Pray, study, act: The first week of Lent, February 26-March 4

PRAYER - STUDY - ACTION

First week of Lent, February 26-March 4

Thursday, February 23, 2023

Greetings of peace!

Pax Christi USA’s Lenten reflections for 2023 , authored by Charlene and Michael Howard, along with other great leaders in the Pax Christi USA community, focus on the theme “Witnesses on the Way.” In that spirit, our Lenten prayer-study-action guides for this year will also revolve around the theme of Gospel witness.

In Christian scriptures, those who witness the Good News of salvation are praised as martures, the Greek word for “witness,” from which we draw our English word “martyr.”

In the peace movement, we are certainly familiar with martyrs: those who have given their lives for the cause of justice, peace, and Gospel nonviolence. But in remembering those who have died – those who have given their lives – we can sometimes forget those around us who are living, breathing peacemakers. And can we sometimes forget that those who have already gone before us to join that great “cloud of witnesses” lived full, embodied, and complicated lives during their time on Earth?

In the reflection for Sunday, February 26, Michael Howard reflects on a great witness to faith, Sr. Thea Bowman. He reflects on the fullness of her life, in both joy and struggle, in both happiness and the sorrow of oppression:

"At a young age, the Holy Spirit prepared this Black girl to be a woman of faith who accepted a divine call to religious life. Like Jesus, Bertha, when hearing offensive language towards her, said, 'One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God' (Matthew 4:4). Some said she would break out in song when she was down and out until her superiors disapproved. Bertha still sang her songs with 'inexpressible groanings' (Romans 8:26). The Spirit strengthened her soul to finish her formation. ..."

In the past year, the two of us have traveled across the United States to visit with Pax Christi leaders in Ohio, California, New England, Florida, Arkansas, Tennessee, Iowa, South Dakota, and Washington, D.C. The people we have met, in the fullness of their joys and their struggles, have been great witnesses to peace. We’ve heard stories of members and leaders who have passed on to the “great cloud of witnesses,” and we have found profound hope in the legacies that remain. In “what they have seen and heard,” what they live, and simply by who they are, they witness to a better future for our Church and our world.

If you have supported our work with your time, your contributions, your creative advocacy for justice, or your prayers, you are one of those witnesses – one of those peacemakers.

Thank you. We are grateful for you.

In peace,

Lauren Bailey (she/her)

National Field Organizer

Pax Christi USA

John Noble (he/him)

Director of Development

Pax Christi USA

PRAYER

A prayer for witness

Adapted from a prayer of the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council

Spirit of God,

We have heard your call to share in building up the Kin-dom of God.

Fill us with the desire to change ourselves and to change the world.

Enflame our passion for justice into a commitment to address unjust situations and structures.

Deepen our concern for our siblings who endure the burdens of

poverty, war, exploitation and persecution.

Let us enthusiastically play our part in the mission of the Church in the modern world.

Banish any complacency in our hearts and minds.

Teach us to recognize the lack of justice.

May we always act in the Spirit of justice.

May we envisage, pray about and create a different sort of world

in which injustice is replaced with a renewed sense of solidarity and care.

Enlivened by the Spirit, may we go forth in the peace of the Holy Spirit

to love and serve our loving God.

Amen.

>> Join us throughout Lent every Monday for a short Lenten prayer service with the Pax Christi USA national community over Zoom. Service lasts 30 minutes and includes reflection, readings, prayers of the faithful, music, and more. First prayer service is this Monday, February 27 at 8:30pm. Click here to register.

>> Order a print or digital version of the Lenten reflection booklet to accompany you with daily Lenten reflections throughout the season. Click here to order. Booklets are $2.50 for print; $2 for download.

STUDY

Who are your witnesses?

Read a reflection written last year by Joe Nangle, OFM, “Death does not have the last word,” and reflect on the words that Jon Sobrino, SJ, shared with Joe: “I firmly believe that death is not the final chapter in human existence – life is.”

[Photo: Jon Sobrino walks in procession with Bishop Tom Gumbleton (left) at the 2008 School of the Americas protest. Jon holds a cross with the name of his murdered community member, Ignacio Ellacuria.]

Thinking on your own “life and human existence,” reflect, journal, or pray with the following questions:

What “lives well lived” have transformed you as a peacemaker?
What peacemakers and justice-seekers challenge you? Urge you to grow?
What lives does our tradition readily honor as saints? As leaders? As peacemakers? What lives are too often left out of those narratives? Reflect especially on
Women peacemakers, womanists, and feminists who have identified sexism, misogyny, clergy sex abuse, and gender-based violence as urgent matters for the peace movement to address and dismantle.
Black, Brown, and Indigenous leaders who have urged white Pax Christi USA members to connect nonviolence, war resistance, and denuclearization to struggles for racial justice, even and especially when those urgings were dismissed or ignored.
LGBTQ+ advocates, especially trans and nonbinary youth, who have named and fought against the violent sins of transphobia and homophobia, refusing to be backed into closets, respectability politics, silence, and sexual shame.
Peacemakers in the Global South whose witnesses have been co-opted, silenced, or pushed aside to prioritize or appease colonial frameworks and strategies.
What leaders and friends in the movement do you not thank enough? If you can, send them your thanks for their witness, whether through prayer, a call, a card, or a personal conversation.

ACTION

In this year's Lenten booklet, Michael Howard writes about Sr. Thea Bowman and five other African American candidates for sainthood -- six faithful witnesses to the depth and breadth of God's love for us all.

Join the effort to recognize the lives of these six African American Catholics, the "Saintly Six":

Use this link to sign a petition to Pope Francis urging him to take immediate steps to canonize the six African American candidates for sainthood.
Invite your parish to send a letter to Pope Francis via the Vatican's Embassy to the United States, urging the pope to take immediate action to canonize the six African American candidates for sainthood. Download and print this letter and mail it to the embassy of the Holy See in Washington, D.C.

For years, Pax Christi USA members have worked to get their cities or states to pass resolutions to prevent nuclear war. Be a witness by supporting the Back from the Brink campaign. As the conflict in Ukraine has raised the threat of nuclear war, this campaign is more important than ever.

>> Use this action alert from our friends at the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns to urge your representative to co-sponsor H. Res. 77, which calls on the United States to “embrace the goals and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons” and pursue the five policy proposals of the Back from the Brink campaign.

HELP BUILD THE PEACE OF CHRIST!

If you can make a contribution to support our

work for peace with justice, we'd be so grateful!

Just click on the donation button to the right to give securely and quickly online. Thanks!