“Let us dream:” Enduring a long Lent, planting seeds of Easter, fulfilling our Mission

Three-fourths of the people in Yemen needing humanitarian aid, migrant workers in Hongkong and Singapore contracting the virus in their congested ghettoes, a young Filipina dropping out in her third year of civil engineering at a state university. So many shared in the suffering of the Crucified Love in the long Lent of 2020. The UN World Social Report of 2020 documented the rising inequality in technological innovations, climate change effects, urbanization, and migration. Due to global warming, Norway increased its gross domestic product (GDP) by 30 percent due mainly to agriculture while Sudan’s GDP is 60 % smaller. Economist Richard Wolff opined that this pandemic enabled the rich to earn more while the middle and lower-income households have to contend with rising food prices, a potential source of unrest. Yet, already in 2020, seeds of Easter were being planted. Scientists for the first time collaborated in the race for the vaccine on a global scale. Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand set a model of governance in dealing with the virus.

At Assisi, 4th of October, Papa Francesco signed a covenant with young economists, entrepreneurs, and change makers towards a “fair, sustainable and inclusive” world economy. The Economy of Francesco life seminars gave alternatives. Jennifer Nedelsky advocated that care work mostly by women be part of a policy, Marianna Mazucatto lamented the lack of value creation via finance where stock markets merely had money changing hands while Leonardo Becchetti and Francisco Salustri connected the incidence of the virus with the pollution in congested cities. They recommended more public parks. On March 5-8, 2021, Papa Francesco went to Iraq as “penitent pilgrim”, in a visit of hope, peace, and faith. It seemed an early Easter for them as they rejoiced in an affirmation of their faith for the world to see. They sang and danced to welcome the Pope as well as shared their sorrow at the death of a son and the disappearance of a parish community.

Easter for me in the Philippines is expressed in the soprano voice of Bebirose (YWLTP) leading the Immaculate Conception Youth Choir in Guiuan, Eastern Samar, in the selfless leadership of Nancy among her indigenous neighborhood in Porac, Pampanga, Central Luzon, and in the organic farming led by Majoy with four female teenagers in El Salvador, Misamis Oriental, Northern Mindanao. 2021 marks the 500 years of the coming of Christianity in the Philippines. We have been “Gifted to give;” the challenge remains for us to be a “missionary Church.” This is a dream of the Grail here. Yes, “let us dream”- using social analysis, a science-led approach, fueled by technology as Van Ginneken S.J. counselled us ten decades ago, so that all may “have life and have it

to the full” (John 10:10). How do we do it? Women’s leadership in the arts, music, education as well as in the political spheres and grassroots level, via the Professorial Chair at the Netherlands, through the “Growing in Grail” initiatives. Whom do we serve? The hungry, the jobless, the refugees, those whose suffering in a prolonged Lent has to surely end in the hope of Easter.