Jesuits | Teacher as Transformer

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I pastori (The Shepherds)

Posted on March 14, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I might have posted this lovely poem by Gabrielle D’Annunzio in September as I began school, but it speaks to me. Perhaps, I am better off to read it at other times than the beginning.

I recalled the poem, when I heard of the election of the Pope, Francis I. I thought it was a fitting name for the person who would be a shepherd. I hope he fulfills his Jesuit tradition of social justice and teaching.

When I heard the name he chose, it reminded of St. Francis of Assisi. Kathy and I used the Prayer of St. Francis as part of our wedding ceremony and hangs on our bedroom wall.

September, let’s go. It’s time to migrate.

Now in the land of Abruzzi my shepherds

leave the folds and go towards the sea:

they go down to the wild Adriatic

that is green like mountain pastures.

They’ve drunk deeply from the Alpine fonts,

so that the taste of their native water

may stay in their exiled hearts for comfort

to deceive their thirst along the way.

They’ve renewed their hazelnut sticks.

And they go along the ancient bridleway,

that is almost like a silent grassy river

in the traces of the ancient ancestors.

Oh voice of the one who first

discerns the shimmering of the sea!

Now along this coast moves the flock.

Without movement is the air.

The sun bleaches the living wool so that

it almost blends into the sand.

Swishing, stamping, sweet sounds.

Ah why am I not with my shepherds?

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Posted in Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged education, Franciscans, Gabrielle D'Annunzio, human-rights, I pastori, Jesuits, leadership, Mindful Practice, poetry, prayer of st francis, spirituality, stewardship, teacher as transformer, The Shepherds. Bookmark the permalink.

True Transformation

Posted on May 21, 2012 by ivonprefontaine

This posting is not an original. Yesterday, I read a chapter in Jesus the Radical by Father John Dear SJ. I thought the list of ways easing human suffering, in some ways updated, was worth repeating.

“If we take time for daily prayer and sit quietly listening, our hearts will be disarmed of our inner violence” (p. 107).

The disarming of inner violence can happen and be heard in

in the silence of the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as we call and act for an end for nuclear proliferation;
in the voices of the Hibakushka, the atomic bomb survivors who call for total nuclear disarmament and the abolition of war;
in the laughter, longings, and cries of the world’s children, who look to us for peace;
in the poor and the marginalized, who suffer the fallout of our six-hundred-billion dollar budget for war. This is now understated. What good could be done with a mere fraction of that money?;
in the cry of liberation from the wrongly and unjustly imprisoned, the tortured, the homeless, the hungry, the ill, and the dying;
in the dead of Rwanda, Bosnia, Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Central America, South America, Libya, Syria, China, and our own city streets, who cry out, “Stop the killing, stop the bombings, stop the violence;”
in all those who are different from us, who call us beyond the blindness of racism to the vision of a reconciled humanity, the beloved community;
in the faithful women of the world, who remain wide awake, announcing a paradigmatic shift, the fall of patriarchy and its hierarchy;
in the solitude of creation, from the mountaintops to the oceans; in the gentle rain and the silent breeze that call us to praise a God of peace, a God of Life;
in our own hearts, in our breath, in our prayer so we can go down the mountain to our cross or suffering in a spirit of love.

Adapted from Dear, J. (2000). Jesus the rebel: Bearer of God’s peace and justice. Lanham, MD: Sheed & Ward.