The following are some of the negative happenings in our country; the unacceptable level of high tech concrete culture with masses of cement being poured on our fertile land  snuffing out a variety of life forms; runaway pollution; and at international level, the drastic effects of global warming.  Added to this is the growing awareness of the need to move from a dominant, scientific, technological, masculine, individualistic Paradigm to an ecological, feminine, communal, interactive and spiritual Paradigm.  Our most significant source of social creativity and political power would be to bring about a complementary interaction between these two traditions.So, where do all these meanderings lead us?  It must surely bring us back to where we began; to a call to a deeper inner awakening to the value and beauty of all that is the little no less than the great, in our universe. 

Justice our Christian Imperative…………… Mary Burkart 

Engaging in justice issues is the transformative imperative of Christian living.  Justice is integral to our relationships and interactions with individuals and systems.  It is through our engagement with the issues of our times, in the events of our days, that we participate in God’s Life in our world.  We can choose to interact with respect for the Sacred or to allow other considerations characterise our relationships.

This is the era of information overload.  We are aware of, can even feel overwhelmed by, the myriad of issues that vie for our attention.  Justice comes not from trying to save the world but by living through a genuine desire to act justly in our personal circumstances.  It is by our living justly with others that we actively engage with the social dimension of the Sacred in life.  Justice is a heart thing, nurtured by our activities through our relationships with God, others and our environment.

Justice is fundamental to our participation in God’s life.  The sincerity of our activities is reflected in our love and substantiated through the justice of our interactions.  If we are not prepared to live through justice, how can we have the audacity to ‘work for justice’ in other  places?

We are called to engage with people and issues through relationships that are characterised by justice.  Values other than justice – ‘values’ of time efficiencies, business economics, supporting democracy, good management practices, international development, reducing CO2  emissions are perhaps noble, but they are not necessarily just.  How we use the ideas ascribes the value.  Our call is to ascribe a value of sacred justice to all our interactions through how we relate to those whom we serve.

Unless our values are rooted in our personal encounter with the Divine, nurtured by our love of Jesus in others and informed by Faith, what we have to offer are practical solutions, processes, structures and interventions informed and led by efficiencies of abstract ideas for ordering or achieving specific outcomes.  We are not coming up with anything new, we are working with NGOs and Governments in accordance with the standards they have set.  Where we ascribe to the idea in the abstract and fulfil the criteria as indicated, we abdicate our Christian imperative.  These ‘values’ may or may not be effective in their purpose and may or may not be appropriately applied to a situation.  We offer not simply a solution or methodology; we offer justice.  The issue is, that without discerning our actions through the prism of justice, we limit our engagement, we do restrict our interactions, to what we and others think and understand.

Special interest groups provide foci and information.  We choose how we engage with the issues they advocate for.  We appreciate that globalisation means the economics of our country are affected by and influence other economics across the world.  We accept the responsibility of our engagements and assume the onus of justice in how our engagements affect others.  Our movement from local to trans-global issues is through the impetus of God’s life in ours, in our world’s.

Our call is to work where we are, with profound respect for God’s creation.  As religious, we have an obligation of service to both society and our church, to live through justice and reflect that justice in our interactions.  Like the monks in Burma, we must be catalysts for justice.  Sustained by our relationship with God, we apply the touchstone of justice to all our interactions with persons, institutions, accepted policies, processes, and systems.  We are then closer to acting through God’s justice in creation than confined by our personal limitations.

I am a pacivist because I had to reflect on God’s presence and justice in a war.  I chair the local drugs task force because I worked in prison and drug rehabilitation and had to reflect on God’s life with the people society has often discarded.  I work in school because it gives me the opportunity to engage students in proactive critical thinking through a Christian paradigm.

Ireland Today multicultural or intercultural? 

During the recent visit of Carmen Diston and Sandra Perrett to Ireland, I had the opportunity to accompany Carmen around the communities and ministries in Crumlin, Dublin 12.  Among the many experiences that day, one that impressed me was the presence of so many nationalities in the three Loreto schools in Crumlin.  In one class we met students from more than ten different countries – from China and the Phillippines, to African and East European countries. Ms Blathnaidh Colhoun, the Principal of Loreto College, Crumlin, explained the efforts made to make the school an intercultural experience for all the pupils. This issue of multicultural or intercultural was raised during our Province meetings in early December with Carmen and Sandra.  The presence of two Candidates in the Irish Province – Mags from Ireland and Sophia from China will make this a reality among us, presenting us with an opportunity as well as a challenge.

The wider Irish society is struggling with this issue also.  A recent editorial in the Irish Times states:  ‘We asked for workers and we got people instead’…Ireland’s immigrants have been vital to our prosperity. Their presence introduces wealth of another kind, by bringing together new cultures, languages, religions and experiences.  However, there are worrying signs that the State is being too slow to engage with the long-term questions posed by high immigration.  The major problems in education and housing in parts of fast-growing and ethnically diverse north-west Dublin show all the signs of a failure to plan.  His is allowing parallel societies to develop, with some schools catering for ethnic minorities only…..Meanwhile, in the lack of English language training, inadequate interpretative services across State bodies and delays in the overly punitive asylum regime, there is further cause for concern.  Mary Robinson, now chair-woman of the New York based lobby group, Realising Rights states: ‘ I don’t think we have thought through adequately how to make this a very positive experience.  Have we made enough changes to be inclusive?  I think we still have a long way to go there.

Wishing all our JPIC friends around the planet A Very Happy Christmas and New Year

From Veronica, Cecilia, Mary and Angela