Solidarity

​A Grace for This Week: 

To open our hearts to the common good that binds us together through Jesus Christ and recognizes that we all are nourished when the gifts, needs, and perspectives of each member are respected in our communities.

Solidarity

Solidarity is a virtue which calls us—like all the virtues—to “excellence” in how we live together.  Many experience solidarity in the world we live in right now as a kind of “lost” virtue.  Our present world judges primarily according to the life and cultural values of economics, business, politics, technology, and “the self”.  Solidarity takes seriously our obligations and duties to others and to the common good.  Recently we have been hearing often from the Gospel of Mark. I am continually struck by how deeply concerned Jesus is throughout Mark’s Gospel for others around him— especially the sick, the suffering, the dying, the hungry, and those close to him.  Jesus is constantly on the move in Mark’s Gospel and what he does is mostly inspired by his concern for others.  In the stories we have about him, Jesus is directed outward—toward others.

This is a part of the Christian life and experience we can never forget—even as we spend more time in private individual prayer this Lent.  Our time alone with the Lord in prayer in our own “closed rooms” eventually moves us outside of ourselves toward others. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola can lead us into an intense and highly individual experience of prayer. Yet, Ignatian prayer is not primarily about teaching us to pray and live as individuals.  In fact, just the opposite. The Second Week experience of the Spiritual Exercises—where one is invited to respond to the call to follow Christ—always leads us in this outward direction toward others. Solidarity is considered frequently in moral theology and in Catholic social thought, and this “ethical” concept always moves us back to our personal lives in community.

Some time ago I taught a course for undergraduate students in ethics. I decided to begin the course by having the students read a novel in the hope of inspiring our moral imaginations for the rest of the course.  I chose Hard Times by the great English writer Charles Dickens. A central background theme of this historical novel is the view that since the time of the industrial revolution (c. 1760-1840) utilitarian-based economics and philosophy have led to a decline in concern for others, causing the common good to become harder and harder to maintain. In Dickens’ story “the individual self” and utilitarian calculation that focuses only on “the self” and individual gain become the measure of everything. All else becomes fantasy and is not real or worthy of our attention.  In our time a powerful and enduring focus on ‘the self’ has made solidarity even harder to live.  Solidarity calls us to look beyond ourselves to the good of others and to that of the communities we live in. One might say that the key to a life lived in solidarity is the way Jesus lived with others. As his followers we best live this virtue by modeling our lives on his.

What might solidarity mean practically for us this Lent?  First, it may be to acknowledge that we need healing, conversion, and forgiveness for our own personal tendencies to focus more on ourselves and less on the needs of others both near and far to us. We can easily be caught up and influenced by the powerful and often sinful forces in the world.  One challenge for us may be to discern well in our own lives how we may be blind to these forces. While we may take more time for private prayer during the days of Lent each of us will do well to take stock of our own lives and pray to find ways to more generously follow the life modeled by Jesus in the gospels.  We can pray for others. We can carry out acts of charity and almsgiving which can purify our own hearts.  Living the virtue of solidarity is always a life-long journey and challenge.  Saint John Paul II, who wrote and preached often about this social virtue, described solidarity not as a “feeling of vague compassion” but rather as a “commitment to the common good…since we are all really responsible for all”. (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis). The heart of solidarity is always grounded in our own lives with Jesus who shows us how to live with and for others.

–Francis T. Hannafey, S.J.

A Prayer for This Week

To you, O Christ,
let those who are beset by the temptation to lose heart and despair
turn to hear the message of hope . . .
May humankind rediscover in you, O Lord, the courage
to come together in solidarity to oppose the many evils
that oppress us. . .
Help us to work tirelessly so that a world more just
and more committed to the common good might arise,
a world whose beginning you yourself gave us through your Resurrection.
Amen.

—Saint John Paul II; translated from the Polish by Christine Szczepanowski