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< PreviousBlack History Month Lecture: The Courage to be Transformed “Charity, I suggest, forces temporary relief. It creates a good feeling for those who are engaged in it. And those who are the recipients of it get a little relief and a little respite. However, when one begins to look at systems, this is where justice comes into play. Are they just systems or are they systems of charity that put a Band-Aid on something for a minute? Do you and I have the courage to examine systems and to realize that they are purposely constructed to keep certain communities from thriving? Our refusing to look at these systems makes us complicit for the injustices the perpetuate. I’m going to say that again. Our refusing to look at these systems make us complicit for the injustices they perpetuate. Looking at your website, I see that you go out and you seem to tutor the students at St. Martin de Porres Academy. Wonderful. It’s great that you are also being able to lend your expertise, your skills, your support, and helping to empower those young people. My challenge to you is: do you ever wonder why they have to work so hard to keep hold of the dreams that they are entitled to? Why do they have so much more to contend with and overcome than you and yes, I? What I am challenging you tonight and inviting you to consider is, do you have the courage to be transformed? I'm not saying changing because one can always turn and go back if changing things don’t work. I’m talking about transformation, for transformation is very different. For there’s no turning back once you have put your hand to the plow. You will be transformed if you begin the lifetime journey of dismantling the unearned internalized privileges you live with that breeds such devastating effects. You will be transformed if you begin to dismantle the unearned internalized oppression that we live with that continues to breed oppression. You will be transformed if all your mind and heart acknowledge your complicity in these systems, you come to realize with your whole being that you are more than these systems hold out to tantalize you. You are more than what these systems hold out. You are good. We are good, generous, compassionate men and women who are passionate about life, about belonging, about learning and we are all worthy of love. For this beloved community is being actualized as I see it by a great many of our young adults. For see our young adults as people who speak up, sign up, put up and show up. For there are no definite maybes in the beloved community. There are no definite maybes in the beloved community, and no one can be a little bit committed. You can’t be a little bit committed to radical transformation. It don’t work like that. You and I both know that this beloved community did not just pop up when Dr. King lived and died. It’s been around for generations of people who could not stand idle and quiet in the face of injustice. Today, it is manifested in the desires and actions of our elder generation who want to pass on the torch of justice to us, to you, young adults, a new generation. These are the folks who demonstrated, got arrested, wrote op-eds, protested, wrote about, spoke about, lived and died for peace with justice. These are the women and men who will not give up until all are free. None of us are free until all of us are free. This past February, Sister Patricia Chappell, S.N.D.deN., spoke at STM as our Black History Month lecturer. Sr. Patricia, former Executive Director of Pax Christi USA and currently serving in leadership for the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, grew up in New Haven. Weaving together story-telling, social justice and her experience of being Black and Catholic, Sr. Patricia was powerful and challenging in her call to build the Beloved Community in the here and now. Her prophetic wisdom came months before the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, making her words all the more important today, as we examine the work we still need to do to work toward reconciliation. 7. To listen to Sr. Patricia Chappell’s lecture in its entirety, visit https://stmchapel.wistia.com/medias/mbh1upqxnn“None of us are free until all of us are free.” STM Chaplains’ Statement on Racism: https://stm.yale.edu/chapel-leadership Racial Justice Resources from the Office for Catholic Social Justice Ministry: https://tinyurl.com/y7tlkgt6 Photograph by Sr. Jenn Schaaf#MyCatholicYale Rocio Trujillo '20 J.D. prays in the Chapel after receiving ashes on Ash Wednesday—just two weeks before STM closed due to COVID-19.Amidst a Pandemic, Love Survives at STM Dear Friends, On Wednesday, March 4, just over a year since my arrival to STM, our campus ministry drastically changed, due to COVID-19. We canceled our Alternative Spring Break trips. We began implementing the evolving precautionary measures taken by Yale and the city of New Haven in an effort to flatten the curve. We canceled all public liturgies, switching instead to livestreamed Masses. We celebrated our first livestream Mass on Sunday, March 15, the morning after President Salovey announced that Yale’s Spring semester would move online. All students should stay at home, and those still on campus should depart for home. We were just beginning Lent, and our students were about to experience the Cross and plunge into the passion, death and resurrection of Christ in a way that no one could ever have imagined or planned for. Experiencing Lent and Easter amidst a shared global pandemic has given us a whole new understanding of what it means to be the Body of Christ, spread throughout the world— who cannot be constrained by physical barriers of time and space, nor held back by social distancing. We clung to a “hope that does not disappoint,” knowing that love and light rise from the darkness of the tomb at the Easter dawn. As the world now begins to emerge from the tombs of fear, disappointment and sorrow, we are awakening to the reality that the deeper wounds and illnesses of humanity have been exposed. We need our Easter faith now more than ever, as Christ has commissioned us to be his healing, reconciliation and love in the world. At Pentecost, God’s Holy Spirit shook us out of our protective upper rooms—to come out of ourselves at were—in order to listen, advocate for and stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers who suffer from the evils of injustice, inequality and hatred. I have been deeply humbled and totally inspired by the way in which our STM community, and particularly our students, have moved through this unforgettable first half of 2020 while bearing witness to the fact that Christ’s love triumphs over hate and is stronger than death itself. May their faith and perseverance reflected in the following section reignite within you the fire of that love. Yours in Christ, Fr. Ryan11. came to Yale Law School with the (probably apocryphal) words of Pope Francis in mind: “You pray for the hungry. Then you feed them. That’s how prayer works.” Feeding the Hungry During a Pandemic: The Answer to a Law Student’s Prayers Jacqui Oesterblad GRD '22 Jacqui Oesterblad joins Fr. Karl Davis and recent graduate Joshua Garcia in preparing lunch in the STM Soup Kitchen.12. Law school comes with a lot of pressure to prioritize big things at the expense of small kindnesses, so I organized my Wednesdays as a weekly reminder of why I’m here. I spend the morning in the STM Soup Kitchen, rush off to class for the next seven hours, and then end the day back at Mass, where we remember the day’s guests during the prayers of the faithful. You feed the hungry, you study the system that has left so many hungry and then you pray for them. These days, I’m praying for a lot of things. Most of them have no obvious equivalent to “and then you feed them.” I cannot heal the sick; I cannot employ the unemployed; I cannot socially distance the prisons; I cannot get adequate PPE to those on the front lines. There is so much wrong, and I have so little to offer. My refrain has instead become, “I pray for an end to the pandemic. Then I stay home.” Except on Wednesdays. The kitchen and dining hall are strangely empty now as we work. The number of volunteers is kept to a minimum. The laughter and camaraderie are muted through the cloth of homemade masks. Our guests pick up their meals—and a mask, if they need one—outside. Even in the midst of unprecedented times and overwhelming challenges, it remains true that people get fed one person and one meal at a time. There is no other way: You pray for the hungry and then you feed them. The Love That Brought You Here: A Photo Essay Easter Vigil 2020 was unlike any other. Usually involving many students, Chaplains and community members, the pandemic kept this year’s participants to a stark minimum and the service was rehearsed and celebrated while social distancing. Vestments and Easter-best outfits mingled with masks and clip-on microphones while two lone cameramen in purple gloves monitored the Vigil’s livestream from empty pews. The host was blessed for only a few instead of for many. And yet, the Paschal candle was still lit—its flame still cut through the darkness. Though not physically present, the STM community renewed their baptism vows and celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ through smart phones, computers and tablets. And God’s love still brought the STM community together. 13.5:30 pm Fr. Ryan and Sr. Jenn run through the Mass with cantor Karolina Wojteczko '20 Mus.M. and organist Laura Richling. David Little of the STM facility staff prepares the Chapel for the Easter Vigil and waters the flowers. 12:15 pm 6:30 pm Brian Forbes of Strategy-1st tests his equipment. 14. Photograph by Sr. Jenn Schaaf8:01 pm 8:20 pm 7:45 pm 15. Karolina Wojteczko '20 Mus.M. takes a quiet moment to compose herself before the Vigil. 7:00 pm Fr. Ryan vests before the Vigil. The Paschal Candle is lit to begin the Vigil. Fr. Ryan and Sr. Jenn read the Liturgy of the Word describing our salvation history.Love survives. Love is a bond so strong that it could never be broken, undone or disconnected. Love has brought us this far unto this hour on this Holy night. We are the Church of love that was born on that Good Friday afternoon, which has persevered through over two-thousand years, and who gathers at the empty tomb on this Easter night. We come with our experience of being loved by God, through Jesus Christ. We are filled with the courage of love and the risen Christ who dwells within us as divine love, as resurrection and life. As our Holy Father, Pope Francis, reminds us: “With God, life never dies. The Lord seeks to reawaken and revive our Easter faith. We have been saved. We have been redeemed. We have been healed and embraced so that nothing and no one can separate us from his redeeming love. He is risen and is living by our side. Life awaits us. Grace lives within us. Let us not quench that wavering flame that never falters and let us allow hope to be rekindled.” 1 My friends, trust in the love that brought you here. The divine love that you breathe in your lungs. The love that will lead us forward through this pandemic, through sickness, through darkness and uncertainty, and even through death itself and onward into life everlasting. The love that will change us and our world for good by making us kinder and gentler; holy and heroic. Love. Christ is risen. Indeed, he is truly risen as he promised. Hallelujah, hallelujah. 8:39 pm 16. Fr. Ryan delivers his homily. 1 Urbi et Orbi address, March 27, 2020.Next >