Hello!
Every year, Prep hosts an Arrupe Justice Initiative for our school community. The Arrupe programming allows students, faculty, and staff to join together and listen, learn, and reflect on pressing justice issues in light of Jesuit values. The event is named for Pedro Arrupe, S.J., (1907-1981) the 28th Superior General of the Jesuits, who charged the Jesuits with their modern mission of forming “men and women for and with others.”
Why is Pedro Arrupe a good model for us today?
At Prep, we often reflect on the pivotal moments of Ignatius’s religious life—i.e., his cannonball moment, his laying down of his sword at Montserrat. Arrupe’s life and mission were also dramatically impacted by his experiences (Arrupe, 65). He turned his home into a hospital in Hiroshima after the first atomic bomb (Arrupe, 39-51), and in 1981, he founded the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) after seeing the conditions refugees in Thailand were facing fleeing their homeland.
“Much has changed since Fr Pedro Arrupe SJ founded JRS, but our mission to accompany, serve, and advocate for refugees and displaced people remains the same: ‘Home is where we all begin, and what we want all people to find.’ “ (jsr.net)
In Arrupe’s final essay, “Rooted and Grounded in Love” (1981), he speaks to the need for transformative love in the face of injustices. He states: “Yes, justice is not enough. The world needs a stronger cure, a more effective witness, and more effective deeds: those of love.” (Arrupe, 144)
Arrupe goes on: “When we glance over the newspaper headlines and seek somehow for the real reason why human relations are at such a low ebb—within the family, the state, the world of work, the economic order, and internationally–every explanation in terms of justice and injustice seems inadequate. Never have people talked so much about justice, and yet never has justice been so flagrantly disregarded.” A disregard for justice results in “wars, famines, calamities, false rumors.” Injustice “compound[s] evil: false redeemers, treachery, desertion, widespread hatred. These are the disastrous consequences of the disregard for justice, of the protection of one’s own interests to the detriment of others’ rights and needs, and the detriment of the common good.” (Arrupe, 145)
How can we move towards love and true justice?
Over the last few years, the Arrupe committee has invited our community to go on a pilgrimage to learn about the realities of injustices and learn how to love more fiercely. I have forwarded the notion that the Ignatian principles of pilgrimage provide a framework for us to do justice work. A “pilgrimage approach” to justice work challenges us to look at ourselves, use our rational minds, acknowledge our weaknesses, claim that God uses our vulnerabilities to learn, and embody a posture of learning by walking.
So, what is Prep’s Arrupe theme for this year? What has been included in our pilgrimage this year?
Back in the fall, I introduced the Prep community to our Arrupe theme for this year–Belonging in Every Place: Pilgrimaging with persons and communities who have been displaced from their homes. Throughout the year, we have offered programming centered on various forms of displacement. Our programming aligned with a variety of other initiatives taking place in the Jesuit world and the global Catholic community, both nationally and internationally.
Whether we were aware of it or not, many of our prayers and service initiatives were a part of this pilgrimage. Some folks wore Orange Shirts to raise awareness and show solidarity for Indigenous children who were displaced from their homes and communities and taken to residential schools. Bracelets were dispersed with the slogan: “Every Child Matters.”
Our annual school-wide service initiatives that include us collecting money, food items, and clothing support our neighbors in NJ who are facing homelessness, food insecurity, and societal displacement. Some of these neighbors may be experiencing separation and displacement because of economic issues. For others, it may be related to health or identity. For many, their status as citizens of the world has been questioned and we will never know the story and events that shape their journey.
Recently, the Men for Others Club attended the weekly Fun Club for Refugees and merely made themselves available to help kids with homework or the club with any needed tasks. Tomorrow, some of you are taking food to the Jersey City REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT OFFICE. In December, we raised money for York Street Project’s Adopt-a-Family program so that households experiencing homelessness could buy a few gifts for themselves. These are only a couple of ways that we, as a community, have been pilgrimaging with persons who have been displaced from their homes and homelands.
Additionally, the following events have been coordinated by the Arrupe Committee to take place through the rest of this week and into the beginning of next week. Each event is a new opportunity to engage and listen.
ASSEMBLY
On Thursday (4/30), we hosted Dr. Art Pressley who offered a theological reflection on the spiritual and psychological impacts of confinement. He challenged us to recognize the element of choice we have in moments of confinement and displacement–we can turn to despair, or, we can turn to creative contemplation and learning. He challenged us to expand our imagination and feed the hunger for learning. He challenged us to allow the momentum of new encounters to fuel new convictions for growth and justice.
After this keynote, we heard from a panel of Prep upperclassmen who were born outside of the USA. They shared parts of their personal and familial journey that moved their peers, teachers, and administrators’ hearts in expansive ways.
The assembly ended with a song I learned from students at Xavier High School, Chuuk, Micronesia a couple of summers ago. The prayerful song invites us to pray for peace, love, and hope in our neighborhoods. I challenge us to stretch our notion of neighbor to include peoples and communities beyond our streets, outside of our zipcodes, and across borders.
REFLECTION
Examens, prayers, and information sharing will allow for ongoing practical and spiritual reflection.
ART GALLERY
In the MSC lobby, there is an art display by Iconographist Kelly Latimore. Latimore describes wanting this work to allow for “ ‘holy pondering’, meditation, and process that potentially brings about a new way of seeing for the viewer and me.” He continues, “My hope is that these icons can do what all art can potentially do, which is, to create more dialogue. By transcending our biases, listening, and having inner silence about our convictions, our inherited traditions, or our favorite ideas we can become open to the patterns of work, knowledge and experience we may not have seen in the other or buried in ourselves. The other may have something to teach us about who God is, the world we live in, and who are our neighbors. This is the real work of being human and of art.”
It is always an honor to learn from and alongside one another!
Peace,
Dr. Susan Woolever
Director of Campus Ministry
WooleverS@spprep.org
201.547.6486