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The World Social Forum offers us a unique occasion to reflect upon the relation between mission and world social transformation. The eighth edition of the Forum will be held at the end of this month in the city of Belém (Brazil), at the heart of the Amazon region.
Sometimes, especially in hard times, we need life examples. From people like us, who, because of some trials or by choice, found a new path. The three figures World Mission chose could not be more different: a Colombian presidential candidate who was kidnapped and rediscovered faith in the hell of the jungle; a Palestinian beauty technician who was prepared to be a suicide bomber but became a peace fighter; and an American Jesuit who is a well-known preacher and practitioner of nonviolence. Each one, in her/his own way, has something to teach us about the conversion of the heart, the way to face adversity and find God. All of them have something in common: their lives deserved a peace award.
Encountering the true God is our only hope. It’s how we discover our own true nature and reclaim our fundamental humanity as peaceful, loving, nonviolent people. Encountering the true God will empower us to become peacemakers and fill us with the sense of being “sons and daughters of the God of peace.” On that day, we will fully know God, and peace and justice will flow naturally.
The new outbreak of combats between the Congolese Army and the troops of the rebellious General Laurent Nkunda has caused an undetermined number of deaths and more than 250,000 displaced people, making ever more difficult the restoration of peace in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Born in a godless family, active as a radical journalist, Dorothy Day discovered God because of the joy of expecting a baby. The father of the baby left her when she decided to have the baby baptized. She faced life as a long loneliness with her only daughter, Tamar, but God used her to gather the poor in the Catholic Worker Movement and to give a voice to Catholic pacifism in the USA. She saw the Catholic Church as “the church of the immigrants, the church of the poor.” Survivor of innumerable social battles, she became an icon of resistance and attracted the admiration of champions like Thomas Merton and Mother Teresa.
“Blessed are you poor, for the kingdom of God belongs to you.”
(Read Luke 6:20-49)
