School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND)
Dear Friend,
In the encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis emphasizes that the social and ecological challenges of our day are interrelated (integral ecology). As you read through this month's newsletter, and the social and ecological concerns it highlights, consider how these concerns are related to the Laudato Si' Goals and SSND becoming a Laudato Si' Congregation.
Read our SSND SHALOM NEWSLETTER
for Justice, Peace, Integrity of Creation (JPIC)
You will find links to them here
( at https://www.artoflivingpeacefully.com/shalom-network)
International Solidarity Reflection
Deepening Relationships of Universal Communion
May 2026
Introduction
A pattern in the entire Bible emerges from the revelation of Yahweh to Moses: Yahweh hears the cries of the slaves and feels compassion. Yahweh calls and sends. e.g. “Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate.” (Luke 6:36)
We hear the cries of water, air and Earth itself, the cries of peoples in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and South Sudan, the cries of immigrants and refugees in the USA and globally. We feel compassion. We cry out with them, “God how are you with us in these global crises?” We listen. As we draw closer to all our suffering Earth community, we know God anew.
Love calls and sends us, all of us, to heal our suffering world. Love missions us to use the energy and gift of anger to listen longer, to speak up courageously and respectfully, and to act justly, together.
Call to Prayer
Divine Creator, Energy, Spirit, Love, thank-you for loving us so intimately and tenderly. Thank you for healing us, for calling and sending us to fill and wrap our Earth community in cosmic healing love and light. We trust you as we dare to believe and proclaim wholeheartedly, “Glory to You, whose power is infinitely greater than we can even ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20) How are you with us now, in our grief and pain, as we lament the warfare within and among nations of the world? How are you with us as we hear the call to speak clearly about the abuse, injustice and death-dealing that is so entrenched in our systems? How are you with us, visibly enfleshed? How are you “the cosmic Body of Christ”? (Laudato Sí’). How are we and all the Earth one with you now, and with each one? We wait and listen in silence…
Experience
We watch the news. We are shocked. We grieve and lament. We may even hear and tremble as bombs explode around us. We feel the Earth’s suffering, deaths of children and parents, the raw pain of war. It’s too big for us to cope. Stirring up our faith, we say that all we can do is pray.
Reflection
Feeling shock, anger and grief over so much in today’s world is a gift. We meet God in the raw pain we share. Yet possibilities are far more extensive.
Around the globe, consciousness of the oneness of all creation is expanding as evolution goes forward. We see how women and the impoverished of all races are rising up, how nations have thrown off colonial powers, how people are claiming their identity. We suffer under the oppressive weight of wealthy oligarchs whose greed and lust for power are a ravenous canyon swallowing them up beyond any ability to be compassionate. Wealth and violence suffocate people you love and starve those whose cries you hear, with whom you feel immense compassion. Nations invade others and speak hollow claims, gongs booming like thunder in this dark night of seemingly endless suffering. We are one. All claims to independence and separation are illusions.
Since we know well words and ideas that explain causes of destitution and war, why don’t we end these horrors? Ahh! Underneath the words and ideas, attitudes and myths, are illusions of superiority and power, holding them in place. Since we know and can name these attitudes and myths, why don’t we heal and transform them? Ahh!
After holding that question for years, I was walking through an airport one day when I saw a huge wall with one, immense Nike swoosh on it. I stood breathless, “That’s it!” Under the attitudes and myths, deep in our psyches, images and symbols hold all else in place. People pay high prices to wear the swoosh, to belong to the global community who wear the swoosh. Healing energy, arts, music, imagining touch our unconscious, far more deeply than words.
Our words and ideas, the attitudes and myths of our cultures are held in place by images and symbols, created and spread globally in large part now as advertising. Whether we buy a product or not, in a sense doesn’t matter. Our shackled imaginations limit healing, freeze relationships. How often do we hear – or even say – “I’m too old.” Or “We can’t do anything. It’s too big.” While these statements hold some truth and wise self-care, the overall deception may take hold, imprisoning our imaginations and power to heal.
Action
New possibilities for action emerge, based on neuroscientific discoveries over the last half-century. Consider: We are always body-mind-spirit-persons in relationship with all Earth’s creatures/peoples and our Creator. As some of us, immersed in the ministry of prayer and presence, send others to bring their compassionate, healing love to those in need, we are all one, truly one. Science tells us that we can send healing light and love/energy around the world. We can join with others to focus on some group for a week or month. Our action: we trust and dare to believe and do this, to accept that Jesus, the risen, cosmic Christ, wants to be powerful and to heal in and through us, beyond our imagining.
Personally, each of us can do this at any time. We can do it together and share it with countless others. Personally, in community and in ministry, we can spread universal communion, compassion. Visit the website, https://charterforcompassion.org and take time over days or months to become familiar with the global outreach being celebrated by people of all ages, races, creeds, identities and locations. As a Laudato Si’ community, we resonate with this global energy to create universal communion. Their many, many initiatives from music to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals offer thousands of practical ways to live the universal communion we desire so ardently, to connect with all peoples. Along with Laudato Si’, the Charter for Compassion’s global community offers a way forward for our global congregation, inspired by both as overarching umbrellas for all our goals.
Closing Prayer
Divine Creator, Energy, Spirit, Love, thank-you for loving us so intimately and tenderly. Thank you for healing us, for calling and sending us to fill and wrap our Earth community in cosmic healing, love, and light. We trust you as we dare to believe and proclaim wholeheartedly, “Glory to You, whose power is infinitely greater than we can even ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20) How are you with us now, in our grief and pain, as we lament the warfare within and among nations of the world? How are you with us, visibly enfleshed? How are you “the cosmic Body of Christ”? (Laudato Sí’) How are we and all the earth one with you now, and with each one? We wait and listen in silence...
Barbara Paleczny SSND
Watercolour Painting by Barbara Paleczny SSND
Graphic taken from 25th General Chapter design by Joyelle Proot, SSND CP