Category: Social Justice and the Environment

PASSION (Palm) SUNDAY – Week 6 Australian Indigenous
1 April

Liturgy of the Palms: Mk 11:1-10 OR Jn 12:12-16
Liturgy of the Passion: Mk 14:1-15:47 OR Mk 15:1-39

As the Lenten season approaches its end, the Gospel readings relate the events leading to Jesus’ suffering and death – the culmination of the work he was born to do – and we look towards the great and glorious Resurrection of Christ.
During the past five weeks we have heard and reflected upon stories from Timor Leste, the Thai-Burma Border, Zimbabwe, the Philippines and Peru. These are stories of people living in poverty and injustice, lacking access to basic services and often denied the opportunity to exercise the rights that we all have as human persons.
In Australia, our Indigenous sisters and brothers also face many similar struggles. In a prosperous country where most of us claim adequate nutrition and health care as a fundamental right, Aboriginal Australians in remote communities have shortened life-spans because of high rates of diet-related illness – particularly diabetes.
The Project Compassion story this week comes from such a community, near Broome in Western Australia. With its local partners, Caritas Australia is supporting a community-owned program which promotes and educates for health care and healthy living.
Caritas Australia works for justice – for the kind of world that God desires.
Caritas works in partnership – building ‘right relationships’ between all of God’s people.
In justice and right relationships lies the path to peace.
If we want peace, we must work for justice.
The glorious celebration of new life is almost upon us. It brings hope for change and renewal for all of us.

We can show our solidarity with communities living in poverty, our compassion to those struggling against discrimination and stigma and our preparedness to challenge injustice. As Pope Benedict XVI said: “Our hearts cannot be at peace as long as we see our brothers and sisters suffering”.

If we want peace, we must work for justice.

Click on the image below to go to the Caritas website.

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT – Week 5 Peru
25 March

John 12: 20-33

In this week’s Gospel story, Jesus speaks of his approaching death. The gospel focuses sharply on his great sacrifice – not merely on the outcome. We are reminded that, before His glorious Resurrection, He had to suffer anguish and death. Jesus uses the powerful image of the grain of wheat, which produces nothing unless it is dropped into the ground, where it dies. He challenges us to “lose” our lives in order to preserve them, by “dying to self” – a confronting idea.
This week’s Project Compassion story comes from Peru. Communities living on the outskirts of Lima have struggled with poverty, poor sanitation and lack of access to basic services. All of this has led to illness and high levels of stress. Violence in the home is also a common outcome.
With its local partners, Caritas continues to work alongside these communities; together they are improving access to health care and better sanitation, establishing nutrition programs and supporting families in caring for their children. In working for justice, they are healing relationships and peace is being restored. People’s lives are being transformed.
During Lent we too can become a new and better version of ourselves. Perhaps we can make our own small sacrifices by becoming partners in this work not only to help those who are in need but so as to be transformed as we shift our focus from “self” to “other”.

 

We can show our solidarity with communities living in poverty, our compassion to those struggling against discrimination and stigma and our preparedness to challenge injustice. As Pope Benedict XVI said: “Our hearts cannot be at peace as long as we see our brothers and sisters suffering”.

If we want peace, we must work for justice.

Click on the image below to go to the Caritas website.

FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT – Week 4 Philippines
18 March

John 3: 14-21“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…”
In this week’s Gospel reading, Jesus is described as the greatest gift of love that God gave to us. He is the “light come into the world”, and faith in him means everlasting life. The choice is ours – to live in that light or in the darkness.

This week’s Project Compassion story comes from the Philippines. Conflict, greed and exclusion have destroyed the peace and security of many indigenous communities, and have forced them into isolation and poverty.
Programs supported by Caritas Australia have opened up new opportunities for these indigenous people – supporting them as they protect their traditional lands, address the humanitarian crisis and engage with other groups in the community to contribute to the process of peace-building.
We are being called to lend our support to this work. When we respond with compassion, we enter into a partnership with Caritas Australia to help build the just and compassionate world that God desires. Perhaps the one who works for justice, in order to have peace, is doing as the gospel today is saying: “…whoever does what is true comes to the light in order that the light may show that what he, or she, did was in obedience to God”

If we want peace, we must work for justice.

Click on the image below to go to the Caritas website.

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT – Week 3 Zimbabwe
11 March

John 2: 13-25

In today’s Gospel we hear of Jesus’ forceful reaction to the abuse of the temple – his Father’s house – by the traders and moneychangers. Jesus’ dramatic cleansing of the temple is the sign of God’s action in the world. The wrong he observed moved Him to action.

This week’s Project Compassion story comes from Zimbabwe, where because of prolonged conflict and drought, thousands of people remain displaced and peace is fragile. With the additional burden of HIV-related illness, and the stigma that accompanies it, Colletta and her family, like many others, were reduced to extreme poverty.

In partnership with Caritas Australia, the local church is working to improve life for those who struggle under these conditions. Health care, sanitation, agricultural improvement and peace-building programs are having their effects.  The community is being healed as poverty, illness and trauma are gradually being driven out.

Although we do not have the same knowledge of the human heart or the authority to act that Jesus had, we can, nevertheless, detect injustice and, in righteous indignation, as Jesus did, take forceful action against it.

We can show our solidarity with communities living in poverty, our compassion to those struggling against discrimination and stigma and our preparedness to challenge injustice. As Pope Benedict XVI said: “Our hearts cannot be at peace as long as we see our brothers and sisters suffering”.

If we want peace, we must work for justice.

Click on the image below to go to the Caritas website.