Maryknoll in the Change of Eras
These are excerpts from a session that Bob Short, our Executive Coordinator, led a few months back at a weekly meeting of the Laudato Si group, about twenty Maryknollers, mostly priests, who discuss topics of the day that could have relevance to the Society’s future.
The Cusp of a New Era. Many, including Pope Francis, acknowledge that our world is on the cusp of a new era. It’s equally exhilarating and frightening to be living when fundamental change is on the horizon. Most of us resist paradigmatic change. As Thomas Kuhn has written, “paradigm shifts become necessary when the plausibility structure of the previous paradigm becomes so full of holes and patchwork ‘fixes’ that a complete overhaul, which once looked utterly threatening, now appears as a lifeline.”
Thomas Berry, C.P., gave me a way to frame the of paradigmatic change. discussion: “It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how we fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story.” So, what is dysfunctional about the old story? How do we begin to identify the new story and, if there’s enough courage, move into it? When fundamental change is just over the hill (or knoll), three responses can follow:
Hold tightly to the old model, maybe even return to a more traditional orthodoxy.
Make some changes, even fairly significant ones, but not those that would align with the emerging paradigm.
Make a bold leap toward the fundamental change that the time appears to call us to.
Most of us opt for 2—a change in degree—a “moving the deck chairs” strategy.
The New Cosmology. Two words characterize the new cosmology, relational and evolving. Everything in the universe, from subatomic particles to the most complex of human relationships is in relationship. Anything that favors separation (e.g., racism, sexism, patriarchy, nationalism) becomes the sin. Similarly, anything static and fixed (e.g., holding on too tightly to an old model) does not fit into the new cosmology. “Being” no longer serves. “Becoming” speaks much better to the reality in an evolving universe.
Ilia Delio contrasts the Newtonian cosmology (closed system, control minded, mechanistic, hierarchical, goal-orientated) with that of the Quantum, post-Einsteinian cosmology (open system, participatory, holistic, abundant possibilities).
Other voices more simply frame other characteristics of this new time:
We are all looking for a larger and more loving story in which to participate. Our ordinary lives are given an extraordinary significance when we accept that our lives are about something more meaningful than winning and succeeding inside of a very small plot line.—Brian McLaren
The old story was of victimization, marginalization, oppression, oppressors; the new story would see all of us evolving, self-expanding, and finding a new place in this wonderful cosmology....” —Barbara Holmes, on faculty of Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation.
Religion no longer belongs to any one institution or to dogmatic belief systems. It is not a particular way to get us into heaven, an evacuation plan for the next world. Rather, it is a deep vital center of spirit that sustains and spurs on the energy of life…a deep existential dimension of being that longs for ultimate wholeness.
We then discussed some of the challenges and possibilities that emerge in the new era:
The Silo Syndrome favors separation and keeps the various expressions of Maryknoll apart from each other. Joe Healey, MM, has often pointed out the negative consequences of this approach.
Theology/formation: science, especially cosmology, needs to be included in formation. Richard Rohr commented that Jesus didn’t teach his disciples mere conceptual information as (some) seminaries do. Rather, he introduces them to a lifestyle, inviting them to live with him.
For our Organizational Model, we could move from a “predict & control” modality to “sense & respond.” Federic Laloux has spoken at great length about “reinventing” organizations.
We ended with words of Ilia Delio:
What would our world look like if we really lived an incarnational faith? What would the church look like if it embraced a God of evolution? One who attains the highest levels of consciousness is one who lives by the life of the whole, one who is ready to surrender her or his life for the whole; one who lives beyond the self for the whole, in awareness of deep relational bonds of love with the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, the disenfranchised. … I think Jesus lived this type of love because he lived deeply in God… to live in Christ is to live on the cusp of a new future, a future that is God already present in this moment, hidden within us, waiting to be born anew.