Further Resources # 3: July - September 2015

December 15, 2015

The Further Resources published in Mercy E-News throughout 2015, grouped together for your convenience, can be found linked to this item.

Worth Playing:

Go, thoughts, on golden wings;
Go, settle upon the slopes and hills,
where warm and soft and fragrant are
the breezes of our sweet native land!

from 'Va, Pensiero', the Hebrew Slaves Chorus from Verdi's Opera, Nabucco. Watch/Listen here (05:29)

Mercedes Sosa (1935-2009), the celebrated Argentinian folk singer and political activist, sings Gracias a La Vida (Thank you to life) written by Chilean composer, folk singer and visual artist, Watch/Listen here (03:55)

The Italian classical tenor, Andrea Bocelli, at a prayer gathering in the Vatican for persecuted Christians, sang Panis Angelicus before a full crowd in St Peter's Square. Worth stopping for. Watch/listen here (03:39). Purchase on *online here

The Taizé monks are marking three major anniversaries this year: the seventy-fifth of Taizé’s foundation; the centenary of the birth of Taizeé’s founder, Brother Roger; and the tenth of Brother Roger’s death. Watch/listen to the album trailer 'Taizé - Music of Unity and Peace' recorded for the anniversary (09:57). Order the album here

' O my God I long for you' based on Psalm 62, written and performed by Chris Skinner sm, a Marist Priest from New Zealand living in Auckland. The Mission / How Great Thou Art - ThePianoGuys. Watch/Listen here (03:55)

The Lord Bless You and Keep You (John Rutter). Watch/listen here (02:41)

'Homes of Mosul' is a call to not forget the persecuted Christians of Iraq. This recently released track by Italian rock band The Suns begins by posing 3 questions to the listener: 'Where is love? Truth? Compassion?' While the song is sung in Italian, the language of the suffering depicted in the imagery in this video clip needs no translation. Watch/listen here (03:54).

'The only peace this world will know/Can only come from love', sings Carrie Newcomer in 'I heard an Owl Call Last Night'. A song for these troubled times. Watch/listen here (04:14) Chords and Lyrics can be accessed here Purchase on * iTunes * Google play

Worth Watching:

Michelle Sherliza op has created four video reflections in thanksgiving for the encyclical using the music of four well-known musicians -
Jan Novotka: 'In The Name Of All That Is'. Watch/listen to the reflection here (04:18)
Marty Haugen: 'With Our Working Hands'. Watch/listen to the reflection here (05:06)
Brian Doerksen: 'Creation Calls'. Watch/listen to the reflection here (05:56)
The Medical Missionaries: 'Mystery'. Watch/listen to the reflection here (05:40)

'Difret' is based on a real-life story. Hirut aged 14, faced a possible 25-year prison sentence for killing a man who had abducted and raped her in order to marry her. In her village, the practice of abduction into marriage is common and one of Ethiopia’s oldest traditions. Due for release in the US in fall 2015. Watch the trailer here (02:12)

Religious Life

'Embracing Emergence: Discussing the Future of Religious Life.' For four days in June, 120 Dominican women from fourteen congregations throughout the United States came together to discuss the future of religious life. The facilitators, Gail Worcelo SGM and Marie Chin rsm (Americas), led talks and sessions on creative ways of envisioning the emergence of the new cosmic knowledge and theology. The sessions were recorded and can be viewed online

Carol Zinn ssj has been on a speaking tour around Australia since early June, offering her insights on religious life drawn from her own lived experience and her leadership roles within her congregation; from her time in LCWR where she was President for 2013-14 and from the many years she spent as the NGO representative at the UN on behalf of the Congregations of Saint Joseph. On 28 June, the Queensland branch of Catholic Religious Australia (CRAQld) and the Diocese of Townsville hosted Sr Carol speaking on 'One God, One Earth, One People and One Living Community: Am I One with All?' which can now be watched here online (01:30:47). A second recorded workshop was given by Sr Carol on Catholic Social Teaching (01:12:27).

Malala

The film 'He Named Me Malala' documents Malala's journey and will be released globally this autumn/fall. Promotion has commenced with the release of the official movie trailer. Watch it here (02:24).

Laudato Si'

This video reflection was produced by the Vatican to accompany the release of the papal encyclical. Texts appear first in Italian then in English translation. This resource provides a visual entry point for engaging with the themes of the encyclical The reflection can be viewed here (06:18).

Salt and Light TV (Canada) have produced a video reflection on St Francis' 'Canticle of Creation', the prayer from which Pope Francis has taken the name of his encyclical. Watch it here (02:30)

Worth Reading

Books

LCWR's 'Transformational Leadership:Conversations with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious' the volume of interviews with 18 theologians, psychologists, educators, and religious leaders from various fields and disciplines is now available for purchase. Among the 18 interviewees are Eileen Campbell rsm (Americas Leadership Team) and Breege O'Neill rsm (former leader of The Congregation). Reflection and Discussion Questions for use with the book have been developed by Solidarity with Sisters and can be downloaded here (14 pps; PDF).

'Inequality What can be done?' (Harvard University Press). Anthony B. Atkinson has spent many years researching the topic. His recently published book looks at both the theoretical and practical experience and he presents concrete policies which could bring about change. Table of Contents, Reviews etc can be found here Order from Amazon (kindle or hardcover).

Religious Life

The Fusion of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Newfoundland and Labrador with the Union of Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary took place on 25 August. A report of the Fusion celebration including the text of the ritual and the addresses by Mary Deane pbvm (Congregational Leader) and former Newfoundland leader Sharon Fagan pbvm can be accessed here

Fracking

'Earthquakes Tied to Fracking Boom, Two New Studies Confirm', reports Eco Watch. Read the article here

Refugees:

The figures are staggering: One out of every 122 people is internally displaced, seeking asylum or a refugee, according to new figures, just published. The annual global trends study by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, warns that the world is failing people in an “age of unprecedented mass displacement”. Download the 'World at War' report here (56pps; PDF)

Cosmology & Ecojustice

Smart anti-poverty and energy-access measures are brightening the outlook for Africa and the rest of the developing world reports Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in 'Green Energy for the Poor'. Read it here

'It is simply assumed that people are fleeing war, poverty, and ISIS. Especially ISIS. But what most people don’t seem to realize—or don’t want to talk about—is how much this crisis has its roots in climate change. The clearest example of this is Syria, the origin of the vast majority of refugees...' See 'Climate Change and the Migrant Crisis' by Anthony Annett in Commonweal. Read it here

Cardinal Peter Turkson, the President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, has renewed the call for radical changes in thinking and attitudes towards environment, ecology and creation. In a message delivered to the second international gathering for talks on climate change, organised by the Peruvian government in Lima, Ca

On 18 August, participants at the International Islamic Climate Change Symposium, (Istanbul, 17-18 August), adopted an Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change.The Declaration is in harmony with the Papal Encyclical and has won the support of the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace of the Holy See whose President, Cardinal Peter Turkson sent a message of solidarity to the gathering. Another encouraging signal of the faith communities’ engagement for climate change came in June through the Lambeth Declaration signed by faith leaders in the UK calling on faith communities to recognize the pressing need to make the transition to a low carbon economy.

The Bottom Line

'For a good many of us, “Laudato Si” (Praised Be) will be the most subversive text we will read all year, or indeed for many years. The extraordinary eco-encyclical from Pope Francis contains explosive truths, not about the science of climate change, but about the persistence of poverty, the excesses of a market economy, the fetish for technology and the technocratic solution, the consequences of middle-class aspirations, the failings of the media, even the role of the human in a “rapidifying” world.

“Laudato Si” offers the kind of radical reading that subverts our assumptions, challenges our deepest convictions, makes us see anew...'
- John Nery, Journalist and Writer

'In a world filled with violence can any reasonable person hope for peace?... Might not the vocation of religious people be not only to strive to live justly and to pursue a mission of justice, but to be a community in which the priority of justice is not allowed to be forgotten. In a world and a society in which violence is such an assumption, we need to be a community that remembers we are called to peace--and a people with the religious imagination to think of possibilities of reconciliation. If the world laced with injustice and soul sick from violence forgets the God given dream of justice and peace planted deep within the human heart, we must not forget.'
- Donald Senior, CP, President Emeritus, Chancellor, Professor of New Testament Studies at Catholic Theological Union.

'Community is a place of belonging where each person can grow to become fully him or herself. It is belonging for becoming. We belong to each other so that each member can become more human, more loving, more free, more open to others, particularly to those who are different. When each member can develop their unique gifts and help others to develop theirs, members are no longer in competition but in collaboration, in cooperation and in mutual support. To become is not to prove I am better than you, but rather supporting together each other in opening up our hearts. Thus community is a place of transformation...'
- Jean Vanier, Canadian Catholic philosopher, theologian and humanitarian

'All great questions must be raised by great voices, and the greatest voice is the voice of the people - speaking out - in prose, or painting or poetry or music; speaking out - in homes and halls, streets and farms, courts and cafes - let that voice speak and the stillness you hear will be the gratitude of [human]kind.'
- Robert F Kennedy, Attorney General of the United States, Speech in New York City, New York, 22 January 1963

'The interests of the indigenous peoples must be part of the new development agenda in order for it to succeed. […] Together, let us recognize and celebrate the valuable and distinctive identities of indigenous peoples around the world. Let us work even harder to empower them and support their aspirations.'
-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

' Someone like Catherine McAuley... will be remembered long after her death only if her contemporaries have carried on the work she created, told stories about her, and committed some of those stories to writing, and only if those who come after that generation have preserved these written materials and engaged in active dialogue with them.'
- Mary C Sullivan rsm, 'Catherine McAuley and the Tradition of Mercy', p v.

God comes to us in the hungry people we do not have to feed, comes to us in the lonely people we do not have to comfort, comes to us in all the desperate human need of people everywhere that we are always free to turn our backs upon. It means that God puts [God]self at our mercy not only in the sense of the suffering that we can cause [God] by our blindness and coldness and cruelty, but the suffering that we can cause [God] simply by suffering ourselves. Because that is the way love works, and when someone we love suffers, we suffer with him, and we would not have it otherwise because the suffering and the love are one, just as it is with God's love for us.
- Frederick Buechner , American writer and theologian, Presbyterian minister

'The fact is that our work shapes us as much as we shape our work. Because of what we do and the way we do it, we become different people than we would have been without it. To know if the work we're doing is leading us to the fullness of ourselves, it's important to ask what we feel we'd lose - other than simply our wages-if we lost that work.'
- Joan Chittister OSB, Benedictine nun, author and speaker

'Poets warned us, writing of the heartbreaking beauty that will remain when there is no heart to break for it. But what if it is worse than that? What if it’s the heartbroken children who remain in a world without beauty? How will they find solace in a world without wild music? How will they thrive without green hills edged with oaks? How will they forgive us for letting frog-song slip away?...It isn’t enough to love a child and wish her well. It isn’t enough to open my heart to a bird-graced morning. Can I claim to love a morning if I don’t protect what creates its beauty? Can I claim to love a child if I don’t use all the power of my beating heart to preserve a world that nourishes children’s joy?...To love is to affirm the absolute worth of what you love and to pledge your life to its thriving—to protect it fiercely and faithfully, for all time.'
- Kathleen Dean Moore, Author, Moral Philosopher, Environmental Advocate

'It is ... violence to erect walls and barriers to block those seeking a place of peace. It is violence to push back those fleeing from inhuman conditions in the hope of a better future. It is violence to exclude children and the elderly from society and from life itself! It is violence to widen the gulf between one that wastes the superfluous and one that lacks what is necessary!'
- Pope Francis, Message to the International Meeting for Peace, 29 August 2015

'Over the past fifty years, we have seen aversion to war develop, and have witnessed the spread of the view that the earth is nothing but a “big village.” This evolution is underway. Perhaps it is enough to take part in it, by adding our stone to the building, our drop to the ocean. But we can also decide to actively facilitate it and amplify it, like a catalyst accelerating a chemical reaction.'

Adapted from 'Altruism: The Power of Compassion to Change Yourself and the World' (2015) by Matthieu Ricard, Author, Scientist, Buddhist monk

'Modern ecology has opened our eyes to the existence of interconnected and interdependent webs of relationships. We begin to see that we are connected in reciprocal relationships, not only to one another, but to all creatures of Earth. Ecology, cosmology and other sciences demand that we look with new eyes and curious, open hearts at what God is revealing to us about creation. What the mystics intuited centuries ago, scientists and theologians work to articulate for us today. While insights into how the universe works come from science, and how God is at work within the story is the domain of the theologian, there is a thrilling "bi-lingual" dialogue going on between the two today.' Read more
- Catherine Shelton rsj is an Adult educator and Facilitator