Bridgefolk is a movement of sacramentally-minded Mennonites and peace-minded Roman Catholics who come together to celebrate each other's traditions, explore each other's practices, and honor each other's contribution to the mission of Christ's Church.
Salt + Light TV, a Canadian Catholic media network, featured Abbot John Klassen OSB in an interview in December. Abbot John is Bridgefolk co-chair. (By the way, Bridgefolk participants may recognize Lois Kauffman and Julia Smucker at the liturgy of hours during the sixth minute of the clip.)
http://youtu.be/i9NwAJI8KtE
Rome, Italy/Bogota, Colombia (MWC) – An international trilateral dialogue between Mennonites, Catholics and Lutherans began in Rome, 9-13 December 2012.
According to a joint release issued after the Rome meeting, the overall theme of the five-year process is “Baptism and Incorporation into the Body of Christ, the Church.” The release further stated: “This innovative trilateral forum will allow the dialogue to take up questions surrounding the theology and practice of baptism in the respective communions.” Continue reading “Baptism the focus of trilateral dialogue by Mennonites, Catholics and Lutherans”
An reflection on Advent and Sandy HookAbbey Davis Dupuy is a Bridgefolk participant who blogs about faith and parenting at Surviving Our Blessings.
Early evening these days is nearly totally dark at our kitchen table, even with two purple candles and a pink one lit in our Advent wreath. It seems darker than usual this year. The familiar fuzzy comfort of the season is absent…I feel fierce, raw, angry and afraid. I think of my sister, whose pale Alaskan sun sets early in the afternoon this time of year; after a weak attempt at climbing partway up the sky, it gives up and drops quickly back below the horizon again.
I think I know how that sun feels.
We have been working at Advent, at cultivating the calm contemplation that might be slightly out of reach for a family with children as young as ours. Every day, I’ve been listening to my playlist, reading books with my children, baking and crafting and knitting and praying to get ready. Every night, I’ve been faithfully lighting our candles. I’ve been doing a lot of explaining, helping my son to understand what Advent is all about, teaching him songs and prayers and recipes, watching him as he bites his lip in concentration during a reading, as he smiles and signs himself with a cross, as he bounces in his seat and sings, “Gaude!”.
Gaude. Rejoice. It’s what we’re supposed to be about, our task in even these darkest weeks of the year.
Since the shooting at Sandy Hook school last week, Continue reading “What if it’s too dark to see God?”
In releasing his 2013 World Day of Peace message, Pope Benedict XVI has called for for “communitarian” not individualistic development, and insisted that true religion fosters reconciliation not fundamentalism:
It is alarming to see hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between rich and poor, by the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset which also finds expression in an unregulated financial capitalism. In addition to the varied forms of terrorism and international crime, peace is also endangered by those forms of fundamentalism and fanaticism which distort the true nature of religion, which is called to foster fellowship and reconciliation among people.
All the same, the many different efforts at peacemaking which abound in our world testify to mankind’s innate vocation to peace. In every person the desire for peace is an essential aspiration which coincides in a certain way with the desire for a full, happy and successful human life. In other words, the desire for peace corresponds to a fundamental moral principle, namely, the duty and right to an integral social and communitarian development, which is part of God’s plan for mankind. Man is made for the peace which is God’s gift.
All of this led me to draw inspiration for this Message from the words of Jesus Christ: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’ (Mt 5:9).
December 07, 2012
By Amy Worden
Philadelphia Inquirer
A Mennonite-owned cabinetmaker has filed a federal suit charging that the Affordable Care Act’s mandate on contraception coverage violates its constitutional rights.
Conestoga Wood Specialties, citing the principles of religious freedom on which William Penn founded Pennsylvania, says in its suit, filed in U.S. District Court, that to accord to its Mennonite beliefs, it would be “sinful and immoral for the company to participate in, pay for, facilitate or otherwise support any contraception” that would have the effect of an abortion.
Click here to read entire story
Because a Japanese Mennonite man was healed from leukemia after Mennonites and Catholics prayed, a new round of ecumenical dialogue on prayer is stirring up the faithful.
Exactly how God said “yes” to prayers for the healing in 1987 of Jun Yamada, a 24-year-old university student in Japan, will always be shrouded in mystery.
But that isn’t keeping participants in Bridgefolk — a group of Mennonites and Catholics united by their faith in Christ — from more deeply exploring the connection between God’s family on Earth and in heaven.
This past July at the annual Bridgefolk gathering, Alan and Eleanor Kreider — longtime Mennonite teachers on church history, worship and mission — shared the account that Jun Yamada’s brother, Nozomu Yamada, had passed on to them in Tokyo. Continue reading “Communion of saints: Miraculous healing leads to sainthood, helps Mennonites and Catholics deepen friendship”
by Ivan Kauffman
America, 10 December 2012
Growing up Protestant and Republican in Kansas, I began life as a political conservative. But when I was in college, John F. Kennedy changed that. He and Pope John XXIII opened the door to the Catholic Church for me, and for most of my adult life I considered myself a Catholic political liberal. I am still very much a Catholic, but my political leanings have changed again. I no longer consider myself a liberal—or a conservative.
The relics of St. Marcellus are kept at Notre Dame’s Sacred Heart Basilica, and each year on his feast day, pilgrims visit those relics and meditate on the current-day meaning of his martyrdom for peace 1,700 years ago. Continue reading “St. Marcellus Day celebration Oct. 30 at Notre Dame”
We are grateful to the authors for permission to share two reflections on the life of our departed friend and colleague, Margaret O’Gara.
“Fully Human, Spiritual, Religious, Christian” is a reflection that Margaret’s husband (or “spousal colleague”) Michael Vertin shared at both her Toronto, Ontario and Collegeville, Minnesota funeral masses in August.
“The Ecumenical Mountatin” is the homily that Fr. Rene McGraw O.S.B. shared at the Collegeville, Minnesota funeral mass.
Our earlier announcement of Margaret’s death may be found here.