Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange - PageName: Unity/Reconciliation

Monday September 6th 2010

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Unity/Reconciliation

We promise to be women of unity and reconciliation by witnessing with others to our belief in God, collaborating with our co-ministers to develop mutually the knowledge and skills of unity and reconciliation and living in right relationships with each other, our neighbors and the whole community of life.
--Promise Chapter 2006, Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange

“Daily human events clearly evidence how much forgiveness and reconciliation are undeniably needed for bringing about a real, personal, and social renewal. This is valid in interpersonal relations but also among communities as well as nations. … The only way to peace is forgiveness. To accept and give forgiveness makes possible a new quality of rapport between people, interrupting the spiral of hatred and revenge and breaks the chains of evil which bind the heart of rivals. …To love the one who offends you disarms the adversary and is able to transform a battlefield into a place of supportive co-operation.
--John Paul II, Lent 2001.

Take Action

• Watch, "The Power of Forgiveness" http://www.journeyfilms.com/content.asp?contentid=838

• Community Guides and Family Exercises to Forgiveness http://www.journeyfilms.com/content.asp?contentid=837

Saturday, August 9 2008
In Search of Reconciliation: Brain Physiology and Artistic Expression -Two Paths to the Same Goal
Presented by: Mary Therese Sweeney, CSJ and MaryAnne Huepper, CSJ
Center for Spiritual Development
434 S. Batavia Street, Orange, CA 92868-3907
(714)744-3175 | (714)744-3176 fax | csdinfo@csjorange.org

Websites to visit
• Learning to Give http://www.learningtogive.org/religiousinstructors/voices/forgiveness.asp
• The Politics of Forgiveness, and the Culture of Revenge
http://woodstock.georgetown.edu/programs/forgive_bolenyc.htm

Prayer

For Unity of Faiths

O God, we are one with you. You have made us one with you. You have taught us that if we are open to one another, you dwell in us. Help us to preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our hearts. Help us to realize that there can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection. O God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully, completely, we accept you, and we thank you, and we adore you, and we love you with our whole being, because our being is your being, our spirit is rooted in your spirit. Fill us then with love, and let us be bound together with love as we go our diverse ways, united in this one spirit which makes you present in the world, and which makes you witness to the ultimate reality that is love. Love has overcome. Love is victorious.
Thomas Merton, 1915-1968
--Education for Justice

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