|
First Week of Advent, Nov. 30-Dec. 6
|
|
 "We have started our journey with a guide in our very being. God hums us at every moment. We just need eyes to see and ears to hear. We can't shy away from decisions we face or the work to be done and simply wait for God to come. God is already here. Through our wanderings, our questions, our encounters with beauty and with pain, the God within us is revealed. Advent is waking up to God in our midst. It is in the wandering that our eyes are open to the deeper truth. So let us not sleep through Advent. Let us wander with our eyes open, ready for adventure."
As we do each year, we'll be sending out reflections and resources which we hope will help you and your community to pray, study and act for peace with justice this Advent season. We'll send an Advent Pray-Study-Act (PSA) e-bulletin each week through New Year's highlighting some of these resources for your to use for the upcoming week. For additional Advent resources, we hope you'll visit our Advent resource page on the website. We'll be adding more to the page each week throughout the season. If you have something you think others would be interested in, send it my way and I will try to include as many as I can! In peace,
Johnny Zokovitch
Director of Communications, Pax Christi USA
|
| PRAY: Nov. 30, First Sunday of Advent | |
By Simone Campbell, S.S.S.
Is 63:16b-17, 19b, 64:2-7 | 1 Cor 1:3-9 | Mk 13:33-37
Why do you let us wander, O God? (Is 63:17)
As we begin this season of Advent, of waiting and preparing, it seems comforting to think of God as the potter, and we, the clay. If we could just relax, and maybe just sit quietly, and stay still long enough, we could be shaped into exactly what God intended. Ready as a sturdy pinch pot to live the awareness of incarnation! But like Isaiah, I wish that knowing God in our midst just took a little silent reflection time. Hearing this lament - "Why do you let us wander, O God?" - I must smile because I know my hunger for God, yet how willful I am to do it MY way....
To read the rest of this reflection from Waking Up to God in Our Midst: Reflections for Advent 2014, click here.
|
|
STUDY: Waking Up to God in Our Midst
| |
For this year's Advent reflection booklet, we asked the authors to reflect on this Advent season's readings and to share from their perspective and experiences, focusing on Pax Christi USA's Economic and Interracial Justice priority. We asked them to share their hope and their wisdom for the journey.
The authors of this year's reflection booklet are Simone Campbell, S.S.S., Executive Director of NETWORK; Shannen Dee Williams, author of "Black Nuns and the Struggle to Desegregate Catholic America After World War I"; Adrienne Alexander, former Pax Christi USA National Council member and Policy and Legislative Specialist for AFSCME Council 31 in Illinois; and Rev. Joseph Nangle, ofm, Pax Christi USA Ambassador of Peace.
The booklet is an excellent resource for individuals, families or small groups, as well as an introduction to Pax Christi USA's work and mission for someone new. There are reflections on each day's scriptural readings throughout the season.
NOTE: We are nearly sold out of the hard copies of the booklet but still have the electronic version available for immediate download so you don't miss a single day of Advent.
|
|
ACT: Three things you can do in response to the grand jury decision in Ferguson
| |
from Interfaith Worker Justice
With saddened and outraged hearts, we join the nation in mourning the denial of justice for Michael Brown. The grand jury's failure to acknowledge the abuse of power that took an innocent life is a serious affront to our values, to justice and to our democracy.
As people of faith, we have a moral obligation to stand up for a society that values and protects the inherent human dignity in ALL of us. We pray for strength drawn from our indignation so we might stand up and organize in our workplaces for a fair economy, in our neighborhoods to build a just democracy, and in our communities to build a society that values all of God's people.
Earlier, the Workers Center for Racial Justice in Chicago joined the Black Youth Project at a rally in City Hall reminding Government officials that black lives matter.
Today, we must take action and lift up this crucial struggle for justice.
Click here for three things you can do.
|
|
