Think about the hot button issues of the day: Police reform, Climate change, Poverty, Homelessness, Election reform, Systemic racism, #metoo… Tou name it. People are calling for more than just quick but temporary fixes. People are calling for systemic reform.
There are things we see but don’t pay attention to.
When will we really buy into the systemic change of thinking Jesus came to show us?
“Jesus himself warns us that the path he proposes goes against the flow, even making us challenge society by the way we live and, as a result, becoming a nuisance.”
Did you know how Vincentian Family members who set the stage and later advised Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 landmark statement of catholic social teaching “Rerum Novarum” (New Things)?
Vincent and Louise, Frederick, and indeed all the great figures of our Vincentian heritage, were not afraid to ask what has become known as the Vincentian question, “What must be done?”
St. Vincent and St. Alberto Hurtado sitting around the table with the poor they loved and served. So different yet, with so much in common.
We may sometimes feel like that piccolo player – that we don’t have much to offer, that if we stopped our ministry no one would notice anyway. Yet the Great Conductor notices, and needs us to complete his orchestral masterpiece!
The question that built a city! “Do you love your children?” When he received an affirmative response, he said: “Let’s work together, give them a future.”
The Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP) in Ireland has called for all licensed moneylenders to carry a tobacco-style warning on their advertising and literature.
If we are asked we would all recognize the importance of prayer in everything we do… especially in our efforts toward systemic change.
The following reflection was written by Jim Claffey during the last election cycle in the US. Just change the candidates’ names for today.
