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July	back to top

 

A Franciscan Understanding of Service

Have you ever wondered why we, as human beings, have a natural tendency to help others, especially those in need? From a Christian and Franciscan perspective God created us with an innate desire to give of ourselves, to share our gifts, talents and skills for the benefit of others, and to make a difference in each other's lives. To serve others is as natural as breathing for a human being. It is one of the characteristics that distinguish human beings from the rest of the animal world. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that all the various clubs, organizations, Greek Fraternities and Sororities at Quincy University have a service component.

Service is a fundamental value. It is when we reach out to others that we receive so much in return. In the Peace Prayer we pray that "it is in giving that we receive." St. Francis of Assisi came to this realization through his personal encounter with lepers, whom he would avoid at all costs as a young man. Then one day, as he was riding his horse through the Umbrian Valley, he came upon a leper. Instead of shunning the leper, he dismounted his horse, placed a coin in the leper's hand and embraced him. This experience radically changed Francis' life. At the end of his life he wrote in his Testament: "…God led me among them (lepers) and I showed mercy to them. And when I left them, what had seemed bitter to me was turned into sweetness."

Franciscan Service involves not only giving but also receiving. It invites one not only to touch another person in their need but also to open oneself to being touched by the other. This kind of encounter has the potential to change one's life. Franciscan Service involves doing something concrete for someone while at the same time exemplifying a quality of being present to the person. This aspect of Franciscan Service is known as a ministry of presence. Listening to another person's story is as important as the assistance one offers. Quincy University students and alumni, who have participated in the University's outreach programs and service trips, have testified how they were changed. Just visit the Quincy University website and go to the 50 State Service Project to read some of the testimonials.

Quincy University offers a person the opportunity to experience and to witness to Franciscan service, whether on the campus or off the campus. It is always a choice that one makes. If one makes the choice, one will not regret the experience. In fact it may have a profound impact on one's life. One will experience firsthand that "it is in giving that we receive." One will also discover in the process that when one looks into the eyes of the other, one will see his (her) brother or sister.

Peace and all good!
Father John Doctor, OFM
Vice President for Mission and Ministry

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June	back to top

 

Peace and Reconciliation

Have you heard of people who shove their girlfriend or slap their boyfriend? Maybe you know someone who pushed your friend to take drugs or to drink beyond her limit? Someone who goads your buddies into making fun of someone who makes them uncomfortable? Make a younger or weaker person feel stupid or ridiculous because they can? Or do you know someone who manipulated you into any of these actions so that you are accepted or liked or NOT distained? These are acts of violence of which we are all quite capable. We may even do one or the other at some point in our lives.

There are other acts of violence to which we are exposed. Children playing are wounded by people around them fighting gang wars. Sometimes people abuse their own spouses or children. Every day we hear of suicide bombings where scores of people minding their own business are injured or killed. In our schools or on our own streets we witness bullying and other despicable behavior. There are other violent issues in the world such as human trafficking, racism, sexism, abortion, capital punishment, war, deforestation, animal cruelty, arms proliferation for profit, nuclear armament, and more. Violence is glorified in movies. Our American culture seems preoccupied with it. It is accepted as a response to mistreatment, and tolerated because “Boys will be boys!” or “That’s the way real life is.” or “Who can do anything about it?” or “They hurt us first!” or “They won’t listen to anything else!”

We can do something about violence in the world. We can. We begin by making sure there is none in our own lives, at least none for which we are responsible. That might sound pretty simple, especially if we don’t live in a violent neighborhood or household. But it isn’t. We have to make choices. Can we choose to avoid violence in our lives? Can we make sure we don’t hate or hold a grudge? Can we avoid manipulation and greed, because those are as much acts of violence as shootings and beatings? Are we able to keep from using other people for our own ambitions or pleasure without thought of the toll it might take on them? Can we govern our tongues and keep from speaking hurtful words to another or spreading half truths and gossip because it makes us feel important or powerful or in the know? We begin to address the violence in the world around us by beginning with ourselves. Bullies, manipulators, gossips, users, predators and terrorists have one thing in common. They don’t care about any other needs than their own. And so when I’m preoccupied with my need for power or pleasure or security or profit or prestige, I can be cooperating with violence. If I resist the call of those actions, I can be a peace maker.

And when I fail, when I fall into using others or hurting them, what then? I need to ask for forgiveness. What about when others do violence to me? This is even harder. I need to give forgiveness. No one should remain in a violent or abusive situation. Get out, get away. But returning violence for violence won’t really change the people involved. All around us folks justify giving back what they get. All around us, violence escalates. It doesn’t end because it is a fearsome thing to ask for forgiveness or to forgive. But it is the only way to stop the cycle. If I give what I get, it doesn’t stop. If I harden my heart and continually revisit my indignity, it doesn’t stop. If I can’t move beyond my loss, my cross, my injustice, it doesn’t stop. If I can’t be sorry and admit to be mistaken or selfish or greedy or misinformed, it doesn’t stop. Francis of Assisi knew this. He had tried war and manipulation and greed and distain of others. He found those things were a dead end. So he made a life of giving and seeking forgiveness. He found life in reaching out to lepers and robbers and those who were unlike him. He found life in dialogue and understanding. He found life in the image of Jesus who forgave his enemies and challenges us to do the same. Francis knew who he was before God and who he wanted to be in the world. He wanted to live in peace with all and to be reconciled to all. It isn’t simple, it isn’t easy. But it is possible. He did it. We can do it too. We must. Or the world will never change.

Peace and all good!
Father John Doctor, OFM
Vice President for Mission and Ministry

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May	back to top

 

Creation: Mother Earth and Family

Spring is flooding season. Melting ice and heavy rains make for floods. Right here around Quincy are levees that prevent most serious flooding of towns and roads. Two years ago, QU students and staff along with local residents, spent days sandbagging and reinforcing threatened levees in our community. But the “water control” here and in other areas forces more water at faster rates down river and can add to the potential of destruction.

For example, water surrounds the city of New Orleans. It runs past and sits above the streets of the city. Flooding those streets can sometimes be prevented by a system of levees and pumps that have both succeeded and failed in past years. The depth of the Mississippi River at the French Quarter is said to reach two hundred feet and ordinarily travels three times as fast there as it does at its headwaters. That’s a lot of fast water! These powerful, rushing waters of the river have washed way the barrier islands at the mouth of the river that were part of the natural protection of the region from devastating hurricanes. The force and amount of water are partially the result of levees and dams that control flooding along the whole length of the Mississippi.

This is one example of how we humans have tried to wrest control of the earth around us for our own benefit. There are many others both in the river valley and all over the world. People are cutting down the rain forests and polluting the Great Lakes with surface water runoff; we see continued loss of bio-diversity, water and other resource depletion and exposure to harmful chemicals. We are still trying to decide what to do with our nuclear waste at the same time we are increasing its volume. Sometimes we do these things to protect our homes, sometimes we are looking to feed our families, sometimes we are trying to make a profit. But we pretty much see ourselves in charge of the world and its resources. We may see nothing wrong with taking the earth’s resources to meet our needs or wants. It’s ours to do with as we please, we might think.

St. Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of ecology. Poor guy, we often see him in birdbaths with doves and rabbits and fawns. But he did love nature. He did reverence the sun and moon and stars and water and fire and earth. He called them brothers and sisters and honored the earth with the term "Mother." He bowed before the creation around him. This wasn’t because he was just a romantic sentimental tree hugger. His attitude toward creation was a theological and spiritual insight: if all creation comes from God, then it is holy and reflects the Creator. Native, indigent people often have a similar outlook. But ours adds the witness of the Incarnation. If God took on human nature, became one with creation as a human person in Jesus Christ, then all of creation is sanctified and made holy by this union with the divine. We come from Sister “Mother Earth,” Brother Sun warms us, Sister Water enlivens us, Brother Fire protects and enlightens our way. Birds in their freedom and flowers in their beauty reflect the providence and care of God. To see ourselves as part of this family of creation is to see with an eye of reverence and awe. It may be difficult to balance our needs and the needs of the earth itself. How to use resources, how to harness power, how to leave the smallest foot print and the least damage are questions that will be most successfully answered when we see these questions as spiritual ones, when we see ourselves as part of the holy and sacred gift that comes from the God who made it all and is reflected in it. This will be a difficult shift in outlook and behavior. At Quincy University we want to ask the challenging questions about who we say we are and how to best live as part of this earth, our powerful mother. And we will find answers together, all of us part of the same family moving into the future.

Peace and all good!
Father John Doctor, OFM
Vice President for Mission and Ministry

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April

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Inclusion

You don’t have to be a Christian or even a religious person to see the significance of this insight: people are more important than things! Francis of Assisi understood that was true because people come from God, are made in the image of God, are children of God, are loved by God. And, he concluded that meant ALL people, regardless of who they were. Nobody is of more value than anybody else. After trying soldier life, being in prison, almost dying from sickness caused by prison conditions, Francis Bernadone wanted to do something important with his life. The world of Francis’ time was deeply divided according to rank and power. He wanted to be different. He wanted to make a difference. He looked to the Christian Gospels and decided to imitate Jesus as closely as he could in his life and stand apart from the ordinary. He established communities where everyone was seen the same: no privileges, no ranks, no prejudices. Everybody was welcome. Everybody was equal. Everybody worked and contributed what they could to the group. Jesus sat down at the table with anyone, embraced everyone, cured everyone, touched anyone. So it was with the followers of Francis who came to be known as the Little Brothers, the Friars Minor. Everyone was included. It remains so today. It is how we seek to be.

Franciscans see in the life of Jesus Christ a clear statement of how God sees the people of the world. By becoming one like us, God shows us the value of human beings, the precious gift that human life is. From the beginning Jesus spent his life including others and reaching out to all. As an infant he was recognized first by a poor carpenter and his wife pregnant before their marriage, by shepherds, whose profession was held in contempt, and by pagan foreigners. He invited tax collectors, soldiers, foreigners and women to the table and to follow him as part of his company.

Quincy University started as St. Francis Solanus College, a school for immigrants and the children of immigrants. They couldn’t get into schools because they didn’t speak English; they couldn’t learn English because they couldn’t get into school. Augustine Tolton, who became the first African American priest in the country, began his education at the college and was then sent by the friars to study for the priesthood in Rome when no seminary would accept him here. We have always been a place for those who were the first in their families to seek an education. We accepted women in the 1930’s and fielded integrated sports teams in the 1950’s. Inclusion is a value here. Our students come from many different backgrounds, from farms and cities and suburbs. Tearing down walls, encountering “the other,” seeing the connections, making community, walking together, including all: these are the things our values prompt us to do and to do as well as we can.

Peace and all good!
Father John Doctor, OFM
Vice President for Mission and Ministry

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March

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TRANSFORMATION…a new look at old toys!

The movie “Transformers” features beings from another planet that appear to be ordinary machines like cars, trucks and airplanes, but are actually aliens using Earth as a battlefield. When the situation warrants it, they become wondrous, awesome beings that rear up with weaponry, extreme power and determination to battle their enemies. The Decepticons want to steal the earth’s vast energy resources and the Autobots try to protect earth folk from destruction. Lots of good guys versus bad guys fun with a little romance thrown in here and there. These creatures go from ordinary to extraordinary in a flash. They started out one way and had the hidden potential to become something very, very different. They are transformed, changed in their form and function. Their choices are about using their great power to help or to destroy. As humans, we possess this same extraordinary talent, many of us just don’t know it yet!

The Quincy University Mission Statement states that we are dedicated to transformation: to “prepare men and women for leadership and for the transformation of the world by educating them to seek knowledge that leads to wisdom.” Change happens simply by the passing of time: think about it, we are all very different than we were four years ago! But transformation happens by the choices we make along the way. Transforming the world begins with transforming ourselves and we do that purposefully. Our University seeks to offer students opportunities, challenges and direction through education. And it all isn’t just for us; it is to make a difference in the world, to contribute to a future together, to make the world a better place.

We don’t transform ourselves by growing weapons and defenses out of our tires and doors! We transform ourselves by rubbing shoulders with others and listening to them, by searching out and considering both traditions and new ways of looking at the world around us and our place in it. We learn, risk, invest time; we celebrate ourselves and each other and develop our potential as individuals and as a community. Education is the key, the means to our transformation together. Knowledge that leads to making choices guided by values is knowledge that leads to wisdom.

Our transformation is through building relationships, challenging our categories, expanding our minds, learning about and experiencing leadership and just plain learning. And we accomplish this together with joy. Transform yourself, transform the world!

Peace and all good!
Father John Doctor, OFM
Vice President for Mission and Ministry