9 June, 2022

By Celia Capstick

Celia Capstick is an associate of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, European Province, and co-convener of the Social Responsibility Committee of the National Board of Catholic Women (NBCW).

Prior to the feast of Pentecost our international SHCJ prayer group – Society of the Holy Child Jesus – zoomed together greeting those from Africa and America and Ireland with extra pleasure as we marvelled at the way distance has vanished through this new technology. We reflected together on Pope Francis’ musings on the Holy Spirit from ‘Let us Dream’:

“The Spirit shows us new things through what the Church calls the signs of the times. Discerning the signs of the times allows us to make sense of change……In every age people experience “hunger and thirst for righteousness”, a cry that goes up from the margins of society. If we discern in such a yearning a movement of God’s Spirit, it allows us to open up to that movement in thought and action, and so to create a new future ……allowing us to respond with the depth that only the Holy Spirit can give us.’ (#57)

Reflecting, we considered the current ‘signs of the times’: war in Ukraine, increasing poverty amid the cost of living crisis, climate change and, more hopefully, the way communities had come together during the pandemic. But the cry of the Poor and the cry of the Earth were the dominant themes. How are we to respond to problems of this magnitude?

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