Loretto 2020 Advent Booklet (Adapted from "Seeing Where You Belong in a Post-Pandemic World")

Advent Reflections 2020 Adapted from

“Seeing Where You Belong in a Post-Pandemic World” Mary Pellegrino, CSJ

Week One

A Story for Our Time You’ll recall that Esther is a young Jewish woman, orphaned as a child and raised by Mordecai, one of her relatives who serves at the King’s court.

Through a series of very unlikely events, Esther finds herself residing in the King’s palace along with many other beautiful young women vying for the King’s favor.

No one, however, knows that she is Jewish.

As her time in the palace advances she finds favor with the King and ultimately becomes the Queen.

Still no one knows her true identity.

Mordecai for his part, refuses to honor Haman, the King’s second in command. Haman is so enraged by Mordecai’s disrespect that he convinces the King to order the extermination of all the Jews throughout the land. Distressed, Mordecai sends messages to Esther urging her to intervene on behalf of her 1

people. Esther refuses because she’s afraid of the King’s power over her. Then Mordecai sends this message to Esther: “Do not suppose that because you are in the king’s palace that you will be the one Jew to escape.

No, if you persist in remaining silent at such a time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but both you and the house of your father will perish.

Who knows! Perhaps you have come to your position for just such a time as this.”

Esther is moved by Mordecai’s words. She prepares to confront both her fears and the king by entering into a period of prayer and fasting. And through Mordecai she calls for all the Jews in the city to do the same.

After three days, still fearful yet determined, Esther approaches the king, uninvited, risking his anger and the possibility of death in order to intervene on behalf of her people. She is

so overcome by fear that she loses consciousness. When she awakens, though, she sets into motion a plan that exposes Haman’s duplicity, vindicates and honors Mordecai, saves her people from certain destruction and allows her to be known throughout the palace and the land for who she really is.

Our Jewish brothers and sisters celebrate this triumph over the threat of sure destruction in the Festival of Purim each year.

In many ways this centuriesold story is a story for all time – and certainly for our time. It illumines something about our own societal circumstances. It also makes demands of us that, if we allow them, will help us to see where we belong and gain greater clarity of purpose in shaping a post-pandemic world where everyone can belong.

We were made for these times.

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Discussion Questions • What do the words of Mordecai “Perhaps you have come for such a time as this,” say to your personally?

• Considering Esther’s example, how do you balance prayer and action, being and doing?

• As in Esther’s time and this Pandemic time of trial, what transformational opportunities do you see?

• What demands do these Advent weeks and the Feast of Purim make on us?

Action: Read the book of “Esther” in the Old Testament.

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Week One Daily Reflections Never forsake Providence and Providence will never forsake you.

- Charles Nerinx

There is a really deep well inside me and in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there, too…

And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves.

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

- Joseph Campbell

Some things look negative on the surface but you soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.

- Eckhart Tolle

Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at anytime and be yourself.

- Hermann Hesse

- Etty Hillesum

If you can’t go outside go inside.

- Amandam

We must move beyond continuous divisiveness and come together to build a world worthyof all God’s children.

- Simone Campbell

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Week Two

Two Biblical Narratives At the end of the day, whether we’re aware of it or not, or whether we like it or not, we are all like Esther, wed to the empire.

And like hers, ours is often an uneasy marriage.

Scripture scholar Walter Brueggemann writes that while there are many ways to conceive of empire, it’s always about a controlling force that runs counter to human freedom and seeks to diminish human capacity.

It’s an overriding power that trades the long, hard work of justice-making, moral engagement and promotion of the common good for short sighted gains of oppression, abuse of authority and the accumulation of wealth, power and goods by a few Consider “empire” as all that’s opposed to the creativeactivity of God – all the forces, attitudes, behaviors and choices that result in exploitation, violence,

hatred, domination, abuse of authority, obscene accumulation and hoarding of goods, wealth and power while denying others opportunity and access. Empire demonizes differences – of thought, politics, religion . . . while sanctifying loyalty, fealty, silence. It distorts and reduces the fundamental authenticity of faith, religion and religious expression to some form of nationalism or patriotism.

An imperial narrative is what allows institutional racism, white privilege and supremacy, systemic and historic sexism, to appear as normal cultural and human conditions. An imperial narrative is what allows the failed promises of capitalism and globalization to be viewed as necessary trade-offs for universal progress, while the wealth gap continues to grow at alarming and immoral rates.

Those supporting the imperial narrative and what it stands for can act with impunity, while those questioning, critiquing or challenging the empire and its narrative are swiftly labeled unfaithful, disloyal or unpatriotic.

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Many of us, recognizing the cognitive dissonance in which we’re immersed, attempt to divorce ourselves from the power and sway of empire.

We’re engaged in important

individual efforts that address deep societal needs. We raise our voices and take up causes for good and social change. As important as these individual efforts are, though, they are insufficient to affect a lasting or transformational impact.

Discussion Questions • Where, in your life, can you see yourself acting out of an “empire mentality?”

• Where do you see evidence of yourself or other people acting contrary to that “empire” mentality?

• How can you/we move to a more “lasting or transformational impact?

Action: In conversation with others, identify “empire” behaviors that you can address together towards “a lasting or transformational impact.”

Week Two Daily Reflections The connections we make in the course of a life—maybe that’s what heaven is.

- Mr. Rogers 5

To make life a little better for people less fortunate than you, that’s what I think a meaningful life is. One lives not just for oneself but for one’s community.

- Ruth Bader Ginsburg

It is the unwavering faith, the open hearts, and the piercing courage of people from every level of every society that carries us through every major social breakdown to the emergence again of the humanization of humanity.

- Joan Chittister

It is not our darkness that most frightens us, but it is our light.

Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss.

Truth shall spring out of the earth, and justice shall look down from heaven.

- Ps.85

We must continue to go forward as one people, as brothers and sisters.

- John Lewis

- Nelson Mandela

Consider “empire� as all that’s opposed to the creative activity of God. As important as these individual efforts are, they are insufficient to affect a lasting or transformational impact.

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Week Three

Higher Consciousness What’s needed at this time is a shift in our collective consciousness from the primacy of individual efforts to the primacy of collective or communal efforts. Esther did not fast and pray alone. She called on all of her attendants and Jews throughout the city for a collective, communal act.

According to Brueggemann, the antidote to the forces of empire is not an equal or opposite force, but rather a turning to one another, the building and strengthening of relationships and community.

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The antidote to the forces of empire is the hospitality of neighborhood. Neighborhood is a biblical narrative in the same way that empire is a biblical narrative.

This narrative, though, is about neighborliness. It is not about force and power.

It is about empowering. It’s about the antithesis of empire, ensuring that everyone is cared for, everyone has what is needed and everyone belongs. Instead of resources being mobilized to serve only a few, resources in a neighborhood are shared and mobilized to serve all.

Differences are celebrated and public life is a dialogue. Faith is expressed freely and without the fear of reprisal. Neighborhoods thrive on generosity, trust and peace building efforts.

Discussion Questions • From what attachments do I need to free myself for a shift in consciousness?

• How do I register differing opinions in the neighborhood?

Week Three Daily Reflections This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.

- John 15:12

We work for justice and act for peace because the Gospel urges us.

- IATW 36

• How do I see the face of God in another?

• How do I celebrate differences?

Action: Ponder these words by Anais Nin – “And the day came when the risk it took to remain tightly closed in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom.”

We can do no great things; only small things with great love.

- St. Therese of Lisieux

I have not left you.

I am passing the baton to you.

- Ruth Bader Ginsburg

He said, “And what is it to work with love?” “It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart” - Kahlil Gibran

Love is a choice.

What if this painful breaking is part of a beautiful remaking?

- Lysa Terkeurst 8

Week Four Time to Choose

Today, in the midst of the crises in which we’re immersed and all of the uncertainty with which it leaves us, we’re faced with a choice. Humanity is faced with a choice. Along the arc of human evolution from the basest instincts of survival toward fullness of life for all, we find ourselves suspended in a moment of crisis that I’ll simply call a Pandemic Moment.

It’s profoundly destabilized by catastrophic disruptions in food, economy, in health, in climate.

It’s marked by profound global uncertainty.

This pandemic moment is fraught with danger as well as opportunity.

For those of us whose lives are constellated around the Gospel of Jesus our way along this trajectory can only be forward toward deeper and deeper communion. In his extraordinary Urbi et Orbi address in March, Pope Francis recognized the significance of this moment and the choices that are before us. He said, “seize this time of trial as 9

a time of choosing . . . a time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not.” That’s really the choice before us as we find ourselves in a pandemic moment on the brink of transformation.

We all have choices to make – the choices that each of us make in this moment are important – and yet the collective choices that we will make together, with and for the sake of others are really the choices that have the potential to remake our world – into a world that works for everyone and not just for a few.

How do we get from here to there? Never before have there been more voices calling for systemic change, lasting and transformational changes to the fundamental way that we structure society as we are hearing today. Across any discipline all of the approaches to creating a better more sustainable world can be distilled to a three-pronged approach • Collective, shared initiatives and actions • Local responses to global

disruptions • Adaptive responses to new realities and needs Take a moment to consider here the ways in which the Loretto Community is already poised to respond in this moment.

Consider the collective and shared initiatives and actions that you’re already a part of.

Discussion Questions • How will you/we leverage our position to help shape that world where everyone belongs and no one is left behind?

• What could it mean that you/we befriend her (the Sorrowful Mother, the Black Madonna), scorned and maligned, misunderstood and consumed with grief?

Action: How do all these considerations fit in with Advent, historically a time of “good news?”

Consider the local responses to global disruptions that you’re already engaging in. Consider the ways that you’ve adapted your responses to new realities and needs. And then consider how and where can you amplify those efforts by joining with others who have a similar desire to create a post-pandemic world where everyone can belong.

Week Four Daily Reflections Not to decide is to decide.

- Harvey Cox

We are our choices.

- Jean-Paul Sartre

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears, - Nelson Mandela

The Covid-19 pandemic has reminded us of “our belonging as brothers and sisters”, our common humanity.

- Pope Francis

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Merry Christmas!

It is said that before entering the sea a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled, from the peaks of the mountains, the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her, she sees an ocean so vast, that to enter there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.

The river cannot go back.

Nobody can go back.

To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear, because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.

Kahlil Gibran

LORETTO COMMUNITY ADVENT 2020