Tag: Peace and nonviolence

Communion as pledge to friends, neighbors, and enemies

We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 3

Eichenberg's Lord's Supper (small)by Mary Lehman Yoder
Assembly Mennonite Church
Goshen, Indiana, July 20, 2008

Ephesians 2:11 ff; John 13:34 ff

Back in 2002 when the propaganda war regarding Al Q’eda and Iraq was running at full steam, I heard that Rich Meyer, who has frequently served with Christian Peacemaker Teams in the West Bank, was floating a proposal around:

Our nation is gearing up for war. The Pledge of Allegiance is starting to be used as a measuring stick at best or a club at worst. How shall we respond? We should celebrate communion every Sunday!

Continue reading “Communion as pledge to friends, neighbors, and enemies” →

The mentally ill are our lepers

In a March 28 article in National Catholic Reporter, Melissa Musick Nussbaum compares the lepers healed by Jesus, previously ostracized as “unclean,” to patients of mental health facilities today.  She writes:

I serve on the board of my local Catholic Charities. Our Marian House Soup Kitchen and drop-in center is located downtown, just across the street from the cathedral. Many of those we serve are mentally ill. Every year the cry goes up to move the facility to some place far away from downtown shops and restaurants. Every year the cry goes up to relocate our Lazaruses so that our way is unhindered, our view is unspoiled, and our fantasies remain intact.

So I’ve been interested in Dr. [Abraham] Nussbaum’s work, a work he does with many others of like mind, to find a different way to treat and live with the mentally ill. His attention is drawn to the many Mennonites, who, as conscientious objectors during World War II, worked as attendants in American mental asylums.

Menno Simons, the Anabaptist father of the Mennonites, was a Norbertine priest before he left the order and the Catholic church. But Nussbaum believes that Simons, and his followers, may help lead the church back into right relationship with our brothers and sisters who suffer from mental illness.

Nussbaum goes on to outline a history of the Mennonite conscientious objectors who completed their Civilian Public Service in psychiatric hospitals, refusing to use any force against patients.  She concludes with a vision for what service to the mentally ill could look like in a Catholic context.  The full article is available here.

Palm Sunday homily: The messiah of peace

We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 2

Eichenberg's Lord's Supper (small)by Abbot John Klassen
Saint John’s Abbey
Collegeville, Minnesota, April 27, 2008

 

For a long time I have puzzled about the detailed instructions Jesus gives to his disciples regarding the colt he is to ride into Jerusalem.  In the Gospels, Jesus is not an arranger; he is always moving and speaking on the fly. But in this instance, he has set this all up. He’s taking pains to stage this event, to send a particular message.

Unlike the rest of his passion, Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem is his own initiative. It is a symbolic action at Passover time, when Jerusalem is filled with pilgrims, that manifests the meaning of his life and mission. This symbolic action is also a final plea to the religious authorities who have already decided to condemn him to death after the raising of Lazarus. Continue reading “Palm Sunday homily: The messiah of peace” →

Announcing new online series:
We Are Each Other’s Bread and Wine

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We Are Each Other’s Bread and Wine:
Mennonite and Roman Catholic Reflections on Eucharist and Peacemaking

As Bridgefolk participants grow in understanding and appreciating the profound gifts of each other’s traditions, we are discovering how deeply the practice of eating together at the Lord’s Table sustains and enriches our life of Christian discipleship and peacemaking. Fed and nourished by the gift of Christ’s love, we are strengthened to share the peace of Christ in the church and in the world.

To illuminate this vital connection, Bridgefolk has begun a new online series, of sermons and homilies that connect discipleship and peacemaking with the Eucharist or Lords’ Supper.  The first installment, “The Table of Countercultural Mission,” was preached by Mennonite pastor Daniel P. Schrock at Berkey Avenue Mennonite Fellowship in Goshen, Indiana. Go to http://www.bridgefolk.net/eucharistic-peacemaking to read, or find guidelines for submitting sermons and homilies on these themes for inclusion in this online collection.

The table of countercultural mission

We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 1

Eichenberg's Lord's Supper (small)by Daniel P. Schrock
Berkey Avenue Mennonite Fellowship
Goshen, Indiana, April 27, 2008

Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. But see, the one who betrays me is with me, and his hand is on the table. For the Son of Man is going as it has been determined, but woe to that one by whom he is betrayed!” Then they began to ask one another which one of them it could be who would do this. (Luke 22:19-23, NRSV)

If you want to learn countercultural mission, then eat bread and drink wine at the table of God.

When Jesus sat down at a table with his disciples on that Passover night long ago, he knew what was going on in the mind of Judas Iscariot. Somehow Jesus knew that Judas was plotting to hand him over to the temple leaders. Indeed, a few days before this last supper with the twelve, Judas had quietly visited the chief priests and officers of the temple police in Jerusalem to offer them a deal. In exchange for a fee, Judas offered to help them find Jesus after dusk, when most people in the city were tucked away in their houses for the night. Reward me, said Judas, and I’ll tell you where Jesus is, so you can arrest him under the cover of darkness (Luke 22:3-6).

Jesus knew that Judas was in the process of betraying him (see 22:21). Ponder that for a moment. Continue reading “The table of countercultural mission” →

New book recounts historic 1964 peacemaking retreat at Gethsemani Abbey

CASCADE_TemplateA new book by Gordon Oyer recounts the history of a little known yet foundational event in the development of Mennonite-Catholic collaboration in peacemaking and ecumenical dialogue.  The book is Pursuing the Spiritual Roots of Protest: Merton, Berrigan, Yoder, and Muste at the Gethsemani Abbey Peacemakers Retreat.  Here is the publisher’s summary of the event and the book:

In the fall of 1964, Trappist monk Thomas Merton prepared to host an unprecedented gathering of peace activists. “About all we have is a great need for roots,” he observed, “but to know this is already something.” His remark anticipated their agenda—a search for spiritual roots to nurture sound motives for “protest.”

This event’s originality lay in the varied religious commitments present. Convened in an era of well-kept faith boundaries, members of Catholic (lay and clergy), mainline Protestant, historic peace church, and Unitarian traditions participated. Continue reading “New book recounts historic 1964 peacemaking retreat at Gethsemani Abbey” →

Pope Francis: The spirit of war draws us away from God

From Catholic Peace Fellowship

Pope Francis: The Spirit of War Draws Us Away from God

“War is a scandal to be mourned every day. We see war in the newspapers ever and we’re used to reading about it: the number of its victims is just part of our daily accounts. We hold events to commemorate the centenary of the Great War and everyone is scandalized by the many millions of dead. But today it’s the same… instead of one great war, there are small wars everywhere. When we were children in Sunday School and we were told the story of Cain and Abel, we couldn’t accept that someone would kill their own brother. And yet today millions kill their own brothers and we’re used to it: there are entire peoples divided, killing each other over a piece of land, a racial hatred, an ambition.

Think of the children starving in refugee camps… these are the fruits of war. And then think of the great dining rooms, of the parties held by those who control the arms industry, who produce weapons. Compare a sick, starving child in a refugee camp with the big parties, the good life led by the masters of the arms trade. And remember, the Pope added, that the wars, the hatred, the hostility aren’t products we buy at the market: they’re right here, in our hearts. The Apostle James gives us a simple piece of advice: ‘Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.’ But the spirit of war, which draws us away from God, doesn’t just reside in distant parts of the world: the spirit of war comes from our own hearts.

Let us pray for peace, for that peace which seems to have been reduced to a word and nothing more. Let us follow James’ advice: ‘Recognize your misery.’ Let us recognize that misery which breeds wars within families, within neighborhoods, everywhere. How many of us weep when we read the newspapers, when we see the dead on television? This is what Christians should do today, in the face of war: we should weep, we should mourn.”

– Homily given by Pope Francis at the Casa San Marta on February 25, A.D. 2014 (*We are grateful for the English Translation provided by News.va)

New Vatican document says violence in God’s name is “the greatest corruption of religion”

VATICAN CITY, January 17, 2014 (Zenit.org) – The International Theological Commission has published a new document clarifying that Christian belief is not only inherently incompatible with the incitement to violence, but that calls for violence are the religion’s greatest corruption.

The new document, published so far only in Italian on Jan. 16, will soon be made available in other languages. The title is “God, the Trinity, and the Unity of Humanity: Christian Monotheism and its Opposition to Violence”. It is the fruit of a five year study by the commission.

“Our reflection takes the form of a reasoned testimony, not an apologetic argument,” says a summary of the text, published Jan. 16 by the Vatican. “The Christian faith, in fact, sees the incitement of violence in the name of God as the greatest corruption of religion.”  Continue reading “New Vatican document says violence in God’s name is “the greatest corruption of religion”” →

International theological commission publishes document on Christian monotheism and violence

Vatican City, 16 January 2014 (VIS) – The International Theological Commission, following studies carried out over the past five-year period (2009–2014), has drawn up a new document entitled: “God, the Trinity, and the Unity of Humanity: Christian Monotheism and its Opposition to Violence”. The text will appear in “La Civilta Cattolica”, no. 3926 (18 January 2014), the journal that traditionally publishes the Italian versions of the Commission’s documents. It will also be available, from today, on “La Civilta Cattolica’s” website (www.laciviltacattolica.it) as well as on the International Theological Commission’s webpage on the Vatican website (www.vatican.va). Awaiting its translation into the various languages, the Italian text is currently offered along with an introduction to the text in a few other languages.

As is evident from the document’s Preliminary Note, the text is the result of study regarding certain aspects of Christian discourse on God, particularly in response to theories that claim that a necessary relationship exists between monotheism and violence. The text was prepared by a subcommission composed of: Fr. Peter Damian Akpunonu, Fr. Gilles Emery, O.P., Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai, S.D.B., Bishop Charles Morerod, O.P., Fr. Thomas Norris, Fr. Javier Prades Lopez, Bishop Paul Rouhana, Fr. Pierangelo Sequeri, Fr. Guillermo Zuleta Salas, and the subcommission’s president, Fr. Philippe Vallin.

Between 2009 and 2013, the subcommission met to discuss the issue, which was also treated during the Commission’s plenary sessions. The present text was approved by the Commission “in forma specifica” on 6 December 2013, and was then submitted to the Commission’s president, Archbishop Gerhard L. Muller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who authorised its publication.