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“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic 6:8) – these words from the prophet Micah gently set the context for this theological reflection on presence in community and ministry. Doing justice in ministry, loving kindness in community and walking humbly with God for both ministry and community are a simple and vibrant expression of right relationships among humans and with their God.

Presence in Community

Let us begin our reflection with community – the sacred communion of all creation. The first chapter of the first book of the Bible tells us, “God saw everything that God had made, and, indeed, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). In Psalm 24 (v. 1), we read, “The Earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.” In a visionary statement in the mid-1990s, the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians wrote, “Spirituality is the name we give to that which provides us with the strength to go on, for it is the assurance that God is in the struggle. Spirituality spells out our connectedness to God, to our human roots, to the rest of nature, to one another and to ourselves.” Today theologians take as a given that all community is rooted in this sense of the sacred communion of all creation. When we believe this to be so, our sense of community shifts dramatically...

Spanish translation using DeepL Translator. Traducción al español con DeepL Translator

Elizabeth Davis rsm is the Congregation Leader of the Sisters of Mercy of Newfoundland.
She is the Mercy Leaders' representive on the Mercy Global Presence Guiding Group.

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