Familjesynoden i Rom

‘Vi och de’

On welcoming refugees to your home

An inspiring article in the Zeit newspaper about what it can mean in practice to welcome strangers to live in your home. The reality is that people in need do not always behave in the way you would like them. That coexistance has its downs and its ups. But ultimately it seems to be a question of how you want to live your life, of daring to live your principles, of becoming a deeper person.

Laudato Si’

Encyclica Laudato Si’, sulla cura della casa commune

8 .. .. look for solutions not only in technology but in a change of humanity; otherwise we would be dealing merely with symptoms
9 .. .. learning to give, and not simply to give up.
16 .. intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet
16 .. everything in the world is connected ..
49 .. we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.
52 We need to strengthen the conviction that we are one single human family. There are no frontiers or barriers, political or social, behind which we can hide, still less is there room for the globaliza- tion of indifference.
139 Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty
161 We may well be leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and filth. The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes, such as those which even now periodically occur in different areas of the world. The effects of the present imbalance can only be reduced by our decisive action, here and now.
164 Interdependence obliges us to think of one world with a common plan.
202 Many things have to change course, but it is we human beings above all who need to change.
203 We have too many means and only a few insubstantial ends.
222 a return to that simplicity which allows us to stop and appreciate the small things, to be grateful for the opportunities which life affords us, to be spiritually detached from what we possess, and not to succumb to sadness for what we lack.
223 .. able to shed unsatisfied needs ..
223 Even living on little, they can live a lot, above all when they cultivate other pleasures and find satisfac- tion in fraternal encounters, in service, in developing their gifts, in music and art, in contact with nature, in prayer. Happiness means knowing how to limit some needs which only diminish us
227 when we stop and give thanks to God before and after meals. I ask all believers to return to this beautiful and meaningful custom.
229 We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world
240 The human person grows more, matures more and is sanctified more to the extent that he or she enters into relationships, going out from themselves to live in communion with God, with others and with all creatures. In this way, they make their own that trinitarian dynamism which God imprinted in them when they were created. Everything is interconnected, and this invites us to develop a spirituality of that global solidarity which flows from the mystery of the Trinity.

Christian Führer – 1943-03-05 – 2014-06-30

Christian Führer was minister in the Nicolaikirche in Leipzig during the time of the peaceful protests that led to the end of the German Democratic Republic.

An empty bank account

Concluding remarks from an article in Die Zeit

Human or sub-human?

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh – From An Introduction To Lent

A mission to the unchurched

Ian Mobsby is a priest in the Church of England, leader of the Moot community in London, and an international speaker on mission to unchurched post-modern people. He gave a talk in Gothenburg on 11^th November. I was there, along with 16 other people.

Another interview from Pope Francis

Published in La Repubblica on 1st October 2013.

“Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?”

A lengthly interview with Pope Francis has been published by a number of jesuit periodicals, including a translation in english in Thinking Faith

I quote the following reply to the question Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?

“I do not know what might be the most fitting description