"The greatest asset on the journey of the pilgrim people of God is the ability to travel light. Abraham and Sarah had it, putting their lands and their wealth behind them; the prophets had it; Jesus and the disciples had it, being instructed to take only what was needed for a single day; Francis and his followers had it, and most third world Christians have it. I think it is evil to justify the lack of possessions of others, who have not chosen that way but had it imposed on them. However, if the decision to travel light is voluntarily assumed, as it has been by all of you [the Twelfth General Chapter of the Sisters of Mercy], then it can be not only a grace but an empowerment. So I urge you, nay, I exhort you, to make the best possible use of your mobility — spiritual, physical, psychic — and claim it as an asset rather than as the price you have to pay for being a sister. A phrase from one of the New Delhi documents of the World Council of Churches strikes the right note: Christians are those who are 'glad to dwell in the tent of perpetual adaptation.'
That base of traveling light frees you to be radical, in the true meaning of the word, getting to the radix, the root, of things — not just alleviating the present reality of poverty, but exploring the root causes of why there are poor people, which, as we have seen, has to do not only with sinful human hearts but with sinful human structures as well. In such a world, this is not a time for halfway measures, for making peace with the world, for accommodation to principalities and powers, who would like nothing better than to have religious folks, by staying on the sidelines or remaining quiet, give their tacit approval to the monstrous things that are being done every day in our name.
In Thoreau's image, you — and I — are called to march to the beat of a different drummer; your constitution affirms the theme if not the image. During an interview with those under indictment in the Sanctuary trial in Tucson, Arizona, a reporter asked, 'Who is the real "leader" of the Sanctuary movement?' And it was a Jewish lawyer who replied, 'The leader of the Sanctuary movement, as I have learned from the defendants, will always be one step beyond the jurisdiction of any Federal court.' You know who your leader is, and you know that he is answerable to no court, no curial official, no government, no contemporary fad or way of life. And you know what that means for you and me. It means that we are called upon to be living embodiments of the claim by Cardinal Suhard, archbishop of Paris during World War II, that '[To be a witness] means living in such a way that your life would be inexplicable if God did not exist.' "
