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“A New Heaven & A New Earth” October 5th, 2023
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth…and the One seated on the throne said, “Behold! I make all things new.” Revelation 21:1,5
Leading Christian composers and musicians from the United States have come together and written songs that highlight the need to care for God‘s beautiful and wounded creation.
They want to work with all their brothers and sisters, inside and with this new music they reach outside the Church too, demonstrating that to lift up Creation is to glorify God, and is a powerful way to serve the Lord and protect what he has given us.
The project’s primary focus is to help faith communities and especially evangelicals around the world to understand and to contribute to the worldwide efforts to address climate change in their lives and communities. Primarily the project is an effort to appeal 
through Contemporary Christian Music, to US evangelicals by creating songs that explicitly draw on the biblical creation themes of Laudato Sí and invite them and others to integrate ecological conversion into their spirituality and lifestyle.
(Image by Marian Anbu Juwan from Pixabay)
READ MORE about the project
Eight songs will be released for listening and broadcast on Christian/evangelical radio throughout 2023, culminating with a CD and a number of concerts in the ensuing years. Links to a couple of the songs are at the bottom of this email.
OMIJPIC has been supporting this project in a number of capacities over the past three years.
Songs and release schedule 2023:
| May 12 | Jason Roy, Building 429 – It’s All – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAkXEzRIqw8&list=OLAK5uy_maon8nTUQVIEqaqtLjJi358_5tBxEKJWM |
| June 9 | MŌRIAH – You Mean the World: https://youtu.be/zYYfNgk6ByQ?si=Y5wMv3Ebpu94tWCg |
| July 7 | Aaron Cole – Together: https://youtu.be/RuMK5bDOuuQ?si=arF4wrEpetfg9Ix1 |
| August 4 | Phil Joel – Arms Around the World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm1Q59PyuJE&list=OLAK5uy_mFkdN1q6AmVadTdE-2y9-cCg2jzqJa8ok |
| September 1 | Waterdeep – Into the Unseen – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMWyFNEtd3I&list=OLAK5uy_kukytnUOHhNFLoAKF9-hO4d4efbc1FFs0 |
| September 22 | Don Chaffer, Phil Joel, Jason Gray, Jason Roy – Our Common Home – https://youtu.be/1sKq1tI1NkM?si=YP53DFleHQ9ibCMM |
| October 20 | Jason Gray – Awestruck – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQUlL0a4OT4&list=OLAK5uy_n_MUZ2AF3KhE50y4kJk09JqpTp2lZYRCE |
| November 17 | Micah Tyler – So Will I – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTUjQlGsgBg&list=OLAK5uy_nMzLBgtYZfHZAnEGc49YIiwB5AfvGmGx0 |
MORE: https://chvnradio.com/articles/listen-building-429s-jason-roy-releases-new-song-part-of-a-multi-artist-album
Project on YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC75eBN73u2HI1I_I6G-dbvA
2023 Season of Creation – “Cultivate a Listening Heart” September 29th, 2023
By Maurice Lange, current Justice & Peace Director at Presentation Sisters & former Executive Director of the Oblates Lebh Shomea House of Prayer
“We are speaking of an attitude of the heart, one which approaches life with serene attentiveness, which is capable of being fully present to someone without thinking of what comes next.”
(Laudato Si #226)
READ: 7th part of Pope Francis’ letter for the 2023 Season of Creation (on page 2)
REFLECTION: Have you heard of the term “lebh shomea”? In Hebrew lebh shomea means “listening heart”. In synodality Pope Francis calls the Church and all people to a process of heartful listening—lest we fail our mission and our humanity. We have failed to hear the cries of Earth and people made poor, and it’s no coincidence that the next step of the synodal process begins on the feast of St. Francis. Let us immerse ourselves in the river of listening so that we become “a Church increasingly capable of making prophetic decisions that are the fruit of the Spirit’s guidance.”*
ACTION: What are you listening to? As we are bombarded each day with messages surely not from the Spirit, what filters can you creatively construct, so as to limit exposure to junk that comes your way? That way we make space within our hearts to listen deeply to each other. We can become the synodal Church that Francis is leading us toward: one that sows justice and peace, one that gives life to all.
Reflections in this series:
- Preparing for the 2023 Season of Creation – “Let Justice and Peace Flow”
- 2023 Season of Creation – “Let’s Irrigate Life!”
- 2023 Season of Creation – “Transforming Our Hearts”
- 2023 Season of Creation – “Transforming Our Lifestyles”
- 2023 Season of Creation – “Transforming Public Policy”
Pope meets U.S. leaders patiently building ‘culture of solidarity’ | USCCB September 20th, 2023
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When Pope Francis told a group of U.S. community organizers that their work was “atomic,” Jorge Montiel said, “I thought, ‘Oh, you mean we blow things up?'”
But instead, the pope spoke about how the groups associated with the West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation in the United States take issues patiently, “atom by atom,” and end up building something that “penetrates” and changes entire communities, said Montiel, an IAF organizer in Colorado and New Mexico.
Pope Francis’ hourlong meeting Sept. 14 with 15 delegates from the group was a follow-up to a similar meeting a year ago. Neither meeting was listed on the pope’s official schedule and, the delegates said, both were conversations, not “audiences.”
“It was relaxed, it was engaging,” said Joe Rubio, national co-director of IAF. “Often you don’t see that even with parish priests,” he told Catholic News Service Sept. 15, garnering the laughter of other delegates.
2023 Season of Creation – “Let’s Irrigate Life!” September 15th, 2023
By Maurice Lange, current Justice & Peace Director at Presentation Sisters & former Executive Director of the Oblates Lebh Shomea House of Prayer
“Love, overflowing with small gestures of mutual care, is also civic and political, and it makes itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world.” (Laudato Si #231)
READ: 3rd part of Pope Francis’ letter for the 2023 Season of Creation (below) (READ FULL REFLECTION)
REFLECTION: Pope Francis does not mince words in calling us to put an end to war upon Creation. Our calling is to stand with victims of this war, both human and other-than-human. Justice and peace cannot flow when so many bodies of water are drying up. Yes, our human societies are that linked to the natural world! Greed and selfishness, on the part of individuals and industry, are wreaking havoc on Earth’s water cycle. Creation’s heartbeat works in cycles…we Westerners think and act linearly. Can we align our hearts with the way that Earth functions…and live cyclically?
ACTION: This week go outside — near a stream, brook or small river — and just be. Ponder the flow of that water…and where it merges with other streams or rivers. How does this increase provide for creatures and habitats downstream? What are some novel ways you can irrigate (and not deplete) “the life of our marvelous planet and our human family”?
Reflections in this series:
2023 Season of Creation – “Harmonize Our Hearts” September 7th, 2023
(Image by Shirley Hirst from Pixabay)
By Maurice Lange, current Justice & Peace Director at Presentation Sisters & former Executive Director of the Oblates Lebh Shomea House of Prayer
“The Spirit of God has filled the universe with possibilities and therefore, from the very heart of things, something new can always emerge.” (Laudato Si #80)
READ: 2nd part of Pope Francis’ letter for the 2023 Season of Creation (READ FULL REFLECTION)
REFLECT: Pope Francis calls us during this Season of Creation to dwell upon heartbeats: our own as well as those heartbeats which give us life: our mother’s… Creation’s…God’s… A pilgrimage place (like Lac St. Anne in Canada) is healing…and also inviting of an individual/group to go to the heart of the matter. Francis focuses us this Season by inviting us to journey with him on a pilgrimage. We are called to harmonize our hearts (our perceptions and lifestyles) with the heartbeat of Creation, that which gives life. Where do our hearts beat in harmony with Life? What influences in our society allure us away from such a harmony?
ACT: As we begin this year’s Season of Creation, we must admit how out-of-sync our Western hearts are with the rest of the natural world. Is there a link between such disharmony and our Western addiction to screentime (and derived dopamine)? * During this Season of Creation, create a plan to limit screentime. (And thus, have time and attentiveness to harmonize your heart with that which truly gives life.)
“In the heart of this world, the Lord of life, who loves us so much, is always present.” (LS #245)
Reflections in this series:
