REFLECTION
It is the season of Easter, a season of resurrection when all relationships among people and in nature suffer and cry out in labor pains for a new humanity.  In the Resurrection the human body of Jesus of Nazareth is transformed into a universal body, which also incorporates us.  He is present in the universe, in the divine milieu, and in Him we live. (Acts 17:28). We could say that we are in the Cosmic Body of Jesus, which in some way still experiences the passion and suffering of hunger, the marginalization, violence, war, and devastation of the cosmos. However, we are also part of a new life, an earth without evil and as we discover it and collaborate in building it we experience the resurrection. Then again, the resurrected Jesus transforms through relationships.

Consciously or unconsciously we humans are also cosmic; we are earth, we are air, we are water… we ingest these elements as infants nursing at our mother’s breast, who, in turn, were nourished with the products of the earth and transmit the minerals, vitamins, proteins that bond us as siblings to the earth, the cosmos, and our ancestors. 

In the cosmic visions of indigenous peoples, yearning for the good life (that is, to live life to the full) flows from a profound spiritual connection to Mother Nature.  Systems of social organization are modeled on nature, and are built on relationships at the local level, as well as among the different indigenous groups. Traditional authority is respected, as it fulfills the responsibility of service entrusted to leaders. The economy is built on systems and institutions that enliven a sustainable productive life and relationships of economic exchange. For the indigenous people, everything is interrelated.  

There is much to learn from the original peoples of our continents and from their deep spiritual relationship with the cosmos and earth.  They put into perspective the little part of the universe that human beings comprise.  At the heart of the cosmos, we are bonded together as siblings: atoms, energy, nature, animals, men and women.   Together we yearn for a new life, a new cosmos --an earth without evil—and to experience resurrection.  How do we recover our sense of connection to the cosmos?  How do we experience living in communion with the cosmos and with each other as an experience of resurrection? 

We are invited to take a spiritual journey to rediscover our connection with the cosmos and with each other as an experience of resurrection.  This will be done in two steps.  

A.  Enter into relationship with the cosmos
Recall a moment in your childhood when you felt part of nature, even one with her: in the countryside, or in a river, or with animals.  Return to that moment and savor it, relive it letting the feelings of that moment surface.  Try to reread that experience:  as a child, what helped you experience it?  Which of your senses awakened?  Whether it was water, or trees, or the sea breeze on the beach, what was life-giving? Or what disturbed you? 

In time, has your ability to take pleasure in things, to enter into oneness with the universe, feeling connected to the cosmos increased, diminished or remained the same? 

The hubbub of life, fatigue, and activism diminish receptivity and emotional response.  All the same, the possibility of receptivity remains within the human being.  What in you diminishes this receptivity, what would help reawaken it? What helps you to keep that capacity alive?  Be grateful for that within yourself that helps you connect with nature, with the cosmos. 

Of the many things that wound the cosmos today, what pains you most?  What gives you life?


In what part of your body do you feel it? 

B.  Enter into relationship with the human other.
Over the years we have created and recreated our relationship with other human beings, with nature, with animals, with things, with God, with our own self, etc.

We are invited to focus our attention on the capacity in every human being to engender life.  However, our attention will be especially on women and their connection with Mother Earth, in light of their capacity to defend, nourish, and nurture life.  We do this, so that we can continue to grow in awareness of what has yet to be transformed in our relationships in order to be able to walk together as one. 

Each one of us gradually learned and constructed a mode of relating.  Recall how your own mode of relating developed.  Remember the critical or significant moments in which you began to become aware of yourself, and of your own capacity to relate.  What were you feeling?  What evoked joy and what evoked pain in your relationships? What gifts did you discover you had which have helped you construct and reshape your way of relating? What has been gestating in you that enables you to relate and what makes it difficult?

In particular, look at your relationship with the women with whom you live or with whom you have lived.  What evokes joy and what evokes pain in you?  What needs to be celebrated or transformed?

RE-READ IN FAITH
Choose one of the following texts: reflect on it, keeping in mind and heart your own relationship with the cosmos, and with others, remain in the presence of the Risen Jesus and allow him to recreate and illuminate you.

Reread your experience of relationship in light of:

• Constitutions:  2, 9, 15, 19, 27, 33 
  
• Chapters: 1988:  Women; 1994: The Eucharistic Dimension of our Spirituality
• Gospel: John 20:11-19

SHARE IN COMMUNITY
Share in community, or with colleagues at work, or with other groups, that which was most meaningful to you in your prayer-reflection.

• What calls emerged?  
• What questions or concerns for the group or community?

Celebrate together:         Luke 13: 10-17  

Let us take time to consider this story and allow it to shed light on and help draw us into deeper understanding the plight of THE EARTH and of many women in the world today.

Celebrate together the transformation of the death-dealing realities of violence against the earth and human beings. 
Celebrate and acknowledge that your efforts and those of others, as well as your meeting here in this time of prayer contributes to the transformation of violence into springs of life for women, and so for all human beings, that all may know resurrection.