Guillermo Campuzano, CM DePaul University - Chicago “What Must Be Done” to move Vincentian Spirituality to Action? “SPY the field and the seeds you are planning to throw in…”

Tips For Our Journey… 1. Incorporate Vincentian Family and Systemic Change in initial and on-going formation programs. 2. Stand with the prophets…the ones in your community, the ones out there. 3. Continually read the book of Life and identify personal, communal, and institutional opportunities for systemic change. 4. “Think locally…act globally. Think globally…act locally.” 5. Be sure that in documents the binomial Vincentian Family – Systemic Change are systematically incorporated. 6. With historic patience, push for a new institutional agenda. 7. Support, help to create, be a part of local chapters of the Vincentian Family. 8. Never forget, experience comes first. That is the Vincentian way! St. Vincent finished writing the rule of the CM after 33 years of experience.

9. Stand together – The symbol of Elena - New leadership: WOMEN and SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS What can we do? How can we be?

At the end we are going to be asked about our stories of bold solidarity… just that!! “ Solidarity is the new name of Charity” in the context of an indifferent world… “Indifference is the sin of our days” (Pope Francis) Systemic Change: towards a new solidarity, from the prophecy of awareness and the prophecy of dialogue! From Lent to Easter

YEAR2013 Nobody is the owner of time “We are unworthy servants, we have done just our duty” Luke 17:10 The first peoples on earth were not as anxious as we are -WAIT- HISTORIC PATIENCE In the VF the experience always comes first

HUMILITY (I was forced by life to learn that I am dying) OUR best is enough… Surrender Insignificance and Monotony Overcome the myth of immortality We cannot be inferior to this historic moment in which we are living, but we are not God! Let us embrace the vulnerability of these times from our own vulnerability

“My Faith is my Experience” SVDP Remember your “founding experience”… the moment of enlightenment. How is this here and now connected to that sacred moment of your life? Remember the moments of rupture… ecstasies…let’s have faith in our journey. Genesis 12:1-11

This is OUR faith this is OUR Experience: Vincentian Family – Systemic Change 2013 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…”Why to invest in a world that seems designed to break my heart?” (DePaul student)

Recover your Prophetic Imagination… 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 of this prophetic imagination: can penetrate reality… The IRONY -the world will disappoint us, but it is worth investing in- Lynch

The need for a NEW Vincentian Prophecy in the USA and Canada Ismael The urgency of recovering the essence of our identity; Creative RESISTANCE (critical consumption) Countercultural Words (provoke a new imagination) Countercultural Actions (coherence of faith and life) Do we have the strength to contribute to the transformation of the status quo?

Where are the ways of God in trans-modern American Culture? Where are the cries of the poor coming from? Who are the martyrs of today (the ones who call us from the coherence of their lives) where is the inner voice of this country coming from? Who is its incarnation? Where are the prophets? Where are the crucified peoples and communities of today? Do we want to abandon the theology of the cross too?

One commitment; Let us go and do our best to HELP to Regenerate our HUMAN DWELLING… live ethically for the survival of HUMANITY/EARTH It is not for the poor… it is beyond them… they are just an alive memory of what we MUST DO for the survival of humanity!

We have to continually go back to HIM… he is the best story of solidarity from God for us! In his life there is still an incomplete UTOPIA: that another world is possible… that a dignified life for all is possible… that this world (humanity/earth) can be our HOME! Let us go back to JESUS! “Let us go to THE POOR ”