The First Revolution Is Internal
I had the honor of sharing my thoughts on solidarity during the Catholic Volunteer Network’s 2025 conference. The audience was very familiar with the Catholic Social Teaching principle of solidarity. It is more than just a nice feeling between individuals. It means “recognizing the responsibilities we have to each other, and taking an active role in helping others attain their full potential“.
My Talk
I’ve sat at too many tables where the voices of those most impacted were silenced—by politeness, privilege, or even good intentions.” It’s been said that your seat at the table is only as good as those you get to share the table with, and whatever you think you bring to the table, it pales in comparison.
We say we want justice. We say we believe in solidarity. But the truth is—solidarity doesn’t begin with external action. It begins with transformation. Justice biblically means right relationship…but are we in right relationship with ourselves and God first? And the first revolution—the one that matters most—is internal.
I’ve worked with young people longing to make a difference and immigrant women dismissed by systems that never expected them to lead. And I’ve seen this truth again and again: If everyone isn’t at the table with voice and agency, it’s not transformation—it’s theater.
See, Catholic social teaching is not just about charity—it’s about kinship. It tells us that solidarity isn’t just sentiment. It’s what Pope John Paul II called a “firm and persevering determination” to commit to the common good. But that determination? It has to be cultivated. It doesn’t come from a service trip. It comes from dying to the ego. To control. To comfort.
Yes, in service, seeds of love and charity are planted, but that solidarity requires watering those seeds with humility, openness, owning our stories, and the embrace of the tension that comes from truly caring for those around us.
Furthermore, real solidarity requires that I confront and wrestle with the ways I’ve been shaped by the very systems I claim to resist.
I grew up with the lie that peacemaking means avoiding conflict. Now I know peacemaking means stepping into the discomfort of truth. It means learning how to be led. It means I don’t always get the mic.
As an organizer, I’ve had many unforgettable moments. A woman I had met as a timid immigrant parent had blossomed into a fierce leader of a group of immigrant women who not only lead actions but also demand respect and fear in the hearts of property managers and county council members. That power was not mine. Not the staff. It was Adamma.
As a youth minister, this year, my HS religious education class focused on leadership development. One lesson they struggled with was seeing their gifts. Not their output, but the inherited skills and talents entrusted to them by God. After their set of relational meetings during our last class, they all agreed this class had allowed them a space to be seen in ways their parents couldn’t. Will they all be the next great theologians? No but they learned a better theology—solidarity in action requires first that internal work. They need to, as Sister Thea Bowman said, “bring their whole selves”.
That’s solidarity.
Not me leading on their behalf, but me becoming someone who believes they already have everything they need to lead, and in the case of the youth, allowing space for the Holy Spirit to do her thing.
It’s about shared power. It’s about a deep relationship, becoming co-conspirators. It’s about trust. It’s about affirming that you desire to see them as God sees them.
And that’s hard work. It’s slower. It’s messier. It doesn’t make you look good on Instagram. But it’s holy. It’s what Jesus did.
Philippians tells us He “emptied himself.”
He didn’t cling to status. He got proximate. He washed feet. He shared tables and told stories, and flipped other ones over.
So what does that mean for us?
Have you let God rearrange you?
It means the real movement isn’t just from service to solidarity. It’s from self to kinship. From control to communion. From “I’ll help you” to “we belong to each other.” This conference says, “A Moment for Movement.” And I believe that. But if we want to build a world that reflects God’s justice, we cannot skip the internal revolution.
So I’m asking you—before you rush to act, to fix, to lead—have you let God rearrange you?
Have you listened deeply enough to be changed?
Have you created space for others to lead you?
Because we don’t need more programs.
We need more people willing to become who this moment requires.
This is our moment.
But don’t look outward first. Look inward and ask yourself, who are you becoming for the sake of the world we long for? Let the first revolution be the one that changes you.
Then—and only then—can we rise together in radical, relentless, sacred solidarity.