By Dr. Michael Campos, High School Religion, Theology and Spirituality Faculty
Seminar 3, Day 4: I am Blessed
A few minutes before 6 a.m., a gentle melody called us to gather along Sophie’s Pathway. Facilitated by staff member and animator extraordinaire, Malou Ybanez, we learned to pray through movement and breath. After 45 minutes of individual practice, we gently found our way to the Village “clubhouse” for breakfast and small group sharing. Maupay nga aga!
Dr. Agnes Brazal (De La Salle University), facilitated a seminar on Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation. Based on Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si’, Agnes guided participants in a study of the ways ecological ethics evolved since the Industrial Period. Agnes traced shifts in the primacy of human agency vis-a-vis environmental concerns. Whereas classical humanism initially placed human interests at the center, contemporary conditions reoriented the human to the periphery, one player (albeit a significant one) in an emerging global concern over ecological sustainability.
Deepening Agnes’ insights, we revisited the ways Judaism identifies G-d’s action with that of creation: tikkun olam. More than extending any right for humans to “subdue” the world, to create is to exist in the act of blessing the world, to care for the universe as a practice of spiritual becoming.
Photos by Dr. Michael Campos, Religion, Theology & Spirituality, Faculty
Convent & Stuart Hall Travel 