The year 2020 will be remembered as a very challenging year for most people around
the world due to the still ongoing effects of the COVID 19 pandemic. In the United States, however, the trials of this past year were abnormally difficult due to several other major crises that we experienced simultaneously as a nation. These included a record-setting wildfire season that resulted in over 50,000 fires and 9 million burnt acres and other natural events that accentuated our fears over climate change, as well as the stress we experienced as a politically divided nation while navigating events surrounding the impeachment of our president in the same year that our democratic election processes were challenged in our national elections. Our social fabric has been further stressed by the unjustifiable deaths of numerous Black Americans at the hands of police officers which have ignited a racial reckoning across the country. The subsequent tumultuous reaction, most significantly over the horrific death of George Floyd in May, has led to much introspection and soul-searching as we have attempted to confront the effects of the centuries-long experience of social injustice and racial inequity experienced by the Black American community. Although all of these challenges have presented our national CLC community with opportunities to use our Ignatian discernment tools to explore how we may be called to respond to these issues both individually and communally, the personal nature of how each of us experiences and responds to racial injustice has given this issue special relevance this past year.

As CLC in the USA, we are currently comprised of approximately 1,400 members in 200 communities spread throughout 36 states. Over 50 percent of our members have made temporary or permanent commitments to CLC. Due to the relatively large size of our country, we are organized into 10 geographic regions as well as by several distinct cultural communities: Hispanic, Korean, Polish and Vietnamese. Although we are quite diverse, we are aware that the Black American community is not fully represented in our membership, and that this may have put us at a disadvantage in our ability to fully comprehend and respond to the social issues we are facing. Through the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and associated demonstrations and related violence in some cities this past year, we have been provided with opportunities to confront our centuries-old history and legacy of slavery and to consider necessary changes in our society.

In light of these circumstances, how have we been called to live out our Ignatian charism and spirituality to prioritize our choices and take action? As CLC members, we aim to “become committed Christians in bearing witness to those human and Gospel values within the Church and society, which affect the dignity of the person, the welfare of the family and the integrity of creation.” (GP 4) We also trust that “By making ourselves sensitive to the signs of the times and the movements of the Spirit, we will be better able to encounter Christ in all persons and in all situations.” (GP 6) The contemplative nature of our calling has led many of us to self-examination, reflection and prayer to help us discern our individual responses to this situation. For many, this has involved discovering new concepts and vocabulary such as “systemic racism”, “white privilege” and “complicity” to help us better understand how racism manifests itself in our country today. For some, this has triggered a sense of fear of the unknown in discovering, possibly for the first time, ways that we have personally experienced certain “privileges” that have been and are still being denied to many. For others, this has presented opportunities to share our own personal experiences of discrimination that extend beyond the Black community and are experienced in other communities of color as well. The fall issue of Harvest, our national CLC magazine, was dedicated to presenting our members’ varied perspectives from around the country which have been very helpful in supporting our national conversation on this matter.
 
This past year, our communities engaged in many spiritual conversations to consider these issues, and found that these discussions were enhanced by our practice of three rounds of sharing to help guide our communal discernment of ways we are being asked to respond. From the Spiritual Exercises, we have also drawn on tools such as the meditations of the two standards and the three types of persons to help us to understand our privileges, to open ourselves to inner conversion and transformation, and thereby become freer to help others confront this type of injustice personally and in our society. In October, many of our members participated in the annual Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice, during which dozens of speakers and thousands of mostly young participants engaged in online presentations and discussions focusing on social injustice and racial equality. Some communities were also involved in specific actions such as the public Black Lives Matter vigil organized by members of CLC in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Pax Christi and St. Benedict the Moor Church (a primarily Black parish), during which more than two hundred people gathered (socially distanced and masked) to pray and hear prophetic and inspirational messages. A most poignant moment was experienced as participants knelt in silence during an African libation ceremony as the names of unarmed Black Americans killed by police were read aloud.

We trust that our efforts to discern what is ours to do will continue throughout 2021 and beyond. We are also grateful for the many blessings and gifts we have received from CLC, and pray that we will be faithful to employ those same gifts in responding to our call.