Meeting 2. - Fight for value¶
Goal¶
Reflection on what is value and non-value in my life. Discovery that values are simultaneously a call (and a task!) to fight for them. Analysis of this fight, seeing its planes.
Introduction for the animator¶
This meeting opens the second half of the retreat during which we move “from light to life”. Standing before your participants today, you should have in mind the evening prayer where together you are to call out “God make me be someone!”. This is a meeting about awakening desires, hope, faith - it should have such a character. The sheets you have before you are only a clumsy attempt to convey this atmosphere which, I am convinced, you know much about and have in your heart, because you are the one who was called to revive and call others.
Your preparation should consist primarily of prayer during which you will try to see your own path to your value and the values you have in your heart. You must know:
Why am I valuable to my group?
How has my past made me ready for this meeting?
What values do I share with my group that I can strengthen?
What did my meeting look like where someone pulled me up?
Do you believe that these people will change the world?
Prepare:
A large sheet of paper (A1/A0 welcome)
Prayer¶
The key seems to be openness - to speaking as it is, not as I would like it to be. Openness must be preceded by courage. Let these two spaces be in the foreground. In older groups, I propose to include in prayer the younger groups of these retreats and the evening prayer - let’s teach responsibility… and fighting.
Introduction to the meeting¶
Today’s Tent of Meeting was about Mary and Martha. Let’s start by sharing this prayer.
Is this passage close to me? Why?
What am I anxious about?
Do I have to decide between “parts” in my life?
My values¶
On the retreat, we don’t just want to talk about values, we don’t want to analyze them, break them down into parts and look at them. We want to relate all this to ourselves. The Church understands this nature of ours well, so let us be led by the words of the Pope.
Each of you, young friends, also finds in life some Westerplatte of your own, some dimension of tasks that must be undertaken and fulfilled, some just cause for which one cannot but fight, some duty, obligation from which one cannot shrink, cannot desert. Finally, some order of truths and values that must be maintained and defended, like this Westerplatte. Maintained and defended, in oneself and around oneself, defended for oneself and for others.
—John Paul II, Gdańsk, June 12, 1987.
What is my Westerplatte? What am I ready to fight for?
Do I participate in any fight? What kind? Can I name it and show where it is?
What price do I pay for them? Does anyone fight for these values with me?
This call is important - “one cannot but fight, one cannot shrink”. Let’s try to answer it as best we can - for now in the forum of this small group. (Participants open notebooks at the end where there is space for their own notes). Let’s try to write down the completed following sentence there:
Note
You can of course use your own words while maintaining the meaning. This task must necessarily take place in freedom. If someone feels rebellion against it - good! Let them share the reason with the group. It is important to confront this.
For me [name] [surname] one of the most important values are……… therefore I want to fight for them and not shrink from this for myself and others.
When participants finish writing, let’s ask:
Was it difficult for you to complete this task?
What was the most difficult part of it?
At the end, everyone from the group reads what they wrote (although it would be better if they spoke from memory at this moment).
Why did you finish this sentence in such a way?
How do you feel speaking such words?
Where do you get the courage to speak such words?
“As long as I have strength, I will go! I will run! I will not give up!”¶
Note
Fragment of “Life is a wandering of man” by Edward Stachura
We are here on earth for some reason. We have free will thanks to which we decide what we engage in. The first step to achieving something in life is to set it as a goal for oneself. Is this not too proud thinking? Maybe we shouldn’t step out of line and wait until someone asks us or allows us?
Let’s read:
Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
—2 Tim 2:3
St. Paul encourages active participation in difficulties. A soldier is ready for action. He waits for orders and at any moment must reckon with the fact that he may be needed. He does not run away from what is difficult, but is ready for it.
Do I do that?
Are difficulties and adversities inscribed in the goal for me?
How do I react to this? How do I feel about it?
Am I a person who fights for value? Am I a warrior?
Because although it is unpopular to talk about this with young people - think about what will be in 50-70 years. Think about the situation that you will be parting with what is here on earth. This perspective (eschatological) is crucial for talking about values. What will be important then? What will matter then? What would you like to be able to say about your life then?
Let’s read:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
—2 Tim 4:7
What kind of man is St. Paul? How does he summarize his life?
How far have I advanced in my “race” to this state?
What race are you running in? What are you fighting for?
What do you want to say with your life, what do you want to leave to others?
Is there determination in you for a beautiful life?
Note
This is the place for the animator’s testimony. Testimony of a man who no longer so much seeks as loves. Who no longer so much dreams as realizes. A fulfilled man because he found some meaning in his life. Testimony of a man whose heart is already calm because he found God. A man who, although he found, still has a heart full of fervor because he sees how much there is to do, and so little time… A man whose “race and goal” to a large extent sits now before him around the candle and who knows why he is here for them. Your formation prepared you for this - May God lead you!
Fight for intensity (for the taste of salt)¶
We are threatened with the loss of intensity, aroma, smell, taste. This is how the non-value we talked about in the morning works - it dilutes. Intuitively we feel rebellion against such a thing, especially when it concerns a value crucial for us. We feel like shouting:
If you love, love poetically!
If you forgive, do it so as never to bring it up again!
If you talk, do it seeking depth!
Because there are things in life where we do not want to agree to something false, incomplete…
The animator pulls out a large sheet of paper on which we will write down these “postulates” what we need to fight for now. He asks questions while writing down:
What is particularly threatened nowadays that someone must fight for?
What fight is needed for you so that someone in your environment undertakes it? (e.g., friends, family, loved ones, community)
Note
By the end of these questions we should have a common list of values that demand an answer
At the end, each participant chooses one from the common list that seems “especially theirs” and marks it.
How do you currently fight for this value?
Have you tried fighting with Jesus?
Fight for my value¶
“Everything I do must be for others because otherwise I am an egocentric” is a conviction of many a pious Catholic. It is hard for us to admit the thought that something can be specially for me and to me. You cannot fight for value around if you do not know how to fight for it in yourself.
Let’s read:
But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
—Is 43:1-7
Can you relate these words to yourself? How?
Do you feel like someone valuable? (this question should basically be asked on Friday, but discern if it is not worth repeating it in the context of this passage)
Do you know that going to another person you can gift them with yourself? Where do you draw this conviction from?
What is your value that someone else is waiting for?
Each of us carries value within - we are carriers of values. None of us received everything directly - that is why we need each other. What I have in me may be needed by a brother and sister next to me. I must be aware of this - of this ability and gifting of mine, to be able to consciously serve with it.
Warning
This is quite a key place of the retreat. It cannot be enclosed in formal frames. The question whether I feel valuable, whether I see my value opens such a multitude of possible scenarios that we can only mark here to be a watchful observer and to have a lot of love in oneself.
Let’s read:
So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
—Jn 4:5-26
Did the Samaritan woman have a wonderful past behind her?
How did Jesus approach her? What was He aiming at?
Jesus from the very beginning gives her value - He aims for her to straighten her head and look boldly ahead (she was rejected by the community - it was the time she went to draw water is the time of the greatest sun - then no one goes to the well - she does it to avoid human gaze of contempt). He does not remove and does not forget about her past, but shows that despite knowing her past, He still reveals the secrets of faith to her and conducts a “deep” conversation.
Has anyone given me value? Who?
What values, which were given to me, do I carry within me?
Do I have an experience of someone fighting for my value? Someone who saw in me something I didn’t see myself and tried to pull it out so that I could see it?
Do I have an experience of trying to fight for my own value alone? Why is another person so important in the fight for our value?
By ourselves, entering into the depths of our person, we are not able to find our value. Another person is needed. Value is gained in a meeting, in dialogue!
“Rebuild the walls of Jerusalem!”¶
Note
This part of the meeting is directly related to the evening prayer and constitutes an introduction to it [the continuation will be the evening vigil]
Let’s read:
Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem.
—Ps 51:18
How is this possible?! Why must the chosen Israel, precious in the eyes of the Lord (passage from Isaiah), shout such things? Well, it must… Where we talk about fighting, sometimes walls get destroyed. Destroyed walls are not a drama… the drama is their ruins not rebuilt for years.
Have I ever lost a value? What did I do then?
What needs to be “rebuilt” in me? What would I literally like to “strengthen”?
What to do so that thanks to today’s prayer tomorrow we will be more beautiful?
Application¶
Write down up to three values bleeding in me, which today at the evening prayer I will give to God, saying “You make all things new, rebuild the walls of Jerusalem!”. In older groups additionally intercessory prayer for oneself + the whole community and the person leading the evening vigil.