CATHOLIC PEACE MOVEMENT

May 28, 2011 — paxchristiflorida

A Regional Section of Pax Christi USA and Pax Christi International

Lent is a Wake Up Call to Live a Life Devoted to the Gospel

by Tony Magliano

Imagine you’re sitting in front of your doctor, and he says that your health definitely needs to improve. He then looks you square in the eyes and says, “If you wish to live a healthy long life, you must stop eating junk food and living a sedentary lifestyle, and start eating plenty […]

Lenten Practice

Fasting from meat during the Lenten season is part of our Catholic tradition. It’s a way to live in the humble simplicity that Christ offers us.

We now know that fasting from meat is also a way to sustainably inhabit our place in God’s creation.

This Lent, we invite you to go beyond fasting from meat on Fridays. Add one more day of plant-based meals to your table or strive to eat plant-based meals throughout the Lenten season. Together, our acts of solidarity add up to better protection for our vulnerable brothers and sisters.

Many of us enjoy meat, and we’re grateful for the farmers who make our meals possible. Focusing our diets on plant-based meals and enjoying meat as an occasional treat is a sustainable way of living in our common home.

Many people are surprised to discover that cattle farming is a leading cause of deforestation in the Amazon. This land is often taken illegally from indigenous people.

Sources of deforestation in Brazil

It also surprises many people to learn that meat production is a leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the average serving of meat represents many times the greenhouse gas emissions of the average serving of fruits, vegetables, and grains.

Approximate emissions per .5-pound serving

We’re called to embrace the humility and love that Christ offers. Here at GCCM, our staff team is adding plant-based meals to our tables this Lenten season. We’ll be sharing our stories and recipes. Please make your commitment now to join us and learn more.

Make the commitment

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Our Lent 2019 promise

Recommit to Racial Justice

Each year, NETWORK creates a Lenten resource for our community of justice-seekers to deepen our collective knowledge of one or more of our policy proposals. These resources provide opportunities for spiritual reflection and improve our advocacy. While Lenten resolutions often are to “give something up,” we hope you will join us in doing the work to become more dedicated, mindful, faithful activists.

This year, we invite the NETWORK community to recommit to Racial Justice. It is crucial that we confront our history and the ways racism continues today, including in our federal policies. Are you with us? Sign up now.

We created this resource particularly attuned to the work that white members of our Spirit-Filled Network must do to examine their white privilege and the effects of systemic racism. We also hope that the faithful content and spiritual nourishment are valuable to the entire NETWORK community. For white participants, our goal is that this resource will deepen your understanding of how race functions in our society and illuminate the extent of white supremacy in our political and economic structures.

When you sign up to participate in NETWORK’s 2019 Lenten campaign, you’ll receive weekly emails with materials about various topics: the racial wealth and income gap, immigration, the ways our society has harmed Native and Indigenous peoples, medical racism, and more. We’ll also suggest a weekly action for you and will have periodic check-in calls with the NETWORK staff and community for all who’d like to join. But don’t worry, you don’t have to be Catholic, or Christian, to participate! We all have a role to play in dismantling white supremacy and working for racial justice.

We hope you will sign up today — and encourage your friends and family to join in as well.

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Lenten Resources from Pax Christi USA

and Pax Christi International

Pax Christi USA has its annual Lenten Reflection Booklet, Lose Your Life to Save It, available for download.

Pax Christi International also has Lenten resources available entitled,

This Lent, #LiveNonviolence, #LivePeace for 40 Days

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Migrants

Pax Christi USA Statement:

The Real National Emergency Is the Continued Hatred

and Scapegoating of Migrants

There is currently a national emergency in the US, but it is not at the border…it is in the executive order that has just come from the White House. Through this executive order desperate women, children, and men fleeing violence, fear, and hatred in their home countries continue to be demonized and slandered by the president. This galvanization of fear among U.S. citizens and the allocation of billions of dollars to build a wall to keep out people who have been forced to migrate to the U.S. is as spiritually toxic as it is irrational. Eight billion dollars could contribute greatly to programs of aid and creating systems that ensure the health and well-being of U.S. citizens as well as migrants. Clearly, the well-being of humans is not the priority of President Trump as he continues to scapegoat migrants and feed the narrative that immigrants are the reason for any political or economic issues in the U.S. “The declaration of an emergency by President Trump in order to move forward with building a border wall does not reflect the values of compassion, justice, and protection of vulnerable people upon which this country was founded,” Sr. Patricia Chappell, Executive Director of Pax Christi USA said. We continue to call on Catholic social teaching, and the Gospel message to give us hearts and inspire policies that welcome and unite rather than scapegoat and separate, for fear and separation only lead to injustice and war. “A country’s regulation of borders and control of immigration must be governed by concern for all people and by mercy and justice. A nation may not simply decide that it wants to provide for its own people and no others. A sincere commitment to the needs of all must prevail”

(Resource by Fr. Thomas Betz, OFC)

REAL National Emergencies

(1) Warming Planet

(22) Veteran Suicides Daily

(100) People Killed by Guns Every Day

(115) Opioid Overdoses Daily

(2,737) Separated Migrant Children

(2,975) Dead in Puerto Rico

(40,000) Homeless Veterans

NOT a Real National Emergency

U. S. Southern Border

she moves me

blogging for mother earth

by

Pax Christi Florida Member, Jim Rucquoi

i want to sit on this rock with you awhile, friend, think out loud a bit. first up, these new readings i’ve bumped into that continue to shake me awake. ever since starting out on my bike three years ago for mother earth, mother’s been whispering in my ear something fierce. after climate ride california last year i can think of little else. scattered news of old that held me in its addictive clutches fails to move me anymore. you move me, mother, front & center at last. Please click here to read Jim’s blog.

Sustainable Living Center of North Florida

A Living Laboratory for Sustainability

A Project of the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice, Inc.

To learn more, click here.

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