Lent 2016: Pray - Study - Act
In This Issue
PRAY: We are one with YOU, by Thomas Merton
STUDY: Reflection for the Second Sunday of Lent
ACT: Plan a Good Friday Way of the Cross
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Second Week of Lent, February 21-27, 2016
  
 
cross In the "Action" section of this PSA e-bulletin, you'll find a link to resources for planning a Way of the Cross action or prayer service in your community. This is one of the most significant actions that local Pax Christi USA chapters take each year. It is a powerful public reminder of how what we commemorate during Lent and through Holy Week is intimately tied up to the suffering of our sisters and brothers in our world today. If you have not planned one of these before, I hope you'll consider doing it this year. It needn't be a large, complicated service; scale it to the resources you have at your disposal. And if you can't plan one together with a group, your church or some friends, check out our website in the weeks to come to see if one is being planned near you. 
   This is the second of our Pray-Study-Act e-bulletins for Lent. You're receiving it today, a few days before the Second Week of Lent starts, so that you may have the opportunity to incorporate these resources into your Lenten practice for yourself, your family, small faith community, religious congregation, school and church. We have set up a special Lent 2016 webpage with more resources which we hope will deepen the experience of Lent for you.  These e-bulletins, as well as reflections for each Sunday and Holy Day, will be archived alongside additional resources on our Lent 2016 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
 PRAY: We are one with You
By Thomas Merton, from his "Asian Journal"
 
Oh God, we are one with You. You have made us one with You. You have taught us that if we are open to one another, You dwell in us. Help us to preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our hearts. Help us to realize that there can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection. Oh God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully, completely, we accept You, and we thank You, and we adore You, and we love You with our whole being, because our being is in Your being, our spirit is rooted in Your spirit. Fill us then with love, and let us be bound together with love as we go our diverse ways, united in this one Spirit which makes You present in the world, and which makes You witness to the ultimate reality that is love. Love has overcome. Love is victorious. Amen.
STUDY: 
Reflection for the Second Sunday of Lent
By Cathleen Crayton, Pax Christi USA Ambassador of Peace

 
Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers & sisters, and observe those who thus conduct themselves according to the model you have in us. (Phil 3:17)

When I was in my twenties, I had a priest mentor who underscored that faith comes in and through our relationships with others. This truth of my priest friend always resonated with me because I have not had the experience of an epiphany of the transfiguration, nor a face-to-face encounter with Jesus in his earthly form. My faith comes from engagement with people of faith who are of this world - brothers and sisters who, in spite of the challenges they have endured or the triumphs they have celebrated, live joyfully and faithfully, never caving into despair or presumption. Following the example of St. Paul, they always give thanks and praise to God for everything.
    As I get older and old age becomes less of an abstraction, I reflect on my own accomplishments and failures... 

ACT: Plan a Good Friday Way of the Cross
Traditionally, many Pax Christi USA local groups plan and stage a "Way of the Cross" event on Good Friday, connecting the sufferings of Christ during his passion with the suffering of our brothers and sisters at the hands of violence, greed, poverty, sickness, racism and war. Last year, over 25 Pax Christi groups hosted these events in their communities. On the website, we have posted numerous resources for groups interested in undertaking a Way of the Cross in their community on Good Friday. The guides featured on the site can be used as-is or function as a template for you to plan your own action and witness. 
 
 
Also please let us know if you have a Way of the Cross planned in your community. We will list on the website the names of groups, with contact information, which will be staging a Way of the Cross this year. Please send your information to me at [email protected].