The print version of this year’s edition of Pax Christi USA’s Advent reflection booklet is now available in the Pax Christi USA Store with shipments starting in early-October. The special pre-order price of the booklet is $4.00 a copy (with further discounts of 10 percent on orders of 10-99 or 30 percent for 100+).
This year’s booklet, Radicalizing Tenderness: Reflections for Advent and Christmas 2023, features reflections for Sundays and Holy Days from Advent through Epiphany written by Sr. Norma Pimentel, a member of the Missionaries of Jesus and executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, who is deeply admired for her advocacy for migrants and those on the margins. Sr. Norma’s reflections for Advent and Christmas invite readers to recall our human connections, the love we have been shown by a tender Creator, and how our faith shapes our daily steps.
>> Order the print version by clicking here.
NOTE: Shipping of pre-orders begins in late September. After that, the price for the booklet will be $5.00/copy. Bulk discounts are available for orders of 10-99 (10 percent discount) and 100+ (30 percent discount). Order your copies now for yourself, your parish, religious community, ministry, school, and family to assure reception in time for the start of Advent, December 3.
Excellent for individual reflection and prayer or in small groups, this booklet is available for pre-order now in the hard-copy print version. After Oct. 31, the electronic version will be available to purchase as a download for your e-reader.
Excerpt from the first Sunday of Advent, Sr. Norma writes:
Be watchful!
As we begin Advent, we are called to be watchful and alert. We are called to ask ourselves, “Could it be we have wandered from God’s ways? Have our hearts hardened, that we fear not the absence of God’s presence in our life?”
Have we confused our own design of who God is to us and have failed to allow the true presence of God to guide us to Him, to instruct us how to respond to the injustice of our time?
God is never indifferent to human suffering. On the contrary, God’s presence is revealed in our direct contact with human beings. In our response to human suffering.
Daily I meet people who are on the margins of our society, people on the peripheries. Pope Francis calls us to go out to these peripheries to include those who are left out, easily discarded and unseen. They are people who are homeless, people who have immigrated, people who are poor.
If we ask ourselves, who are these people, the ones without homes, who have immigrated, who are poor? We may find that they are people just like us, but whose struggles have left them in a vulnerable position. They are the broken of our society who find themselves living in the streets of our cities. For the most part they are ignored, invisible to many of us who pass by them.
They are people on the move who leave their country for fear caused by violence, corruption, abuses and attacks on their life. They travel great distances and encounter life-threatening hardships along the way. Many don’t make it because the human body is unable to endure the exhaustion of extreme conditions. Many are also victims of the evils of human trafficking.
People who are poor are those who find it so difficult to earn living wages to provide the essentials for themselves and their families. They live day by day oppressed by the living standards of our society.
The social injustices of our time are real. It is the result of an indifferent and detached society that fails to be mindful of God’s ways – a God who is inclusive and compassionate and who demands a response from us.
Take time this Advent to be alert. Be vigilant that you do not wander off from God’s way. Rather than being seduced by the evils of the world that easily invade our minds and hearts and pull us away from God, look instead for ways to respond to the injustices of our time.