Prayer for Peace in the Ukraine

 

For the past week we have been inundated by the news of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.  It has been difficult to watch the gut wrenching views of women guiding their children across the border to Poland leaving their homes and husbands and fathers behind.  Many are staying to fight and defend their homeland.  Watching the reports, I was touched by a man who owned and apartment building with empty apartments.  Apparently, he drove three hours to the border to offer shelter to those in need.  What an incredible show of compassion and the desire to help.  This is only one of many outreaches that have taken place.

Right now, it seems that the one thing we can do is pray for the people of the Ukraine.  May we storm Heaven with prayer so that the hearts of those supporting this invasion will be changed and the violence will end.  Pope Francis has called for a day of prayer and fasting on Ash Wednesday for the people of the Ukraine.  Let us take time to pray fervently along with Pope Francis and the world for an end to this.  May the people of the Ukraine know our support and prayer that they may once again be able to live in peace and harmony.

Prayer for Peace in the Ukraine

O Prince of Peace,

Once more we hear the guns of war,

Once more we see the faces

Of frightened children.

 

We pray for the people of Ukraine,

That they may be granted peace;

We pray for the people of Russia,

That they may demand peace;

We pray for our country,

That we may be a positive part

Of peacemaking in this world.

 

O Prince of Peace,

Lead us from this dark time

To a deeper understanding

Of the global human family,

So all may break bread together

In the secure embrace of peace.  Amen

Jane Deren, Ph.D.

World Day of Social Justice

 

Today we celebrate World Day of Social Justice.  World Day of Social Justice is celebrated on the 20th of February every year since 2009 as promoted by the United Nations Organization (UNO).  The United Nations Organization website states the theme of World Day of Social Justice 2022 as, “Achieving Social Justice through Formal Employment.”  The theme focuses that employment resources and opportunities play the utmost role in reducing poverty and inequality.

Social Justice is an underlying principle for peaceful and prosperous coexistence within a nation and/or among nations.  The principles of Social Justice are upheld to promote gender equality or the rights of indigenous people and migrants. Promoting development and human dignity through Social Justice is the core value of the UN.

World Day of Social Justice is not a public holiday rather a global observance. The leaders at the World Summit agreed that social development means social justice, solidarity, harmony and equality within and among nations. Every country indeed takes social justice, equality, and equity as its fundamental values, but the governments are required to create solid frameworks to achieve “society for all” levels so that social justice will be promoted at local, national, regional, and global levels. Creating equal opportunities for job seekers, allowing equitable distribution of income, and offering greater access to resources via equality and equity became the flagship slogan of the world leaders.

The purpose of the day is to raise your voice against social injustice and to promote social justice throughout the world. The objective of the day is to bring the various communities globally closer and together that can help to eliminate poverty, physical and gender discrimination, racism, religious discrimination, illiteracy, and biases, etc. If societies of the planet become pure from the mentioned curses, only then a diverse global culture can emerge where everyone has equal opportunities, and everyone has acceptance for others.

This day is very much aligned with today’s Gospel.  Jesus is calling us to a deeper level of love. Jesus reminds us that the human heart was made to give. The best way to honor what God has created in us is to learn and to accept, forgive, and love ourselves as much as we forgive and love others.

The Gospel tells us that all the commandments are based on the love of God and the love of neighbor. We are called to love unconditionally as God does. We learn about sharing, forgiving, and loving through the experiences of our families. In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus teaches his disciples and us about how to love everyone even those who are not our family and friends. Jesus says, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  Let us use this day to lift our voices for social justice for all.

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

Jesus stood on a level place where a crowd of his disciples and a large crowd of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coast of Tyre and Sidon were gathered. Raising his eyes toward his disciples, he said, “Blessed are you poor because yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungering now because you will be filled. Blessed are you who are weeping now because you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, exclude you, insult you, and throw out your name as evil because of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for your reward will be great in heaven. This is how people treated the prophets.” – Luke 6.17, 20-22
 
Today's gospel reading is the beginning of what is often called the Sermon on the Plain. We find a parallel to this passage in Matthew 5:1-7,11 which is called the Sermon on the Mount. As these titles suggest, there are differences and similarities between these gospel readings.
 
The world that Jesus envisions redefines poverty and abundance. He invites us to leave the world of abundance and invites us to enter the world of justice, to care for and lift up those who are poor, hungering, and weeping now. Our true inheritance from Jesus is a world in which we gather every person in, where we honor all, and waste no one or nothing.
 
I was on a retreat one summer and the theme of the retreat was the Beatitudes.  I remember that the retreat director kept referring to them as Be-Attitudes – attitudes of being.  It was an interesting idea to spend time reflecting on.  Every time I hear this gospel, I always recall that retreat with great fondness.  In the beatitudes Jesus envisions everyday life transformed. He challenges us to remake our world, to live out the promise of his love through re-thinking how we understand security, comfort, charity, and justice. He challenges us to leave the world of complacency.  In embracing this new life, we need to have hope and trust in God’s strength and abiding love.  We are called to be open to God’s grace and reshape our priorities.
 
Take some time to think about what concrete actions can you do this week to live the Beatitudes as Be-Attitudes – attitudes of being.

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.  He saw two boats there alongside the lake; the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets.  Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.  After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”  Simon said in reply, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.”  When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing.  They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them.  They came and filled both boats so that the boats were in danger of sinking.  When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him and all those with him, and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners of Simon. Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”  When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.  Luke 5: 1-11

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus calls us in faith, to “go into the deep.” This is a challenge for us to broaden our vision in order to see beyond the limits of our horizons to see how God travels with us in the deep and unfamiliar events of our lives.

The Gospel passage tells of the disciples in the boat fishing. They caught nothing. Jesus challenged them to cast their nets further than they usually fish. Despite telling Jesus that they have been fishing all night and that they were tired, they followed Jesus' request and caught more fish than they could handle.

Jesus’ appearances to his disciples were his commitment that he will never abandon them or us. It seems as if at the moment we are ready to give up, Jesus steps in and a miracle takes place. The result is that we are amazed and astonished by what has been done for us.

God is a God of surprises who calls us to put our trust in him in order who see from a different perspective God’s love and mercy in our lives. Jesus comes to us at our deepest moments of need. He encourages us with the simple request, “Be not afraid.”

We are all being called to be disciples. Even in our fear and doubts, God encourages us to serve the kingdom. Jesus sees in us what we may not see in ourselves. Each time we say “yes” to God and really put it into practice, we encourage someone to step out in faith.  Let us take some time to embrace the call to discipleship and let Christ shine in our hearts and lead us to light.

Catholic Schools Week 2022

 

National Catholic Schools Week (CSW) is an annual celebration of Catholic education in the United States. Now entering its 48th anniversary year, CSW has traditionally been held the last week in January.  Schools typically observe the week with Masses, assemblies and other activities for students, families, parishioners, and community members to celebrate. 

This year’s theme is Catholic Schools: Faith. Excellence. Service.  The theme represents the core values of Catholic education.  Catholic schools operate as communities rather than bureaucracies. Catholic schools are committed to academic excellence. Catholic schools incorporate spirituality into every aspect of the curriculum. Catholic schools teach that service to others is a basic tenet of the Catholic faith.

As I look back on my own education, I was blessed to be able to attend a Catholic elementary school, a Catholic high school, and a Catholic college.  I have many fond memories of my own education.  It is wonderful to be able to reconnect with those I had gone to elementary school with through social media.  Monthly I join some of my high school classmates who are in other states on Zoom.  We were introduced to one another because of our education and have remained friends for many years.

As school celebrate Catholic Schools Week 2022 may it be an experience of joy and pride for the many students who they have educated.  May Faith. Excellence. Service always be the guiding light for all.

Christian Unity

 

The news the past few days has been filled with violence, Covid 19 updates, and sadness.  Two NYPD officers were shot, one was killed and the other is clinging to life in the hospital.  The gunman, too, is in critical condition.  The officers were responding to a 911 call over a domestic dispute when they were shot.  In addition, an eleven-month-old girl was shot, in a separate incident while she sat in the car with her mother.  She celebrated her first birthday undergoing surgery.  While her prognosis is positive the fact that a child so young was involved in such an incident is appalling.  These incidents are a reflection of the pervasiveness of violence in our world and call for a great deal of prayer.

This week we have been celebrating the Week of Christian Unity.  The theme for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in 2022 was selected by the Middle East Council of Churches and originates from the churches in Lebanon. Present times in Lebanon are extremely difficult and economically disastrous. All this combined with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have made the situation quite stressful. The power of prayer in solidarity with those who suffer is a demonstration of Christian unity and a sign of communion.

The theme, taken from the second chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, is the Epiphany. Each year in January, the Church recalls the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem, highlighting God’s invitation to all of humanity to a new covenant in the Incarnation of Christ. In the Eastern Churches, Epiphany is joined to the mystery of the Baptism of Christ, a baptism all Christians hold in common as testimony to their faith in the Son of God.

Jesus Christ, the Word of God, has been made manifest in human history by becoming one of us and one with us. Born in a stable, born in homelessness, he is our King and Lord. The Magi bore witness to the Light of hope coming into the world as they faithfully followed the star, coming from foreign lands in the East, until arriving in Bethlehem of Judea.

The solidarity of God with created humanity in this gift of Epiphany calls us to a life of solidarity with the homeless, the refugee, the weakest and the rejected. We are all human beings worthy of redemption and prepared by that redeeming love to the glory of your Kingdom. Help us, O gracious Lord, to do this in unity and peace.

As we who bear the name of Christian, from the days of the church at Antioch, hold a special place in our hearts for the ancient Christian communities in the land we call holy, remind us to continually respond to our baptismal promises to you, who said through your Spirit at the Jordan, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Help your Church, merciful One, to be a light for unity within itself and a beacon of hope for all humanity. We ask this through Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit reign as One God for ever and ever. Amen.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Martin Luther King, Jr., was born January 15, 1929, Atlanta, Georgia, and was assassinated on April 4, 1968.  He was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesman and leader in the American civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King advanced civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi. He was the son of early civil rights activist and minister Martin Luther King Sr.

King participated in and led marches for the right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other basic civil rights.  King led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize some of the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. King helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.  On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance.

As we celebrate his life this Monday let us reflect on his I Have a Dream speech as delivered on August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so, we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. **We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only."** We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,   From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!