Can you feel the ENERGY in this room? Take a minute to be aware of it, to tap into it, to align yourself with it, to open yourself to it. It\u2019s the energy of all of us whose lives center around the Charity of Christ. The energy of that outpouring love \u2013 amazing and overwhelming and beyond anything we can ask or imagine \u2013 is what preoccupies us and focuses us and impels us.<\/p>\n
In Pope Benedict XVI\u2019s first encyclical, he talks about that very mystery of Love, of Charity, in words that we really need to ponder \u2013 we who follow Vincent, Louise, Elizabeth Seton, Catherine Spalding, Frederic Ozanam, Rosalie Rendu, in the way of Charity. \u201cThe love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others\u2026\u201d The Pope is talking about the energy of God\u2019s love, the flow of love, and the ripples, the circles, the tidal waves that happen when we share that energy of love with others.<\/p>\n
I want to talk with you today about ENERGY. No, this isn\u2019t a pitch to turn down the thermostat or rely less on oil or buy a hybrid car (though that\u2019s certainly not a bad idea). This is about the energy of the Spirit, the energy and life and power that comes to us from the Risen Christ, the kind of ENERGY we celebrate at Eastertide.<\/p>\n
As we move through these days, let us never forget that all of our reflection is taking place in a world that is so much bigger than ourselves. What kind of world are we immersed in \u2013 as incarnations of God\u2019s energy? It is a world that cries out for God\u2019s energy to be released. (E.g., 2005 was the first year on record when a full-time worker at minimum wage could NOT afford a 1-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country at average market rates. E.g., nine months after devastating hurricanes in our Gulf Coast, millions of people, many of them poor, are still homeless or displaced, and government agencies seem unable to deliver needed services. E.g., the list of dead and wounded in Iraq continues to mount \u2013 ordinary civilians as well as military personnel.)<\/p>\n
The God we believe in is a God with a definite bias for community, a God of the group. The story of God\u2019s relationship with us that we read in our Scriptures tells us that salvation is something that happens to us together, not individually. We are meant to live and grow and build a better world and make our way to God together, not separately. Is that messy? slow? annoying? inefficient? Does that fly in the face of our cherished American individualism, our Lone Ranger mentality, our deep-seated belief that if you want anything done right you have to do it yourself? Of course it does.<\/p>\n
But that doesn\u2019t diminish the power of the Word of God: \u201cI will be your God, and you will be my people.\u201d That doesn\u2019t negate the dream that Jesus called \u201cthe reign of God.\u201d That dream was all about a new way of being in relationship, a transformed community, a new kind of family, a way of connecting and collaborating at the deepest level we could imagine. He never tired talking about it, showing us what it might look like, and demonstrating how we must live if that dream is ever to be realized. Jesus\u2019 dream is all about BELONGING. His vision: Good news to those on the margins \u2013 sick, prisoners, poor, immigrants, forgotten, powerless \u2013 THEY BELONG.<\/p>\n
Jesus\u2019 dream took flesh in the story of a man and a woman, Vincent and Louise, in 17th century France, in whom the dream of serving God\u2019s poor burned strong and wouldn\u2019t let them rest, in the story of simple country girls who caught that dream and came to Paris, and spread like fire throughout France and the world. That story is a spark that has caught fire in us, a burning, impelling energy of Charity alive.<\/p>\n
Vincent and Louise wrote another chapter in the story of BELONGING. Their vision: Christ meets us in the poor who have a claim on us. We need one another; we BELONG to one another.<\/p>\n
In her own world of 19th century America, Elizabeth Seton added another color to the vision. So did Catherine Spalding in frontier Kentucky; so did Thomas Judge, CM, in Brooklyn and Alabama. Each of them taught us: We are meant to meet our grace, by living, praying, and working together in deep, caring relationships of BELONGING that impel us to lives of service.<\/p>\n
And in mid-nineteenth century France, Frederic Ozanam and Rosalie Rendu were caught up in the flow: We need to bring the warmth of Christ\u2019s love to a cold world, to make it into a place where all BELONG.<\/p>\n
All kinds of people today are urging us to think in terms of belonging and connection. Scientists tell us that interbeing, interconnection, is the basic song of the universe. Every creature is linked with every other, and each is connected with its environment. Organizational consultants like Margaret Wheatley remind us to notice that \u201cLife opens to more possibilities t<\/em>hrough new patterns of connection,\u201d <\/em>and in it all there\u2019s lots of \u201cfuzziness, unexpected turns, bursts of creative insight.\u201d<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n The tides, the shore, the cosmos, the earth, tell us that everything that exists is profoundly connected. The fundamental direction of creation moves from \u201cI\u201d to \u201cWe\u201d, from \u201cmy\u201d to \u201cours\u201d. The movement of connection (which can end up as one creature being someone else\u2019s lunch!) becomes, in the Spirit\u2019s working, a movement toward interdependence and mutuality.<\/p>\n We are rooted in this earth-awareness that we are not alone, and we are all related. What if we took this seriously, as God\u2019s Word to us in the Vincentian Family of Charity? We are born out of the grace that was given to our founders, each in their moment of time \u2013 the grace of KNOWING WE BELONG, especially to those in need. We are kin to them, we share the one life, which is the life of our God whose name is Love. Like them, we are called to break boundaries that seem given \u2013 boundaries that divide rich and poor, even boundaries that divide our groups, our congregations, provinces, one from the other. How are we being called beyond these boundaries? Can we enlarge our understanding of the boundary-breaking energy that is God\u2019s flow toward the \u201cWe\u201d? What does the WE of God\u2019s dream look like in our midst?<\/p>\n In the unforgettable words of Brazilian theologian Ivone Gebara, \u201cWe are food and drink for one another. We are one another\u2019s body and blood. We are one another\u2019s salvation<\/em>.\u201d<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n Does this vision of the Charity of Christ IMPEL us \u2013 or sometimes, does it REPEL us? Does it evoke our resistance? And what is going on when that happens?<\/p>\n I suspect that you and I know a lot about resistance. We know that all living things resist what they perceive as threats to their survival. Most humans resist change of any kind. Each of us knows the feel of persistent resistance: neck stiffens, back \u201cgoes up\u201d, stomach tightens, eyes narrow, arms fold. We have a vocabulary of resistance: stiff-necked, tight-lipped, hard- or stony- hearted, a face that could stop a clock, digging in your heels, hitting your head against a wall.<\/p>\n Institutions of their nature are resistant to change. They seek to preserve the status quo. They have a built-in resistance to the new, to the free spirits. Examples: a male-dominated church resists women, a corporation resists changing its product line, a school faculty complains, \u201cWe\u2019ve always done it this way,\u201d a clerical church resists the laity. We know resistance well.<\/p>\n Let me remind you of some examples of resistance in our Charity story:<\/p>\n What do we know about resistance? For one thing, it\u2019s a marvelous teacher. \u201cEVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED THROUGH MY RESISTANCE!\u201d I\u2019d like to develop three points about resistance, and then invite you to think about what moves you and your<\/p>\n organizations through resistance, to new places of freedom and transformation, new embodiments of affective and effective love.<\/p>\n Resistance usually springs from fear: fear of getting close to God, fear of getting close to others (\u201cWhat will they ask of me?\u201d), fear of losing control of our lives (as if control were in our power!), fear of losing ourselves in the immensity of God\/the other, fear of death.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n Resistance signals our growing edge, the place of our wounds. That is always a privileged, holy place where the Spirit is mightily at work, where God waits to meet us. One writer believes that change doesn’t really start with a beginning, it starts with an ending. Something has to end, die, move on, let go, to make space for the new. And don\u2019t we resist it mightily!<\/p>\n Resistance is at work in every place that I label \u201cnon-negotiable,\u201d where I am tied down, stubborn, stuck, in every area of life that I refuse to open to discussion. \u201cIf there is such an area, love is liable to bring it on to the table.\u201d<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The point is to keep making more of my life available to the Spirit of God, with unrestricted readiness for God\u2019s work, Jesus\u2019 mission.<\/p>\n Is our deep fear that God won\u2019t be enough for us? Does that fear lie at the root of our resistant attitudes and behaviors, the ways we choose to narrow our focus, to attend to things within, things immediate, and turn our eyes away from the bigger picture\/possibility?<\/p>\n Isn\u2019t this what I did when instead of listening to a program on the genocide in Darfur, I shut the radio off and read a Newsweek article about the movie The DaVinci Code<\/em>? Isn\u2019t this what our government does when it flexes its muscles and tries to impose terms on the rest of the world, whether the issue is immigration policy, foreign aid, the Middle East, or privatization of water? Fear narrows our vision and blocks the Spirit\u2019s energy that always stretches us beyond.<\/p>\n Another face of resistance shows itself in the ways we can circle our wagons and focus energy in on ourselves. Michael Downey points to this danger. \u201cIn times of great transition or of perceived crisis, some groups tend to safeguard and strengthen identity \u2013 personal, corporate, or national \u2013 by way of contrast to the other, or others.\u201d<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n Do you ever see this tendency to shore up your identity by contrasting it with others in your community, organization, branch of the Vincentian family? In his Lenten letter of 2005, Fr. Gregory Gay, Vincentian Superior General, asked us pointedly:<\/p>\n \u201cDo I know members of other branches of the Vincentian Family? Do I even care to know them? Do I encourage the members of my own association to collaborate with other branches of the Vincentian Family?\u2026Do I reflect on the first callings that we received from Father Maloney, seeing ourselves as a Vincentian Family, a great army that can harness its forces to do wonderful things for the poor?\u2026.Do I at times tend to think that my branch is better than others?\u201d<\/p>\n Are we in the grip of fear that we won\u2019t have or do or be enough \u2013 that God won\u2019t be enough for us? And how might the bonds that unite us as a Vincentian Family be God\u2019s answer to that fear?<\/p>\n Think of examples of resistance against injustice: the Underground Railroad in the U.S. in the mid-19th century, the non-violent protests of Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, the United Farm Workers, Dorothy Day, peace activists, those who demonstrate against the School of the Americas in Georgia that trains military leaders in methods of torture; the Mothers of the Disappeared in Latin America.. What about the resistance from the middle ground of Catholicism that Voice of the Faithful is offering? \u201cWhere institutions fail, resistance groups spring up.\u201d There is a prophetic call to stand against the \u201cprincipalities and powers\u201d<\/p>\n beyond us and within us, to work for change in oppressive and dehumanizing systems.<\/p>\n Feminist writers speak of \u201cthe power of anger in the work of love\u201d \u2013 resistance as a healthy defense mechanism. Think of the women you know who have summoned the courage to leave their abusive spouses. Remember the Daughters of Charity in China or the women religious in Eastern Europe who remained faithful to their God and their mission during long years when they could not live their vocation in public.<\/p>\n Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa gives us a wonderful example of creative resistance. In the days after apartheid he was walking by a construction site where there was room only for one person to pass by. A white man stood in his path and wouldn\u2019t move, saying, \u201cI don\u2019t give way to gorillas.\u201d Tutu stepped aside and said, \u201cAh, yes, but I do.\u201d<\/p>\n A wise woman offered me this insight: \u201cResistance is the dragon that guards the precious treasure.\u201d It\u2019s not always bad to resist. The question is: What is the treasure that we are guarding so passionately?<\/p>\n We know that God\u2019s energy keeps nudging us toward conversion and transformation. God has this way of hollowing out space in us, over and over, space for new life.<\/p>\n Remember times in your life when you felt like you had lost your identity \u2013 you didn\u2019t know who you were anymore \u2013 all that you thought you knew, and counted on, and took for granted, all the hard-won certainties and assumptions that you had come to, seemed to vanish, and you were left in a strange, unfamiliar place — after a time of loss or trauma, perhaps, or as part of your growing pains into adulthood, or mid-life. Remember, too, how slowly, eventually, you discovered that a new self was emerging from the cocoon of chaos \u2013 you began to recognize parts of yourself, familiar but somehow transformed.<\/p>\n Now, can you imagine that groups, communities, organizations, go through the same dark night of wandering lost in a dark wood, feeling their cherished sense of self crumble, being propelled by forces within or outside themselves to make radical changes \u2013 not just in logos and letterheads, but in their core identity? Of course you can. Our Church, our communities, our organizations, our societies, have been living inside this reality for 40 years! From one perspective, it feels like disintegration, dying, loss of everything; from the other side of the tomb, or the cocoon, it feels like conversion, transformation, new life.<\/p>\n I daresay that it\u2019s part of the human dynamic to meet every invitation to conversion \u2013 personal and communal — with resistance. We fold our arms, clench our teeth, dig in our heels. \u201cMe? Change THIS aspect of myself? Let go of THAT? NO WAY!! You\u2019ve got to be kidding!\u201d But this is exactly how and where the Spirit of Jesus leads us.<\/p>\n OUR WOUNDS, OUR PLACES OF RESISTANCE, ARE DOORWAYS INTO CONVERSION. \u201cWe must be so careful to meet our grace,\u201d advises Elizabeth Seton. That says to me that I should meet my grace in the place of woundedness, in the very place where I feel resistance bristle. \u201cI\/we can\u2019t\u2026because\u2026\u201d A Buddhist teacher advises: \u201cAnything you are attached to, let it go. Go to places that scare you.<\/em>\u201d<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n Margaret Wheatley uses the language of organizational transformation instead of conversion, but she\u2019s talking about the same movement when she invites us to \u201csurrender certainty\u201d that defines our very sense of self, to be willing to let go of \u201cour most cherished beliefs, our greatest clarity\u201d in order to clear the space to create something new. \u201cLook for the differences, those ideas and perspectives we find disturbing,\u201d she challenges us. \u201cWhat if, at least occasionally, we came together in order to change our mind?\u201d- to be \u201cbrought together by our differences rather than separated by them\u201d.<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> How about that as a goal for your next meeting \u2013 or for this gathering of the Vincentian Family?<\/p>\n Loss, or the threat of loss of something precious, breaks us open, makes space, stretches us, expands us to be able to receive more. It can be hard to trust that, in the midst of being broken open, when the taste of loss is real. But when God invites us to let go, surrender, to lose, it\u2019s always with the promise that we\u2019ll find something more. \u201cWhen you sacrifice something precious, you\u2019re not really losing it. You\u2019re just passing it on to someone else.\u201d<\/em><\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n What is precious to us? And what are we being called to let go, to give away, to hand over? Could it be that resistance signals that a new door is opening, that it is showing us a new treasure that God is inviting us to receive? That the space created by whatever we are being asked to let go and move beyond will be filled by something even more wonderful and precious?<\/p>\n What moves us to allow more of our lives to be available to God, so God\u2019s dreams for humankind and creation can be realized? ANSWER: The same thing that always sets free the Company of Charity \u2013 the same energy that impelled each one of our founders. What moves us to a new place? Opening our eyes to the need of others, and others in need — the heart of our Charity charism — the poor. We are always set free by sitting at table with the poor, the powerless, those routinely ignored and taken advantage of (like the home health workers in our area who make barely the minimum wage and have no benefits).<\/p>\n The poor move us to the margins, with them. They teach us, if we\u2019ll listen, to understand how our inner poverty, our personal and communal wounds, our not-enough-ness, is gift. They remind us that we have more to fear from abundance than poverty. The poor, who have a unique claim on us in the Company of Charity, tell us in no uncertain terms, \u201c<\/em>We are food and drink for one another. We are one another\u2019s body and blood. We are one another\u2019s salvation.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n To be saved, literally, we need each other, in all our complexity and differentiation. We need the ones different from us, who puzzle us, disturb us, challenge our certainties, muddy our clarities. Especially we need the poor, who call us ceaselessly beyond ourselves, who teach us who would be teachers, heal us who would be healers, minister to us who would minister. And especially we need each other, and the unique gifts that each of our groups brings.<\/p>\n Remember, the place of resistance, the place of our wounds, is a holy place, a place where God is always very active. What is in the way, says Sr. Anne Harvey, Halifax Sister of Charity, becomes<\/strong> the way.<\/p>\n As Vincent, Louise, Elizabeth, Catherine, Rosalie, Frederic, and Thomas listened to the Word of God and pondered God\u2019s ways with humans, something happened, something clicked. As they contemplated Jesus Christ, evangelizer of the poor, source and model of all charity, they had the intuition that the WAY TO GOD IS THE WAY OF BOTH\/AND, not either\/or. As they faced the tensions and conflicts of their times, as the Spirit opened their eyes wider and wider to see the face of Christ everywhere, they planted themselves firmly in the \u201cAND.\u201d Not with their heads in the sand, but with their heads and hearts and bodies in the \u201cAND.\u201d<\/p>\n AND is a key Vincentian word.<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Our founders were people who lived at the extremes and chose to hold them together:<\/p>\n Love God AND love the neighbor All of our ancestors to whom we look for guidance on this Vincentian way found energy there, in the AND. At times when we touch our truest self we know that too. Real life happens in the in-between, in the connections, in the struggle to live connected, to live an integrated, whole, holy life, not simply on either end. We get off balance, sidetracked, when we resist the work of integration and opt for one side or the other. It\u2019s a place outside of the COMFORT ZONE for most of us, isn\u2019t it, a place where we often meet our own resistance.<\/p>\n In my own life, I know that most often I get stuck right there in the AND. Often I gravitate to the place of either\/or, one or the other. My head says, \u201cI can\u2019t manage to hold both ends, to pay attention to local AND global needs, to the person right next to me AND the neighbor half a world away.\u201d My heart says \u201cThere\u2019s not enough room to love all. Pick and choose. It\u2019s easier to point to one group as bad guys and the other as good: politicians are bad, poor are good.\u201d<\/p>\n AND is a place of grace for us in the Vincentian family. <\/strong>It\u2019s a place of BELONGING, of INCLUSION, of COMMUNION. We speak of our vocation to live on the margins. I\u2019m suggesting that one way to understand this today is to live with the extremes, holding them in creative tension, resisting the pull to stay on one end or the other, choosing to live in the in- between.<\/p>\n The word AND pushes us, prods us, propels us into one house, one room, one table. AND is all about BELONGING. Our Vincentian call is to create places of BELONGING. The founder of the JustFaith program has said that, \u201cWhen love gets big\u201d, when it reaches out far and wide, it leans toward those on the margins, on the edges, those who are invisible and hurting. And as it does this, it reflects God.<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n Our founders Vincent and Louise gave us a revolutionary, radical insight. They took a daring step; they paid very close attention to their world, to the way things were, to the categories people used to describe and regulate how things were, in society, in church. As they paid attention, they kept saying, \u201cThere is MORE \u2013 there is another way to name reality, there is more to see, more to do.\u201d They placed what they saw and heard against the bigger horizon of the Gospel, the life of Jesus who gave a new name, a new definition to their reality. They were forever stretching us beyond the place where we would settle into comfort. It\u2019s always bigger than we think.<\/p>\n That\u2019s true even in our respective organizations within the Vincentian family, isn\u2019t it? I\u2019m a Sister of Charity of New York; you\u2019re a member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, or a Vincentian lay volunteer, or a Daughter of Charity or a C.M. from a particular province. Most days, it\u2019s enough for me to pay attention to my own circle of belonging, my family or local community and its daily demands; my own congregation or province or conference or chapter of Ladies of Charity. Don\u2019t ask me to think beyond.<\/p>\n Yet our call always nudges us to do precisely that. Enlarge the circle, make room for more at the table, think outside the box, dream bigger, color outside the lines, scan the horizon and look always beyond ourselves. Ask questions like: Who else needs to be part of this conversation, this planning? Whose wisdom are we missing? What if we invited XXXXXX to join us?<\/p>\n And the reason for doing this \u2013 for heeding the call to conversion that translates into being servants of hospitality and communion and belonging? It\u2019s not just because it\u2019s a nice thing to do \u2013 it\u2019s part and parcel of the Gospel challenge. It\u2019s the way we must act if God\u2019s dream is ever to be realized \u2013 the reign of God, the Kingdom that Jesus never tired talking about, and showing us what it might look like.<\/p>\n Jesus\u2019 vision: Good news to those on the margins \u2013 sick, prisoners, poor, immigrants, forgotten, powerless \u2013 THEY BELONG.<\/p>\n Vincent & Louise\u2019s vision: Christ meets us in the poor who have a claim on us. WE NEED ONE ANOTHER \u2013WE BELONG to one another.<\/p>\n Ozanam\u2019s vision: Our world isn\u2019t meant to be cold and heartless, but a place where all BELONG.<\/p>\n Elizabeth Seton\u2019s vision: We must live, pray, work together in deep, caring relationships lived in lives of service.<\/p>\n Our call is to develop our capacity for hospitality, for communion. And isn\u2019t this countercultural? Doesn\u2019t this put us at one extreme of our U.S. society? Look at our immigration policy that fits a land of exclusion more than a land of opportunity, a policy that focuses on keeping out people who seek merely a better life for their families in a place that won\u2019t oppress them because of their politics or religion \u2013 people like your great-grandparents and mine \u2013 and punishing them for trying to fulfill that dream.<\/p>\n Doesn\u2019t this put us on the margins of our church, at least in some settings? We sing \u201cAll Are Welcome,\u201d and then start to limit the list. We sing, \u201cGather us in, the lost and forsaken,\u201d and then hear ourselves saying, \u201cSorry, that doesn\u2019t mean you, or you.\u201d<\/p>\n The Vincentian AND places us right in the face of structures that seek to minimize, even to blaspheme, Jesus\u2019 message of belonging, hospitality, inclusion, communion. As Pope Benedict XVI has written: \u201cCommunion draws me out of myself toward [Christ] and thus also toward unity with all Christians.\u201d<\/span>11<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\n Where is the Charity of Christ impelling us? What can we do together that none of us can do alone?<\/p>\n We gather in the great fifty days of Easter, when all is new, when possibilities abound.<\/p>\n We taste and feel the energy of the early community of believers, the admittedly rosy picture of a community where no one claimed anything for self, but all belonged to all.<\/p>\n The Spirit speaks to us this Eastertime in the words of the Risen Christ: \u201cI am with you always.\u201d Those familiar, comforting words cut right to the heart of the matter. Today, here, now, in this Vincentian Family Gathering, I hear them as our greatest challenge. For they say to me, to us, when we would rather do it alone (whatever \u201cit\u201d may be), \u201cRemember that you are never alone.\u201d For we are meant to be involved in each other\u2019s lives, in the lives of the poor, as our God is involved in our lives.<\/p>\n One obstacle to collaboration, one form of resistance, is closing our eyes, refusing to clean our glasses, not bothering to take a good look. This Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter, we will hear about Peter\u2019s judgment on the leaders who in their blindness put to death the author of life. Poor eyesight \u2013 closed eyes. They (like us, sometimes) saw what they wanted to see, saw what they thought was all there was to see. We see what we\u2019ve always seen, what we expect to be there, the \u201csame old same old.\u201d And all the time, God invites us to look beyond, to see so much more. We block the flow of God\u2019s life when we close our eyes, because that leads to a closed heart and mind and way of acting. It\u2019s the Spirit\u2019s work to unblock our sight, to let in the light.<\/p>\n Let us pray for this light. Please join me in this closing prayer.<\/p>\n \u201cGod of relationship, deepen in us the conviction that we are one another\u2019s food and drink, one another\u2019s salvation. God of connections, turn our resistance into suppleness. God of the \u201cAND,\u201d turn our self-sufficiency into a deep desire to be about Your mission together. Make us pliable in Your hands, ever-creating God, and unrestricted in our readiness to serve Your energy, to go with Your flow, to be re-shaped and refashioned in Your image of collaborative community, wherever You lead us. Amen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"II<\/strong>. <\/strong>A look at resistance<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n
A. Resistance usually marks the place where we are afraid.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
B<\/strong>. Resistance also has a positive face.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
C<\/strong>. Resistance plays a key role in the lifelong ebb and flow of conversion & t<\/strong>r<\/strong>ansformation<\/strong><\/h3>\n
D. What moves us & our communities through the doorway of resistance to self-giving? What moves us to conversion and transformation?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
III<\/strong>. Wisdom of our Founders: the vincentian <\/strong>\u201cAND\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nRich AND poor
\nAction AND prayer
\nSolitude AND community
\nHead AND heart
\nNow AND not-yet
\nCharity AND justice
\nService that is material AND spiritual<\/p>\nI<\/strong>V<\/strong>. Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n