From the Editor: We Can Do More

by Jan Linley

Last March, the Peacocks, St. Peter’s University men’s basketball team, had a Cinderella run, making it to the Elite Eight in the NCAA playoffs, garnering much excitement, pride, and community along the way. During that run, their then coach, Shaeen Halloway, said, “We can do more.” I was thinking about that rallying cry as I contemplated the theme of this issue of Living Peace.

The Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace held the second part of their 23rd General Chapter last March. After months, years—one could even say lifetimes—they produced the Chapter Call, “To Be Who We Say We Are.” A general Chapter is the gathering of the Congregation, usually every six years, to elect new leadership and to commit to a direction for the next six years; that commitment is known as the Chapter Call. It is a commitment in spirit, thought, word and deed developed after much prayer, discussion, discernment, and reading the signs of the times.

Here is a sampling from some of the Congregation’s past Chapter Acts:

1996 Pursuing Peace – Calling the Congregation to realize their interconnectedness and to recognize the gift of diversity, to stand with all people, especially with women everywhere, and to endeavor to match the words “we speak with our actions for justice and peace.”

2002 Well of Integrity/Fountains of Hope/Rivers of Peace – Calling for congregational unity in responding to justice issues, in communications, ministry and governance; a commitment to actions for justice grounded in spirituality and a contemplative stance and simplicity of life and new ways of belonging in relationships and community.

2008 Seeds of Peace: Growing in Nonviolence and Care of Creation & Climate Change – Recommitting to nonviolence grounded in contemplative prayer and reflection, practiced in daily lives and in the protection of all lives; committing to deepen spirituality of peace regarding care of creation, identifying and reducing carbon footprints, promoting a sustainability lifestyle, participating in legislative efforts, standing in solidarity with the marginalized and collaborating with others.

2014 Radical Hospitality – A recommitment to Jesus’ way of radical hospitality, a call to deeper and wider living of community for mission in company with poor and marginalized and to respond anew to the call of the founder to be “brave, noble, large-minded and courageous souls.”

In this issue you will find many expressions of how the Chapter Call is being lived out in the sisters and associates’ daily lives, from their prayer life to how their resources are invested and shared, to their commitment to the Laudato Si’ Action Platform. Seema Kakar, an Afghan refugee, shares her story and her connection to the Congregation. A message from Sister Andrea Nenzel, the Congregation Leader, asks you, our readers, to reflect on the call in your personal lives. We are also pleased to reacquaint you with Peace Ministries’ mission and core values. Stephanie Peirolo breaks down how we can discern creatively. She writes: “Small actions, one person helping another, matter deeply. People use the phrase ‘baby steps’ to indicate a first, hesitant, small movement. Inconsequential, just a beginning.

But that’s not actually how babies start walking. It is not timid. They move boldly from one dimension to another, standing up and lurching forward, driven by the imperative to walk, to move forward. What if we believe that every movement toward justice, however inexpert or hesitant, matters?”

Building on the Congregation’s roots, the Chapter Call “To Be Who We Say We Are,” is a deeper examination and plumbing of all that has come before made relevant for the life of the Congregation and the life of the world today. It is the expression of how the Congregation commits to live their charism of peace through justice. And it is a commitment that boldly states, “We can do more.”