Bishop Blase Cupich
Sister Marie Schwan, CSJ, has contributed much to our diocese since she came here nearly four years ago, especially in her work with our lay ministry formation program. Many have come to appreciate her teaching skills and the depth of her insights in spiritual direction. With her most recent publication, Come Home, A Prayer Journey to the Center Within, Sister Marie shares her gifts with a wider audience. In this very helpful little book, she invites us to live at the center of our lives, for “our God is a God who calls us home to that place within us that is at once our own heart and God’s own dwelling.” Living at the center of our lives brings peace, contentment and comfort, regardless of the demands and challenges we face.
Always faced with trials and tragedies, wounds and woes that can pull us off center, Sister Marie reminds us that God continues to call us home to that deep place of stillness within each of us, the place where God chooses to dwell and nourish us. The temptation in the face of hardships is to find solace and comfort in superficial and temporary ways, whether they be power, possessions or pleasures. God invites us, especially through centering prayer, always to return home to the center, the place where we most fully meet God.
The depth of Sister Marie’s reflections reveals a competent and scholarly grasp of spirituality in the Christian tradition, which makes us appreciate all the more her presence in our diocese. While I am familiar with the tradition of centering prayer, I was particularly impressed by Sister Marie’s application of it in her remarks on institutions. Institutions also can be pulled off center, she warns. Corporations self-absorbed by the bottom line can lose sight of their important contribution and service to society. Government agencies and offices, overly preoccupied with power and self promotion, begin to ignore the common good of the nation and the world.
Church communities also are vulnerable to being pulled off center. When dioceses or parishes become excessively concerned about self-preservation and begin to amass wealth and goods as a sign of their strength and power, they easily can lose a sense of mission and service, setting their program and funding priorities in self-serving ways. Institutions, especially faith-based ones, only return to their center, Sister Marie concludes, when they operate in a way that transforms the lives of people.
It occurred to me that the Spirituality Initiative program, which we just completed, was truly a centering moment for our parishes. As reported earlier, with the help of Sisters Catherine Bertrand and Katarina Schuth, we designed the Spirituality Initiative program specifically to help our pastors and their lay leaders address how best to revitalize their parishes, to reclaim their purpose and center. Over nine weekends, beginning last fall, all of our pastors gathered at Terra Sancta with up to fifteen members of the parishes they serve. While each group identified their own strengths and weaknesses, I noticed in reading the reports that all of the parishes proposed strategies aimed primarily at helping people and families reinvigorate their faith lives and come closer to Christ. Given the reality of shrinking communities and resources, especially in our rural areas, one might expect parish leaders to be fixated on financial concerns. However, those concerns were secondary and there was a clear consensus that parishes work most effectively and authentically when leaders set their sights on nourishing and transforming the lives of their people.
Terra Sancta
The success of the Spirituality Initiative program convinces me all the more that the priority for all of our future planning as a diocese and as parishes has to be the formation and nourishment of the spiritual lives of our communities, families and people. That is precisely the motivation behind securing and renovating Terra Sancta. Taking over this beautiful part of God’s creation was not about accumulating more property or assets. Rather, by renaming the former St. Martin Benedictine Monastery after the Holy Land, which Jesus called home, the name Terra Sancta will be a constant reminder that God continues to call us home to the sacred space in our lives.
More will be said about this after Easter, but for now, I think it is important to stress that the development of the Spiritual Life Center at Terra Sancta is a defining moment for the Catholic Church in western South Dakota. The decision to purchase it was intentional, based on a vision toward the future and our commitment to developing the spiritual lives of people. The retreats, weekend renewals, educational programs and parish gatherings in this holy place will be a constant reminder that our mission as a diocese must always be about transforming the lives of people through efforts that help them approach their spiritual lives as a journey to the center within, the place where God calls us home.
