Advent Retreat
Date: Dec. 8, 2012
Location: St. Mary’s Spiritual Center & Historical Site
Circles of Contemplation
Date: 2013- Dates to be announced
Time: 7:30–9 pm
Location: Emmanuel Monastery, 2229 W. Joppa Road, Lutherville MD 21093
Why Participate in Circles?
Now in its ninth year, this program offers the opportunity to gather with others in a place of safety and non-judgmental conversation, within a faith context, to ponder God’s Word and ways it impacts our present reality; to share with others the unsettling questions and conflicts of the heart that often confront us today; and to encourage and support a Gospel response.
Format
This program continues and deepens previous Circle Series and this year will focus on the theme of “Living the Questions”. An appropriate passage from Sacred Scripture will be chosen for each session. Our approach will be a form of monastic “lectio”- sacred pondering of the Word, allowing its power, challenge, and inspiration to inform our response to issues of concern in today’s culture.Through the promise of “conversatio” the 1500 year old Rule of Benedict urges its followers to be always open to the promptings of the Spirit, open always to new ideas and possibilities. Together we will endeavor to open our hearts to embrace the new in response to the multi-faceted challenges of our day.
Sponsored by
Benedictine Sisters of Baltimore & Murphy Initiative for Justice and Peace
Registration Information
We recommend participants attend all sessions if at all possible for the sake of continuity, community, and collective action or response.
Suggested Donation
$10 per session, $50 for entire series
( Members of sponsoring Murphy Initiative communities: reduced rates are available. )
Contact and Register online at www.PFMjpi.org
Vigil to End the Death Penalty with Viva House & Jonah House
Date: EVERY MONDAY
Time: 5-6 pm
Location: Supermax Prison at Madison Street and Fallsway, Downtown Baltimore
“Our position is rooted in the Biblical concept of restorative justice, which flows from a set of moral principles . . . While Catholic opposition to the death penalty is based on respect for the sacred dignity of each person, on moral grounds as a violation of the fifth commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and on the need to recognize the possibility of repentance and conversion, there are numerous legal, ethical, social and pragmatic reasons to oppose capital punishment….” – Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, Bishop of Albany, N.Y., February 20, 2003.
“We oppose capital punishment not just for what it does to those guilty of horrible crimes but for what it does to all of us as a society. We cannot overcome crime by simply executing criminals, nor can we restore the lives of the innocent by ending the lives of those convicted of their murders.” -U.S. Catholic Bishops
US Conference of Catholic Bishops: www.ccedp.org
MD Citizens Against State Executions: www.mdcase.org
Women in Black
Join Women in Black for vigils for peace.
Date: Every Friday
Time: 12-1 pm
Location: Inner Harbor (Pratt & Light streets) and Roland Park (41st Street, across from the Rotunda)
Date: Every second Friday of the month
Time: 12-1 pm
Location: Towson (Fairmount and Dulaney Valley roads)
Women in Black (WIB) is a worldwide network of women committed to peace with justice and actively opposed to injustice, war, militarism and other forms of violence. As women experiencing these things in different ways in different regions of the world, we support each other’s movements. An important focus is challenging the militarist policies of our own governments. We are not an organization but a means of communicating and a formula for action.
“Women in Black” was inspired by earlier movements of women who demonstrated on the streets, making a public space for women to be heard – particularly Black Sash, in South Africa, and the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, seeking the “disappeared” in the political repression in Argentina. But WIB also shares a genealogy with groups of women explicitly refusing violence, militarism and war, such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom formed in 1918, and the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in the UK and related groups around the world opposing the deployment of US missiles in the eighties.
Centering Prayer
Date: Last Sunday of each month
Time: 2–4 pm
Location: Mission Helpers of the Sacred Heart, 1001 W. Joppa Rd., Baltimore MD 21204
Open to the public. Group focuses on Christian meditation and contemplative prayer and meets in the Mission Helper Chapel. For more information:gcarpeneto@comcast.net