Season of Creation 2020 - Jubilee for the Earth

 

Endorsed by Pope Francis in 2015 and supported by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the annual month-long ecumenical celebration entitled the Season of Creation will begin on 1 September (World Day of Prayer for Creation) and continue until 4 October 2020 (feast of Saint Francis of Assisi). 

The celebration calls on the global Christian community to promote prayer and action to protect our common home, and is one of the initiatives to celebrate the Special Laudato Si’ Anniversary Year which runs from 24 May 2020 until 24 May 2021. The theme for this year’s season is “Jubilee for the Earth”. 

For more information and resources on the Season of Creation, please visit the website at https://seasonofcreation.org/

Reproduced from the website of the  Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB)

An Invitation to the Margins

 A spiritual reflection on the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time by Carol J. Dempsey, Ph.D., a Dominican Sister from Caldwell, New Jersey and professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Portland, Oregon. 

This spiritual reflection speaks to everyone, but has special relevance for Vincentians.

Published August 29 in the National Catholic Reporter.

Mothers in Portland, Oregon. (CNS/Reuters/Caitlin Ochs)

Global communities have "woke," with voices from the margins shouting, reaching an ear-piercing pitch in the breathtaking struggle against injustice during a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

Everywhere people take to the streets, marching in solidarity against racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, gender and orientation discrimination, police brutality and militaristic law enforcement. The margins have had enough! They rise up, once again, and push against the seemingly impenetrable boundaries of hegemonic power that privileges the few and disenfranchises the many.

The margins make their presence known and felt. They expose the myriad of injustices that have plagued, riddled and marred the human community for eons, leaving the web of life tattered, torn and tottering on the threshold of extinction. The margins speak truth to power. They press in on comfort zones. They will not accept being silenced, bullied, pushed aside, discounted any longer. The margins resist.

This Sunday's readings invite everyone to and into the margins, if some of us are not already there.
Read the whole of Sr. Dempsey's reflection here:
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time: Margins speak truth in National Catholic Reporter

Precarious Work, Vulnerable Workers and COVID-19

 

Image credit: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk

Precarious Work, Vulnerable Workers and COVID-19


 

Precarious work is a term used to describe certain types of employment, usually, but not always, non-standard or temporary. It is precarious precisely because it is insecure and unprotected, it pays poorly and unreliably, and provides very limited or no social benefits and statutory entitlements.

People who are dependent on precarious work employment for their income find it extremely challenging to support a household and often need to take two or even three such jobs in their efforts to make ends meet. Such people are justifiably termed, "vulnerable workers".