JustCommunity Season 2: Bringing the Peace of Christ to Birth
What is JustCommunity?
A Pilgrimage through Catholic Social Teaching
In the Advent-Christmas season, we commonly look to the long-ago birth of the Prince of Peace, but this season is meant to be so much more than a nostalgic spiritual exercise. At the start of each liturgical year, we take a new look at an ancient truth: Christ desires to be born within each one of us.
In Season 2 of JustCommunity, we have chosen to focus on the challenge of peacework. By “peacework”, we mean all the challenges and choices that bring about transformation for the sake of real and lasting peace. We must begin within ourselves; what steps in prayer can we take to nurture our own inner peace? Then we can move to the challenge of peace between us. In our families and in our faith community--what steps in reconciliation can we take to nurture peace between us? Only when we are well at work in that level can we address the challenges of peace beyond us--the peace that our world longs for.
In the past few decades, our popes have consistently challenged us to set aside war. What we thought of as the “just war” theory is not even considered in the light of the horrors of modern warfare. Throughout this season, we will consider the challenge of embracing our current Catholic Social Teaching on war, and reflect its message for us personally and as a society.
Peacework is not only for the sake of inner balance and harmonious lives. Our own work for inner transformation and the healing of our relationships can be part of the birthing of peace throughout our world.
If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.
-- Lao Tzu (570-490 B.C.)
