This month marks nearly the exact halfway mark for the Just Word project. Over the past year-and-a-half we have slowly and carefully curated a group of authors, artists, theologians, community workers, parents, church-goers, people of different faiths, Catholics, post-Catholics, ex-Catholics, Catholic-adjacents, but a group of people all tied together by a singular vision for a liberative future. We see this vision of life marked in the first reading today, a reading worthy of reflection and taking a second to see what the past year-and-a-half of the Just Word has brought us. The Just Word has touched on many justice movements and moments. It has addressed the places in which the Catholic Church has completely left a void. It has taken the Church to task for its violent history of colonialism, racism, misogyny, queerphobia, siding with the capitalists, and more. Perhaps we could do even more calling to task. But our authors and this vision of life does not just wish to take to task the powers that be. The Just Word and its authors have explored the crevices of the Church where there are communities of people moved by the story of Jesus, by the stories of some of the saints, and by other devotions to the Church that have been teaching this gospel of life and liberation. It is in these cracks that the Just Word finds its voices. Through the communities of liberation theology, of queer Catholics, of the violently oppressed and colonized, these communities bring the story of Jesus to 2024 and scream out its truth. These communities’ and these authors’ courage come from the background of the Church, breaking through its more-often-than-not repressive message, freeing the liberating, 2,000 year-old message from centuries of misuse and oppression.

The line from 2 Corinthians in the second reading today perhaps demonstrates this horizon of the Just Word: “Just as you are rich in every respect, in faith and discourse, in knowledge, in total concern and in the love we inspired in you, you may also abound in this work of grace” (2 Cor 8:7). That line could sit with you for a second, “in the love we inspired in you.” When we reflect back through the year-and-a-half of people and communities highlighted, through the year- and-a-half of calls for disability justice, gender justice, racial justice, and more, we begin to wonder how this inspiration and call to love of the Just Word is connected to Paul’s foundation of inspiration he is calling on the Corinthians to recognize and work within. And ultimately, for Paul, it is a love that is working in the context of trying to keep communities like the Corinthians alive while under Roman occupation. 

I am intrigued and drawn to this phrase: “in the love we inspired in you.” The Just Word and Paul have the story of Jesus in common. In the gospels, Jesus refuses to become complacent. Jesus insists on consistently being moved by those around him. While we tend to view God as immovable and certain, Jesus often proves himself to be mightily affectable. And Paul is hinting here, too, that we are called to do the same, and in the Just Word, writers have called us to do the same in our own context, living in American Empire. 

This message rings out from today’s Gospel readings as well. As Jesus performs healings, we do not need to interpret these stories in ways that give false hope, or take agency from people with disabilities or disease – we can understand them as examples, metaphorical or otherwise, of Jesus’s mission and message being one with the power to heal people from the wounds that the Roman Empire has unjustly inflicted on them. What Jesus and Paul are offering is a way of living together in solidarity and communality, to oppose the Empire, to protect and shield one another from it. So, too, have our authors presented a way forward for us all.

To come full circle, the first reading talks of “life.” After all, today we are taking a second to reflect on a year-and-a-half of “The Just Word: a liberative and life-giving project.” We are called to be alive in this love. Perhaps this is also the throughline of liberative Catholicism and Christianity, this demand to get at the deepest heart and deepest joy of loving the other. Of recognizing the other and responding in such a deep way, as Jesus did countless times throughout the gospel; sometimes responding with an immense care and other times with an immense condemnation. The Just Word in so many ways was started by and for people who have felt and been othered by the Catholic Church. It was also started by and for people who felt the Catholic Church’s recognition of the oppressed of the world is lacking, and leading us to have to look to other sources rather than the Church to learn how to be in deep solidarity with other people. 

In The Just Word, an alternative vision has arisen in a community of people who wish to be challenged and to explore the depths of the love they feel in other people, in their spiritual life, and by chance in the story of Jesus. We hope the Just Word has been a challenge, and that it continues to be a challenge. Because after all, that is what the Church, when it insists on siding with American colonialism and bigoted morality, creates. Indeed, we have a challenge ahead, a challenge to organize around, a challenge to demilitarize, to decolonize, to house everyone, to feed everyone, to care for each other, and a challenge to never trust that we have reached the bottom of loving. Be moved by those around you, their pains and their joys, and the joys and pains inside you, and bask in the great challenging pleasure it is to get to love.

By Ben Stegbauer with help from Tess GC

A couple of days after that children’s event at the gazebo there was another event where people were invited to write letters to children in Gaza. Someone shared a poem they wrote, and others shared the letters they wrote. For context, at the gazebo event there was some dancing displayed and some informational signs about the Palestinian line dance called Dakbeh. Here’s one of the letters one of the people wrote, shared anonymously and with permission.

Hello, I am sorry for everything that has been happening to you. This past weekend me and my daughter learned a dance that you and your family and your people do. It looked so beautiful. I have seen some of the videos of this dance online. But I bet you could teach me and my daughter the dance better than anyone else. I hope one day you could teach me. Maybe that dream could become a reality. And the walls and the fences would come down and you and your family and your people would be free! And all of the homes would be rebuilt, and you would plant back a million Olive trees out of your love. And all of the Israeli prisons would be turned to schools and gardens. And we here, in America, we stopped building any weapons at all. And all of the factories made medical equipment we gave out for free. And the world started to cool down. And it snowed here again. And my daughter made a snowman. Maybe one day we can get together. And you can teach us to dance, and my daughter can teach you how to make a snowman. Maybe one day soon.

By Ben Stegbauer

Today’s reflections have been all about community. Since the beginning of the pandemic,  many people have been noticing that they have less and less community, particularly in person. That trend started long before 2020, but it seems to have become a defining question of the 2020s – what does community mean, where do we find it, and where has it gone for so many people? 

While we don’t have hard and fast answers for all of these questions, it does seem like many of the people I know are finding real, deep community in caring for each other. I’ve seen this look like book discussions at the local bookstore about what’s going on in the world right now; providing meals to unhoused neighbors; tenants’ unions; and more. The kind of community that is built by braving into the realities around us, not burying our heads in the sand, seems to produce a tighter community of people who can really be there for each other in times of need. 

Becoming part of these kinds of community building groups isn’t just for the young. They desperately need people of all ages and all experiences to make robust community. Just looking back through past Just Word entries shows so many examples of community building people and groups, and if you’re wondering about community, these might be a great place to start.

By Tess GC