer your charism very particularly this year to console and to rejoice?
In an article, which was published in Information by the Religious Formation Conference, she offers her responses to these questions -- fruits of prayer, reflection, and conversation.
Since this article is longer than the usual ones posted on rscjinternational, we offer this summary. The full article can then be accessed by clicking the link below.
Wake up the World! From what?
She identifies three places where we are called to wake up the world:
- the paralysis when we see so much vulnerability and devastation in the world today
- the other extreme of relentless, even frenetic, activity
- the illusion that people can live on isolated islands of assistance, forgetting that we are "one world."
Wake up the World! To what?
She senses we are being called to wake up the world to three calls:
- encuentro / encounter with God and with others
- creation of communities of communion, finding ways to live our common global humanity
- religious imagination and creativity
As we wake up the world, "together, we can create the world God longs for, the world we long for."
Console: How shall we offer our charism to console?
Citing sections from our Constitutions, she highlights emergent calls:
- to name what we see: listening, hearing, making known and heard the cries of our wounded humanity and wounded earth
- to love, not in the abstract, but in the particular: by listening attentively and allowing space for encounters
- to assess our present ministries in light of the unmet needs of our day
Rejoice: How shall we offer our charism to rejoice?
She shares three concrete actions-responses:
- offer invitations and opportunities for prayer as a way of opening and offering of our very lives
- value diversity by sharing our narratives of forgiveness and reconciliation as well as the different gifts among us
- live radical availability / disponibilidad
She ends her reflection saying: These are all hope-filled invitations, looking at the world around us and offering our charism to be the love of Christ in the world today. Our success is not the point, but our effort is. God does the transforming – of us and of our world. We seek to participate – with love, to wake up the world, to console and rejoice.
Click here to read Maria Cimperman's full article.
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