Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis considers how individual decisions create collective change:
All of us must face and embrace the urgent need for deep social change—change that begins within, then spreads like ripples on a pond, and finally becomes a tsunami of love-inspired change. No matter your age, race, faith, gender, or sexuality, I hope … [to] give you a new sense of the power you have to be good and to insist on good; to care for others and insist on being cared for; to stand up for the vulnerable and stand against injustice; to love and be loved.…
I know this to be true: The world doesn’t get great unless we all get better. If there is such a thing as salvation, then we are not saved until everyone is saved; our dignity and liberation are bound together. We must care for ourselves and the village around us. If we don’t, the village’s problems become our problems, and together our children will continue to hide from bullets in their classrooms. Our elders’ safety nets will be threatened. Our young adults will face mounting debt and earn less than their parents. Fear, xenophobia, racism, bigotry—these problems belong to all of us, and they will get better as we all get better!
Father Richard points to the value of faithfulness to the common good:
What’s the great principle of Catholic moral theology? The common good. What is needed for the common good, and not just my private good? That’s a very hard question for Western people to ask. In fact, many of us don’t even know it’s a question anymore.
In our postmodern, secular culture, it can feel old-fashioned to be faithful to something. Sometimes people thank me for staying in community and faith, which feels like the best compliment. That doesn’t mean that I’ve done it perfectly all these years—I went down my dead ends. But faithfulness is being faithful to God, faithful to Christ, and faithful to the gospel that is calling all of us beyond ourselves.
So be faithful! Go to the edge, find the beloved community, build the alternative, the parallel culture, in small communities. Václav Havel, the poet-president of the Czech Republic, is a good example. He was already building an alternative culture before the Berlin Wall fell. Through literature, study, poetry, ritual, and education, he helped create people who had a bigger vision and who thought in another way. When the system fell apart, they were ready to live with positive belief—not only clear about what they were against, but what they were for. [1]
Lewis concludes:
I can see a bold new path led by a vision of the sacred goodness of humankind and the abundance of the planet’s resources…. You and I are the ones we’ve been waiting for to create better lives for ourselves and our communities and to build a better world—together. All we need is the courage to imagine, and the will to make it be so.
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Creating a Church for the 21st Century, conference talk, August 6, 1993. Unavailable.
Jacqui Lewis, Fierce Love: A Bold Path to Ferocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World (Harmony Books, 2021), 14, 15.
Image credit and inspiration: Joel Muniz, untitled (detail), 2020, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. In a simple act of solidarity, this photo captures people delivering food to a food bank during the pandemic—a quiet reminder that real change happens when we show up for each other.
Story from Our Community:
I am a lesbian, married Catholic. My partner and I are loving and kind women who attend Mass regularly, take communion without guilt, and volunteer in our church community. It’s amazing how many parents of queer children seek us out to gain perspective and encouragement. We offer them a living hope that it’s possible for their children to be welcomed into communities of faith.
—Linda L.
