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Fourth Week of Advent/Christmas Week, Dec. 21-27
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 As we come to the end of the Advent season, I want to thank so many of you for sharing this journey with us over the past few weeks. I hope that these Pray-Study-Act e-bulletins and the various reflections for Sundays and Holy Days throughout Advent have given you, your families, your local groups and church communities a variety of opportunities to engage the season in a meaningful way. We'll continue to send reflections throughout the early part of the Christmas season on through Epiphany and include a special PSA for the new year. Remember that if you want to review any of the resources we have sent out, you can see the Advent resource page where everything is archived. I'd also like to appeal to you to consider giving an extra gift to Pax Christi USA before the end of the year. You can read our Advent-Christmas appeal by clicking here and give securely online or send in a check. We are so grateful for the support that our members and friends offer and hope you'll think of us as the year comes to a close. Many thanks for all you do to bring about the "peace of Christ" in our broken, hurting world. We hope you have a peaceful, joyful Christmas.
In peace,
Johnny Zokovitch
Director of Communications, Pax Christi USA
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| PRAY: Dec. 21, Fourth Sunday of Advent | |
By Rev. Joseph Nangle, ofm
2 Sam 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16 | Rom 16:25-27 | Lk 1:26-38
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus ... God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his reign there will be no end. (Lk 1:31-33)
The Annunciation story in today's Gospel reminds us again of God's preferential option for the poor. An obscure village in an occupied country - far from the centers of 1st Century Roman imperialism - and a young unmarried woman provide the setting and the principal actor for the greatest event in human history. Liberation will come not from the great and powerful ones of the earth but through a poor Jewish girl and her Son whose "reign will have no end".
So it is twenty centuries later that people of the Gospel and many others of great good will cling to this same vision: economic and racial justice must finally emerge from "below", from the "little ones", in particular, from those whose rights are denied. And if the privileged of the world wish to join the struggle for equality and the right order of things, we shall necessarily have to place ourselves on the side of those who strive to overcome the oppressions which enslave them....
To read the rest of this reflection, click here.
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STUDY: This country needs a truth and reconciliation process on violence against African Americans, right now
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by Fania Davis, YES! Magazine
I am among the millions who have experienced the shock, grief, and fury of losing someone to racial violence.
When I was 15, two close friends were killed in the Birmingham Sunday School bombing carried out by white supremacists trying to terrorize the rising civil rights movement. Only six years later, my husband was shot and nearly killed by police who broke into our home, all because of our activism at the time, especially in support of the Black Panthers.
As a civil rights trial lawyer, I've spent much of my professional life protecting people from racial discrimination. In my early twenties, I devoted myself to organizing an international movement to defend my sister, Angela Davis, from politically motivated capital murder charges aimed at silencing her calls for racial and social justice. Early childhood experiences in the South set me on a quest for social transformation, and I've been a community organizer ever since, from the civil rights to the black power, women's, anti-racial violence, peace, anti-apartheid, anti-imperialist, economic justice, political prisoner movements, and others....
To read this entire article, click here.
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ACT: Give gifts of peace for little ones this Christmas; and invite your family to reflect on poverty this January
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1. from Little Friends for Peace
Purchase peaceful presents! Give the gift of peace this holiday season with Peace Train magnets and posters, LFFP apparel, and our publications. Click here to see what LFFP has to offer.
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2. from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development
During Poverty Awareness Month this January, join the U.S. Bishops, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and the Catholic community in the United States in taking up Pope Francis' challenge to live in solidarity with the poor. The printable calendar (link below, also in Spanish) is perfect to hang on a wall or door and provides food for prayer and action for each day of the month. Invite your family or roommates to join you in reflecting and acting on poverty during January.
Click here for the printable calendar.
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