Phase 1: Session 5

Phase 1: Session 5
This document is for registered JustFaith Catholic (JFC) groups to use during the 2014-15 program year, per
the licensing agreement. Do not copy, share, or forward without permission.
www.justfaith.org
(502) 429-0865
Session Overview and Materials
Session Focus: Option for (and with) the Poor
Set the chairs in a circle around the table holding items used during prayer.
Section
Timing
Opening Prayer
10 minutes
Dialogue on Option for (and with) the Poor
30 minutes
Dialogue on Spiritual Practice
20 minutes
BREAK
15 minutes
Business Items
10 minutes
Reflecting on the Readings
60 minutes
Closing Prayer
5 minutes
Session Checklist
For the group:
□ Large pillar candle and matches
□ Bible
For each participant:
□ Session 5 Participant Handout (for the
readers in the Opening Prayer)
□ Reflective music
□ Computer with internet access
□ Digital projector and speakers
□ Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the
Church or a print out of Paragraph 43
Copyright 2014 by JustFaith Ministries • www.justfaith.org • 502-429-0865
Phase 1 • Session 5 • Page 2
Session Notes for the Co-Facilitators
This week, take note of your group’s composition. It may already be evident which participants are
the extroverts and introverts in your group. If you notice that you have a group of mostly introverts
(or if your group is large), you may want to divide into small groups more often for dialogue.
Typically, introverts will feel more comfortable speaking in smaller groups. On the other hand,
extroverts can help to “get things rolling” by initiating discussion, so it is important to engage them.
The point here is that every group is different. Experiment with different formats to see what works
best. Sometimes, variation itself can be the key to keeping groups out of predictable patterns.
Remember to refer to the “Facilitator Guidebook” and “Group Dialogue and Active Listening”
documents for additional ideas.
As you have most likely encountered, the material in JustFaith can prompt differences of opinion.
Part of effective facilitating is knowing when to intervene in a disagreement between members; this
can be tricky. Most people are uncomfortable with disagreement, but the JustFaith process
considers it a potentially helpful exchange when approached with respect, patience, and care.
Conflict or disagreements simply make verbal what often goes unexpressed and, therefore,
unexamined. We encourage you to allow differences of opinion to be expressed. However, remind
people of the ground rules: to practice active listening as discussed during the Opening Retreat; to
be respectful at all times, speak thoughtfully, and seek to learn from one another; and, most of all,
to love one another. Since we are all human and thus capable of insensitivity, facilitators may need
to interrupt a conversation that becomes too heated. A smile and a light-hearted affirmation of the
engaged parties’ passion can go a long way in disarming tension.
Allow differences of opinion to remain open without searching for resolution. We advise you not to
seek a quick answer to conflicting ideas. This may be the first opportunity for some participants to
explore the topic being discussed or this part of their faith tradition. The program is filled with
occasions to pray for guidance, wisdom, courage, and insight. Many participants experience
personal transformation during the JustFaith process; allow this to happen during these occasions
and in its own time.
As a reminder, if your group is experiencing any problems, do not hesitate to contact the JustFaith
Ministries office. It will be awkward to gather week after week with recurring issues that impede
open discussion and growth. It is important to address these issues as early in the process as
possible. The staff is happy to assist you.
Copyright 2014 by JustFaith Ministries • www.justfaith.org • 502-429-0865
Phase 1 • Session 5 • Page 3
Welcome and Opening Prayer (10 minutes)
Choose four readers who are not facilitators. While distributing the participant handout, welcome
participants. Describe the session using these or similar words:
Last week, we discussed the difference between charity and justice. This session, we will
hear engage in dialogue about the Church’s teaching on the preferential option with and for
the poor. During the second half, we will reflect on what we have heard and connect it with
Catholic social teachings and the realities presented to us in Tattoos on the Heart and
Compassion . Let us begin with prayer, which includes excerpts from homilies by
Archbishop Romero.
Light the pillar candle on the prayer table.
Scripture
Read John 12: 24-26. Pause for a full minute of silent reflection.
Meditation
Read slowly. Pause between each reader.
Reader A:
Those who, in the biblical phrase, would save their lives —that is, those who want to
get along, who don’t want commitments, who don’t want to get into problems, who
want to stay outside of a situation that demands the involvement of all of us—they
will lose their lives. What a terrible thing to have lived quite comfortably, with no
suffering, not getting involved in problems, quite tranquil, quite settled, with good
connections politically, economically, socially – lacking nothing, having everything.
To what good? They will lose their lives.
Reader B:
Jesus Christ and the Gospel are not two separate things. The gospel is not a
biography of Christ; for St. Paul, the gospel is the living power of God. Reading the
gospel is not like reading an ordinary book. You have to fill yourself with faith and
stress the living Jesus Christ, the revelation of the Father. You must feel . . . that
Christ is God’s homily preaching to you while you try to fill yourself with the divine
power that has come in Christ Jesus.
Reader C:
I would not want to live the life of many of today’s powerful, who don’t live a real
life. They live under guard, they live with uneasy consciences, they live in anxiety.
That is not life. If you obey God’s law, you will live. Although they kill me, I have no
Copyright 2014 by JustFaith Ministries • www.justfaith.org • 502-429-0865
Phase 1 • Session 5 • Page 4
emptiness. If I die with a good conscience, with a clean heart that has produced only
works of goodness—what can death do to me?
Reader A:
This is the beauty of prayer and of Christian life: coming to understand that a God
who converses with humans has created them and has lifted them up, with the
capacity of saying “I” and “you.” That is what God has done; human beings are
God’s other self. He has lifted us up so that he can talk with us and share his joys, his
generosity, his grandeur. He is the God who converses with us.
Reader B:
Many would like a preaching so spiritualized that it leaves sinners unbothered and
does not term idolaters those who kneel before money and power. A preaching that
says nothing about the sinful environment in which the gospel is reflected upon is
not the gospel.
Reader C:
A Church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of
God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a work of God that doesn’t touch the real
sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed—what gospel is that? Very nice,
pious considerations that don’t bother anyone, that’s the way many would like
preaching to be. Those preachers who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be
harassed, so as not to have conflicts and difficulties, do not light up the world they
live in.
Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love, comp. and trans. James R. Brockman, S.J.
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004).
Pause for a few minutes of silent reflection. Close the prayer with a collective AMEN.
Dialogue on Option for (and with) the Poor (30 minutes)
To begin this part of the session, have the computer with internet access set up along with the
digital projector and speakers. Show this brief YouTube video of Fr. John Rausch, a Glenmary
Home Missioner priest, who offers an explanation of the Church’s teaching about the option for
(and with) the poor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdSG0X7ocok. You can also access this
video from the JustFaith Participant Resource page under Session 5 at tinyurl.com/jfc2014-2015 .
After showing the video, open the dialogue with these questions:
On the Catholic social teaching card under the Option for the Poor and Vulnerable
heading, it reads: “A basic moral test is how our most vulnerable members are faring.”
Using this statement, Fr. Rausch’s comments, and the excerpted reading from Pope
Francis that was included in the Notes to Participants, respond to these questions:
Copyright 2014 by JustFaith Ministries • www.justfaith.org • 502-429-0865
Phase 1 • Session 5 • Page 5
Who are the most vulnerable members of our society?
How are they faring in our nation? our world?
Would we (our nation, our Church, ourselves) pass this “basic moral test”?
Depending upon how participants engage in this dialogue, you may have time to ask someone to
read aloud this scripture passage: Matthew 25: 31-46. Ask the reader to read it slowly as though
hearing it for the first time. Then allow a minute of silent reflection before posing these questions:
Is following Jesus as simple as this scripture appears? Or do you feel that the cost of
following Jesus in our culture too high a price to pay ? In other words, is Jesus’ ethic
for how we are love our neighbor too idealistic for a 21 st century person to follow?
Why or why not?
Spiritual Practice (20 minutes)
Go around the circle and have each person briefly report on her/his observations from the spiritual
practice. (Participants were to purposefully notice the diversity of incomes or socio -economic
groups, or lack of diversity, and take particular notice in their immediate and extended family,
neighborhoods, workplace, grocery store, school, church, theatre, gym, volunteer location, etc.)
To close this discussion, ask if there are any summary comments that can be made from the group’s
observations.
BREAK (15 minutes)
Invite participants to share refreshments (if provided).
Business Items (10 minutes)
1. Discuss preparations for the Opening Retreat and details of the Immersion Experience, as
needed.
2. Discuss the logistics for the end of Phase 1 and transitioning to Phase 2 if the group has
decided to take a break.
Copyright 2014 by JustFaith Ministries • www.justfaith.org • 502-429-0865
Phase 1 • Session 5 • Page 6
Reflecting on the Readings (60 minutes)
To set the tone for this part of the session, have the computer with internet access set up with th e
digital projector and speakers. Show this YouTube video of the Phil Collins song, “Another Day in
Paradise”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NiEUBaRsXw. You can also access this video
from the JustFaith Participant Resource page under Session 5 at tinyurl.com/jfc2014-2015.
Allow for a minute of silence at the end of the video to allow participants to absorb the song lyrics
and the images on the video. Then proceed with dialogue on the readings for this week.
You will not be able to cover all of the questions that follow, so choose questions that seem most
appropriate to prompt dialogue for your group. There are several questions for each reading
grouped together; select one or two to address each reading. Open the dialogue with these words:
In Tattoos on the Heart we read on page 133, “The poet Rumi writes, ‘Close both eyes to
see with the other eye.’ But finding and seeing, beyond our sense of being separate, our
mutuality with the other is hard-won. Bridging the gulf of mutual judgment and replacing it
with kinship is tricky indeed.”
The option for (and with) the poor asks us to recognize with our hearts those who live on
the margins. Connecting our heart of compassion with another’s heart is to know their
name, to understand their joys and pain, and to respond to their needs in a real way.
1. Through our spiritual practice this past week, how have your eyes been opened to see our
community from a new perspective?
2. How do you find ways to connect—eye-to-eye and heart-to-heart—with people who live in
parts of the world that are similar to those portrayed in Tattoos on the Heart?
3. How is your home, your neighborhood, your parish welcoming to those who may be
different from you?
4. In the middle of page 25, the authors of Compassion challenge, “Compassion means going
directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and building a home there.
God’s compassion is total, absolute, unconditional, without reservation.” Share a story about
someone you know personally who has made such an unbridled commitment.
5. On page 27 of Compassion, the authors write, “Compassion is no longer a virtue that we must
exercise in special circumstances or an attitude that we must call upon when other ways of
responding have been exhausted, but it is the natural way of being in the world.” In what
ways in my daily life can I begin to respond with compassion as the first response?
Copyright 2014 by JustFaith Ministries • www.justfaith.org • 502-429-0865
Phase 1 • Session 5 • Page 7
6. In Compassion, the authors write, “Joy and gratitude are the qualities of the heart by which we
recognize those who are committed to a life of service in the path of Jesus Christ” (page 30).
How do we develop the capacity to express and experience joy in the midst of suffering?
7. Chapter 6 in Tattoos on the Heart is titled, “Jurisdiction.” Who is in your jurisdiction—who do
you love and care for? Who falls outside of your jurisdiction?
8. On page 142 of Tattoos on the Heart, Fr. Greg writes, “It always becomes impossible to
demonize someone you know.” From your own experience, attest to the truth of this
statement. Why, then, do you think so many in our society attempt to demonize those who
happen to be experiencing poverty or homelessness?
9. In Chapter 7 from Tattoos on the Heart, which of the stories that demonstrate God’s delight in
us captivated you the most? What story from your life illustrates the sheer joy and gladness
that God must feel in creation?
Closing Prayer (5 minutes)
Read paragraph 43 (page 19) in Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Pause between
sentences. Read these words:
Most Holy One, as we walk through this world, we place all our faith in your merciful love.
When we stand with your downtrodden people, we take off our shoes,
for we are on holy ground.
A Circle of Prayer
Direct the group to form a tight circle linking hands.
We are disciples on a journey.
We are the body of Christ, broken for the world.
We hold one another as we carry the concerns and intercessions of our neighbors.
If you feel moved, please share your prayer aloud.
Words to Live By
Leader:
Let us take prayer to heart. Repeat this mantra from Psalm 25 after me:
You guide the humble in the right path.
All:
You guide the humble in the right path.
Copyright 2014 by JustFaith Ministries • www.justfaith.org • 502-429-0865
Phase 1 • Session 5 • Page 8
Leader:
You teach your ways to the poor.
All:
You teach your ways to the poor.
Leader:
May this prayer echo in our hearts throughout the week, as we walk, while we
work, as we rest, and when we pray for one another.
Call to mind those who choose to walk with the poor. (Pause)
A Sign of God’s Peace
Now we share in the peace for which our world hungers.
With a sign of peace we affirm one another for the journey ahead.
May we extend God’s peace to all!
Copyright 2014 by JustFaith Ministries • www.justfaith.org • 502-429-0865
Phase 1 • Session 5 • Page 9
Session 5 Opening Prayer Readers’ Handout
(When cued, read slowly. Pause between each reader.)
Reader A:
Those who, in the biblical phrase, would save their lives—that is, those who want to get
along, who don’t want commitments, who don’t want to get into problems, who want to
stay outside of a situation that demands the involvement of all of us—they will lose their
lives. What a terrible thing to have lived quite comfortably, with no suffering, not getting
involved in problems, quite tranquil, quite settled, with good connections politically,
economically, socially – lacking nothing, having everything. To what good? They will lose
their lives.
Reader B:
Jesus Christ and the Gospel are not two separate things. The gospel is not a biography of
Christ; for St. Paul, the gospel is the living power of God. Reading the gospel is not like
reading an ordinary book. You have to fill yourself with faith and stress the living Jesus
Christ, the revelation of the Father. You must feel . . . that Christ is God’s homily
preaching to you while you try to fill yourself with the divine power that has come in
Christ Jesus.
Reader C:
I would not want to live the life of many of today’s powerful, who don’t live a real life.
They live under guard, they live with uneasy consciences, they live in anxiety. That is not
life. If you obey God’s law, you will live. Although they kill me, I have no emptiness. If I
die with a good conscience, with a clean heart that has produced only works of
goodness—what can death do to me?
Reader A:
This is the beauty of prayer and of Christian life: coming to understand that a God who
converses with humans has created them and has lifted them up, with the capacity of
saying “I” and “you.” That is what God has done; human beings are God’s other self. He
has lifted us up so that he can talk with us and share his joys, his generosity, his grandeur.
He is the God who converses with us.
Reader B:
Many would like a preaching so spiritualized that it leaves sinners unbothered and does
not term idolaters those who kneel before money and power. A preaching that says
nothing about the sinful environment in which the gospel is reflected upon is not the
gospel.
Reader C:
A Church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God
that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a work of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the
society in which it is being proclaimed—what gospel is that? Very nice, pious
considerations that don’t bother anyone, that’s the way many would like preaching to be.
Those preachers who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed, so as not to
have conflicts and difficulties, do not light up the world they live in.
Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love, comp. and trans. James R. Brockman, S.J.
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004).
Copyright 2014 by JustFaith Ministries • www.justfaith.org • 502-429-0865
Phase 1 • Session 5 • Page 10

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