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STM The Magazine of The Catholic Chapel & Center at Yale University Fall 2017 p 8 The "Roots" of Christian Faith p 7 Three Questions p 2 Summer Ambassador JournalsSTAY IN TOUCH WITH STM @stmyale @STMatYale Visit us on the web @ stm.yale.edu www.facebook.com/stm.yale.edu https://new.flocknote.com/stm Download from the iTunes App Store for iphones or the Google Play Store for android phones. STM App Editors: Robin McShane is the director of communications at STM. Sarah Woodford ' 10 M.Div. is a graduate of Yale Divinity School and STM’s library director. Assistant Editors: Frank Greaney ' 68 M.P.H. is a graduate of the Yale School of Public Health and a member of the STM community. Jan Fournier ' 06 M.A.R. is a graduate of Yale Divinity School and a member of the STM community. STM MAGAZINE CONTRIBUTORS Writers: Brantley Butcher ' 19 is a junior at Yale College and a member of STM’s Undergraduate Council. Lisa Hammon GRD ' 18 is a Family Nurse Practitioner Candidate at the Yale School of Nursing and a member of STM’s Graduate Council. Julia Butts ' 17 is a graduate of Yale College. She lives in Redwood City, California, where she is a full-time volunteer at the St. Francis Center through the Dominican Volunteers. Michael Lally GRD ' 18 is a Master of Arts in Religion student at Yale Divinity School and a member of STM’s Graduate Council. Luis Cabrera Minaya GRD ' 18 is a student at Yale School of Management and a member of STM’s Graduate Council. Design: Cadwell Art Direction Primary Photography: Robert A. Lisak About the Cover: "A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom" (Isaiah 11:1). Framed by swirls of leaves, Jesse emerges from a hexagonal opening along a long shaft of deep green. He is part of the Tree of Jesse mosaic that towers above the choir loft on the Chapel's east wall. Often mistaken for a tapestry from afar, this mosaic was created by Elsa Schmid (1897-1970), a German-American mosaicist, sculptor and painter. Pictured: Carlos Cohen '19 Mission Statement Saint Thomas More Chapel & Center serves the Catholic community at Yale by: · Creating a vibrant and welcoming community through worship and service · Cultivating informed faith and spirituality · Engaging in reflective discourse on faith and culture · Advancing the Church’s mission of promoting social justice · Participating in the global Church’s life and witnessIn This Issue 268 Park Street, New Haven, CT 06511-4714 Phone: 203-777-5537 Fax: 203-777-0144 stmchapel@yale.edu Follow us online: stm.yale.edu STM Chaplains Rev. Robert Beloin, Ph.D., Chaplain Sr. Jennifer Schaaf, O.P., Assistant Chaplain Rev. Karl Davis, O.M.I., Assistant Chaplain Carlene Demiany ' 12 M.Div., Assistant Chaplain Allan Esteron, Assistant Chaplain STM Magazine is published twice a year for our alumni, parents and friends. Opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the entire STM community. Veena McCoole '19 prepares Blessing Bags filled with toiletries, nutritional supplements, socks, gloves and notes of goodwill for the guests of the Saint Thomas More Soup Kitchen in honor of National Hunger & Homelessness Awareness week. 1 NATIONAL HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH 2 THE SUMMER AMBASSADORS JOURNALS 10 CHRISTINA LEAÑO LECTURE TRANSCRIPT 12 THE HUNT PRIZE LECTURE 14 DONOR RECOGNITION Features STM MAGAZINE FALL 2017 6 FAITH IN THE REAL WORLD 7 THREE QUESTIONS 8 FROM THE ARCHIVES 11 POP CULTURE 17 OPEN BOOK 18 SNAP SHOT Photograph by Madison Smith '20FROM THE Chaplain’s Desk Dear Friends: As part of our observance of National Hispanic Heritage Month, we were honored to welcome Roberto Goizueta '76 who spoke after a Sunday evening dinner. Roberto is Professor Emeritus of Catholic Theology at Boston College. He is the former president of both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States. He currently serves on the STM Board of Trustees. I share an excerpt from his excellent lecture: “...the fact of the matter is that to be a human being, to be alive, is to exist in a situation of inherent insecurity, vulnerability and uncertainty. Regardless of how much money we have, where we go to college (even Yale), how prestigious our job is, how many guns we have, or how high the walls are around us, we do not know—and cannot know for sure—what tomorrow holds. Our lives and futures are always beyond our complete control, but we try to avoid this painful, inescapable reality at all costs, and one way we do this is by avoiding those people in our communities who themselves live in situations of vulnerability and insecurity. We feel threatened by them, because they remind us of what we would rather forget: namely that ultimately, we are all in the same boat. None of us is in complete control. None of us knows for sure what the future holds... The powerless, vulnerable persons in our midst force us to be honest about that reality. We thus erect all sorts of walls and barriers, both visible and invisible, to shield us from the most vulnerable people of our societies—the poor, the sick, the elderly, the homeless, the stranger, the prisoner, the undocumented, the unborn. We avoid the poor not because we are afraid of them, but because we are afraid of ourselves. We are afraid that we may not be as invulnerable and invincible as we think we are, so we put the poor out of sight, on the other side of the tracks or on the other side of the border, where we will never have to come across them. We put them anywhere but in our supposedly secure, peaceful neighborhoods. At its very core, however, the Christian story represents a fundamental rejection of this dynamic of fear, exclusion and violence.” In addition to the intellectual development of our students, we are seriously committed to an emphasis on service as an integral part of a young Catholic’s formative experience at Yale. I hope that in reading this issue of our magazine, especially our featured article on our Summer Ambassador program, you will see some of the examples of what we offer in this area. Thank you for your generosity which makes these initiatives and so many other opportunities available to our students. I am personally grateful to you. “In addition to the intellectual development of our students, we are seriously committed to an emphasis on service as an integral part of a young Catholic's formative experience at Yale.” Fr. Robert Beloin Chaplain Good News! Photograph by Robin J. McShane ave you recently had a baby? Started a new job? Won an award? Gotten married? Completed a degree? STM Magazine would like to share your good news with the wider STM community. Keep us up to date by using the link on the homepage of the STM website (stm.yale.edu). Your Good News will appear in the Spring 2018 issue. H STM’s young (and expecting!) mothers gather in the courtyard for photos and fellowship. National Hispanic Heritage Month Lecture: Loving New Haven’s Poor Preferentially Luis Cabrera Minaya GRD '18 ach year, National Hispanic Heritage Month gives me the space to reflect on my intersectional identity as a Latino, an immigrant and a Catholic. I am grateful to have opportunities to explore this identity in community at STM during prayer, Mass and fellowship. The National Hispanic Heritage Month Lecture, given by Professor Roberto Goizueta '76 on October 8, 2017, also gave me the chance to ponder my attitude toward preferential treatment of the poor. “It’s not an option at all but [it is] in fact essential,” Goizueta said, emphasizing the importance of our duty as Christians to care for the poor. He described how God loves us all equally—and the poor preferentially—and how these are mutually implicit rather than paradoxical. Saying that God loves everyone equally is implicitly supporting the status quo and injustice. In the same manner, a mother would not remain neutral if her son were hurting his younger sibling in a brawl. Rather, she would scold her son. Goizueta shared an anecdote of his encounter with a homeless man during his time as a Yale student. He gave the man some change, and the man grabbed him by the shoulders and kissed his forehead. The experience changed his perspective of the man from an object of his charity to a fellow human being. He then spoke about how we tend to avoid those who are vulnerable and insecure, such as those who live in poverty. He argued that we separate ourselves from them to avoid facing the discomfort that comes with acknowledging our lack of control. We instead choose to live in an illusion in which we have control over our surroundings and our bodies. As someone who has lived in poverty and worked in international development, I have seen firsthand the reality and importance of loving the poor preferentially. This lecture was a timely reminder for me to question my beliefs and understanding of social justice as well as my relationship with feelings of powerlessness and vulnerability. I am thankful to be a part of STM. There is no better way to dispel isolation than to live within a loving and supportive community. Editor's Note: Roberto S. Goizueta '76 is the Margaret O’Brien Flatley Professor Emeritus of Catholic Theology at Boston College. To view the lecture, visit https://goo.gl/5CSqor. E 1. A mariachi band performs after 5pm Mass during STM’s National Hispanic Heritage Month.The Summer Ambassador Journals: Finding God through Service to Others Jan Fournier '06 M.A.R. 2. "We ask only one thing: that you reach out! And that you go and seek out and encounter the most needy." – Pope Francis hat do Summitville, IN; Columbus, GA; Huê, Vietnam and Udine, Italy have in common? Each location was the site of a service project undertaken by a 2017 STM Summer Ambassador! After submitting a proposal and a detailed action plan, each Ambassador received grant money from STM to fund a project focused on ministering to an underserved population, both in the United States and abroad. Brantley Butcher '19 and Adriana Embus Figueroa '17 returned to their hometowns to give back to the communities which nurtured them; while a world away, the beneficence of STM was brought to Italy by Anna Marra GRD '18 and to Vietnam by Ella Henry '20. STM asked each Ambassador to keep a journal. Portions of their journals are excerpted in the following pages.3. rantley initiated a food delivery service in Summitville to assist families with school age children who are eligible to receive meals at their elementary school during the academic year. In the summer months, residents have difficulty accessing healthy foods because their small town (population 991) lacks a grocery store. Also lacking is any public transportation to a larger urban area where supermarkets are located. Brantley writes in his journal: “My program addresses the needs of the area by removing the obstacle of transportation for the most economically disadvantaged in our area.” He worked with the First Christian Church of Summitville to deliver supplemental groceries, and with Summitville Elementary School to identify families who could benefit from the program. In all, eleven families with a total of twenty-three children opted to participate and received four grocery deliveries—once every other Saturday—purchased and delivered by Brantley directly to their homes. Over the summer, Brantley began to feel a deep attachment to those he served as he explains, “I am always hit with a wave of joy at the end of each delivery knowing I made a small but real impact on the lives of the families I’ve grown to care about.” Brantley continues, “More important than the experience I gained in project management, the growth in empathetic understanding. . .is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life… Even though I had grown up with the same people I was helping, I had never fully realized the need that was present in my community… Feeding the hungry is what Christ called us to do.” driana, cognizant of the formative role that Girls, Inc. played in her own development and preparation for a Yale education, partnered with that organization “to implement a four-week college preparatory program for thirty to thirty-five under-resourced girls of color.” She created syllabi and taught courses in leadership development, career planning and college preparation. As an alumna of the center, Adriana found her work “even more rewarding,” and considered it a “privilege to be able to work with girls at such a wonderful stage.” In her journal, Adriana writes: “The girls immediately engaged with me during my classes and fed my energy. They demonstrated initiative, asked a million questions and kept me teaching wayyy longer than I should be.” She challenged her students to work toward college and to strive for more than their parents had achieved. The reason she pursued this fellowship was “to ensure that my girls, many of whom are from my same exact neighborhood, would have a more equal chance at social mobility…” Highlighting the summer workshop were visits to five area colleges: Spelman College, Savannah College of Art & Design, Clark Atlanta University, Mercer University and Wesleyan College (Macon, GA). A final celebratory “Let’s Go to College” luncheon was attended by several graduates of Girls, Inc. who served as inspiring role models for Adriana’s students. Reflecting on her summer experience Adriana comments that “I noticed God at every step of the way.” B A4. For Anna's project, children were asked to draw a star and then were invited to tell their story. nna, a graduate student from Udine in Northeast Italy, used her fellowship to help alleviate the suffering of immigrants and refugees in Italy by working with traumatized children in creative and uplifting activities, and also by providing basic necessities to those displaced, perhaps forever, from their homelands. Her goal was to “work for a better integration and understanding of the immigrant’s situation in Italy and alleviate the conditions that immigrants’ children face every day” in collaboration with La Carovana Artistica and Ospiti in Arrivo, two local non-profit organizations. Anna participated in the STELLE (STARS) art project that works with women and children and “focuses on collecting signs…and stories to comprehend and tell the condition of a multitude of people in transit along the Balkan route.” The Balkan Route is a transit route followed by men, women and children to enter the European Union from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. It is currently a place in humanitarian and legal crisis. For Anna’s project, children were asked to draw a star and then were invited to tell their story. With other volunteers, Anna created a video featuring the drawings made by children in Jordan, Greece and Serbia. The video was later screened at the Invisible Cities Festival in Gorizia, Italy. Anna also worked with the non-profit organization Equipe di Strada, to collect and distribute blankets and other essentials for refugees and to provide them with information necessary to the asylum application process. Anna used grant funds to purchase books and artistic materials for the refugee camp in Athens, Greece. A “I noticed God at every step of the way.”5. STM Summer Ambassadors have taken to heart the insistent call of Pope Francis to “encounter” the other, especially the poor and marginalized, by their graced responses to those in need. In a video address on the feast of San Cajetano, Francis declared, “We ask only one thing: that you reach out! And that you go and seek out and encounter the most needy.” If you know a current Yale student who is eager to “reach out” to the most needy in their community, STM will begin accepting applications for the 2018 Summer Ambassadors program this spring. E of the way.” – Adriana Embus Figueroa '17 lla, a native of France, worked with a French Scout team from her home country on the Brevet Scouts du Monde project (comparable to the American Eagle Scout project) which involves organizing a humanitarian project in a developing country. Her team chose to focus on disadvantaged Vietnamese children, collaborating with the Franco-Vietnamese organization Les Sampaniers du Vietnam. Her goal was to reconstruct the playground of the elementary school outside Huê and to tutor the children in French and English. She found the manual work difficult—the playground is “a big pile of dirt that needs to be flattened and then tiled.” Ella says she “gained a lot of respect for the men and women who do such physical labor daily, especially those who work in developing and emerging countries. . .” During her time in Vietnam, Ella became very attached to the children in the orphanage and teaching French and English lessons allowed her to learn more about them. As a result of her service project, Ella gained a new appreciation of her privileged status and her bilingual and multicultural identity. The presence of God was revealed to her as she worked alongside her Scout teammates rebuilding the playground as well as in her interactions with the children she taught.Next >