Further Resources # 4: October - December 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

'If I stumble, if I fall, if I throw away it all and I'm down on my knees, show me a little mercy' from Mercy by Damian Howard from the album 'One' (2006). Purchase on iTunes

'Waiting in Silence, waiting in hope, we are your people we long for you Lord...' This reflection was filmed in Mission Marsh Conservation Park, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. Watch/listen here (03:44)

Come My Way. A video prayer reflection for Advent set to "Come, My Way" by Margaret Rizza. Watch/listen here (01:48). Purchase on *iTunes or *GooglePlay

'I Shall Not want'. This video prayer reflection by Susan Francois csjp uses video and photos taken at sunrise at Long Branch, New Jersey. The song "I Shall Not Want" by Audrey Assad, American singer-songwriter and contemporary Christian music artist. Purchase the song on iTunes and on GooglePlay. Lyrics can be accessed here

Michael Herry fms, well-known in Australia as a composer of liturgical music, has composed 'Heart of Jesus, Heart of Mercy', a hymn for the Jubilee Year of Mercy. Ezekiel 36:24-28. In conversation earlier this year, Br Michael offered these to us 'as a gift'. The song can now be played and downloaded (mp3) without charge from his website here. music can be downloaded here

On September 4, 2015, 16 internationally renowned artists released ‘Love Song to the Earth’, which urges world leaders to strive to reach a global agreement during the United Nations climate conference, COP21.

The official Love Song To The Earth Lyric Video and lyrics can be viewed here (03:48). Purchase the song through links on the Love Song to the Earth website. The Love Song’s creators and Apple are donating every penny that the song earns to Friends of the Earth and the UN Foundation to fund their work to fight climate change.

Michelle Sherliza op has created a video reflection using this song in thanksgiving for Pope Francis' Encyclical - Laudato Si'. Watch/listen here

Sisters of Mercy have been present in Scotland since 1849 when Sister Elizabeth Moore established a foundation in Glasgow with some Sisters from Limerick. That's all the excuse needed to include a video from the piano guys, recorded in the Scottish highlands, worth viewing for the glorious scenery alone. Launched on 29 October, this clip is on its way to 3.5 million views. It's not hard to see why. View it here (04:54).

'I will sing you home'. An initiative of The Rooms cultural facility in St John's Newfoundland in partnership with The Ennis Sisters, Shallaway Youth Choir and CBC News Newfoundland and Labrador. The performance captures the heartbreak and tragedy of losing a loved one to war. The emotive performance can be watched here (06:21) Lyrics can be read here . Further information about the recording can be found here Purchase on *iTunes

'O Christ, Surround Me'. A community song paraphrasing St. Patrick's Breastplate prayer into a song of sending or invocation. Play it here.(03:23). More about the song and the songwriter can be found on the website of the same name,

Litany of the Saints by Veronica Morrissey. Video reflection by Michelle Sherliza, OP. Watch/listen here (04:32). Purchase the song here: *iTunes *GooglePlay

Litany by Matt Maher. Watch/listen here (02:09). Purchase the song here: *iTunes *GooglePlay

Worth Watching

Elizabeth Johnson CSJ spoke at The Maryknoll Speakers Series Event, 4 October 2015 on the meaning of Creation And The Connection Of Eco-Justice And Spirituality under the title ''Is God’s Charity Broad Enough for Bears?' This is a short clip from the talk with commentary from audience members. Watch it here (06:55)

Human: A film with three voices (those of the people, the testimony of the planet, the lyricism of the music)

What is it that makes us human? Is it that we love, that we fight ? That we laugh? Cry? Our curiosity? The quest for discovery?..

Human 'a sensitive and loved portrait of the Earth and its people' was released this past September in cinemas and on YouTube. Filmmaker and artist Yann Arthus-Bertrand spent 3 years collecting real-life stories from 2,020 women and men in 60 countries and 63 languages who addressed questions such as those above. These profoundly personal and emotional accounts are interspersed with stunning aerial footage that offers critical insight into life on earth.

Human: The website; the Blog; the YouTube Channel (trailer, extended version in 3 volumes, individual portraits). English with Spanish subtitles.

A Letter to the Future. 15 years ago, a letter was written by The Nature Conservancy Trustee, Harry Groome, to his first grandchild. This is his letter. Watch it here (04:25)

This video reflection for the Feast of All Souls is based on the prayer from Intercessions of Mercyedited by Joy Clough rsm. Watch/listen here (01:29)

'Planetary Pope - The Ecology of Pope Francis'. Last Sunday, 4 October, this talk by internationally renowned speaker Newfoundland born John McCarthy sj, biologist and ecologist, was livestreamed by saltandlighttv.org. The talk has been archived online here The talk follows evening prayer and commences at approximately half an hour into the recording. To begin watching the program at the talk, simply drag the slider on the video toolbar to 35:30 when Fr John is introduced.

Video of 'Pope Francis' Encyclical: Climate Change Evokes Moral Change' (Panel at Saint Thomas More Chapel & Center at Yale)
This panel discussion, held October 1, 2015 at the Catholic Chapel & Center at Yale University, discussed how Pope Francis' encyclical will re-frame the issue of climate change for Catholics and non-Catholics. John Grim was the moderator. Panelists included: Mary Evelyn Tucker, Teresa Berger, Joanna DaFoe, Rabbi Joshua Ratner, and Omer Bajwa. Watch it here (1:15:00)

Inspired by Naomi Klein’s international non-fiction bestseller, the documentary This Changes Everything, now screening, was filmed over 211 shoot days in nine countries and five continents over four years. This Changes Everything is considered 'an epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change'. Watch the trailer here The documentary website can be visited here

Our final song and video clip for the year is an anthem of shared hope and liberation. It is Rory Cooney's version of the Magnificat, called the Canticle of the Turning: 'My heart shall sing of the days you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn. Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn.' The melody is the popular Irish tune 'Star of the County Down'.

The song with lyrics can be played here but do watch the Christmas 2015 video clip by Kairos Canada (02:09) and experience how that organisation has used the song in its capture of 'faithful action for justice' and 'acting towards hope'. May it offer us inspiration as we embark on our international reflection process (MIRP) in this Year of Mercy.
Purchase the song on * iTunes *Googleplay

Worth Reading

Mary Oliver's latest book of poetry 'Felicity' was released in hardback through Penguin Press on 13 October. Order from Amazon

Worth Reading:

Jan Richardson's article 'This Luminous Darkness: Searching for Solace in Advent and Christmas' is for those who, like herself are, as Jan puts it 'traveling through grief in this season'. Read it here

Jan Richardson's new book Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons is now available. Details about how to order the print and ebook version can be found here

'Open the Door: A Journey to the True Self' by Joyce Rupp (2008) has been recommended as a resource for the coming year. The book is structured as a daily prayer guide for everyday use over six weeks, each day offers a thematic reflection, a guided meditation, an original prayer, a thoughtful question, and a related scripture quote.The table of contents can be read here
A sample of the contents provided by the Publisher can be read here (19pps; PDF)
Available in paperbook or kindle format from Amazon

Year of Mercy

Cardinal Turkson, in his CAFOD Pope Paul VI Memorial Lecture 2015 speaks of 'five doors through which to see and judge the crisis in our social and natural worlds ...a sixth door of education and celebration is ready to give us the courage and strength to keep opening the previous five.' Read the text of the lecture here

Climate Action

The personal fortunes of the 782 wealthiest people on the planet, many CEOs of major corporations, could power Africa, Latin America and most of Asia with 100 percent renewable energy by 2030, said Friends of the Earth International in a new report 'An Energy Revolution is Possible' released on 23 November. Read the report here (19 pps; PDF).

Today’s children, and their children, are the ones who will live with the consequences of climate change. This report, released today, 'Unless we act now: The impact of climate change on children', looks at how children, and particularly the most vulnerable, are affected and what concrete steps need to be taken to protect them. Read the report here (81pps; PDF)

A report released last week by the UN 'Climate Action Now – A Summary for Policymakers 2015' packed with best practice climate policies from across the world reveals a wealth of existing opportunities to immediately scale up reductions in greenhouse gas emissions while powering up ambition to keep the global average temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius. Read the report online here

Creation Care and Ecological Justice

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Spiritual Leader of Orthodox Christians, delivered an address to the members and guests of the Oxford Union on November 4, 2015, at the University of Oxford. The address entitled 'Creation Care and Ecological Justice:Reflections by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew' can be read here

Volume 2.1 Fall 2015 of the The Yale ISM Review is now online in text and pdf. This latest issue is centred on the theme of Water. Access the issue here

Climate

Inspired by the broad ecological vision of Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato Si’, the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) have produced a report 'The Time for Conversion is Now' to feed into COP21. The report follows an analysis of the current climate dynamic with a series of concrete policy suggestions, the basic thrust of which is a move toward ecological conversion. Download the report here (17 pps; PDF)

'Climate scientists came to a consensus that the Earth was warming significantly in the late 1980s. Despite our knowledge of the harm we are inflicting, the volume of greenhouse-gas emissions has increased each year since that time, recently at an accelerating speed. Our conscious destruction of a planet friendly to humans and other species is the most significant development in history.' Read the essay 'Diabolical: Why have we failed to address climate change?' by Robert Manne online here
See also Robert Manne's 'Laudato Si’: A political reading' published in July.

Orbis Books Ecology and Justice Series seeks to integrate an understanding of Earth's interconnected life systems with sustainable social, political, and economic systems that enhance the Earth community. The titles in the series can be accessed here

'Integrating Ecology and Justice: The New Papal Encyclical' by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim in Solutions Volume 6, Issue 4, pp. 38-43. November 28, 2015. Read it here

A report from the World Bank released 8 November warns that human-caused climate change could push more than 100 million people into extreme poverty within just 15 years.

Entitled Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty,the World Bank’s study differs from previous efforts by looking at the poverty impacts of climate change at the household level, rather than at the level of national economies. The infographic can be viewed here, the press release is posted here. Read the report & policy notes here (227pps; PDF)

'We need flowers for our very survival, and in turn flowers — the plants that exist as crop cultivars or horticultural cut flowers or potted beauties — rely on us to reproduce and spread. But all is not well in this storied partnership: We who behold or nurture flowers are condemning their wild relatives to extinction at an alarming rate, and the world is quickly becoming a lesser place without them...' Read 'Our Vanishing Flowers' in the NY Times.

'The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has approved the world's first global agreement involving all stakeholder groups on coordinated action to combat hunger and undernutrition among people living in protracted crises: Framework for Action for Food Security and Nutrition in Protracted Crises (14 pps; PDF). Read the article here

'Every painting, simply by virtue of its stillness, encourages us to come to a standstill before it—to become present to it and let it become present to us. But this work of Vermeer’s does something more; it pictures the very stillness it creates. It is a meditation on living in the present...' from 'Vermeer's Window' by Jerome Miller. Read the article here

Laudato Si'

Global efforts to fight poverty, protect the environment and make decisions about the economy must all be connected by the common thread of promoting human dignity, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, said earlier this week. Read the intervention here

'Social Analysis for the 21st century', the new book by Maria Cimperman rscj, Associate professor of Theological Ethics and Director of the Center for the Study of Consecrated Life at the Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, is now available in both print and ebook editions.

Migration:

Movement of people from poor to rich countries could drive economic growth and boost battle against global poverty, claims World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim. Read the article here

The 21 October issue of Mercy eNews featured the thematic article by Lynda Dearlove rsm who on Mercy Day visited the refugee camp at Calais known as 'the Jungle'. This article by Aamna Mohdin, herself the child of a previous generation of refugees, explains the origins of 'the Jungle' and its growth as a spontaneous settlement. 'If the French government declared it a refugee camp, it would have to provide the migrants with decent accommodation, food, and help integrate them into society. It has not.' Read the article here

Making Human Rights Work for People Living in Extreme Poverty

On this year’s International Day of Peace on 21 September, Franciscans International (FI) and ATD Fourth World launched at the UN in Geneva a 60 page Handbook on Making Human Rights Work for People Living in Extreme Poverty, and unveiled the accompanying video Extreme Poverty: Standing Up For Rights, that illustrates the types of situations in which the handbook can be used (10.00).

The Bottom Line:

'Sr Lynda remarked that her visit to the camp [23-24 September] coincided with a big feast day for the Sisters of Mercy. "I was sat in the church in the middle of the camp, thinking never was there a situation that more needed mercy to fall on it and that's not because I'm saying these people deserve mercy, I believe they deserve rights.

I'm coming completely from a human rights perspective but somehow or other the mercy of God has got to reach and touch the hearts and minds of the political people who can make a difference. We have to find a way as a Church to help and provide a response but actually the only thing that is going to resolve any of this is political will."
- Lynda Dearlove rsm, MBE, CSAN Trustee, following her visit to 'the jungle' refugee camp in Calais

'Perhaps our call at this time in our history is to give time and space with others to allow a new consciousness to come to light and to keep waking us up. In this process, old separations will fall away. Together, in this light, we will begin to see outmoded ways of thinking and acting. The new can then emerge more fully…

Multiple are the ways and strong is our impulse to seed the future. Essentially, we know that we are not finished yet. With the help of good thought partners and theologians we are challenging our thought patterns and usual assumptions with a new clarity. We are reclaiming love as the heart of who we are because we know that God is love…'
-Margo Ritchie CSJ, Educator, Facilitator and Spiritual Director

'The evolving history of life is still underway. In and through the suffering and death of billions of creatures new forms continue to emerge, and what lies ahead is not yet known. The ever-creating God of life, source of endless possibilities, continues to draw the world to an unpredictable future, pervaded by a radical promise: at the ultimate end of time, the Creator and Sustainer of all will not abandon creation but will transform it in an unimaginable way in new communion with divine life. Being created means that living creatures are the bearers of a great and hopeful promise:
"Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. 21.5).'
-Elizabeth A. Johnson,CSJ, Feminist Theologian

'Like all acts of liturgy, those in the first days of November are practices in communion. But here, perhaps more than at any other time in the liturgical year, these practices of communion are ventured across the otherwise unthinkable difference and immeasurable distance between loved ones, when death intervenes.

In this way, the space between All Saints and All Souls is where we search in mourning, prayer and longing for the loved ones we have lost. And the church teaches us that in searching for them, we discover ourselves anew as the ones pursued in love.'
- Leonard J. DeLorenzo, Theologian

'We are calling this year, 2015, a year for global action, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put our world and people on a more peaceful, sustainable and equitable footing...

We are the first generation that can put an end to poverty and we are the last generation that can put an end to climate change, so we [must] address climate change.'
-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

'Our religious convictions and traditions point to the relevance of theology for informing new models of development with social and ecological justice. Aware that governments and political agreements alone are not sufficient for the immense challenges ahead – our faith communities can provide solid grounding, moral support, ethical education and value-based sustainable development models which are needed for the global transformation process...'

From the Statement of Faith and Spiritual Leaders on the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP21 in Paris in December 2015

'There is a time in life when you expect the world to be always full of new things. And then comes a day when you realize that is not how it will be at all. You see that life will become a thing made of holes. Absences. Losses. Things that were there and are no longer. And you realize, too, that you have to grow around and between the gaps, though you can put your hand out to where things were and feel that tense, shining dullness of the space where the memories are.'
– Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk

'Empathy allows us to see the connections between us, making strangers less strange, foreigners less foreign. When we adopt other people's perspectives, we do more than step into their shoes - we use their eyes, we borrow their skin, we feel their hearts beating within us, we lose ourselves and enter into their world, as if we were them... With empathy, we do not step into others' experience to see it with our eyes -- empathy demands that we see it with their eyes. Through that experience we are fundamentally changed, for we see with a sudden, startling clarity that we are the other. All the good and the bad that we see in them we can also recognize in ourselves. The hurt, the shame, the fear of humiliation, the desire for revenge - these are as much parts of our own souls as the quest for honesty, the humble spirit, the forgiving heart.'
-Arthur P. Ciaramicoli and Katherine Ketcham, The Power of Empathy

'We need to be alert to one sad sign of the “globalization of indifference”: the fact that we are gradually growing accustomed to the suffering of others, as if it were something normal (cf. Message for World Food Day, 16 October 2013, 2), or even worse, becoming resigned to such extreme and scandalous kinds of “using and discarding” and social exclusion as new forms of slavery, human trafficking, forced labour, prostitution and trafficking in organs. “There has been a tragic rise in the number of migrants seeking to flee from the growing poverty aggravated by environmental degradation. They are not recognized by international conventions as refugees; they bear the loss of the lives they have left behind without enjoying any legal protection whatsoever” (Laudato Si’, 25). Many lives, many stories, many dreams have been shipwrecked in our day. We cannot remain indifferent in the face of this. We have no right...'

Visit to the U.N.O.N. ( United Nations Office at Nairobi) Address of His Holiness Pope Francis, Kenya, Thursday, 26 November 2015.

'And we might, in our lives, have many thresholds, many houses to walk out from and view the stars, or to turn and go back for warmth and company. But the real one — the actual house not of beams and nails but of existence itself — is all of earth, with no door, no address separate from oceans or stars, or from pleasure or wretchedness either, or hope, or weakness, or greed... For whatever reason, the heart cannot separate the world's appearance and actions from morality and valor, and the power of every idea is intensified, if not actually created, by its expression in substance. Over and over again in the butterfly we see the idea of transcendence. In the forest we see not the inert but the aspiring. In water that departs forever and forever returns, we experience eternity.'

-Mary Oliver in 'Long Life: Essays and Other Writings'

'We have three options for life. We can be primarily self-interested, seeking wealth, power and honours in our own comfortable isolation. Or we can live according to the norms of justice, law, order and fairness. That way, we will always be prepared to meet the other half way, not going any further. We will be prepared to accord each their due, but not giving any more of ourselves. Or we can live with a commitment to relationships with God and our neighbour marked by mercy, forgiveness and love...'

-Frank Brennan SJ AO, The Year of Mercy, 8 December 2015, Talk given at Holy Trinity Parish, Curtin, ACT, Australia

'...To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. If we think on these things, there will be born in us a Savior and over us will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world.'
- Calvin Coolidge, Presidential message to the American people, December 25, 1927