Join the Season of Creation

 September 1 - October 4

A   Home   for All?

Renewing the Oikos of God

Join Us for a Season of Creation

 

Each year from September 1 to October 4, the Christian family unites for a worldwide celebration of prayer and action to protect our Common Home.

 

As followers of Christ from around the globe, we share a common role as caretakers of God’s creation. We realize that our wellbeing is interwoven with wellbeing of our Common Home. We rejoice in this opportunity to care for our Common Home and the sisters and brothers who share it.

 

 

This year, the theme for the season is:

A home for all?  Renewing the Oikos of God

 

This year’s LOGO for the Season of Creation is Abraham’s tent,
symbolizing,   “A home for all”

Abraham and Sarah opened their tent as a home for three strangers, who turned out to be God’s angels (Genesis 18). By creating a home for all, their act of radical hospitality became a source of great blessing.

 

Abraham’s tent is a symbol of our ecumenical call to practice creation care as an act of radical hospitality, safeguarding a place for all creatures,

human and more human, in our common home,

the household (oikos) of God.

Human relationships also have ecological significance. Economic, social and political relationships affect the balance of creation. Everything that we fabricate, use and produce has its origin in Earth, whether mineral, plant or animal based. Our habits of consuming energy and goods affect the resilience of planetary systems, and the capacity of Earth to heal itself and sustain life. Economic and political relationships have direct effects on the human family and the more-than human members of God’s oikos. Genesis 2:15 - "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." reminds us that among our co-creatures, the Creator has given humans a special vocation to tend and keep the oikos of God.
 
Faith gives us trust that God’s Spirit is constantly renewing the face of the Earth. Within this horizon of hope, our baptismal call frees us to return to our human vocation to till and keep God’s garden. In Christ, God calls us to participate in renewing the whole inhabited Earth, safeguarding a place for every creature, and reform just relationships among all creation.
  
During this Month-Long Liturgical Season of Creation, the Christian family calls every household and society to repent and reshape our political, social and economic systems towards more just, sustainable economies of life, which respect the life-giving ecological limits of our common home.
 

Season of Creation 2021 Prayer

 Creator of All,
 
We are grateful that from your communion of love you created our planet to be a  home for all. By your Holy Wisdom you made the Earth to bring forth a diversity of living beings that filled the soil, water and air. Each part of creation praises you in their being, and cares for one another from our place in the web of life.
 
With the Psalmist, we sing your praise that in your house “even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young.” We remember that you call human beings to keep your garden in ways that honor the dignity of each creature and conserve their place in the abundance of life on Earth.
 
But we know that our will to power pushes the planet beyond her limits. Our consumption is out of harmony and rhythm with Earth’s capacity to heal herself. Habitats are left barren or lost. Species are lost and systems fail. Where reefs and burrows, mountaintops and ocean deeps once teemed with life and relationships, wet and dry deserts lie empty, as if uncreated. Human families are displaced by insecurity and conflict, migrating in search of peace. Animals flee fires, deforestation and famine, wandering in search of a new place to find a home to lay their young and live.
 
In this Season of Creation, we pray that the breath of your creative Word would move our hearts, as in the waters of our birth and baptism. Give us faith to follow Christ to our just place in the beloved community. Enlighten us with the grace to respond to your covenant and call to care for our common home. In our tilling and keeping, gladden our hearts to know that we participate with your Holy Spirit to renew the face of your Earth, and safeguard a home for all.
 
In the name of the One who came to proclaim Good News to all creation, Jesus Christ.   Amen.

August Stop Trafficking Newsletter

 

The focus of the August  issue highlights topics covered by the United States State Department Trafficking in Persons  (TIP) Report  for 2021.

https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-trafficking-in-persons-report/

We have learned during the last year that human trafficking does not stop during a pandemic.  The concurrence of the increased number of individuals at risk, traffickers’ ability to capitalize on competing crises, and the diversion of resources to pandemic response efforts has resulted in an ideal environment for human trafficking to flourish and evolve. Yet, despite the added challenges and risks that the pandemic has presented, we have also witnessed the adaptability among those continuing to combat human trafficking and their dedication to ensuring the continuation of anti-trafficking efforts to minimize the effects of the pandemic on victims and the broader anti-trafficking community.  This year, the TIP Report introduction examines the emerging trends, challenges, and adaptations to global anti-trafficking efforts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With this year’s Report we celebrate the efforts of anti-trafficking professionals who continued to serve and identify victims as well as prosecute traffickers amidst the pandemic’s devastating effects on the world’s most vulnerable populations.  We salute the survivor leaders––those with lived experience of human trafficking––who have demonstrated resilience and reaffirm that employing trauma- and survivor-informed approaches is essential, crisis or not.  While acknowledging these leaders, we recognize that many of us have also been touched by trauma, whether through loss of a loved one, our own illness, or dealing with large-scale lockdowns and extreme uncertainty.  A trauma-informed approach is needed now more than ever.  We must ensure that our commitment to victim-centered and trauma- and survivor-informed approaches when serving victims and survivors is uninterrupted.  We must also extend this approach to our interactions with our colleagues throughout the anti-trafficking field.

While hopeful that we’re turning the corner on the pandemic, we know that different countries are at different stages in their pandemic response and recovery.  We call on governments and anti-trafficking actors to draw inspiration from the innovation and leadership this Report highlights to continue and improve the response to combat trafficking even amidst the necessary recovery efforts.  We should also consider the lessons learned over the course of this global health crisis.  It is through collaboration and collective understanding of both the nuances of our profoundly changed world and the needs of those affected most by the compounding effects of both human trafficking and the COVID-19 pandemic that a path forward emerge

August  Monthly Reflection

By Maryann Agnes Mueller, CSSF

“Education is the most powerful weapon 

Which you can use to change the world.”

- Nelson Mandala

As we approach the beginning of a new school year, it is important to remember that aside from children, teachers, and staff, human traffickers can be found near schools, playgrounds, and other venues where children and teenagers congregate. These include social media, which offers traffickers access to children and their profile information. Traffickers often create fake profiles to impersonate individuals whom children may trust. By connecting on social media, a trafficker can anonymously learn the characteristics, behaviors, and social circles of their potential victims. In 2020, one case of grooming started on a school-issued Chromebook which led to a student and the groomer meeting up in person.

Read the Monthly Reflection

https://sistersagainsttrafficking.org/monthly-reflection/

Cluny Sisters Celebrate

 August 15th 

Blessed Feast Day of our General Superior!

 

Sister Clare Stanley, General Superior (center) with a few of

the Delegates from India during the 2018 General Chapter in Paris

Each year the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny celebrate the feast of our Superior General on 15th August, the feast of the Assumption of Mary.  From the beginning of the Congregation, the Virgin Mary has been named the ‘Perpetual’ General Superior of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny.

Dear Sister Clare Stanley, the sisters of the Province of the USA & Canada join with our Cluny Sisters around the world in wishing you a blessed and joyous feast day.  Much gratitude for your prayers, support and faithfulness to the mission entrusted to the Congregation.

Enjoy this video tour of our Motherhouse in Paris along with remarks from Sister Clare Stanley, our General Superior.

The Mother House

 

https://sj-cluny.org/The-Mother-House?lang=fr