No Borders - Passion for Christ, Passion for Humanity

It's Spring!

Time to roll up our selves, get involved and plant the seeds of justice and peace.

Xaverian Mission Newsletter - Hope for the Future

Did you ever think, "I'm only one person. What can I do?" Well, there is not only 'safety in numbers,' there is also solidarity! Opportunities for service abound. Take advantage of them. You'd be surprised how much one person can do, especially when he or she is united with others. Then our earth really will bring forth its bounty!

Our May newsletter is out! It's chock full of fascinating items on our founder, articles on justice and peace concerns and information on Xaverian activities in this country and around the world. We hope you find it interesting and inspiring. You can read it on our website or subscribe to it by mail.

We also invite your feedback. Let us know what you think.

Have a great Spring!

Fr. Carl Chudy, SX

Helping Street Children in Bangladesh

I am Fr. Riccardo Tobanelli, a Xaverian Missionary Priest, I have been living in Bangladesh since 1982. Since 1994 I have started to take care of street children. I have had the fortune to meet and know the Tokai-street children and walk along with them. I have learned from them to love life. Their courage, humanity and joy in spite of exploitation, abuse and deprivation continue to surprise me. Read more

Pope John Paul II
27 Years of Global Justice and Solidarity

John Paul II - Global justice and solidarity

"The goal of solidarity must be the advancement of a more human world for all - a world in which every individual will be able to participate in a positive and fruitful way, and in which the wealth of some will no longer be an obstacle to the development of others, but a help."

Pope John Paul II

The beatification of Pope John Paul II is a good opportunity to revisit his statements on human rights and global concerns. Read more.

CRS - Make a difference, become a star

Make a Difference! Become a STAR!

Join Catholic Relief Services and the USCCB in confronting global poverty and understanding that it is a disease with a cure - a cure that requires both our outrage and our action.

Establish a group to act in all four key "challenge" areas - praying, learning, sharing and advocating. Submit descriptions, stories and photos of your activities through the online form. Receive a star on the Solidarity Map. With each new STAR, we'll get a richer sense of what solidarity looks like throughout the United States as we encourage, inspire, and exhort one another to confront global poverty.

Peacebuilders Initiative Launches New Website

Movie Review: The Soloist

Peacebuilders Initiative, a program that prepares youth for active leadership roles in peacemaking and reconciliation, is pleased to announce the launch of their brand new website. A program of the Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, Peacebuilders Initiative draws high school students for a yearlong formation program that prepares them to bring the theology and ministry they experience back to their homes, schools, neighborhoods, and parishes through student-led peace projects.

Peacebuilders Initiative's new website is designed to provide up-to-date information and resources to all those who are involved with the program or who are interested in learning more about high school peacemakers.

Interfaith Worker Justice

Interfaith Worker Justice is organizing with the faith community to address the most damaging social crisis of our lifetimes: the crisis of unemployment. While there are some signs of a return to profitability for certain sectors of business, workers continue to face unemployment and underemployment at levels not seen since the Great Depression.

Find out more...

Of GODS and MEN

Movie Review: Of Gods and Men

Eight French Christian monks live in harmony with their Muslim brothers in a monastery perched in the mountains of North Africa in the 1990s. When a crew of foreign workers is massacred by an Islamic fundamentalist group, fear sweeps though the region. The army offers them protection, but the monks refuse. Should they leave? Despite the growing menace in their midst, they slowly realize that they have no choice but to stay...come what may. This film is loosely based on the life of the Cistercian monks of Tibhirine in Algeria, from 1993 until their kidnapping in 1996.

"Of Gods and Men" is the best film dealing with religion that I have ever encountered. Raymond A. Schroth, NCR

I say encountered because we do not merely watch the monks go through the motions of their daily order. Every touch, every detail seems so authentic that we experience the narrow, cramped corridors and bedroom cells of the monastery, which, with hardly a Gothic line, resembles a cut-rate motel rather than a soaring medieval monastery. When the monks chop wood and dig and plant the garden that will feed their neighbors and themselves, so do we.

See the trailer for the film. Download the Study Guide.