Posted by admin on March 4, 2010 under 4. Thursday's Spiritual Smoothie | 
As I write many of our students, faculty, and staff are preparing to spend the next week serving in places all over the world during our spring break. More and more I am convinced that these “alternative” breaks are actually becoming the new “standard” trip; if students aren’t headed home just to catch up with family and on their sleep, they’re choosing to actively support others through acts of solidarity and service.
Now, this could be because my data is coming from my own experience and those of other campus ministers (and we all work with extraordinary people!), but I think there’s something else behind this as well. As society has become more aware of its role in a global economy and community, I think there’s also been a raised awareness of how one individual’s actions can affect the experience of another that they may never have physically met. Technology allows for enhanced communication, contemporary theology calls us to proper stewardship of the environment, and I think we’ve all seen how financial decisions in one country can affect the global economy. Perhaps more now than at any other time we are aware of how we are all one human family.
Whenever your break comes, whether it’s in the next couple weeks, at Easter, or not until the end of the quarter or semester, here is a quick prayer. Whether you’re heading to far-off lands or to your neighbors down the road, may this experience of service be a time to embrace the ordinariness of your actions, and not seen as an extraordinary alternative. May we truly become one human family, living in solidarity and encountering Christ in one another. And for those who will be at rest or play, may you find in these moments of joy and peace a renewed sense of God’s presence in your life.
Sarah Heiman is Campus Minister for Education and Spiritual Life at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT.
Posted by admin on February 1, 2010 under 1. Media Monday |
Today is the 50th anniversary of the day Franklin McCain and three other freshmen at North Carolina A&T University took a stand by sitting at the lunch counter in Woolworth’s.
The store had no qualms selling toothpaste or light bulbs to blacks, but a cup of coffee at the lunch counter? Out of the question. The Greensboro Four, as they came to be known, were fed up.
As they sat, they were approached by an elderly white woman. McCain later reported that he was afraid of her - even that she might pull a scissors or knitting needle from her bag to stab him. Instead, the woman placed her hand on McCain’s shoulder and smiled. “She says, ‘Boys, I am so proud of you. I only regret that you didn’t do this 10 years ago,’ ” McCain said.
This story ran in papers and websites all over the country this morning. Its message is as important today as it was then. Both McCain and the woman cheering them on are faces in our own ministry today.
The energy these traditional and non-traditional students bring to our ministries needs only be harnessed to affect great change.
Here at Yale we are proud of the 124 year tradition we have in Dwight Hall, our center for public service and social justice. Often in our ministry the presence to which we are called is in reflecting upon the service our students do and connecting it back to a life of faith.
Last year we changed what has traditionally been an appreciation dinner for our soup kitchen volunteers and asked all students to join us in appreciation for the many and varied forms of service they offered throughout the year. We then asked the question - so what?
The answers were inspiring and challenging. I learned that we indeed have lots of students starting a revolution. I know .. I know … you are wondering where this connects to media! Hold on, there is a great link coming!
Here goes! Like many of you I am in the midst of “Recommendation Limbo”! That fruitful time of year where students come from every nook and cranny asking you to write a letter of recommendation for their next step. It seems I no sooner fill one out than another request is received! In the middle of all this we have seniors looking for opportunities for the next year too! For those of you who are looking for a great tool, check out www.cnvs.org! This online database lists both long and short term opportunities and info on each placement. The site can be searched by location, type of service and length of volunteer window. A fantastic upgrade to the paper version!
Please comment below with your own great ideas about service and or reflection ideas. Let’s share our best resources!
Katie Byrnes is an Assistant Chaplain at Saint Thomas More Catholic Chapel & Center at Yale University.
Posted by admin on October 13, 2009 under 2. Fat Tuesday |
This Sunday’s readings could easily suffer casual dismissal from a harried college student looking into the abyss of coming midterms. When James and John get too uppity, Jesus intervenes and reminds the disciples that the one who aspires to greatness must be willing to become servant of all. “First shall be last, call to service, got it!” If any generation of college students has gotten the message of service, this one has. Their college applications, scholarship applications and first draft résumés boast service projects they have been involved with or initiated from earliest days of high school…
Hmmmm. Could it be that the gospel isn’t so easily dismissed, that it actually aims a very challenging critique at one aspect of university culture, namely self promotion? This is one gospel critique that can really pinch. On the one hand, from their carefully planned out childhood of play dates and soccer games, college students have imbibed cultural assumptions that encourage them to compete well during their college years. Everything counts, even their acts of service, in achieving their personal and professional goals. On the other hand, Jesus counsels humility and gives an example of wasting oneself, as the Son of Man “gave his life as a ransom for many.” What are students to make of this gospel of disinterested service, this good news that goes against the advice of counselors and parents alike?
It might be enough just to raise the question and let the students, maturing into an adult faith, grapple with it. Or, one can point to another aspect of college life for some further reflection: the experience of the college athlete. I’ve used this gospel passage in reflections I’ve done with our Catholic athletes (called Cathletes) in our Cathletics program to good effect. Student athletes understand well the difference between playing for oneself and playing for the team. They also practice often the discipline necessary to pass the ball to a team mate who has a better shot, even when it goes against one’s own stats. This might be a good Sunday to acknowledge those players who don’t get much field time but whose service is quite hidden yet important.
Fr. Peter Walsh, CSC is assistant chaplain at Saint Thomas More Chapel and Center at Yale University
Posted by admin on September 15, 2009 under 2. Fat Tuesday |
For the second Sunday in a row, Jesus teaches his disciples about his Passion and they seem incapable of understanding its meaning. Last Sunday, Peter rebuked Jesus for even mentioning his impending death and spoiling his proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah. This week, Jesus is greeted by confused, stunned and fearful silence. Teachers everywhere can take solace in these two examples of the pedagogical challenge. Not only do the disciples react with sullen silence, but to further prove that they have entirely missed the point, they end up arguing over which of them is the greatest. Some fun could be had during the homily filling in the details of that conversation!
All of this reminds us that the disciples are fully human, prone to the misunderstandings and foibles that afflict each one of us. It further shows that the disciples, as normal human beings, still look at the world in terms of the prevailing values, rather than the good news that Jesus has come to announce. To use the language from last Sunday’s gospel, they are “thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” In offering his life for the salvation of others, Jesus becomes the model of servant leadership that he encourages among his followers.
Two points come to my mind looking at this gospel. On the one hand, by bringing the disciples down to a human level and looking at their own rather slow coming to understand what Jesus is trying to teach them, they become examples of our own process of conversion. For students struggling to understand some aspect of Church teaching or confronting new doubts, this gospel offers the good news that even those closest to Jesus were troubled by the same doubts and questions. Conversion to the gospel is not instantaneous; sometimes our failures to understand bring us closer to God. Not unrelated is the ethic of service that Jesus models. Spending a morning in the soup kitchen or tutoring a local elementary school student for a few hours often brings the right balance to a student’s spiritual life. Some doubts are only exacerbated by puzzling them out. Try ladling a bowl of soup and gaining a new perspective!
As I post this, I’m mindful that these readings bring a heavy does of Holy Week to our beginning of the semester. The tragic death of a graduate student here at Yale has brought the weight of the cross in a particular way to our students during these early September days. We who minister here appreciate the prayers you have offered on behalf of Annie Le, her family, fiancé, friends and the whole Yale community.
Fr. Peter Walsh, CSC is assistant chaplain at Saint Thomas More Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale University.
Posted by admin on September 10, 2009 under 4. Thursday's Spiritual Smoothie |
Last week I had the privilege of serving with 39 of our incoming students in the Bridgeport community. For many this was their first experience of the wider community in which they will spend their next four years, and for some their first encounter with those affected by hunger, homelessness, poverty, and other issues of human dignity. The week is always profound, and all continue to work for justice and in solidarity with others for the rest of their time at Sacred Heart and beyond.
Below is a prayer by John Henry Cardinal Newman that we use to begin our week together. For the students it is a powerful reflection on how they are called to live and work in the world, and a source of reassurance as they transition into a new community. Perhaps today we can take a moment and remember how God has called us in our own lives to live and serve our Church and world.
God has created me to do Him some definite service;
He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.
I have my mission – I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.
He has not created me for naught.
I shall do good, I shall do His work;
I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place,
while not intending it,
if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.
Therefore, my God, I will put myself without reserve into your hands.
What have I in heaven, and apart from you what want I upon earth?
My flesh and my heart fail,
But God is the God of my heart, and my portion forever.
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Sarah Heiman is Campus Minister for Education and Spiritual Life at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT.
