Spirituality of Systemic Change?

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Spirituality of Systemic Change?
Misery is not an accident the solution to
misery cannot be accidental either
Guillermo Campuzano, CM DePaul University
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The journey continues in the footsteps of our
founders
Continuity same spirit
Rupture Charismatic Hermeneutics
LET US GO TO THE POOR
B. Frederic Ozanam
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• From our Founding Spiritual Experience
• To a Spiritual Vincentian Movement
• To a School of Spirituality
• Spirituality of Systemic Change
• To Drink from our own Wells St. Bernard of
  Clairvaux
• A New Spirituality to Face the Challenges of the
  XXI Century

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A member of the familyAn outsider speaking

• VINCENTIAN Institutional Crisis in the USA
• - When does suffering lead to life? Our When
• - Where is life calling us to go? Our Where
• - Are we still willing to go (do we have the
  energy) where life is calling us with urgency?
  Our How

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Where, When, How of the Vincentian Family Today?
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An Experience of the Spirit (MR 11)
Our Charism
?
?
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The beginning of the spirituality of systemic
change can be in ACTION but it always implies a
deep conversion! Mark 115 Spirituality is our
door to enter into the heart of reality
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• Spirit / Spirituality
• soul (anima) of the identity
• essence of our being
• energy of the mission
• starting point and source of life
• Charism
• Possesses the necessary elements for us to become
  whole/holy

VINCENTIAN
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Implications of Having a Shared Charism

• Spiritual affinity
• Need for collaboration (VC 54)
• Relationship and Service (CfL 55)
• Common conscience and determination
• Communal sense of belonging
• Common Faith Experience

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• Vincentian School of Spirituality (SC)
• 1. A common experience of the Spirit.
• 2. A methodology a proper way to read and
  interpret reality key to our Vincentian
  Spirituality
• 3. Elements of diverse/common identity
• 4. A doctrine
• 5. A Life Style
• 6. A specific way to develop our mission using
  all our economic, structural and human resources
  to GO to the POOR of today.
• This is my faith this is my experience
• (SVDP Letter to Fr. Codoing in Rome - II, 282).

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A school of spirituality presupposes a
particular emphasis on the mystery

• it is a reordering of the great axes of
  Christianity in order for us to understand and
  act accordingly in the present time
• (G. Gutierrez)

What is this particular emphasis of the Christian
Mystery in our Spirituality of Systemic Change?
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In search of an ETHOS global home- where the
POOR has also a space

• In Greek ethos means existential human dwelling
• a place that is our habitat where we feel at
• home!
• Our own humanness (culture) is our ETHOS
• Our world is our ETHOS too
• our common dwelling. To understand this from a
  systemic perspective in clue for our discussion

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• Systemic Change is a specific way in which we
  -VF- want to transform our human ETHOS our world
  so that ALL can feel at home in this human
  dwelling with a minimum of peace and justice! We
  believe that through SC we can contribute
  (locally and globally) to articulate a minimum
  consensus to save and regenerate our common home,
  today crucified due to ecological devastation,
  international systemic injustice, violence we
  are called today to ensure a future for this
  inextricably linked binomial
• Earth-Humanity

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REGENERATEEarth - Humanity

• 1. The cultural-social fabric
• -pluralism-
• 2. The religious fabric
• interreligious dialogue and collaboration in a
  post religious world
• 3. The Ecological Fabric
• theological and anthropological ecology and
  ecological theology and anthropology

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Spirituality of SC More than something that is
already happening is a possibility to update our
identityto overcome our crisis before it is too
late

• 1. We need to overcome our doubts and fears
  towards this concept it is impossible to build
  a spirituality of SC if we do not assume its
  meaning and challenges
• 2. If we want the poor to embrace this
  spirituality toowe need to be attentive that SC
  is not, in any way, an oppressive or colonialist
  practice

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• 3. We need to overcome a romantic understanding
  of SC to avoid calling everything we do SC -with
  a simple make up of our old works and ways- I
  honestly dont think that breaking the cycle of
  poverty is that simple, and we need to understand
  the negative implications for the one who tries
  to break these cycles.
• We can lose friends and reputation!
• 4. To assume prophetic courage to act, think,
  pray, and live together in a new way always
  connecting VF and SC

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Closing points to enlarge the context to avoid
the (personal and institutional) pre-textJohn 5
1-14
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1. Spirituality and Faith

• Faith primal urge to give our hearts away, to
  trust, to invest, to embrace, to love (William
  Lynch, Images of Faith)
• Opposite fury, fear, suicide/death
• (H. Richard Niebuhr, Radical Monotheism and
  Western Culture)
• Adult faith is not stable, but in permanent
  revolution. Keeps involving heartbreak, and thus
  the movement towards other/Other in a self/giving
  way  

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2. Metanoia

• Without METANOIA the only thing we will do is a
  simplistic make-up of our mission to perpetuate
  our old practices and our oppressive ways
• If we do not see with new lenses we wont be able
  to understand where we are called to go

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3. Prophecy God talking to the Heart

• 1. Connection between the primal force
  (spirituality) of the prophet and his-her
  imagination
• 2. Imagination constructing images of what the
  world should be like, creative, moving, shapes
  experience,
• 3. Chief characteristic can penetrate reality
  The IRONY -the world will disappoint us, but it
  is worth investing in-

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4. I stand with Francis

• From Francis of Assisi to Francis of Rome
• Recovering the Utopia of the Poor
• The meaning of this papacy for our Charism his
  own challenges to our life style in the USA and
  Canada
• The Spirit of Vatican II from 33 years of
  Hermeneutics of Retrenchment to 6 months of
  the Hermeneutics of Mission/Reign of God- to
  retake the voice of the Spirit for all of us the
  Church of today-
• The option of JUSTICE The Poor Young People

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• 1. Identify concrete seeds of hope in your life,
  community, congregation in relation to this
  binomial Vincentian Family and Systemic Change
• 2. How can the Vincentian Family effectively
  contribute to save and regenerate our -
  existential dwelling -ETHOS humanity/earth
• 3. Discuss some of the essential elements of the
  Vincentian School of Spirituality from a Systemic
  Change perspective