By Sarah Callahan
Gray Space Graces
At the intersection of faith and justice is where we belong as Catholics — rooted firmly in the foundation of the love of Jesus Christ and God’s call to care for the least of these.
This month, I was afforded the opportunity to attend the Chicago Service & Justice Innovation Gathering at Dominican University in Chicago with two students and a campus minister from St. Ambrose University in Davenport. The conference’s theme was brainstorming new ways for campus ministry programs to help their students engage with service and justice.
A theme that continued to arise throughout the gathering was the issue that there are many folks in the pews, confessional, and adoration chapel that are never seen at the soup kitchen, the demonstration, or the jail. Conversely, there are many who work for justice day in and day out, but do not find meaning in the Church. This tension is felt not only in campus ministries, but within parishes and the Church at large. How do we become Catholics who can be found at the Mass AND at the margins?
In her presentation, Meg Hunter-Kilmer gave many examples of saints and individuals on the road to sainthood from whom we can learn and gain inspiration. A few that she shared included, Blessed Sára Salkaházi, St. Laura Montoya Upegui, and Venerable Satoko Kitahara.
Blessed Sára Salkaházi was a teacher, a journalist, and a chain-smoking socialist who cared deeply for the poor. When she tried to join the Sisters of Social Service, she was turned away at first. Eventually, she was admitted to the society at age 30 (1929) and was able to take her final vows in 1940. She was sent far and wide working toward social change. During World War II, Sister Sára changed her last name from Schalkház to the more Hungarian-sounding “Salkaházi” to protest the rising Nazi ideology. Throughout the war, she opened the Working Girls’ Homes which served as safe havens for those in danger. She was murdered by a pro-Nazi Arrow Cross regime, but her impact was profound. She alone was credited with saving 100 Jewish lives, and the Sisters of Social Service hold a candlelight memorial for her every year on the anniversary of her death.
After her father’s death, St. Laura Montoya Upegui was sent to live with her grandparents where she was severely neglected and misunderstood. This built up in St. Laura the desire to love the un-loved, especially orphans. She lived among the Native people, who were considered by many to be “wild beasts,” and worked to dismantle the racial discrimination against them.
Ven. Satoko Kitahara was the daughter of a wealthy family. She gave piano lessons to children who lived in a nearby encampment, referred to as “Ants Town.” After working with them, she realized that to only provide one hour of reprieve to these children facing extreme poverty was not enough. She is accredited with the quote, “Jesus did not only become human for an hour per week.” After realizing that she had a responsibility to do more, she lived among the people in the encampments to be in solidarity with them.
All three of these women teach us that though it can be painful and slow, we are always capable of becoming more holy and just. The way in which these women lived their lives provide us blueprints for how to be in the world, but of the Kingdom of God. We are all called to transformation because of our commitment to Christ.
At our gathering, Jeremy Cruz, PhD, built upon this idea in his presentation. He shared wisdom from the 1971 Synod of Bishops. In the document, Justice in the World, they write, “action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church’s mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation.”
The bishops knew that working for justice is principally integral to our Christian faith. We share the Good News when we go out from the four walls of the Church and into the suffering of others. This is not optional as followers of Jesus. Jesus says, “give them some food yourselves.” While intercession for those in need is indeed good, Jesus desires for us to be God’s hands and feet in the world. May we all work to be Christians whose faith requires us to work for service and justice, and whose work for service and justice finds deep meaning in our identity as followers of Jesus.
(Sarah Callahan is social media coordinator for the Diocese of Davenport.)
