Holy Week - Seeds of Hope - Vincentians
“Seeds of Hope” – So rich in meaning during each “holy” week, this year the phrase has special meaning for the followers of Vincent, Louise, Elizabeth and Frederic. Jesus is our ultimate seed of hope but the hope of resurrection is flowering anew in the Vincentian world.
We rejoice in the signs of so many seeds breaking through the soil first tilled in 17th century France. This Easter let us take time to recognize and nurture the latest shoots of our “seeds of hope” and the winds of systemic change blowing though our family.
Holy Thursday with its mandate to wash one another’s feet fittingly marks the unveiling of the website for the Vincentian Family’s project of fostering micro-financing in Haiti. ZAFEN (Creole for “It’s our business”) provides us with deeper motivation and practical opportunities to extend a hand for our brothers and sister in this historically ravaged land. And the “kingdom” really is our business.
This month will mark another form of systemic change within the Vincentian Family with our first meeting in cyberspace on April 24. John Paul II challenged us to launch out into the deep of the Internet. “VirtualVins” are accepting the challenge for another kind of systemic change by opening this new means of communication across branches and continents by focusing on deepening our understanding and practice of systemic change.
These ventures will call us to live Good Friday by dying and rising in ministry. But we are confident that as we go about “our business” we will rise to the fullness of Easter life.
Tags: 350th Anniversary, Disasters, Featured, Haiti, Homelessness, Philanthropy, Systemic change