RETURNING HOME TOGETHER
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Friday, July 24
Today's Journey
Today our team travels from Antigua to Guatemala City to begin their journey home to the United States. They return with new friendships, new experiences, and many stories to share with our congregation. Thank you for accompanying them throughout the week with your prayers.
Why This Matters
Although our team's journey to Guatemala comes to an end today, the work of partnership continues.
The Prayer Partner Guide concludes with a reflection on deep solidarity—the idea that mission is not simply about those with resources helping those without. Instead, it is about recognizing what we share in common and discovering how God calls us to walk together with one another. As theologian Joerg Rieger writes, solidarity is "a matter of understanding what we have in common and how we all need to work together."
Throughout this week, our team has learned from the people, communities, and ministries of Guatemala. As they return home, we pray that these experiences will continue to shape not only those who traveled, but our entire congregation as we continue growing in faith, friendship, and partnership.
Reflection
Deep solidarity brings into focus God’s power, which is different from the power of the one percent. Deep solidarity reminds us that Godself is found among the poor, among the Hebrew slaves of the Exodus, and among the widows, the orphans, and strangers of the Hebrew Bible. God is transforming the world in and through them. . . The 99 percent are invited to join in this deep solidarity with God and others. Indeed, even those who are situated within the exalted one percent are called to “follow me.”
Joerg Rieger, Deep Solidarity: Embracing God’s Power to Alleviate Poverty and Create Structural Change
The victims of history -- the destitute, abused women, oppressed minorities, all those the Bible calls "the poor" -- not only put us in touch with the world and with ourselves, but also with the mercy of God. There is something fathomless about the encounter with the poor, as we have said -- like the opening of a chess game with its infinite possibilities. If we let them, the poor will place us before the abyss of the holy Mystery we call God. They are a kind of door that opens before that Mystery and through which God passes to get at us. Clearly we need them more than they need us.
Father Dean Brackley, S.J., Meeting the victims, falling in love
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