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First Week of Lent, Feb. 17-23, 2013
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Greetings of peace!
 Throughout the season of Lent, we will be providing you with resources to pray, study and act for peace with justice. Lent is a particularly good time of the liturgical year to do outreach to our church communities and beyond, engaging our sisters and brothers in the "peace of Christ" through opportunities for prayer, study and action. Many within our communities will be looking for opportunities to connect their prayer, fasting and almsgiving--traditional practices during the Lenten season--with issues and concerns that affect our world. Pax Christi members and local groups are particularly well-situated to help make those connections and extend invitations. In addition to these weekly PSA (Pray-Study-Act) e-bulletins, we have set up a special webpage with more resources which we hope will deepen the experience of Lent for you, your family, your local group and your larger faith community. The PSAs will typically be sent out on Tuesday or Wednesday of the week prior to the week for which they are designed. These, as well as the weekly reflections from present and past Pax Christi Lenten booklet authors ( like this one from Megan McKenna for Ash Wednesday), will be archived alongside additional resources on our Lent 2013 page. We hope that the peace of Christ dwells deeply in your hearts during this Lenten season.
In peace,
Johnny Zokovitch
Director of Communications, Pax Christi USA
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| PRAY: This is the fast that pleases me... | | |
From the Archdiocese of Chicago (1983)
This is the fast that pleases me:
to break unjust fetters,
to let the oppressed go free,
to share your bread with the hungry
and shelter the homeless poor.
If you do away with the yoke,
the clenched fist, the wicked word,
if you give your bread to the hungry
and relief to the oppressed,
your light will rise in the darkness. (Isaiah 58:6-7, 10)
All praise be yours, God our Creator,
as we wait in joyful hope
for the flowering of justice
and the fullness of peace.
All praise for this day, this season.
By our weekly fasting and prayer
cast out the spirit of war, of fear and mistrust,
and make us grow hungry for human kindness,
thirsty for solidarity with all the people of your dear earth.
May all our prayer, our fasting and our deeds
be done in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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STUDY:
Reflection for the First Sunday of Lent
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By Carroll Stuhlmueller, OP
Deuteronomy 26:4-10 | Romans 10:8-13 | Luke 4:1-13
The second reading this Sunday may have originated in the early church's instruction for Baptism. Baptism was then, as it is now, a moment of birth, widening the circle of the family or the church. Those who were once orphans or estranged are now legitimately at home.
As Paul wrote: "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same God is God of all." Paul has already written an expanded form of this statement in his letter to the Galatians:
All of you who have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:27-28)
The new family life, which we celebrate in Lent, cannot tolerate pride or exclusiveness. "You are all one (family) in Christ Jesus."...
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ACT: Join the Bread is Life Campaign -
Fast for a just peace in Syria this Lent
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from Pax Christi International
Pax Christi International is launching a "bread is life" campaign during Lent 2013 to raise awareness about the suffering of civilian communities in Syria and to express solidarity with those who are trying to survive in Syria and as refugees in surrounding countries.
The Bread is Life campaign was launched on Ash Wednesday and will go through March 31, 2013, to coincide with the Christian observance of Lent. The acute suffering of civilian communities has been made immeasurably worse by a shortage of bread, Syrians' staple food, caused in part by the deliberate bombing of bakeries.
We call on all Pax Christi members and friends worldwide:
- to raise awareness about the plight of the Syrian civilian population, who feel abandoned by the rest of the world;
- to join in a global act of solidarity through prayer and fasting;
- to send the Syrian people messages of support;
- and to advocate for effective humanitarian assistance.
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