E-BOOKLET VERSION: Radicalizing Tenderness: Reflections for Advent & Christmas 2023
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Radicalizing Tenderness: Reflections for Advent & Christmas 2023 - This year’s Advent booklet features reflections for Sundays and Holy Days from Advent through Epiphany written by Sr. Norma Pimentel, a member of the Missionaries of Jesus and executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, who is deeply admired for her advocacy for migrants and those on the margins. Sr. Norma's reflections for Advent and Christmas invite readers to recall our human connections, the love we have been shown by a tender Creator, and how our faith shapes our daily steps.
NOTE: This is the e-booklet, a downloadable version of the Advent reflection booklet. For the hard copy version, go to https://paxchristiusa.3dcartstores.com/Radicalizing-Tenderness-Reflections-for-Advent-Christmas-2023_p_350.html.
EXCERPT: From the first Sunday of Advent, Sr. Norma writes:
God is never indifferent to human suffering. On the contrary, God’s presence is revealed in our direct contact with human beings. In our response to human suffering.
Daily I meet people who are on the margins of our society, people on the peripheries. Pope Francis calls us to go out to these peripheries to include those who are left out, easily discarded and unseen. They are people who are homeless, people who have immigrated, people who are poor.
If we ask ourselves, who are these people, the ones without homes, who have immigrated, who are poor? We may find that they are people just like us, but whose struggles have left them in a vulnerable position. They are the broken of our society who find themselves living in the streets of our cities. For the most part they are ignored, invisible to many of us who pass by them.
They are people on the move who leave their country for fear caused by violence, corruption, abuses and attacks on their life. They travel great distances and encounter life-threatening hardships along the way. Many don’t make it because the human body is unable to endure the exhaustion of extreme conditions. Many are also victims of the evils of human trafficking. ...
The social injustices of our time are real. It is the result of an indifferent and detached society that fails to be mindful of God’s ways - a God who is inclusive and compassionate and who demands a response from us.
Take time this Advent to be alert...
