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Irish language version of the Bible now available
An Irish language version of the bible is now available on the internet free of charge. ....
25th anniversary of Catholic fertility institute
Last weekend Catholic medical professionals, clergy and lay people from across the United States ....
Couple wed on Croagh Patrick
The top of Croagh Patrick was the unusual scene for Mayo bride Georgina Byrne and her Australian ....
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The task of the ministry of service, according to Thomas Groome, is to promote human welfare and to tend to human needs. He states: "A Christian Community, toward both itself and all neighbours without limits, is to minister to human suffering and alienation – physical, emotional, and spiritual, to challenge social structures that deny fullness of life to anyone, and to help create social, political and ecclesial arrangements that promote freedom, peace, and justice for all and the integrity of creation… The church always has the task of serving human needs and of redressing the personal, interpersonal, and social/political causes of suffering, violence, injustice, and ecological destruction" (Sharing Faith, pg 303). Maria Harris outlines four forms of service. Social care refers to all acts of caring, ever for ourselves. Social ritual happens when groups and communities come together in organised ways to insist on services that are missing (such as wheelchair access to public buildings, including places of worship) to pray for the presence of care (holding a prayer vigil, for example, to petition for fair housing); or to protest action inimical or hostile to the care demanded by the gospel (the battering of women, the death penalty, the invasion of sovereign nations). Social empowerment is the form of social care and social ritual than enables those in need to take responsibility for themselves. The final form, social legislation, involves challenging the systems and structures that perpetuate unjust conditions. Within the ministry of service Tom Sweetser and Peg Bishop focus on the task of outreach to those who do not come to the weekend liturgies. Some of the areas that outreach covers include:
What is going on in your context in the area of service that you would be willing to share with us? This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . |
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