Together we can row through any storm

Together we can row through any storm. This was one of my hopeful take-aways as I participated in the recent gathering of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the U.S. (ACHTUS). Theologians, student scholars, and several community partners gathered in Portland to celebrate 40 years of Hispanic/Latine theology and scholarship to accompany those on the margins. This year’s theme was “El Reino de Dios: Celebration, Interrogation, and Imagination.”

During the June 8-11 colloquium we were continually praying for our vulnerable immigrant siblings who were being targeted by immigration raids in Los Angeles bent on separating families and deporting people without due process. As the military was deployed and tensions escalated, Los Angeles religious leaders sought to organize communities to respond through protests that were peaceful and powerful.

At ACHTUS, I was invited to present the work of Discerning Deacons and to reflect on my experiences of how U.S. Latinas are renewing a prophetic diaconate by animating the diakonia (service) of our local parishes and bringing the voices of the marginalized to the community’s Eucharistic table. As I reflected on a dozen years of ministry at Dolores Mission in East Los Angeles, I am indebted to several Hispanic/Latine theological concepts that guide parish ministry. I’m eager to briefly share a few of those with you.

Lo cotidiano was coined by the late Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz as a way of naming how the divine permeates our daily lives. God is present in our luchas (struggles) as well as our fiestas (celebrations). Popular religious devotions (like the novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Advent Posadas, Lenten Via Crucis) help us to make time and give voice to both lucha and fiesta. To accompany one another means to encounter la realidad (the reality) of people’s lives, particularly the poor and the marginalized whom Jesus invites us to love with courage.

Long before the global Synod on Synodality, Hispanic/Latino parishes were developing models of pastoral de conjunto and teologia en conjunto—approaches that emphasize collaborative ministry and kinship. These models embrace a theology that draws on the giftedness of laity, clergy, and religious, while also honoring the wisdom of the People of God who give voice to both their dreams and their suffering.

Growing up in my childhood Cuban-American home, I fell in love listening to my grandfather talk about the yearning of many for el reino de Dios – Jesus’ dream for humanity that we create a world in which all can flourish. El reino de Dios includes caring for Creation and giving thanks for the abundance of life on our planet which God has entrusted to our care. Today, the very idea of el reino de Dios is being contested as numerous armed conflicts and economic systems that produce growing inequality seek to discourage and paralyze people of faith from defending God’s dream for us.

The ACHTUS colloquium began with a session on memoria histórica during which several founders shared stories of how a new field of theological scholarship emerged. We heard from luminaries Fr. Arturo Bañuelos, Fr. Allan Figueroa Deck, SJ, Roberto Goizueta and Ana Maria Pineda, RSM. During the closing banquet, Nancy Pineda-Madrid received the Virgilio Elizondo Award for her decades of contribution to Hispanic/Latine theology.

Hispanic/Latine theology is a gift to the broader U.S. Church. “We do theology for reasons that are life and death for our people,” said ACHTUS President Cecilia Gonzalez-Andrieu (also a DD Advisor) during her address. She lifted up the image of The Storm by the late Mexican-American artist John August Swanson.

I invite you to reflect on this image. While storms are scary and they require us to face our own fragility, I see in this image the beauty that is nevertheless present in storms – in our coming together to row through storms and protect our sacred families, in our steadfast belief in a better future, and in the colorful winds, which, even through turbulence, help guide and sustain our deepest yearnings for peace and flourishing.