St. Francis of Assisi
The Shalom vocation is a vocation with single traits influenced by the Franciscan Spirituality. Along with St. Teresa of Avila, St. Francis of Assisi is a teacher of spiritual life for the members of Shalom Community. He is a safe way that the catholic mystique presents us. We are inspired by him to cry out to the world: “Love is not loved!”. The real peace inside humans’ heart and in the world can only be established if it is based on the inconditional love, “espousal”, to Jesus Christ. After a strong experience of conversion, St. Francis started to live radically the gospel through spousal love. Getting rid of everything that could be an obstacle to live Divine’s will, he showed ...

Why We Should Stop Making Arguments for Traditional Marriage
Another judge, this one in Arkansas, has struck down a state law banning same-sex marriage on the ground that the ban has no “rational” basis. In other words, the defenders of the law were not able to prove that the discrimination (against gays and lesbians) involved in the law served a useful social purpose. It is a waste of time trying to prove that a law restricting marriage to male-female combinations is “rational” in the sense that it serves a useful social purpose. Now I happen to think that traditional male-female marriage is useful and that same-sex marriage will in the long run prove to be socially harmful — very harmful indeed — but I doubt that I can prove this to ...

Jesus Must be Foundation of Every Catholic School
Catholic schools must have Christ as their foundation, and Catholic teachers are the core of the educational and missionary action of the Church. Their recruitment and training are also a challenge for the future of the young generations and the Church more than ever. These were some of the conclusions to have come out of a meeting of bishops and Catholic leaders in education in Sarajevo last week. Approximately 70 participants, including bishops and national directors of school ministry, teachers and managers, convened by the Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe (CCEE) and the European Committee for Catholic Education (CEEC), met May 15-18. The meeting was called to reflect and discuss the figure of the Catholic teacher in the ...

The Tau in Shalom Vocation
Meaning The TAU has a shape of the greek letter (T) that is a cross. St. Francis borrowed the Tau and what it meant to him from the Antonians. They were a religious community of men founded in 1095 whose sole function was to care for lepers. The Tau is the habit of the Secular Franciscan living in the world.Francis was very familiar with these men because they staffed the leper house in Assisi and the hospital of St. Blase in Rome where Francis went to stay. St. Francis was exposed to the Tau through the direct influence of the Antonians, but the greatest influence of all that made the Tau so dear to Francis, whereby it became his signature, ...

The Charisma Shalom
Each time, the Holy Spirit grants necessary graces to the Church for answering the contemporary challenges. Charisma is one of these divine gifts poured upon the Church to renew it and update the way of living according to the Gospel. Thus, the Charisma Shalom, which was blossomed from Moysés Azevedo’s heart during the meeting with the Pope John Paul II in 1982, was manifested to the world. God convoked persons to assume this grace in their life, giving them a specific vocation called Shalom. The way of living Shalom Vocation into the Community’s heart is based in the experience with Jesus Christ, the Resurrected, who was on the Cross, narrated in the book of John. “In the evening of that ...

Pope urges Asian families to be leaven of Christ’s love
Pope Francis has sent his greetings to participants in a 4-day Asian conference on the family in the Phillipines, urging the fundamental cell of society to be the leaven of Christ’s love. The theme of the May 13-16 conference in Manila is “Families of Asia: Lights of Hope”. Writing on behalf of the Pope, Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin sent a message on Thursday to Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen Dagupan, President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, expressing the Holy Father’s pleasure on being informed of the event. “Recalling that the “family is the fundamental cell of society ‎where we learn to live with others despite our differences and to belong to ‎one another” (Evangelii ...

Is It Getting Harder to Be Catholic on Campus?
I don’t think I can adequately express how happy I am that it’s summer break. Of my six semesters of college, this past spring has been by far the most trying. It seems that Catholics are having a particularly tough time as of late. We have Harvard’s Black Mass, Notre Dame’s same-sex marriage controversy, Stanford’s Anscombe Society debacle, and Loyola Marymount’s decision to hire a pro-choice atheist as the new liberal arts dean. Even on Catholic campuses, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to profess the faith. Naturally, environments like these make being a Catholic student leader really hard. When our own administrations are unsympathetic to our causes—such as promoting conjugal marriage and the traditional family, opposing the HHS contraception ...

The Secret World of Children’s Prayers
When my oldest son was three, he had a special devotion to Our Lady of Breakfast, judging by his Hail Marys: Hail Mary, full of grace The Lord is with Thee Breakfast art Thou among women, And breakfast is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus He was so sweet and earnest when he said it, I always wrestled with correcting him, or just letting the prayer self-correct as his understanding of the words deepened. Ultimately, I just let it go, and he now can say a Hail Mary with the best of them. But it was the start of an anthropological project on my part, a concept that all parents understand. Living in such close proximity to tiny humans yields ...

Shalom Prayer Group in London
If you wish to participate in one of our prayer groups join us! Every Wednesdays from 7 to 9pm  St Monica Church, 19 Hoxton Square, N1 6NT   FOR MORE INFORMATION:  Mobile: +44 (0) 7432501250 +44 (0) 7883171214 Email: london.shalom@gmail.com Facebook: ShalominLondon Twitter: @ShalomLondon