“…too often migrants can just be numbers. Behind each number, there is a person with a family, a person who had dreams for the future.”

(~ Pascal Boidin, SM, Remembering Lampedusa, December 19, 2022))

“A friend recently asked me what our ecological crisis has got to do with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. … In his paragraph on Mary Queen of All Creation, Pope Francis uses the phrase the crucified poor (Laudato Si’, 241). He is addressing the desperate state of certain people around our world who are ignored, excluded and considered disposable. Many of these people live in sacrifice zones. Places where toxic pollution causes cancer, heart disease and respiratory illness. Communities living in these damaged areas are systematically excluded from decision-making and their dignity and human rights are continuously trampled on. People are ‘crucified’ in the industrial-extractive processes of these places. Soils, vegetation, animal life and air are also cashed up and put to death. The sickness of physical sites and people are the inter-connected end result of sacrifice zones.

The Body of Christ is put to death over and again in these desperate places. When the human community entitles itself and exercises power and control over innocent people and places, the Body of Christ suffers condemnation and death. The short answer to the question about ecology and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ would seem to be; Jesus has never stopped being condemned and put to death in the poor of Earth and in Earth herself. The new life of resurrection much longed for in sacrifice zones, rarely appears.”

(~ Peter Healy, SM, Entitlement, Sacrifice Zones and Bright Green Lies, January 30, 2023))

“A quick look at our Constitutions SM enables us to see that we are inherently Synodal. 156: All Marists imitate Mary’s delicate responsiveness to the promptings of the Spirit and to the needs of God’s People. 158: those who exercise authority develop a network of interchange and solidarity to promote unity for mission. 160: this mission requires structures of consultation and participation at the local, provincial, and general levels. 161: unity in the Society and effective action require that its members be consulted and participate in decision making.

As good stewards of the Gospel we bring out of our treasury things both old and new: the ‘old’ treasures in our Constitutions can be renewed by opening out minds and hearts to the ‘new’ expressions and experiences of Synodality in today’s Church.”

(~ Ben McKenna, SM, Synodality – inherently Marist, March 4, 2024)

“The climate crisis should be viewed with urgency because it is a matter of survival. One thing we can gather is that the Oceania people are facing great uncertainties. Sea level rise has forced people to relocate. Extreme weather conditions affect human security, economic sustainability and their future survival. The decisions made today will be important for the region’s future tomorrow. …We are called to have compassion, and empathy like the one who stopped to help in the parable of the wounded one, and to be vulnerable like the vulnerable. To be moved with compassion is the story of the cross. It is to be Christ-like, reflecting his self-emptying (kenosis) and self-humbling (Phil 2:7-8); God becoming human, becoming a slave and accepting death on a cross. Pope Benedict sees God as suffering with us in the Word made flesh. To be vulnerable like Christ, who [Elizabeth] Johnson describes as taking a ‘tremendous swoop from divine form to crucified human form” tracing ‘an arc of divine humility, …credits the incomprehensible God with having a seemingly non-godly characteristic, especially when seen against the model of an omnipotent monarch, namely, the ability to be self-emptying, self-limiting, self-offering, vulnerable, self-giving, in a word, creative Love in action.’”

(~ Donato Kivi, SM, Care for Our Oceans, March 6, 2023)