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SEDOS SEMINAR:  “Mission Today”  

The Generalate Team attended the week long annual SEDOS seminar in Ariccia, near Castelgondolfo on Lake Albano.  These residential workshops are of such good caliber that many general teams arrange their calendars to assure presence in Rome at that time. The quality of the input and sharing usually make it a must, not to mention the view overlooking Lake Albano opposite Castelgondolfo.  (This year we froze, saw little of the lake because of fog and even witnessed hailstones one day!!!  Nonetheless the input was superb!)

SEDOS is a service of documentation and study on global mission. The theme this year was Missionary Church in a Globalizing World.  There were four key speakers, the first a lay woman and professor at Naples University , Guiliana Martirani, who spoke of the implications for justice and peace on the social-political and economic framework of today’s market globalization.  Guiliana’s witness and practical observations spoke loudly. She refuses to wear jewelry when other women have barely a house to live in. Her lay viewpoint on the vows offered new perspectives to many of us.  

The second speaker Ronald Schreiter, a Precious Blood priest from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago , drew our attention to the fact that we have been grappling with the phenomenon of globalization for two decades. He advocated a two-sided look, positive and negative, on the explosion of communication technology, the rise in migration and increasing multiculturalism that have changed our world. One out of 35 people on our planet is in migration, the majority being women.  Despite our increased connectedness, the quality of relationships range from superficiality to xenophobic violence.  Mission today calls us to utilize a horizontal and vertical approach as we minister to the “bottom billion,” and raise a “collective voice” in advocacy and collaborative action.  

Ann Falola, Our Lady of the Missions, working with the Pontifical Union in Nigeria , spoke of points of fracture and new social sufferings. Globalization has become a global empire which has colonized every nation on earth.  She urged us to see the new challenges raised by human brokenness in the new imperial structure of globalization.  Is our view from the top or the bottom? How can it be more important to supply mobile phones to the world than to invest in safe drinking water for millions?  As a Nigerian working in Argentina , Anne’s experience was replete with examples of the effects of globalization on the world’s poor. Missionaries today, to be credible, need to embrace the powerlessness of Jesus on the cross in counter witness to the accumulation of power of the globalized world.  

The fourth speaker, Daniel Groody, Holy Cross priest from Notre Dame University , Indiana , spoke in a personal way of the challenge to religious life of globalization and the gospel.  Using the image of being on a common global ship, he spoke of living in a time of Titanic change; we are veering off course as a human community; we are at a critical point in history and we can either shipwreck on the icebergs of greed or find a promised land of human solidarity.  In 2008 more than a 1000 people are billionaires while a billion people survive on less than a dollar a day.  Transnational corporations are wealthier than many individual nations creating a situation where, from a spiritual viewpoint, we have moved from a monotheistic faith to a money-theistic faith!  A spirituality of Incarnation, a spirituality of the Cross and a spirituality of the Eucharist are keys for all missionary groups to help chart a new course for our world.

Our Mission Today – Elizabeth’s View    

This seminar led us to reflect more intensely about our mission roots.  Elizabeth’s first outreach was to English and Irish immigrants who were trying to make a living in France.  From here she answered an emergency call to help the wounded and displaced soldiers on the battlefields of the Franco-Prussian War.  Her efforts eventually led her to new French and German settlers in the Midwestern United States and African-American orphans in Georgia .  

As a Community we started many missions with Italians immigrants in Australia and Egypt , Canada and the United States . Our early sisters did “settlement work” visiting countless homes in urban areas. Wherever we went we helped people get on their feet, offering education and religious instruction. Eventually schools and parishes flourished.  And what of today?  

Today some of our sisters find themselves with new waves of immigrants: Hispanics from many lands, Sudanese and Burundians, Cape Verdeans , Haitians, Poles and Romanians. Our schools are becoming more and more multicultural.  In parishes and neighborhoods some are trying to do whatever is needed -- provide a welcome, teach English, help with religious instructions, fill out government forms, supply emergency food from a food pantry, offer a cup of tea and a quiet space. In this globalized world, our mission is often on our doorstep as well as in foreign lands. Who are our neighbors? Looking at the early manifestations of our charism, are there not similar situations calling for a response today?

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