​This is a wonderful example on how our Canadian OFS family rallied together to help realize this project. "Good well done faithful servant" - FVC

   Reverend Mari said “I think the protection of Creation is central to the mission of the Church.  As human being we were created in the image of God and as the image of God we are called to care for creation.”
Reverend Mari said: “that 80 % of the planet’s biodiversity is to be found in areas populated by indigenous people.  These people have been custodians of their lands so they have a centuries-old tradition with respect to that.”
    Reverend Mari noted that the Arctic is warming up much faster than anywhere else on the planet.  “So when I heard the Pope touch on these essential issues it gave me so much hope because I think the Gospel needs to be spread, and by spreading, it can have a beneficial impact. We have a task to pray and also ask the Lord to show us how indigenous people can communicate their wisdom to others.”
   “There has been an attempt to assimilate us into the dominant culture.  However”, she said, “we have begun a process called ‘truth and reconciliation’.”
“The fact that I am a woman and that I come from a minority group within the Sami minority itself, means, I find myself “fighting windmills.”  But being here (in Rome) to meet Pope Francis and also being able to talk and exchange views with Catholics…gives me the feeling that maybe the windmills are not so strong, so powerful” she said.
   Reverend Mari is a woman of conviction.  She is like a “strong fortress”.  She spoke from her hope, the basis for her trust. From the time she was in her mother’s womb God has been her strength and gave her and still gives her strength to speak up for her people, for Christian unity and care for creation.  She spoke from her heart about her dreams of the future for her people, the Christian community and the environment.  I felt she spoke like a prophet for our time.
As Sisters you strive to be prophet leaders in our Church,  in Canadian society and in the world.  All mothers, all women, have touched many lives over the years.  
   Canadian women and men have been and are prophetic.  You have concerns about the present day Church and its future.  You have concerns about the effects of climate change on our country and on all creation.  The rights of our indigenous people, migrants and refugees, food insecurity, stress on our health care, domestic and sexual violence to women are some of the current topics.  
   Don’t stop expressing your views, ideas and your prophetic stance for a Gospel based church and a better world.  Be prophetic and speak “with courage and love.” Your views and concerns are prophetic, and should be heard.
   What are your prophetic concerns for our time, for the Catholic Church and the environment?

Homily for January 30, 2022   4th Sunday in Ordinary Time  C
Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19; Ps 71; 1Cor 12:31-13:13; Luke 4: 21-30
By Friar Ed Debono, OFM Conv.

                                                                                                                                Photo by Natalia Slastnikova on Unsplash 
Peace and Joy!
George Guimond ofs

During the second Vatican Council, the bishops gathered in Rome issued only one severe condemnation: “Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or of extensive areas of population is a crime against God and humanity.”[1]  As Terrence J. Rynne has observed in Jesus Chris,: Peacemaker, this pronouncement “condemned retroactively the carpet and obliteration bombing that both Germany and the Allies did in World War II, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States, and all future destruction of population centres.”[2] 
All who agree with this condemnation of wartime atrocity have reason to rejoice at the good news that, as of January 22nd of this year, the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) has come into force.  Although it has not been embraced by the world’s nuclear powers, who have indeed actively opposed its development and ratification, the treaty represents an important step toward the abolition of nuclear weapons.  By banning “the development, production, storage, transportation, threat of use, and use of nuclear weapons, the treaty delegitimizes these weapons and makes them illegal under international law,” thereby pressuring them to eliminate their arsenals of mass destruction.[3]
            All Canadian peacemakers, including members the OFS, should know that Canada, along with other NATO nations, is refusing to join the TPNW, presumably because our federal government still endorses NATO’s long-standing but mistaken conviction that “nuclear weapons remain the supreme guarantee of the security of the Alliance.”[4]  As members of the Franciscan family called to be instruments of the peace of Christ, we should remind the leaders of our country that the only genuine guarantee of national security lies in a culture of peace built on the foundation of right relationship.  We might also remind them that the vast resources now being devoted to maintain and modernize the world’s nuclear arsenals would be much better used to cultivate such relationship.  Better yet, we might follow the example of Catholic peace activist John Dear by sharing with them the joyful hope that, with the coming into force of the TPNW, we have seen “the beginning of the end for nuclear weapons.”[5]
 
By Paul Vanderham ofs


[1] “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” (“Gaudium et Spes”), 7 December 1965, 80.
[2] Jesus Christ, Peacemaker: A New Theology of Peace (New York: Orbis Books, 2014), 173.
[3] “NATO countries including Canada thwarting new nuclear weapons ban treaty,” Toronto Star, 28 January 2021 (https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/01/28/nato-countries-including-canada-thwarting-new-nuclear-weapons-ban-treaty.html).
[4] Toronto Star, 28 January 2021, as above
[5]https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/01/the-beginning-of-the-end-for-nuclear-weapons/#:~:text=The%20beginning%20of%20the%20end%20for%20nuclear%20weapons,effect%20today.%20Rev.%20John%20Dear%20January%2022%2C%202021