Dear Supporter,
Please forward to your lists and congregations:
Advent in CT, Zionist Billboard, Queers Reprimand Hierarchy
People of Faith CT e-newsletter
Monday, December 4, 2006
CONTENTS
Spirituality
1. Advent in Connecticut
2. Advent Reflection by Daniel Berrigan, SJ
3. Advent Podcasts
4. Advent Retreats
Middle East Peace
5. Zionist Billboard in Hartford
Queer Rights
6. Catholic Queers Reprimand Hierarchy
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Spirituality
1.
Advent in Connecticut
Week One: Poverty and Violence
During this first week of Advent
as the first snows of winter
and freezing nightly temperatures
chill our bodies,
let us remember our sisters and brothers
who live in poverty in our big cities
for whom food and heat are mutually exclusive commodities.
Let us remember the violence
that has racked city neighborhoods this year,
the victims' families
for whom this Christmas will be bittersweet,
and those who have no homes at all.
There will be several initiatives
in the 2007 Connecticut legislature
to reduce poverty and violence.
But for now, we must wait.
Many Christians light an Advent candle
in their homes each evening.
A Prayer for the First Week of Advent:
O Come, O Come
Friend of the Poor
Victim of Violence
You who had no place to lay your head.
Burn within us as a flame of justice.
Open our eyes, hearts and homes
to people who live on less.
Light the way for us
towards re-creating cities and communities
that befit human dignity.
You who gave us a vision
of that heavenly city
where violence and injustice are no more
You who are our eternal home,
Christ, our Sovereign. Amen.
-- Frank O'Gorman
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2.
Advent Reflection by Daniel Berrigan, SJ
"It is not true that we have to wait for those who are specially gifted,
who are the prophets of the Church, before we can be peacemakers.
This is true: I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and daughters shall prophesy,
your young shall see visions,
and your old shall have dreams."
Read full poem:
http://www.faithCT.org/spirituality/adventberrigan.htm
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3.
Advent Podcasts
Devo-to-Go Advent podcasts offer thoughts, prayers,
music, and ideas to help you make the most of Advent.
7 minutes--sometimes less. That's all it takes.
7 minutes to listen, to think, to pray,
and to ask yourself each day,
"Where is God in my life today?"
The podcasts are created by 3 ordained Episcopalians under 30
on the staff of the Episcopal Campus Ministry
at Georgia Southern University.
http://www.ecmgsu.org/podcast.htm
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4.
Advent Retreats
Advent Days of Reflection, Nonviolence Retreat, Journey with Mary
at Mercy Center at Madison
http://www.mercybythesea.org/events/eventsview.asp
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Middle East Peace
5.
Zionist Billboard in Hartford
On Saturday, December 2, a new billboard
was unveiled westbound on I-84 at Sigourney Street:
It quotes Genesis 12:3:
"I will bless those
who bless you.
And curse those
who curse you."
(YHWH's commission to Abram to seek the promised land.)
It depicts US and Israeli flags with the words:
"God will bless a friend of Israel."
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The billboard's message has the audacity
to link God's blessing with Zionism and US imperialism.
It assumes God's approval
of the actions of Israel and the United States
in the Middle East.
On the contrary, Israel's apartheid domination of Palestine
and America's ongoing occupation of Iraq
are an affront to the God who liberates the oppressed
and confounds military superpowers in every age.
These two nations have elicited not God's blessing,
but God's rebuke.
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Queer Rights
6.
Catholic Queers Reprimand Hierarchy
Catholic Queers respond to the November 14
"Pastoral Care" Guidelines for ministry to
"Persons with a Homosexual Inclination" that were adopted by the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops at the group's meeting in Baltimore.
"To the church, if you're out,
all they can think is
you're on Polk Street with your legs spread."
-- Rev. Richard Cardarelli, Dignity/Hartford & San Francisco
Read full news story:
http://www.ebar.com/news/
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