Social Justice Ministry: Volunteer Opportunities (There is no need to be part of the ministry to volunteer! We need a few planners and many volunteers.)
Ongoing Opportunities
Systemic Issues (Contact
Matt Cato at 503.690.8867 or
Mary Johnson)
The Housing Development Corporation conducts a GED program to help lift farm workers out of poverty through education. The Systemic Issues team sponsors two students by covering their costs in the GED program. The HDC needs native Spanish-speaking volunteers to help tutor students. Volunteering would be a great way to connect to our two sponsored students.
Hunger (Contact
Barb Upson at 503.617.6534 or
Karen Barnhart at 503.789.0200)
Ongoing: Please bring your dry goods to Saturday and Sunday masses.
Faith Café: Faith Café has opened! Meals will be served Sunday nights at the Beaverton First United Methodist Church (4th and Watson). If you could help once every six weeks in the kitchen (3:30-6:30); serving meals (6-7:30); clean-up (7-8:30) or be a roving "Peacekeepers". Sign up sheets will be available after Mass.
PEACE! (Websites with varied approaches to issues of peace)
John XXIII - Pacem in Terris
John Paul II - World Day of Peace - January 1, 2004
John Paul II - World Day for Peace messages - 2004-1979
National Conference of Catholic.Bishops - The Harvest of Justice is Sown in Peace, 1993
USCCB - Theological and Moral Perspectives on Today’s Challenge of Peace, 2003
Catholic Social Teaching and Violence
Pax Christi - Downloadable literature
Pace e Bene - Addressing violence through spirituality and active nonviolence
The Nonviolence Web
Resource Center for Nonviolence
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project, Stanford University
M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, Memphis, TN
Father John Dear’s website
Agape Catholic Community, Ware, MA
Living Earth, Gatherings for Deep Change, Portland, OR
Veterans for Peace
Chris Hedges, author of War is the Force that Gives Us Meaning; PBS interview
National Catholic Reporter interview: Seeing through the lie that is war
National Catholic Reporter interview: Questioning how we behave any why people hate us
The United Nations
The United Nations on Peace
UNESCO Culture of Peace
World Peace Foundation Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution, Harvard
Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center, Seattle, WA
Holistic Peace Institute, Portland, OR
Oregon calendar and peace movement news
Quotes on PEACE
Violence never again! War never again! Terrorism never again! In the name of God, may every religion bring upon earth justice and peace, forgiveness, life and love!
- Pope John Paul II
Dear God, with you everything is possible. Let the cup of war, killing and destruction, the cup of bloodshed, human anguish and desolation, the cup of torture, breakage in human relationships and abandonment . . . Dear God, let this cup pass us by, we are afraid. We are trembling in the depths of our being. We feel the sweat and tears of thousands of people all over the world, people who are afraid-- afraid to fight, afraid to kill, afraid of being killed, afraid of an uncertain future. - Henri J. M. Nouwen
Grandfather, look at our brokenness. We know that in all creation only the human family has strayed from the Sacred Way. We know that we are the ones who are divided and we are the ones who must come back together to walk in the Sacred Way. Grandfather, Sacred One, teach us love, compassion, and honor that we may heal the earth and heal each other.
- Ojibway prayer
Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor vexation. Where there is poverty and joy, there is neither greed nor avarice. Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt. - Saint Francis of Assisi
We can no longer afford to confuse peaceability with passivity. Authentic peace is no more passive than war. Like war, it calls for discipline and intelligence and strength of character, though it calls also for higher principles and aims. If we are serious about peace, then we must work for it as ardently, seriously, continuously, carefully, and bravely as we now prepare for war. - Wendell Berry
I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it. - Dwight Eisenhower
They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. - Isaiah, 2, 4
May the Lord give strength to his people, may the Lord bless his people with peace!
- Psalm 29, 11
The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree; and there is just the same inviolable connection between the means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree.
- Mohandas Gandhi
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it... Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. - Martin Luther King, Jr
O let us live in joy, in love amongst those who hate! Among men who hate, let us live in love. - The Dhammapada
Oh God, You are Peace. From You comes Peace, To You returns Peace. Revive us with a salutation of Peace, and lead us to your abode of Peace. - Islamic prayer
Though the mountains leave their place and the hills be shaken, my love shall never leave you nor my covenant of peace be shaken, says the Lord, who has mercy on you. - Isaiah 54, 10
May all peoples of the earth become as brothers and sisters. May longed-for peace blossom forth and reign always over us all. - Pope John XXIII
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