Tuesday March 18 – “Nevertheless, God calls us and keeps us moving”<\/p>\n
Ten years ago last week the university gathered \u00a0in Our Lady of Mercy Chapel on the campus of Mercy College of Detroit which had come to be called “The Outer Drive Campus.” \u00a0 Decades of humanity and commitment — hard work and play, hospitality and prayer — created a sacred place there, steeped in history and affection. \u00a0 It was a hard goodbye. \u00a0 Gretchen Elliot, one of the great voices of the Sisters of Mercy, \u00a0read \u00a0some paragraphs near the end of the chapel’s final liturgy on March 7. \u00a0 When \u00a0I read them last night, ten years\u00a0later, \u00a0she reminded me of the sacredness of the places where we gathered to live our work lives then and of the sacred places we make now: \u00a0McNichols, \u00a0M L King Drive, and Jefferson. \u00a0 In 2004 Gretchen told us that our university’s choice “to stay in the city in solidarity with its people” was the heart of what makes our places beautiful and holy. \u00a0 Still true this Tuesday morning as we\u00a0look out, see some winter-worn grass, and long for spring to wake our campuses \u00a0and refresh our spirits.<\/p>\n
Gretchen died four years ago; \u00a0these words she addressed to the women and men of UDM that March day still speak. \u00a0I am one of many who miss her.<\/p>\n
john sj<\/p>\n
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Today’s Post<\/span><\/p>\n Taken from “We are incarnate beings and therefore exist in time and space.\u00a0\u00a0We are always someplace.\u00a0\u00a0We cannot be no place!\u00a0\u00a0Depending on one\u2019s perspective we are each occupying a few square feet of ground in a shelter or outside, in the country or a city, in a particular continent, on this planet, Earth, in our solar system, in the cosmos.<\/p>\n Sometimes we move around, as Abraham did in response to God\u2019s call, from the Land of Ur to the land between the Wadi of Egypt and the Great River, Euphrates.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Usually we station ourselves somewhere. . . .\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We put down roots in one or a few places, figuratively and literally.\u00a0. . . \u00a0The places and spaces in which we live shape us profoundly \u2013 and it is reciprocal, we shape those places.\u00a0\u00a0They give us a sense of the shape of the world and we plant trees, build bridges and wear down paths and stairways in them.\u00a0. . .<\/p>\n Many years ago, in the sixties and seventies, the Sisters of Mercy and the Society of Jesus and their institutions of higher education reaffirmed their stance in a bigger place than is marked by these walls.\u00a0\u00a0Their choice to stay in the city in solidarity with its people was more primary than decisions about buildings.\u00a0\u00a0The consequences of that stance were that Detroit\u2019s needs \u2013and strengths — challenged them to change.\u00a0\u00a0They — we — joined energies and resources and rearranged places in order to continue serving in the city and beyond in the ways that were needed.\u00a0\u00a0Now we are changing again, making new spaces and leaving some that no longer fit the ministry.<\/p>\n At one time or another in our lives we, like the three apostles in the Gospel reading, might feel ourselves on the mountain with the radiant Christ, sure that we\u2019ve arrived, that we are in the place where we should be.\u00a0\u00a0When we feel like that we might try to \u201cset up a tent\u201d to stay there.\u00a0\u00a0But God usually takes us down the mountain into the daily flow of people and the unfinished world.\u00a0\u00a0We may not like that change, \u00a0just as the cabbage farmer may not have liked the encroachments of the city near his land.\u00a0\u00a0Nonetheless God calls us and keeps us moving.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tuesday March 18 – “Nevertheless, God calls us and keeps us moving” Ten years ago last week the university gathered \u00a0in Our Lady of Mercy Chapel on the campus of Mercy College of Detroit which had come to be called … Continue reading
\nCommunion Reflection for the Final Mass
\nIn Our Lady of Mercy Chapel
\nUniversity of Detroit Mercy,\u00a0\u00a0March 7, 2004
\nSr. Gretchen Elliot, RSM (d. October 3, 2010)<\/p>\n