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unitebostonKeymaster
Church/Group: Community of Sant’Egidio
Project Location: 8 Dana Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Time: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Volunteers Needed: 5Description:
The Community of Sant’Egidio is a Catholic lay movement that lives out the Gospel through prayer and friendship with our many brothers and sisters who live on the margins of our city or who experience social isolation. The elderly living in nursing homes are especially lonely as they may have no family or friends to visit them. In Cambridge, we visit with elderly friends to break through the loneliness and to discover a joyful friendship that bridges generations! Together, with our elderly friends, we visit, talk, laugh, share stories and listen to their concerns. You are welcome to join us in visiting!
unitebostonKeymasterChurch/Group: Holy Name Parish Youth
Project Location: TBA
Time: 09:00 am to 01:00 pm
Volunteers Needed: 20Description:
Holy Name Parish Youth Service Team is working with “Love Your Block” Project on May 6th in the West Roxbury area. Sites are still being assigned.
If anyone wants to participate they should send an email to HolyNameYouthServiceProject@gmail.com to get more informationunitebostonKeymasterChurch/Group: Route One Ministry
Project Location: Emmanuel Gospel Center, 2 San Juan Street, Boston MA
Time: 09:00 am to 01:00 pm
Volunteers Needed: 10Description:
Volunteers will sort donations and create cards and gift baskets for exploited women, and then have lunch together for a time of sharing and learning about Route One Ministry and human trafficking.
Note: Bring comfortable clothes. Minimum Age: 16; Volunteers must stay the whole timeApril 15, 2017 at 10:00 am in reply to: Discipling Millenials: A Conversation with Dr. Kelly Madden #8709unitebostonKeymasterEconomist/author/activist Amy Sherman recently interviewed Father Kelly Madden from the Boston Fellows program, a local ministry focused on the whole-life discipleship of young adults.
Click on this link to check out their advice for equipping young adults to serve God and neighbor in today’s world!
unitebostonKeymaster“We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you;
Because, by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.”
Above, a powerful moment of prayer during yesterday’s “Way of the Cross” prayer walk with the South Boston-Seaport Catholic Collaborative.
Check out these beautiful images of Christians around the world celebrating Holy Week (Photo Credit: The Atlantic)
Also, don’t miss this article in the Boston Globe written about a “Hunger for Justice” retreat w/ high schoolers prayerfully reflecting on the life of Jesus.
unitebostonKeymasterHoly Week is an incredible time for us to come together in fellowship and prayer with Christians throughout our city to remember the significance of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
This year is also unique in that the Western and Eastern Church calendars align! Here are a few services that some of UniteBoston’s team members will be attending.
Post on our Facebook wall to share which service you’re going to, and meet up with others!
Also, check out the UniteBoston Events page for a full listing of Holy Week services that have been submitted to our website.
This is a time for simple chants, Scripture, quiet prayer, intercessions, and meditative silence before the Cross, the instrument of our Salvation.
7:00 to 8:00pm at the Paulist Center, 5 Park Street, Boston
Wednesday Night – Resound: A Night of Art and Music to Benefit Refugees in Boston
Join us for a night of art & music to benefit refugees in Boston. $10 Recommended Donation; all proceeds go to the Greater Boston Refugee Ministry.7:00pm at River of Life Church, 440 Centre Street, Jamaica PlainMaundy Thursday immerses us in the last night of Jesus’s life and the commandment to love one another. We remember the Last Supper and Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, and all are welcome to participate in washing another’s feet, following His example. Come early for a simple dinner at 5:30 pm5:30 to 8:15pm at Church of the Good Shepherd, 9 Russell Ave, WatertownJoin us for a prayerful Stations of the Cross outdoor walk with the South Boston Seaport Collaborative, followed by pizza lunch.10:45am at St. Monica’s Parish, 331 Old Colony Ave, Boston9 churches in the Boston area are coming together for a public worship service on Good Friday at the historic Faneuil Hall.6:00pm and 8:00pm at Faneuil Hall, 4 South Market Building, BostonFrom Jason Oneida, UniteBoston Rep: The sorrow of the crucifixion gradually transforms into joy as the faithful process around St. Mary Orthodox Church, then process outdoors with other Orthodox congregations with the eptitaphios (a symbolic tomb) and pass under it on the way back inside, symbolizing Jesus’ passover from death to life.7:00pm at St. Mary Orthodox Church, 8 Inman Street, CambridgeSaturday Easter Vigils
Lots of great Easter Vigils happening around the city, and in particular our team members recommend:
- 6:30pm at the Church of the Advent, 30 Brimmer Street, Boston
- The most dramatic and moving service in the entire church year, a service of waiting — waiting in darkness for light to dawn, waiting in the tomb of death for life to be born — then receiving that life in baptism and the Holy Eucharist.
- 8:30pm at the Church of the Cross, 874 Beacon Street, Boston
- This service includes a choir, original music compositions, Scripture readings that outline the history of our salvation, an opportunity to reaffirm our baptismal vows, and the celebration of Holy Communion. Followed by a dessert reception that will last well past midnight!
- From Vito Nicastro, UniteBoston Board Member: The Resurrection Vigil of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Boston takes place in their Cathedral of the Annunciation, 514 Parker St., Roxbury Crossing, in Boston at 11pm. The service culminates the waiting and preparation of the whole season of Lent and greets the very first dawn of the Paschal Feast of the Resurrection, Easter, around midnight. At the crucial moment of the first proclamation “Christ is Risen! Christos Anesthi!” The Eastern Orthodox congregation welcomes the Western Church representative, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, so that the proclamation can be made together, East and West.
Sunrise Services
- Gate of Heaven St. Brigid – Easter Sunrise Mass at Castle Island – 6:00am
- Roxbury Presbyterian Church – Sunrise service at Carson Beach – 6:00am
- Easter Festival Eucharist Service & Blessing of the Runners – Trinity Church in Copley Square at 8am, 10am, 12pm, and 6pm
Sacred Spaces – All Week with Grace Chapel
- Sacred Spaces are an opportunity to meet with God in quiet, personal reflection. This year’s Sacred Spaces draws on the imagery of green and growing things. It invites you to a place of possibility: a space to talk with the one who made the earth and put you in it.
- Stop by the Lexington or Wilmington campuses during the week to reflect on this Lenten season with Jesus – click here to view the specific times that it will be open at either campus.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25)This year, as Christians throughout Boston draw deeper in our understanding of the cross, may God also fill this city with His resurrection life.
We know that there are a lot of other great prayerful gatherings of Christians during Holy Week – If you know about any others that should be on this list, email Kelly at kelly@uniteboston.comunitebostonKeymasterChurch/Group: First Presbyterian Church in Brookline/Women and Girls Thriving
Project Location: 40 Webster Place, Brookline, MA 02445
Time: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Volunteers Needed: 5Description:
The Thriving Together community garden has been developed through a partnership between the Community of Women involved in Women and Girls Thriving in Brookline and members of the First Presbyterian Church. On May 6th, our project will focus on garden clean-up to prepare for this season’s harvest. We will be fixing up our garden plots, organizing our tools, and ensuring our soil will be ready for transplanting our seedlings!
unitebostonKeymasterChurch/Group: Global Ministries Christian Church
Project Location: 670 Washington Street, Dorchester, MA. 02124
Time: 10:00 am to 03:00 pm
Volunteers Needed: 10Description:
We will clean around the church, garden and city parking lot. We need volunteers from within and outside of the church.
We will start at 10 AM and work until we have finished the project.
unitebostonKeymasterChurch/Group: Reservoir Church in Cambridge
Project Location: 15 Notre Dame Ave, Cambridge MA 02140
Time: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Volunteers Needed: 50Description:
We will collect supplies from their wish list and create 150+ duffle bags with personal hygiene items for the Refugee and unaccompanied minors in the Ascentria foster care system in MA. These children often have to carry their belongings in trash bags which can feel so dehumanizing. We want to give them dignity by having their own duffle bag, including special items like a soft blanket and stuffed animal. The children we are creating the care bags for are not in the regular foster system but in a special category of “Refugee and Unaccompanied Minors”.
unitebostonKeymasterThis week, we feature a guest blogger, Fr. Tom Ryan, CSP, who directs the Paulist North American Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations in Boston.
Father Tom recently held a day of reflection entitled “What Will Bring Me More Fully to Life This Lent?” His words are important for us in this period where we are reflecting and considering our relationship with Christ.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="680"] CC-BY-2.0/ Susanne Nilsson Via Flickr[/caption]
If you were to take that approach to Lent this year, you might ask: “What would bring me more alive?”
Keep your eye on the sun in this season. It will give you the primary cue as to what this period we call Lent is all about. In our northern hemisphere, Lent coincides with the turning of the earth towards the sun, the springing forth of life from the apparent death of winter’s frigid grasp.
The very word “Lent” comes from the Anglo-saxon “lencthen,” originally referring to the lengthening of the light. From this original meaning, confirmed in the movement from winter’s darkness to spring’s increasing vitality, we are invited to move out of our own personal lethargy to vitality, from ashes to the paschal feast. Lent, in short, is about coming to life in new ways. It is about growth.
Its spirit is better captured by the pouring of water at Easter baptisms than by the burning of palms on Ash Wednesday. The history of Christian worship reminds us that Lent exists as a time to prepare candidates for baptism and to invite all the baptized to renew their baptismal consecration at Easter. Once again, the emphasis is on new life.
If you were to take that approach to Lent this year, you might ask: “What would bring me more alive?” The practices of physical and spiritual disciplines you choose would be in light of Jesus’ words, “I came that you might have life and have it to the full!” (John 10:10). Yes, you might settle on a practice or two that has some “bite” in it, but it would be undertaken in the spirit of pruning a rose bush, of cutting back the branches that have grown too wild, in order to cultivate more blossoms that give glory to God.
If you approached your life in terms of a holistic spirituality, looking at your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being to see where things have fallen out of balance, have grown wild, and need some pruning or fertilizer or watering, you might ask yourself some questions like these:
How is the balance between my active and contemplative life? Do I spend much more time “conjugating” the verbs doing, wanting, having than the verb being? What forms of prayer might help me restore some contemplative space to my living to allow my soul to breathe?
What is the balance between mind and body in my day? If the scale tips heavily towards major engagement of the mind but minor involvement for the body, what kind of physical exercise might I enjoy that would have the benefit of renewing my energy, enabling me to sleep better, and bring a more relaxed presence to those with whom I live and work?
Is there rough equilibrium between time invested in taking care of myself and time dedicated to taking care of others? If I cannot identify a clear service dimension somewhere in the deployment of my time and energy, what opportunities are there in my locale to assist the homeless, the hungry, the sick or the aged?
Is my relational life blossoming, or dying on the vine? Maybe laying in an evening a week to spend with spouse or friends would be like watering dry soil and bring alive your affectivity with laughter and tears.
What’s the balance between passive watching (as in television) and active reading (as in a good book that nourishes the soul)? Could Lenten fasting take the form of fewer sitcoms watched but more chapters read?
And what’s the ratio between the time my functional activities get and the time made available to nurture my creative energies? Maybe a good Lenten resolution would be to get out at least once a week to an art gallery or a museum, or to an inspiring play or movie.
Whatever you settle on in this season of a springtime for the spirit, keep your eye on the sun and imitate the earth in turning more fully towards the light. Do what will bring you and others more fully to life. There could be no better preparation for the Easter feast of water and light, no better offering to make at the altar, than a heart and spirit renewed and grateful to God for the gift of life both human and divine.
Note: This article was originally published in the Boston Pilot; republished with permission.
unitebostonKeymasterChurch/Group: Old South Church
Project Location: 645 Boylston St
Time: 10:00 am to 02:00 pm
Volunteers Needed: 5Description:
Our Rolling Soup Kitchen will be a day event aimed at breaking down barriers between housed and unhoused neighbors in the Back Bay. Start by cooking a “take away” meal at Old South Church (645 Boylston St). We’ll then go out into the Copley area around lunch time and talk with unhoused folks and others on the streets who seem like they might enjoy a meal. We’ll meet people, talk with them, and share a meal.
unitebostonKeymasterThis week, we’re privileged to have a guest blogger, Ken Arnold. Ken is studying at Harvard and the founding director of a new ministry that brings together tech and missions-minded leaders in Boston. It’s exciting to see how influential technology can be in impacting the nations!
[caption id="attachment_8461" align="aligncenter" width="621"] “I LOVE this merging of skills and purpose. I would do this daily… with more sleep.”
— Hackathon participant[/caption]On November 4-6, 2016, 1,426 technologists, developers, designers and mission workers in 28 cities and 16 nations around the world came together to build technology to support Christian missions, as part of an event called Indigitous #Hack. At our city’s event, 40 people gathered at the MIT Media Lab and formed six project teams to work on challenges posed by missions agencies. Projects included investigating the causes and consequences of youth sexting, configuring a portable router to distribute the Bible and other literature in remote areas, prototyping an app to connect people for spiritual mentoring, facilitating connections between Christians in Metro Boston, assisting people in searching for job opportunities abroad, and developing an information management system for a network of orphanages in Southeast Asia.
We worked late into the night. We worshipped and prayed together. We connected with cities around the world. Some of the things we built may already be in use in the mission field, while others explored an idea that may come to fruition years down the road. But the biggest impact was on our community. Nearly every Boston participant said the best part of the event was connecting with other believers and working with them towards God’s mission:
- [The best part was] “Meeting friends, coding globally, dreaming about what missions will look like in the next ten years”
- [It was] “fun to see other Christians come out of the woodwork, especially in a faith-hostile place like Boston where we are all hidden.”
- “I’d never heard of any event like this that brought together technology and digitally minded Christians.”
What’s next?
- Let’s do it again this year! This event was possible because of the passionate work of a diverse planning team. Want to be part of it? Let me know: kenneth.arnold@gmail.com.
- Let’s connect ministry and tech. We’re building a broader community, starting off with a kickoff event one evening in April or May. Details coming soon, sign up for updates or just email me.
- Share your challenges. What inspires you? What would you like to work on?
For those in other fields of work, what would it look like to gather people together to think about using their work and skills for the Gospel?
Come and join us as we dream with God about changing the world through innovative technology!
March 9, 2017 at 9:04 am in reply to: A Word to White Evangelicals: Now is the Time to Engage Issues of Race #8432unitebostonKeymasterToday, we feature a guest blogger, Megan Lietz, who is an Applied Research & Consulting Associate with the Emmanuel Gospel Center. She challenges the Evangelical community about the critical opportunity today to engage in conversations and action around racial equity.
Check out her blog article here: https://www.egc.org/blog/2017/2/22/a-word-to-white-evangelicals-now-is-the-time-to-engage-issues-of-race
unitebostonKeymasterAmidst life’s busyness, we often need to take a moment to stop & pray.
Check out this blog of Boston’s Hidden Sacred Spaces, with more than 50 chapels, meditation and prayer rooms which invite passers-by to pause, sit for a moment, and reflect.
For more information, check out the project profile on Brandeis Now
February 16, 2017 at 8:58 pm in reply to: Keep the Fire Burning: An Article from Koinonia Magazine #8260unitebostonKeymaster[caption id="attachment_38496" align="alignright" width="192"] Tom Ryan, CSP[/caption]
Some people have said that the Christian unity movement has been in an “ecumenical winter.” However, Father Tom Ryan, who directs the Paulist North American Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations in Boston, contends that “the signs are there that the Holy Spirit is alive and active, lighting the fire in our hearts for more visible communion with one another as followers of Jesus.” Father Tom was one of the most consistent attendees during UniteBoston’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and in this article, he describes how encouraged he is about the movement he sees in Boston of Christians coming together to receive their calling as ambassadors for unity.
Originally posted here, republished with permission.Keep the Fire Burningby Thomas Ryan, CSP
February 6, 2017The ecumenical movement spread through Christian churches like a wildfire in the late 1960s, through the 70s, and into the 80s, fanned significantly by the entrance of the Roman Catholic church after the Second Vatican Council into the work for Christian unity.
Around the turn of the millennium, there was a substantive reshaping of relationship among a significant number of churches. In 1997 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the U.S. Episcopalian Church judged that their process of growth in agreement had reached sufficient maturity to enter into full communion with one another.
The Reformed Church in America, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America also entered into full communion with each other with mutual recognition of ministries, sacraments, exchangeability of ministers and members.
And in 1999 the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation signed a Common Declaration on Justification by Faith, burying the hatchet on one of the core issues of the Reformation and creating a new context on the road to full communion between the Reformation Churches and the Roman Catholic Church.
Fire Dying DownPrayer Service for Christian Unity
But in the first decade of the new millennium, one began hearing references to the “fire dying down” or to the “winter of ecumenism”. A variety of factors contributed to this shift in temperature: Diminishing congregational numbers resulting in increasing denominational self-focus and self-definition for the sake of survival. The increasing religious pluralism of the country with its call to interreligious encounter and engagement. The emergence from the culture wars of new church-dividing questions like the nature of sexuality and marriage, and who can be ordained?
Workshop on Christian Unity
What is needed in our time are reminders that the Church’s mission for unity has not been and cannot be shelved. The thematic scriptural passage for the January Week of Prayer for Christian Unity provided that reminder: “God reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Cor 5: 18,).
In other words, the Church is the community of those who, because of Christ, are no longer separated. It is a contradiction in terms to speak of “separated Christians”, for reconciliation, unity, is the very nature of the Church of Christ. To be in communion of life with one another as Christians and bring that message of reconciliation to others is our baptismal vocation. In short, the Church we are called to be is the community of those who-–because of Christ—are no longer separated.
Energizing RemindersDo we need energizing reminders in these turbulent times that this call to unity, this vocation, is more real and needed than ever? Yes, we do. And the signs are there that the Holy Spirit is alive and active, lighting the fire in our hearts for more visible communion with one another as followers of Jesus.
Such signs were manifest in Boston during the January 18-25 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. There was a prayer gathering in a different denominational church each night of the week. On the opening evening, Wednesday, Christians from around the city gathered in an Evangelical church. On Thursday evening, people came together in an Eastern Orthodox church. And on Friday evening there was an energizing service of song and prayer in a Pentecostal church.
Then, on Saturday afternoon, over 800 people from a broad spectrum of denominations came to a Catholic church to meet and talk over lunch, share faith in workshop discussions, join their hearts and voices in a prayer service, and after, to participate in a mission and volunteering fair in the church hall. The variety of music served as a symbol of the richness of gifts within the Christian family, led in turn by a Pentecostal worship team, an Orthodox Byzantine choir, a Coptic Orthodox choir, a Taizé chant group, along with regular Catholic/Protestant hymnody. The service was co-presided by eight church leaders, and in his homily Cardinal Sean O’Malley reminded those present that we are all members of the one body of Christ through our common baptism, and that “our divisions are an impediment to our announcing the gospel and prevent people from accepting the good news.”
On Sunday evening, students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology led an evening of sung prayer in the style of the ecumenical community of Taizé. On Monday evening, Asian Evangelicals hosted a prayer gathering. On Tuesday evening, Catholics and Lutherans co-hosted a service in the Paulist Center chapel commemorating the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. And Episcopalians brought the week to a close in their church with an Evensong service for all. Each evening, after the service, there was a reception with refreshments, and those present were encouraged to go and meet some fellow Christians they’d never met before and learn something about each other’s church communities.
We need to hear good news like this and draw inspiration from such events to keep the fire for Christian unity alive and well in our own towns and cities. All these events were stimulated and overseen by two new local ecumenical networks founded in 2012 by individuals in whose hearts the fire for unity burns: UniteBoston (Kelly Steinhaus), and the Ecumenical Institute (Vito Nicastro and Scott Brill).
“God reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation…. We are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us” (2 Cor 5: 18,20). When we accept our role as ambassadors for unity, the Holy Spirit will use us in ways unimagined to keep the fire burning.
What might you do?
Fr. Thomas Ryan, CSP, directs the Paulist North American Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations in Boston.
- 6:30pm at the Church of the Advent, 30 Brimmer Street, Boston
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