Having a faith conversation with old and new friends is as easy as setting the table.
FAITH FEEDS GUIDE FAITH IN ACTION- ENCOUNTER
Introduction to FAITH FEEDS 3
Conversation Starters 6
• A Culture of Encounter: The Beauty of Otherness by Rev. Stan Chu Ilo 7 Conversation Starters 9
• Don’t Forget about Haiti by Dr. Fonie Pierre 10 Conversation Starters 12
• Changing Lives and Futures by Terri R. Miller 13 Conversation Starters 15
• Gathering Prayer 16
The FAITH FEEDS program is designed for individuals who are hungry for opportunities to talk about their faith with others who share it. Participants gather over coffee or a potluck lunch or dinner, and a host facilitates conversation using the C21 Center’s biannual magazine, C21 Resources.
The FAITH FEEDS GUIDE offers easy, step-by-step instructions for planning, as well as materials to guide the conversation. It’s as simple as deciding to host the gathering wherever your community is found and spreading the word.
All selected articles have been taken from material produced by the C21 Center.
The C21 Center Presents
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Who should host a FAITH FEEDS?
Anyone who has a heart for facilitating conversations about faith is perfect to host a FAITH FEEDS.
Where do I host a FAITH FEEDS?
You can host a FAITH FEEDS in-person or virtually through video conference software. FAITH FEEDS conversations are meant for small groups of 10-12 people.
What is the host’s commitment?
The host is responsible for coordinating meeting times, sending out materials and video conference links, and facilitating conversation during the FAITH FEEDS.
What is the guest’s commitment?
Guests are asked to read the articles that will be discussed and be open to faith-filled conversation.
Still have more questions?
No problem! Email karen.kiefer@bc.edu and we’ll help you get set up.
READY TO GET STARTED?
STEP ONE
Decide to host a FAITH FEEDS. Coordinate a date, time, location, and guest list. An hour is enough time to allocate for the virtual or in-person gathering.
STEP TWO
Interested participants are asked to RSVP directly to you, the host. Once you have your list of attendees, confirm with everyone via email. That would be the appropriate time to ask in-person guests to commit to bringing a potluck dish or drink to the gathering. For virtual FAITH FEEDS, send out your video conference link.
STEP THREE
Review the selected articles from your FAITH FEEDS Guide and the questions that will serve as a starter for your FAITH FEEDS discussion. Hosts should send their guests a link to the guide, which can be found on bc.edu/FAITHFEEDS.
STEP FOUR
Send out a confirmation email a week before the FAITH FEEDS gathering. Hosts should arrive early for in-person or virtual set up. Begin with the Gathering Prayer found on the last page of this guide. Hosts can open the discussion by using the suggested questions. The conversation should grow organically from there. Enjoy this gathering of new friends, knowing the Lord is with YOU!
STEP FIVE
Make plans for another FAITH FEEDS. We would love to hear about your FAITH FEEDS experience. You can find contact information on the last page of this guide.
CONVERSATION STARTERS
Here are three articles to guide your FAITH FEEDS conversation. We suggest that you select two that will work best for your group, and if time permits, add in a third. In addition to the original article, you will find a relevant quotation, summary, and suggested questions for discussion. We offer these as tools for your use, but feel free to go where the Holy Spirit leads. Conversations should respect and ensure confidentiality between participants.
This guide’s theme is: Faith in Action - Encounter
A CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: THE BEAUTY OF OTHERNESS
Rev. Stan Chu Ilo
One of the most moving scenes at the time of the post-apartheid South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission was when Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was chairing the commission, collapsed upon hearing the shocking confession of a white police officer. This police officer had killed a Black man, Simphiwe, with rat poison, then burned his body in a bonfire while the officer and his colleagues roasted their lunch.
Many years later while reflecting on this atrocity, Archbishop Tutu said, “I was completely shocked about how low we had descended in our disregard for human life.”
Most of the problems facing the world today are getting more complex because of a collapsing global ethical framework, resulting from the loss of a sense of our common humanity in a common home. For instance, the COP26 climate change conference was unable to reach a collective decision on some measurable targets to meet the existential crisis of climate change. The world has failed in addressing the painful devastation of COVID-19 on the world’s poor because of vaccine politics and global health inequity. Many people are being oppressed and sinking into destitution because of unjust social policies. There are so many people who are considered disposable because of their place of birth, race, religion, socioeconomic status, nationality, sexuality, and gender.
Tutu’s call for ubuntu is what comes to my mind as an African when I read Fratelli Tutti (FT), Pope Francis’s call for
global fraternity built on the culture of encounter. Ubuntu is an African ethics of community affirming that a person is only a person through other persons. Ubuntu begins with a recognition that we are all related through a bond of love and community. Ubuntu is a spirituality of encounter that moves everyone to see our connectivity in the life and future of each other. It is only in encountering each other and in affirming the subjectivity of each other with respect and reverence that we can create the conditions for human and cosmic flourishing.
I see such a striking resonance between Pope Francis’s culture of encounter and African ubuntu that I wish to propose that the culture of encounter is Pope Francis’s ubuntu for global fraternity and solidarity. The culture of encounter is Pope Francis’s proposal for building relationships as the basis for solidarity among humans and between humans and nature. The emphasis on relationship in Pope Francis’s teachings seems to me an important theological aesthetic for reconceptualizing the intersubjective ethics of recognition and action today.
As an ubuntu model for building the global community, Pope Francis applies the culture of encounter as a way of seeing the other as well as a way of being with the other in the world: “Each of us is fully a person when we are part of a people”(FT, 182). This is a paradigm shift that invites people to move away from a single narrative of culture and identity (FT, 12) and to-
ward a more expansive embrace of the connections between all things— humans, God, and nature (FT, 34, 50, 66). The culture of encounter is a social ethic that is capable of shattering the walls constructed by narrow structures, systems, and institutional practices that have built social hierarchies between peoples, cultures, and religions (FT, 195). The culture of encounter inspires a new ethical vision and momentum that is capable of moving people to transcend themselves and their enslavement to race, nation, and other forms of identity in order to enter into the ever-expansive encounter with otherness and a deeper dialogue with the other (FT, 111).
In embracing this way of seeing and being-in-the-world, people can discover the beauty of otherness, entering into a new world and a new Gospel in every new moment of encounter. This movement of the heart, head, and will motivates people to search for new solutions and approaches to repairing the world. People can, for instance, seek new ways to reweave the bonds of love that have been broken by violence, ideological battles, structural violence, injustice, and destructive economies that often discard the poor and vulnerable (FT, 18–20).
The culture of encounter is very Trinitarian. Just as in the Trinity, with the three persons participating in an intimate social friendship, the culture of encounter calls each of us into this intimate and reverential encounter with the world of nature and with the lives of all of us (FT, 85). This call offers humanity the possibility of a cosmic dance in which everyone is participating in everyone’s joys and sorrows. In this way, we become, as Pope Francis said in his inaugural
homily, the guardians of one another and of nature.
When the pope writes that “everything is, as it were, a caress of God,” he highlights the key to the theological aesthetics of the culture of encounter (Laudato Si, 84). This is particularly evident in his insistence that people need to be in touch with concrete reality as the beginning of a deeper encounter with God (Evangelii Gaudium, 167). We need to meet each other at the deepest level (FT, 216); we need to come into direct contact with the context and history of people; we need to have our boots on the ground where the poor are suffering.
This principle of intersubjectivity begins from within the hearts of all persons as an inner grace and interior logic of love. From this interior desire arises a movement in which the human person seeks connection with the other in what the African ancestors captured as ubuntu—that is, the wisdom that recognizing the other makes me human; that in affirming the humanity of the other, I affirm my own humanity.
Pope Francis often uses phrases like “gaze upon,” “openness of heart,” “spiritual encounter,” “the art of listening,” “contemplation with wonder,” and the “gaze of Christ” in inviting people to this culture of encounter so that they can appreciate the different forms of beauty in their lives, in the lives of others, and in the world of nature. The culture of encounter opens up a sense of mystery which moves people to appreciate beauty even in the suffering of life. Through encounter with nature and our fellow human beings from every part of the world, one can grasp a deeper level of truth in the sublimity of being and the beauty of all things.
Sadly, the modern world often objectifies the other rather than seeking out encounter. This is because, as Pope Francis bemoans, modern society “seeks
to domesticate the mystery” of God, nature, and people (Gaudete et Exsultate, 40). In this kind of culture, there is a loss of beauty and an instrumentalization of the other; people are no longer encountering the other as a gift, but everything is seen through a transactional exchange of products, as if humanity is simply a collection of faceless consumers in systems of profit, power, and domination.
In Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis uses the parable of the Good Samaritan as a model of a pragmatic ubuntu solidarity and fraternity, showing how the culture of encounter can rehumanize humanity. The Good Samaritan is presented as one who gave his time to the wounded man. He stopped, he approached and encountered the fallen traveler, and he cared for him. When confronted with a man who was suffering and injured, he saw in this man a family member “deserving of his time and attention” (FT, 63). This basic decision of the Good Samaritan to encounter the brokenness and wounds of this fallen man is presented by Pope Francis as the only condition for rebuilding our wounded world (FT, 67).
The key to social engagement today is the ability to see clearly the painful reality of those who suffer. This seeing is a diagnostic moment: a culture of encounter. It is a seeing that is always moving from contact with the other, to reflection on what we see, to action on the judgment we make. I am convinced that the culture of encounter is a good framework for global and local dialogue on how to think of a better world built on a new understanding of ethics for promoting and preserving our common life together in our common home.
Rev. Stan Chu Ilo is a research professor of world Christianity and African studies at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, DePaul University, Chicago.
A CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: THE BEAUTY OF OTHERNESS
“If a society is governed primarily by the criteria of market freedom and efficiency, there is no place for such persons, and fraternity will remain just another vague ideal.” ~Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti (109)
Summary
Rev. Stan Chu Ilo reflects upon the culture of encounter and the intersection of ubuntu, a set of African ethics that promotes community-affirming practices recognizing that a person is only a person through other persons. Ilo ties his reflection on ubuntu to its relevance in Pope Francis’ Fratelli Tutti, which is meant to be a call to build a culture of fraternity and encounter with other people. Both encourage us to embrace connections to all persons, truly seeing the other with beauty and dignity in every moment. By having an “openness of heart”, as Pope Francis calls us to have, we can be inspired to engage fully with others, despite living in modern society’s transactional view of relationships.
Questions for Conversation
1. What examples of ubuntu have you witnessed in your life and community? What fruits have come from those experiences of encounter?
2. How can one live a life of encounter in modern times, despite the fast-paced nature of society and the influence of digital technology on our world?
3. What intentional practices would you suggest to help us build community, care for others, and allow us to reflect on these experiences?
DON’T FORGET ABOUT HAITI
By Dr. Fonie Pierre
In the streets, you can still hear the music from the funerals. Everywhere you turn, it sounds like mourning. A curtain of grief hangs in the air. Overhead, helicopters shuttle in supplies. Nearby, heavy-duty construction vehicles dig through the rubble.
It has been about a month since a 7.2 earthquake devastated southern Haiti, but for those of us living through its aftermath, it feels like we’ve lived through a thousand years. The earthquake killed more than 2,200 people and injured many more. It also dam-
aged about 130,000 homes. Alarmingly, hundreds of people are still missing.
Life here in Les Cayes is challenging. Gone are many of our municipal buildings, shops, and cultural landmarks, including our cherished cathedral. Some days I close my eyes to the destruction. It’s estimated that about half a million families need support. In certain areas, there is significant damage to infrastructure—water systems are damaged and no longer functional, or the water is dirty and not usable.
With everything that’s happened, some people wonder whether Haiti is cursed. It can feel that way. In recent months, we’ve dealt with drought, hunger, the COVID-19 pandemic, and unprecedented political instability, made worse by persistent gang violence. As you walk the streets, you see the despair on people’s faces. We can only bear so much.
What I remember most during the earthquake is the noise. What started as heavy clanking turned into a loud rumble—like a construction truck was making its way through the neighborhood. But when the shaking began, I cried out to my 11-year-old daughter to get out of the house. Luckily, she heard me and scrambled to safety. We both did. In the chaos that followed came the hugs. We wrapped ourselves in our neighbors’ arms. We texted loved ones to tell them we had survived.
I’m more than just a survivor of the earthquake. As a doctor and global public health expert, I am also an aid worker for the American charity Catholic Relief Services (CRS). As we’ve surveyed the extensive damage, we’ve found hospitals overcrowded and thousands of people sleeping on the streets—either for fear of aftershocks or because they have nowhere else to go. Temporary settlements have popped up in my neighborhood and many others, including in the city’s soccer stadium. People have made shelters out of sheets, blankets, tarps, and anything else they can find, using poles or sticks as scaffolding.
Originally from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, I’ve been living in Les Cayes since 2006. Although it’s considered one of Haiti’s biggest cities, it feels like everyone here is family. We’ve certainly come together in recent days to support each other during this tough time. In the nights immediately following the earthquake, my neighbors came together to sleep outside and share food. That first night we shared bread and avocados. The next night it was bread and bananas.
Like many children who have lived through trauma, my daughter was initially too stunned to eat. Thankfully, she has slowly come back to life—joining with the neighborhood children to play.
I see hope in the work of my organization, CRS, and others that are on the ground getting supplies to those in need. I’m also inspired by the longstanding generosity of the American people, who have shown remarkable solidarity with Haiti in the past. I hope that Americans will continue to show solidarity with us, especially now, after the headlines have faded. Please don’t forget about us. Americans can help by donating to a relief organization like CRS, or by advocating for congressional support of U.S. humanitarian aid.
To be sure, we won’t know the extent of the earthquake’s damage for some time. Those of us caught up in this catastrophe are taking each day as it comes. Those outside Haiti must understand that we are more than the sum of our disasters. It might not seem like it now, but Haiti is a beautiful country with a courageous and resilient people. We live with dignity, even in the face of adversity. And when tragedy strikes, we open our hearts to each other. We share our bread. We care for one another’s children. Even if all that means is that each one of us survives another day.
Dr. Fonie Pierre is a humanitarian and the Catholic Relief Services’ head of office in Les Cayes, Haiti. She earned her medical degree from State University of Haiti, Port-Au-Prince, and the University of Montreal.
UPDATE FROM CRS: Haiti continues to reel following the devastation from the earthquake described by Dr. Pierre. Ongoing economic and political unrest have jeopardized humanitarian and development activities, leaving an estimated 4.9 million in need of support. In the hardest hit areas, people are still sleeping outside in makeshift camps, exposed to the elements and traumatized by the hundreds of aftershocks that have hit Haiti since. CRS is reaching hundreds of thousands of people with emergency support, including providing shelter, rehabilitation, cash assistance, and improved access to clean water. CRS’s ongoing support also includes grief and trauma counseling. Long-term needs will include the rebuilding and repairing of homes and the restoration of vital infrastructure.
DON’T FORGET ABOUT HAITI
“I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper’s wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?” ~St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Summary
This account of the aftermath of the 2021 earthquake in Haiti illustrates the types of crises addressed by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) around the world. For nearly 80 years, the mission of this arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has been to assist impoverished and disadvantaged people of all faiths around the world. CRS works in the spirit of Catholic Social Teaching to promote the sacredness of human life and the dignity of the human person. In this reflection, Dr. Fonie Pierre vividly describes her experience as both a victim of the disaster and her in-country role with CRS.
Questions for Conversation
1. How does this article impact your understanding of the work conducted by people serving others in communities around the world? And how does it shape your opinion on contributions needed to fund charitable works around the world?
2. Many of us have experienced natural disasters of some type. Where have you seen God in the aftermath of these events?
3. How might you be called to serve others, either locally or globally? And how has or could this experience of service connect to your faith journey?
CHANGING LIVES AND FUTURES
By Terri R. Miller
Engaged at age 15 to a man nine years her senior, Mariam’s dreams of marriage took her away from the day-to-day realities of refugee life in northern Jordan. She saw herself marrying dressed in white, having children, living a fairy tale relationship. She—and her honor—would be protected from the precarity of life as a female child in a family left without a male head of the household after her father’s death.
The International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) knows that Mariam’s case is not an isolated one. The organization is working in Jordan and other countries to reverse the devastating trend of child marriage among refugee and host communities like Mariam’s.
The UN Agency for Children (UNICEF) says child marriage robs one in five girls worldwide of their childhood, with devastating impacts on their health and integral human development. Child brides are more likely to experience domestic violence and less likely to complete their education or earn an income.
An ICMC report from July 2021 identified extreme poverty and gender inequality as key factors behind child marriage. Both affect the Syrian refugee population in Jordan disproportionately. Approx-
imately 80% of displaced families live in extreme poverty, a situation that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated. Gender discrimination expresses itself in exaggerated male authority figures, harmful negative traditions, and restricted movement and access to schooling and jobs for girls and women. For many families living in humanitarian crises, child marriage is a survival strategy—a way for parents to ensure their female children are provided for and protected from sexual violence in dangerous situations. The ICMC report showed that in 2015, one in three Syrian females who registered for marriage in Jordan was under the age of 18, with real rates likely higher, given the number of unregistered marriages.
With its efforts to build better futures for refugee girls like Mariam, ICMC is responding to its mandate to serve and protect uprooted people throughout the world, regardless of faith, race, ethnicity, or nationality.
Founded by Pope Pius XII in 1951, ICMC is tasked with promoting Catholic-inspired responses to the needs of people on the move. With its worldwide member network of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences, ICMC strives to put Catholic Social Teaching
into action to restore dignity to refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people, victims of human trafficking, and migrants, and to inspire change while meeting the challenges of migration today. Its mission is to show “God’s merciful love to our migrant brothers and sisters,” which, as Pope Francis said, “is the cause of Christ himself.”
Children are among the most vulnerable of uprooted people and have a special priority in ICMC’s work to protect the human rights and dignity of migrants.
For Mariam, dreams quickly collided with a hard reality that chipped away at her rights and dignity. Getting engaged meant that she had to drop out of school. A lack of understanding with her fiancé led them to break off the engagement, and Mariam found herself socially isolated. She struggled with low self-esteem and anxiety and found it difficult to interact with others in the community.
Fortunately, ICMC staff became aware of Mariam’s situation. She was able to enroll in lifeskills courses for girls and young women who are survivors or at risk of child marriage. Offered at ICMC’s Protection Center in Irbid, Jordan, the courses respond to the challenge of child marriage in ways that are felt at both an individual and community level.
ICMC staff empower the at-risk participants to respond positively to threats to their safety and well-being, and develop healthy ways of coping with the stresses of displacement and poverty. They acquire practical—computer, financial, decision-making—skills. They learn about their health and rights. Meeting with their peers on a regular basis opens doors out of social isolation.
Through the courses, ICMC inspires change in the community as well by calling into question negative coping mechanisms and unequal roles and practices related to girls and women.
ICMC takes other actions to counter gender inequality in refugee communities like Mariam’s and those in host countries that are welcoming displaced people. One step is to train community leaders as social change influencers who raise awareness about child marriage and other violence against children. ICMC staff also successfully engage men and
boys as allies in identifying harmful attitudes and practices, and envisioning more equal, inclusive communities.
Video and theater also serve to raise awareness about the impact of child marriage. ICMC staff in Malaysia produced a video to counter the practice among Rohingya refugee communities, while ICMC Jordan put on a play telling the story of a Syrian refugee child bride. After live (pre-pandemic) performances, audiences could discuss possible solutions to the issues their communities are facing. The performances gave girls and women an opportunity to talk about their experiences and play a part in envisioning a different future.
ICMC has been helping refugees build a better future since its founding. One of its most significant actions involved resettling 500,000 Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugees from Southeast Asia over two decades to new communities, mostly in the United States. Resettlement continues to the present day as one of ICMC’s largest operations. Through its Resettlement Support Center in Istanbul, Turkey, ICMC partners with the U.S. government and with European Union state governments to give refugees a chance to start anew.
ICMC draws on its on-the-ground experience and that of its member organizations to advocate for action to address factors driving migration and for person-centered migration policies that respect human dignity and rights. ICMC advocacy also promotes the labor rights of refugee and host communities, action that ICMC Jordan found is sorely needed to tackle the poverty that is a core driver of child marriage.
For Mariam, life would be very different without the skills, knowledge, and confidence she gained through ICMC’s activities to prevent child marriage. Two years after her broken engagement, she is back in school and raising awareness about children’s rights and the need for an education. Her dream now? To become a doctor.
Terri R. Miller is a freelance writer and communications consultant for the International Catholic Migration Commission.
CHANGING LIVES AND FUTURES
“Knowledge is not to be considered as a means of material prosperity and success, but as a call to serve and to be responsible for others.”
~ The Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education (1977) - The Catholic School (56)
Summary
Terri R. Miller describes the struggles of Mariam, a young refugee in northern Jordan. Miriam represents the one in five girls under 18 worldwide who is forced into child marriage as a means of survival. The International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), founded by Pope Pius XII in 1951, supports girls like Mariam with a mission to show “God’s merciful love to our migrant brothers and sisters.” As Pope Francis indicates, this “is the cause of Christ himself.” Offering life skills and education, ICMC is able to provide resources for children to displace poverty and provide healthy ways of coping with stress. Their ultimate goal is to offer possibilities for the future and positively change lives.
Questions for Conversation
1. How does learning about Mariam’s story and her family’s “survival strategy” shape your consideration for human dignity?
2. In some respect, we are all called to teach others. What gifts do you have that you can share to assist people in their journey, recognizing that small gestures can make a significant difference?
3. What is your hope for the education of children in our world?
