The search for an ethos in which the poor also have a space. We wish to articulate a minimum consensus to save and regenerate our common home, today crucified due to ecological devastation, international systemic injustice, violence… we are called today to ensure a future for Earth-Humanity. To update our identity…to overcome our crisis before it is too late… by Guillermo Campuzano, CM

1. Spirituality of Systemic Change?
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Guillermo Campuzano, CM
DePaul University

2. The journey continues… in the
footsteps of our founders
Continuity
same spirit
Rupture
Charismatic
Hermeneutics
“LET US GO TO THE POOR”
B. Frederic Ozanam

3. From our Founding Spiritual Experience
To a Spiritual Vincentian Movement
To a School of Spirituality
Spirituality of Systemic Change
To “Drink from our own Wells”
St. Bernard of Clairvaux
A New Spirituality to Face the Challenges of the XXI Century

4. A member of the family…An
outsider speaking…
VINCENTIAN Institutional
Crisis in the USA…
- “When does suffering lead to life?”
Our When
- Where is life calling us to go? Our
Where
- Are we still willing to go (do we have
the energy) where life is calling us
with urgency? Our How

5. Where, When, How of the
Vincentian Family Today?
Vincentian
Family
Systemic
Change
Charism

Spirituality

6. An Experience
of the Spirit (MR 11)



7. The beginning of the spirituality of
systemic change can be in ACTION…
but it always implies a deep
conversion! Mark 1:15
Spirituality is our door to
enter into the heart of
reality…

8. Spirit / Spirituality




soul (anima) of the identity
essence of our being
energy of the mission
starting point and source of life
Charism
 Possesses
the necessary elements
for us to become whole/holy

9. Implications of Having a
Shared Charism
 Spiritual
affinity
 Need for collaboration (VC 54)
 Relationship and Service (CfL 55)
 Common conscience and
determination
 Communal sense of belonging
 Common Faith Experience

10. Vincentian School of Spirituality (SC)
1. A common experience of the Spirit.
2. A methodology: a proper way to read and
interpret reality – key to our Vincentian
Spirituality
3. Elements of diverse/common identity
4. A doctrine
5. A Life Style
6. A specific way to develop our mission: using all
our economic, structural and human resources
to GO to the POOR of today.
“This is my faith this is my experience”
(SVDP Letter to Fr. Codoing in Rome - II, 282).

11. A school of spirituality
presupposes a particular
emphasis on the mystery…
“it is a reordering of the great axes
of Christianity in order for us to
understand and act accordingly in
the present time”
(G. Gutierrez)
What is this particular emphasis of the Christian
Mystery in our Spirituality of Systemic Change?

12. In search of an ETHOS – global homewhere the POOR has also a space
In Greek ethos means existential human
dwelling
a place that is our habitat where we feel at
home!
Our own humanness (culture) is our ETHOS…
Our world is our ETHOS too…
our common dwelling. To understand this from
a systemic perspective in clue for our
discussion…

13.  Systemic
Change is a specific way in which
we -VF- want to transform our human
ETHOS… our world so that ALL can feel
at home in this human dwelling with a
minimum of peace and justice! We believe
that through SC we can contribute (locally
and globally) to articulate a minimum
consensus to save and regenerate our
common home, today crucified due to
ecological devastation, international
systemic injustice, violence… we are called
today to ensure a future for this
inextricably linked binomial:
Earth-Humanity

14. REGENERATE…
Earth - Humanity
1. The cultural-social fabric
-pluralism2. The religious fabric
interreligious dialogue and collaboration in a
post religious world
3. The Ecological Fabric
theological and anthropological ecology and
ecological theology and anthropology

15. Spirituality of SC More than something that is
already happening is a possibility to update our
identity…to overcome our crisis before it is too
late…
 1.
We need to overcome our doubts and
fears towards this concept: it is impossible
to build a spirituality of SC if we do not
assume its meaning and challenges
 2. If we want the poor to embrace this
spirituality too…we need to be attentive
that SC is not, in any way, an oppressive or
colonialist practice…

16.  3.
We need to overcome a romantic
understanding of SC… to avoid calling
everything we do SC -with a simple make
up of our old works and ways- I honestly
don’t think that breaking the cycle of
poverty is that simple, and we need to
understand the negative implications for
the one who tries to break these cycles.
“We can lose friends and reputation!”
 4. To assume prophetic courage… to act,
think, pray, and live together in a new
way… always connecting VF and SC

17. Closing points to
enlarge the
context… to avoid
the (personal and
institutional) pre-text
John 5: 1-14

18. 1. Spirituality and Faith
Faith: primal urge to give our hearts away, to
trust, to invest, to embrace, to love (William
Lynch, Images of Faith)
Opposite: fury, fear, suicide/death
(H. Richard Niebuhr, Radical Monotheism and Western Culture)
Adult faith is not stable, but in permanent
revolution. Keeps involving heartbreak, and
thus the movement towards other/Other in a
self/giving way…

19. 2. Metanoia…
 Without
METANOIA the only thing we
will do is a simplistic make-up of our
mission… to perpetuate our old
practices… and our oppressive ways…
 If we do not see with new lenses we
won’t be able to understand where we
are called to go…

20. 3. Prophecy… God talking to
the Heart
1. Connection between the primal force
(spirituality) of the prophet and his-her
imagination
2. Imagination – constructing images of what
the world should be like, creative, moving,
shapes experience,
3. Chief characteristic: can penetrate
reality… The IRONY -the world will
disappoint us, but it is worth investing
in-

21. 4. I stand with Francis…
 From
Francis of Assisi to Francis of
Rome
 Recovering the Utopia of the Poor…
 The meaning of this papacy for our
Charism… his own challenges to our life
style in the USA and Canada…
 The Spirit of Vatican II: from 33 years
of “Hermeneutics of Retrenchment” to
6 months of the “Hermeneutics of
Mission/Reign of God”- to retake the
voice of the Spirit for all of us –the
Church of today The option of JUSTICE: The Poor –
Young People

22.  1.
Identify concrete seeds of hope in your
life, community, congregation… in
relation to this binomial: Vincentian
Family and Systemic Change
 2. How can the Vincentian Family
effectively contribute to save and
regenerate our - existential dwelling
-ETHOS: humanity/earth
 3. Discuss some of the essential elements
of the Vincentian School of Spirituality
from a Systemic Change perspective