The Center for Faith, Action and Ministry (CFAM) will offer a “Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor” immersion experience from March 9-15. During this ”Spes Service Experience”, students will travel to New York to “learn about care for our common home, environmental justice, advocacy for sustainable systems and eco-spirituality,” as mentioned in a school-wide email to Saint Mary’s students. According to a promotional flyer at SMC, “Spes mean hope! Spes is a travel-based experiential program, where students learn about a justice issue from people directly affected.”
Assistant director for justice and solidarity Sarah Neitz spoke on the inspiration behind the title of the immersion experience and how it connects to the need to care for the planet.
“‘Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor’ comes from Pope Francis's letter called ‘Laudato Si.’ It's a letter that is addressed to all people, not just to Catholics, and it brings care for creation squarely into Catholic social teaching and calls for all people to care for the earth,” Neitz said.
Additionally, CFAM will collaborate with the Center at Mariandale in New York, a spiritual retreat center that focuses on love for the Earth, to further their efforts of sustainability and environmental justice.
“Sometimes, it can be tough to find good sustainability centered emergence, so it was really cool to talk with the Center at Mariandale and hear that this is something that they do, and we're excited to partner with them,” Neitz said.
According to Neitz, student leaders are a huge part of facilitating students' learning experience through group settings and conversations that encourage reflections and open conversations.
“Service student leaders really take over during the immersion part of the trip. There's three parts of a Spes experience: preparation, immersion and integration, and our student leaders prepare and lead reflections during the immersion experience. There's usually very full days on these experiences, and every night, the whole group comes together to be able to reflect on the experience,” Neitz explained.
This provides experience attendees a chance to not only understand their experience throughout the day but also, as Neitz said, “What does this mean for me in the context of a trusted group?” According to Neitz, student leaders also take part in risk assessment and management throughout the trip, considering how to reduce it as well.
As a student a part of a previous “Racial Justice Journey” Spes experience, senior Thalia Mora described what the preparation and integration meetings were like prior to her trip to Saint Louis.
“We had more than five meetings beforehand, prepping for Saint Louis. We would read a lot about different social activists, articles and readings from people of color and activists who are working towards racial justice and their experience advocating for that, especially in Saint Louis. We talked about the different things we're going to go do and our role in the immersion experience,” Mora said.
During the preparation period prior to the trip, students will also explore the meaning of Spes values: community, simplicity, spirituality, solidarity and justice, through resources to read and challenges.
“We begin talking about the values during preparation, which gives everyone a chance to be able to kind of explore what this means for them before they ever go on the immersion trip. We do that pretty intentionally,” Neitz said.
Junior Caitlin Price, a Spes service leader for “Seeking Justice in Chicago,” described her role as a leader to be a facilitator that guides students through tough conversations.
“One of the biggest things that I'll be expected to do as a leader is to lead our group reflections. And that typically happens at night, after we've spent the day talking with multiple people and seeing different kinds of situations. What the facilitator does is just ask questions and make the group feel comfortable in answering those questions. Obviously, the subject matter that we're dealing with can be a bit uncomfortable, and it's hard to talk about, but those uncomfortable conversations are how we grow as people,” Price said.
Another Spes leader for the “Seeking Justice in Chicago” experience, senior Evelyn Weaver, shared how she is looking forward to hearing students reflect on their day-to-day experience with social justice issues.
“Through this experience, I wanted to see what people's reflections are as they go through this process and see what people's observations are as they're looking at populations and seeing what those around them are struggling with,” Weaver said.
During the “Racial Justice Journey” Spes experience in Saint Louis, one of Mora’s favorite experiences was hearing underrepresented populations talk about their experiences in connection with racial justice.
“We went to Saint Louis University and met with some Black student leaders to talk about their experience, which I think was probably my favorite part to hear about their experience as students of color in a Catholic institution. Along with seeing how their experience is further shaping the racial justice journey within Saint Louis and how it reflects a lot of people of color's and students of color's journey through higher education was really cool and really empowering,” Mora said.
Neitz hopes, through this “Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor” Spes experience, everyone will have a chance to develop their own ability in identifying climate crises and environmental challenges, along with being able to find hope throughout the journey.
“We call these Spes experiences because Spes means hope, and it's a big part of the Holy Cross tradition to grow people of hope, and that in the face of justice and environmental degradation, our students are people who find hope in action,” Neitz said.
Student leaders also believe Spes experiences offer worthwhile exposure to specific topics.
“I think it's great for people to put themselves in different situations. I feel like a lot of times we get comfortable with our little Saint Mary's bubble, and it's good to pop that, to step outside and see what's around the corner,” Weaver said.
