Reflecting and Praying with our Values for Ministry: Communion in Ministry
Includes diversity and inclusion; integrity; enabling and empowering one another; valuing different gifts and talents; peer review, peer support and peer consultation; aspiring harmony, community and unity.
Remember…
a time when you felt ‘one in mind and heart’ with family, friends, or colleagues at work, or even with God. What was special about that? How did you feel? Did you notice something in your body? Perhaps you want to journal about the experience.
From our Tradition …
“So that they may all be one, as you, Father are in me and I in you that they may also be in us.”
- John 17: 21
Love is the bond that unites us with one another and with God. (Bl. Theresa, Letter 949)
Unity alone makes us strong within and without; unity makes us indestructible. Unity lightens the hardships of our vocation; unity makes us invincible.
(Bl. Theresa, Letter 3006)
“[Let] there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.”
– 1 Corinthians 1: 10
Reflection
How might the impulses from our tradition and foundation inform the SSND value of ‘communion in ministry’? How do you envision to live that at your place of work? How can your colleagues show you that they embrace this value as well?
From Margaret Wheatley, EdD., American Author
We human beings have a great need for each other. Like all forms of life, from microbes to ecosystems, we need to be together. We cannot exist in isolation. Nothing living lives alone. And we see this need for each other even in the West where we've revered independence and individualism. How many of us today are longing for community, wanting to belong?
It's important to remember that every time we join an organization, community or group effort that we do so in order to accomplish more. People never join together to accomplish less. We want to create, to find more meaning, to contribute, to belong, and we know we can only achieve this by joining with others. So every act of joining, every organizing effort, has powerful and positive energies present at the inception.
Reflection:
How does Margaret Wheatley’s assertion that we join an organization ‘to accomplish more …. by joining with others” resonate with you? Do you have an example to support her finding? Or do you have a different experience? What is it?
For further reading and viewing:
“Oneness” in Saint Augustine by Kathleen Bonnette, Th.D.., Assistant Director, JPIC
https://atlanticmidwest.org/posts/oneness-saint-augustine
‘Prayer: A State of Communion’ by Richard Rohr [2:38 min].
https://youtu.be/rahT4P8rIWc
How can the communion with God extend to communion in ministry?
Prayer
Loving God,
I come to You with an open heart,
Grateful for all the people I can serve with.
Together, let us notice what we deeply care about,
And let us share in each other’s dreams for love and unity.
Together, let us discover what YOU care about,
And align our aspirations, hopes and energies
to Your dream for our work and the world.
Thank You for inviting us to partner with You in Your mission,
And that You trust us to do the work of loving Your people.
Grant us, whatever we need, to be of one mind and of one heart,
and to faithfully follow Your call. Amen.
