Peace By Peace
St Columbanus Window of the crypt of the Abbey of Bobbio
Look after the peace of the church, stand between your sheep and the wolves.
~ St Columban ~God begins by restoring the humanity and dignity of the victim, a humanity and dignity which the wrong-doer tried to wrest away from the victim through violence. This restoration of humanity is at the very heart of the Christian understanding of reconciliation and I think we might add at the very heart of the struggle for human rights. That God would begin with the victim and not the wrong-doer is consistent with divine activity in history where God takes the side of the poor, the widowed and the orphan, the stranger and the imprisoned. Victims become the leaders of the movement towards reconciliation since they possess the vision that encompassed both the pain of the past and the promise of the future.
~ Fr Robert Schreiter, C.PP.S., Encounter - 15/08/99: Schreiter's Reconciliation Principle ~
Fr Robert Schreiter C.PP.S
Since we are travelers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home (St Columban, 8th sermon).
Coastline of Bangor, Northern Ireland, where St Columban began his journey as a pilgrim for Christ c.589.
Bobbio, Italy, where St Columban died on 23 November 615, ending his journey as a pilgrim for Christ.
Whatever I had read as a child about the saints had thrilled me. I could see the nobility of giving one’s life for the sick, the maimed, the leper . . . But there was another question in my mind. Why was so much done in remedying the evil instead of avoiding it in the first place? . . . Where were the saints to try to change the social order, not just to minister to the slaves, but to do away with slavery?
~ Dorothy Day, Co-founder of the Catholic Worker (1897-1980) ~
Dorothy Day (1934)
One cries out, ‘Lord, how long?’ And then too what creeps into my mind is the little fear or big, that when it touches me personally, will I be faithful?
~ Sr Maura Clarke MM, Martyr of El Salvador
Sr Maura Clarke MM (1931-1980)
The Birth of Your Story
Then the Spirit said:
‘The habitats that grace the Earth
Were there to hold you at your birth,
And welcome you to the celebration
Of Creation’s transformation
From my fire that grew to be
A wondrous blue-green symphony.’
~ Fr Vincent Busch, The Creation Mandala ~
http://subanencrafts.com/creation_poem.html
Remembering Father Rufus
‘It’s all about living in harmony. That’s what we’re here for. And if there’s strife among people sooner or later they’ll have to sit down and talk. Better sooner than later’.
~ Fr Rufus Halley (1944-2001) ~