Following St. Francis' Enduring Call to Love Creation

Dear Friends,

This year marks the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi. Francis resembled Jesus as completely as any person could. Francis, in an age that did not think in these terms, gave us a totally new way of looking at and loving creation. In this love of his, Francis showed us that we are kin to all creation and creation to us. We are not simply to use creation, or master it or dominate it. Instead, we are to look upon all creation as our beloved friends, family and neighbors.

In his “Canticle of the Creatures,” Francis taught us to embrace in our prayer brother sun, wind, air and fire. He honors moon, water, earth, and the stars as our sisters.

Swimming out into Canandaigua Lake a few weeks ago, sister water snake crossed my path, her head held high. A few moments later, baby water snake hurried along to catch up. We shared the lake. Sisters all.

In this month leading up to Francis’ feast, let’s read scripture in a new way. In answer to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” let us turn to all creation, which today, seems to be suffering all over the world from floods, famine, drought, and frequent storms of great magnitude. Let us honor creation with our careful use of its gifts and let it blossom in whatever way it can.

Theologian Elizabeth Johnson, in her book “Come, Have Breakfast,” encourages us to develop this way of thinking and living. “Give God credit for loving the earth. Loving God with all your heart and soul, mind and strength, be converted to your own self as part of creation. Love your neighbor as yourself. Ponder how you can make the world a more compassionate place for all living beings." (P.158)

The American author, poet, activist and farmer, Wendell Berry had a love affair with nature, much as Francis of Assisi did, though from a more humanist perspective. In his poem, “The Peace of Wild Things,” Berry, who died in August of this year at the age of 92, offers us a soothing place to grow stronger in our sense of oneness with creation. He says:

            When despair for the world grows in me
            and I wake in the night at the least sound
            in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
            I go and lie down where the wood drake
            rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
            I come into the peace of wild things
            who do not tax their lives with forethought
            of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
            And I feel above me the day-blind stars
            waiting with their light. For a time
            I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Samaritan Voting

Dear Friends,

Do you need inspiration for participation in this year’s midterm elections? Here’s an approach I read about last week: Vote like a Samaritan!

Julia Maskivker is a professor at Rollins College who writes on the ethics of citizenship. She argues that voting is a citizen’s ethical obligation. She works in philosophical, not religious ethics, but finds a model in the bible story of the Good Samaritan. The traveling Samaritan sees the injured man at the side of the road. Acting on behalf of this stranger, he finances lodging and care. He does what is in his power to do. Maskivker posits that the Samaritan’s choice to help the neighbor is a model for the citizen voter.

Whether one believes voting to be a right, a responsibility, a privilege or a burden, the Good Samaritan model is a useful way to approach this year’s elections. Voters will select leaders for various levels of local, state, and federal government. A given candidate may not appear to affect an individual voter’s welfare, but a Good Samaritan voter would consider the good of the neighbor. The Good Samaritan voter looks at the neighbor’s need as well as her own when casting a ballot.

A Good Samaritan voter will cast a ballot in every election. If more voters are Good Samaritans, turnout will increase. Leaders might more thoroughly understand their constituents’ values and priorities. Leaders might more effectively develop pathways to a peaceful nation and world.

Susan Schantz SSJ

New York State Voter Registration Deadline October 24
https://elections.ny.gov/register-vote

The Duty to Vote. Julia Maskivker, Oxford University Press (2019).

A Heart Full of Names

Dear Friends,

This September, print, broadcast and social media have featured stories about September 11 attacks. Twenty-five years later, we still share the names and stories of the lost. We hear the words of the bereaved and accompany them in this anniversary commemoration. Names of the dead are engraved in memorials, hearts, memory, and United States history.

A Brazilian bishop, Dom Pedro Casaldáliga, spoke powerfully about this obligation to hold dear the names and stories of others. Before his death in 2020, he wrote a poem that includes these lines:

        At the end of the road
        They will ask me
        Have you lived?
        Have you loved?
        And I, without saying anything,
        Will open my heart full of names.

Reflecting on those lines, I imagine the names of those who died on September 11. And as I pray, I realize my heart must welcome the names of all who are dying in military conflict. International disputes and violent actions offer to our attention names from battles in Ukraine and Russia, Gaza and Israel, Iran and Sudan. The dead are civilians, journalists, soldiers, travelers, relief workers, and children. Here are just a few of the first names published since 2021.

Swarna
Kevin Patrick
Vladimir
Joshua Ruben
Sadie
Cortez
Shoshana
Yugi
Jimmie
Melanie Lamar
Ghaidaa
Siraj
Cory
Suhelah
Kateryna
Eliyahu
Shiri
Carmel
Sonthaya
Tyler
Ashley
Ali
Lyuba
Aziz
Natasha
Oleg
Miriam
Leonid
Mykola
Amal
Fatima
Ivan
Roxana

Remembering these and all the war dead,

Susan Schantz SSJ

Remembering 9/11, Twenty-Five Years Later

Dear Friends,

Friday will be the 25th anniversary of the infamous 9/11. Every year since then, this horrific event is commemorated. Twenty-five years of the bells ringing at the memorial sites in New York, Shanksville, PA and at the Pentagon. Stories of heroism and loss are intertwined in the telling of the events of that day. Children of the fallen have grown up, experienced positive peak moments in their lives, but without that special someone by their side. Churches were full immediately after 9/11, at least for a while.

The media will be full of memories and reflections as we approach the 25th.

Americans are very different today than we were in 2001. Cell phones are our constant companions. AI sneaks in to shape our thinking. We have moved on.

Today I turn to silence and the poetry of David Whyte to give us space to encounter the depth of what happened on September 11, 2001:

LOAVES AND FISHES

This is not
the age of information.

This is not
the age of information.

Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.

This is the time
of loaves
and fishes.

People are hungry,
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Words About Work

Dear Friends,

What work did you do? A new neighbor asked me this question some weeks ago. Like any octogenarian Catholic Sister, I drew my response from quite a long list.

Since that conversation, I have been continuing to reflect on work and what it all means. I still work every day. For any person of any age, each day is a workday since we are made in the image of a creator God. As Labor Day 2026 approaches, I offer these random insights gleaned in the past weeks.

Work connects us with each other. Consider the work of a grocery cashier or a farmer, a maintenance tech or a teacher, a fast-food worker or bus driver.

When we work, we are part of imperfect systems, and we experience personal and societal struggle. Consider the work of a police officer or a social worker, a pastor or a union organizer, a nursing assistant or a stockbroker. 

Work is our response to the dear neighbor. Consider the work of parents and Little League coaches, hospital volunteers and bake sale donors, ambulance volunteers and grandparents who care for their children’s children.

Creative work is restorative and healing. Consider the work of the home cook who brings color and flavor to the table, the songwriter who gives words to joy and pain, the muralist who transforms a building’s gray wall. 

On September 6, the United States celebration of Labor Day will call us to reflect on human labor and the rights and responsibilities of workers. During these days leading up to the holiday, join me in reflecting on our lives’ ongoing and meaningful work. 

~ Susan Schantz SSJ

Who Do You Say I Am?

Dear Friends, 

In Psalm 62, the Israelites sing to God as their rock, their salvation, their fortress and their refuge. Even in the worst of their times, the Israelites were confident that God was all these things for them. 

Centuries later, Jesus appeared among the Israelites, humbly born, obscure for so many years of his life. Did Jesus really know what people thought of him? Was he their fortress, their rock, their salvation and their deliverer? Did he want them to see and name the depth in him? Did he want to know if they found him loveable and loving? Did they know how far he was willing to go to save them from eternal death? “Who do you say I am?” Jesus asked Peter. 

We seldom, if ever, ask people that question about ourselves: “Who do you say I am?” 

For one thing, we don’t want to give people the power of characterizing us.  

But if we are honest, we really do want to know what people think about us. 

Am I among those who tenderize life? 

Do I stand ready to turn the world upside down with a smile, a pause that refreshes? 

Do I welcome budding life and never crush the smoldering wick? 

Do I have confidence that the Father will use me to help others through to life everlasting, and am I willing? 

Jesus is ours for the asking, ours to recognize for who he is. Jesus is an endless loaf of bread and a cup brimming over with delicious wine that hints of honey and the promise of sweetness to come. 

Who do we say Jesus is? Will we learn from him? 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Summer Stories

Dear Friends,

Today’s blog post is a look back to a letter from the late Pope Francis about enriching reading. Summer reading lists are not just for students! In mid-August many of us enjoy some leisure reading. We rely on friends’ recommendations or choose a book reviewed by Instagram or tv hosts. We select a cozy mystery or a thriller or a controversial dystopian novel. 

In July 2024, the Vatican published a papal letter about reading as part of seminarians’ formation for ministry. In his opening paragraph, Pope Francis writes that his reading recommendation is really for all believers. All the baptized are in formation as disciples called to mission.

What does the Pope ask us to read? The Catholic Catechism? A Synod document? One of the four gospels? No. The Pope wants us to read novels, short stories, and poems. Why? Francis explains why in his letter. Here are some quotations from Francis, the book loving shepherd.

This is a definition of literature that I like very much: listening to another person’s voice.

… in moments of weariness, anger, disappointment or failure, when prayer itself does not help us find inner serenity, a good book can help us weather the storm until we find peace of mind.

… we should select our reading with an open mind, a willingness to be surprised, a certain flexibility and readiness to learn, trying to discover what we need at every point of our lives.

… Each new work we read will renew and expand our worldview.

… access which literature grants to the very heart of human culture and, more specifically, to the heart of every individual.

By opening up to the reader a broader view of the grandeur and misery of human experience, literature teaches us patience in trying to understand others, humility in approaching complex situations, meekness in our judgement of individuals and sensitivity to our human condition.

We develop an imaginative empathy that enables us to identify with how others see, experience, and respond to reality. Without such empathy, there can be no solidarity, sharing, compassion, mercy. In reading we discover that our feelings are not simply our own, they are universal, and so even the most destitute person does not feel alone.

And so, dear friends, whatever your current read, dive back in. Pick up a novel. Enjoy some poetry. Grab a half hour for that short story. Know that any reading touches the spirit, and that fiction has a special way of opening our hearts and minds to God and God’s creation.

~ Susan Schantz, SSJ

PS: If you feel attracted to reading the Pope’s whole letter, you can find it on the Vatican website.