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Mission Congress challenges member's assumptions

Missioners from all over the world gathered for Mission Congress 2005, entitled "Horizons and Possibilities: The U.S. Church in Mission with the Global Community" during early October in Tucson, Ariz. Sister Sarah Hennessey shares some of her
personal reflections.

by Sarah Hennessey, FSPA

He blessed us with smoke and water. Mr. Joseph Enos welcomed us from the First Nation Peoples, blessing us and the seven directions. He said, "We pray to our ancestors, but we've been praying for your ancestors too." And then to a stunned silence his voice broke as he cried and spoke about the importance of eucharistic adoration. We were stopped by the power of his love, and the seamless way it encircled our concerns as missioners. It turned into a theme song throughout the weekend; social justice and adoration are part of the same rhythm. Neither is just a practice, they are devotion enfleshed.

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A representative of Sri Lanka models a sari on Sister Sarah Hennessey, left, at a discussion on the Asian Church in America. Photo courtesy of Sarah Hennessey, FSPA

The wind kicked dust into my face, and the rain was biting and cold. We had been standing in line at the San Xavier Mission when we realized the Tohono O'Odoham tribal members were cooking for three hundred and fifty of us over one burner. They lovingly made fried bread piece by piece, in the rain. We stood immobile. We stayed in the line, afraid to lose our place.

By the time I got my plate of beans and chili with a fresh, hot piece of fry bread, my teeth were chattering from the cold. I took a bit of the flaky bread, and then looked at the line still shivering in the wind. I couldn't finish it. I took my plate to the end of the line and gave it to a man. He paused and looked at me in disbelief and then started eating and passing my one plate around.

The next day in our dialogue community we talked about the night before. We were hungry so we got in line. We had immediately reverted to old habits of thinking. There were many ways we could have served the meal so we didn't have to stand in line all night. But we stood frozen in our patterns. As we talked about the face of mission today in our global world it became clear we cannot stand frozen. Together we named our feelings: we are overwhelmed and frightened, excited and challenged, all the emotions of birthing something new.

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Her words turned me upside down. We are close in age and both in the formation process, but Purita Tongol has come from the Philippines to mission in the United States. "At first I didn't really want to mission in the United States," she said, "but as I prayed about it more I realized that the United States is at the heart of globalization and most in need of conversion."

My breath stopped. I realized that deep down I thought that when foreigners come to our country to do mission work it is a sign of our failure to take care of our own. Through Purita's words I realized the amazing fact that people from other countries, often with fewer resources than our own, are risking much to come and share their faithful lives to open us to conversion. Am I open to living in missionary territory here at home?

Sister Edith Ben, also from the Philippines, was even blunter as she shared in our dialogue community. "I am always aware I have the privileges of being a sister. But I will never have the same power as you do with your skin. As a white American religious you are looked upon as someone with power. For you to choose voluntary displacement is a witness that can give hope to the poor. But the challenge for you is to be authentic as you build a home there." This led us to acknowledge that as missioners we can never be poor because we have choices. People always know that we have the choice to leave them. We shared deeply from our own experiences and struggled to name the face of mission today. Together we concluded that we are called to:

• voluntary displacement, to move those most in need and build a home there
• prayerful attentiveness, listening to the culture and context
• steadfast love, to make the choice to stay

Listening to each other's stories there were no easy answers: just complex lives inviting more questions. We reflected on our own attempts to live fidelity. We challenged each other to abandon assumptions.

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Reconciliation as the model for mission in the 21st century was one of the primary themes. What does that mean? In the thoughts of Bishop Ruiz from Chiapas, seeking peace with God precipitates both personal and social change. Reconciliation assumes concrete change in our relationship with God and thus demands real restitution in the world and in our personal lives.

What are the implications of reconciliation for FSPA? What is our call to mission?

I was surprised in reading Redemptoris Missio that the John Paul II defines the new mission sectors as: "the mass media and new ways of communicating, commitments to peace, the development and liberation of people, the advancement of women and children, and safeguarding the created world," among others. It sounds just like the FSPA direction statement!

Somewhere deep in my mind is an image of mission work being to "poor people . . . over there." Do I think of emailed prayer petitions, Prairiewoods and alternative technologies, peace protests and the anti-trafficking movement as "mission work"? Maybe it's time for me to break open my old definitions of mission.

Throughout the congress, I struggled personally with what mission would look like today transformed by the face of reconciliation. My new friends, Purita and Edith, invited me to examine my assumptions about missioners coming to my country and how I see myself. Standing in the rain we clung to old thought patterns of fairness instead of creating new models of relationships. Readings and presenters asked me to see current FSPA directions and projects as right in the center of the new arena of mission. And, Mr. Enos spoke right to my heart: to see adoration with new eyes.

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