pathways, August 2007
Patty Fawkner SGS reports on the public lecture by Joan Chittister OSB, held at Mount St Benedict College, Pennant Hills, July 19, as part of a series of celebrations over 12 months to mark the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St Benedict by Archbishop John Bede Polding in Sydney.
Sr Joan, herself comments on her trip to Australia: however much we look alike we are different peoples and very different Catholics ...
A night when no-one was disappointed
by Patty Fawkner SGS
It was a sell-out crowd which had gathered from every corner of Australia. The standing ovation at the end indicated that no-one was disappointed.
More than 800 people had braved a cold mid-winter's night and Sydney traffic chaos to hear Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister explore the ancient wisdom of Benedictine spirituality as an antidote for many of the pressing social and political ills of our day.
A consummate communicator, Joan engaged her audience with humour and passion, challenge and affirmation, and with prophetic insight and courage.
She named six key values which she said, when lived and depthed, helped contemporary women and men live in a "godly way in an ungodly time".
These values were creative work, holy leisure, wise stewardship, loving community, humility and commitment to peace.
Creative work, she said was an answer to workaholism at one extreme and pseudo-contemplation at the other. Work is our gift to the world. It saves us from total self-centeredness by enabling us to give, rather than take from life.
Holy leisure enables us to reflect on the real meaning of life and enables us to see the world as God sees the world, prompting the Christian to ask, "What does it mean to follow the Gospel now?" To the Benedictine mind, said Joan, all of life is holy.
Wise stewardship is an urgent need for a society which continues to make earth and heaven a rubbish dump and fails to see this as a moral question. Benedictine stewardship, Joan contends, says we need to reverse our behaviour. And Benedictine spirituality asks us to contemplate the divine in the human and the material.
Joan claimed that narcissism and individualism, hallmarks of Western culture, in their promotion of a sense of superiority and entitlement were sins against human community. Contrast that with a Benedictine spirituality of community which does not call us to a cosy togetherness, but to an open heart and to a conscious inclusion of differences. We exist to be about something greater than ourselves, she said, and to be miracle workers to one another. Benedictine spirituality challenges us to ask the question, "Who have you invited to supper lately?"
Living in a culture which hoards money, titles, power and prestige, we need within society and church leadership which is steeped in humility. Joan used the powerful image of ancient foot binding to describe the hold Western powers have over Third World countries' debt, and the shocking image of "economic paedophilia" to describe the Wests exploitation of children in India's clothing factories.
Benedict calls us to be humble, to steep ourselves in the mind of God. A humble person asks what God wants for this world, rather than asking what I want for my private and personal gain.
A commitment to peace was the sixth and final value explored. Do we need it, can we get it? Joan rhetorically asked. Benedictine spirituality, she said, disarms one's heart. It is a vision of non-violence in a world of endemic violence. Where once wheat was the world's major export, now it is armaments. The United States sells arms to 250 countries under the banner of foreign aid. She urged Australia not to be a client state.
Violence is global and also personal. Benedict urges us to be 'soft' with others but not to settle for a false or cheap peace. As one imbibes Benedictine values which are gospel values, one will engage in a constant struggle to bring the Reign of God into today's world. It is by internal warfare, not by a "marshmallow piety" that the soul makes progress, Joan claimed.
In giving the
vote of thanks, Good Samaritan Sister, Catherine Slattery summed up the mood of the appreciative audience by claiming that Joan Chittister speaks to the longings of our hearts.
Ours has become a church where many divergent voices have been silenced. This helps explain the popularity of one fearless Joan Chittister. Eight hundred men and women were blessed to hear a modern day prophet calling upon the ancient wisdom of St Benedict to counter the major ills of Western society, its arrogance and its exploitation of people and the planet.
It will not suffice, says Joan Chittister, to give up and ask helplessly and hopelessly, "What can I do?" Benedictine values will thrive in our world only when they take root in your heart and mine. We change our world one heart at a time.
Sr Joan Chittister writes a weekly column for the National Catholic Reporter Conversation Cafe, From Where I Stand. In the column of July 26, she expresses surprise that Americans and Australians are so far apart in their expression of Catholicism. She concludes ...
No doubt about it: Australia and the United States are not the same kind of religious worlds. From where I stand, then, the question has to be, how is it that we really are so much alike? Or better yet, which of us is really the most religious? (
full column text)
Top of page
