Pope Francis: When we want to give up, God helps us persevere
On Wednesday Pope Francis said each person must strive to imitate the perseverance and consolation of God, which not only gives us the strength to keep going, but also to help others who are in difficulty. “Perseverance we can also define as patience; it’s the ability to support, to remain faithful, even when the weight seems to become too big, unsustainable, and we are tempted to negatively judge and abandon everything and everyone,” the Pope said March 22. Consolation, on the other hand, “is the grace of knowing how to welcome and show in every situation, even those largely marked by delusion and suffering, the presence and compassionate action of God.” He noted how these two attitudes are highlighted by ...

Saint Joseph Feast in Holy Land
The solemnity of St. Joseph was celebrated with great devotion in the land where he lived, worked and cared for his family. Today on the House that probably he built stands the Basilica of the Holy Family or the Nutrition of Jesus. In 2006, Shalom Community was invited by the Custody of the Holy Land to collaborate in the evengelization of the pilgrims in the Basilica through the reception, the liturgical animation and in the office of the Basilica where the pilgrims schedule the masses. Members of Shalom Life and Covenant Community take turns in the service at the Annunciation and Nutrition basilicas. The missionary Amanda Beber described how it was to live for the first time the feast of ...

Pope: ‘a culture of mercy renews hearts and opens up to a new reality’
Pope says it is faith that allows us to perceive the reality of the person, his or her incomparable dignity which is not limited to material goods, to social, economic and political problems, but as a person created in the image and likeness of God, a brother, a sister, a neighbor for whom we are responsible. This is why, Pope Francis continues, human promotion, the authentic liberation of man, does not exist without the proclamation of the Gospel “for the most sublime aspect of human dignity lies in this vocation of man to communicate with God”. Pope Francis recalls that in the Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy he expressed the hope that “the year to come ...

Archbishop Rino Fisichella visited a drug abuse rehabilitation center managed by Shalom Community
Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of New Evangelization visited “Volta Israel” Project accompanied by the founder of Shalom Catholic Community, Moyses Azevedo, and Father Silvio Scopel, the missionary in charge of the mission of Fortaleza, Brazil. Volta Israel Project works with drug abuse rehabilitation process through evangelism, prevention and treatment of addiction. Madalena Aguiar, missionary and responsible for Human Promotion in the mission of Fortaleza, presented the project to His Grace Rino Fisichella and told him about her experience to be testimony of many transformed lives that passed through this place. Soon after, two young people gave their testimonies of addiction rehabilitation. After the testimonies, His Grace Rino Fisichella shared his joy of visiting Shalom Community ...

Finding in Jesus one’s own dignity: Shalom Mission in Madagascar
Compassion, culinary, sports and evangelization Antsiranana is located at north end of the island of Madagascar, 24 hours’s drive from the country’s capital, a port city of a population of almost 300,000 people. Since August 2007, the Shalom Community’s mission has been quietly growing there. The missionaries seek to give an answer to the Church, which is constantly in need for laborers to its harvest, through the so called “first announcement” of the Gospel in a semi-urbane context. Situated in a beautiful bay and surrounded by a rich natural park, Antsiranana paradoxically faces many challenges: prostitution, political instability, poor distribution of wealth, exploitation of natural resources, HIV / AIDS epidemic, malaria, abandonment of children with disabilities, child trafficking and exploitation ...

Pope Francis: what would happen if we treated the Bible as we treat our cellphone, always with us, always close to us!”
Speaking to the crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square following his weekly Angelus blessing, the Pope urged those present to give the Bible the same place in daily life as cellphones and asked: “What would happen if we turned back when we forget it, if we opened it more times a day, if we read the message of God contained in the Bible the way we read messages on our cellphones?” The Bible, he explained, contains the Word of God, the most effective tool in fighting evil and keeping us close to God. Clearly, Francis said, the comparison between the Bible and the cellphone is paradoxical, but it induces us to reflect. “If we always carried God’s Word in our ...

The next Shalom Community foundation in Poland, in Warsaw
Representatives from Shalom International Assistance and the responsible of Shalom mission in Krakow, Michele Magalhães, are visiting Warsaw – capital of Poland- in order to attend some meetings preparing for the next Shalom Community foundation in the country. On March 2, Shalom members met with the city’s archbishop, Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz, in order to define in more detail the missionary collaboration between the Archdiocese of Warsaw and the Community. On the occasion of the last World Youth Day in July 2016, about 1000 young pilgrims from the Shalom Community were in Warsaw (from various parts of Brazil and 20 other countries in the world) to participate in the Missionary Week in the city, period known as “Pre-Journey”. Before leaving for ...

Shalom Catholic Community is opening new missions, Panama, Argentina, Philippines, Poland and in Paris, France.
Shalom Catholic Community is opening new missions, this time in Panama, Argentina, Philippines, Poland and another house in Paris, France. The Community, which was born in Fortaleza, Ceará, celebrates its 35 years anniversary of foundation on July 9th and is already present in 30 countries, 10 in Latin America, 2 in North America and 5 in Africa, 10 in Europe and 3 in Asia . Shalom Catholic Community is recognized by the Vatican as an International Association of Faithful since 2007. Father Cristiano Pinheiro is Brazilian and currently Head of Shalom International Office, he resides in Rome and told us about the new foundations highlighting Argentina, the native land of Pope Francis. “We are going to open a house in the City of ...

Pope Francis: to love your enemies, prayer is a game-changer
The path to holiness and sainthood, Pope Francis said, requires imitating Christ by loving our enemies and praying for those who wrong us even when it is difficult. “It’s true, God the Father is merciful,” he said. “And you? Are you merciful, are you merciful with the people who have hurt you? Or who do not love you?” “If He is merciful, if He is holy, if He is perfect, we must be merciful, holy and perfect like Him,” he continued. “This is holiness. A man and a woman who do this deserve to be canonized: they become saints. So simple is the Christian life.” Pope Francis gave his homily during Mass at the parish of Santa Maria Josefa of ...

Pope: Resentment is not Christian
Brotherhood is destroyed by small things Reflecting on the first reading of the day which speaks of Cain and Abel, Pope Francis said that in this reading from Genesis, for the first time in Bible we hear the word ‘brother’ and we listen to a “story of brotherhood that should grow and be beautiful, but ends up destroyed”. “A story which begins ‘with a little jealousy’: Cain is irritated because his sacrifice does not please the Lord and he begins to cultivate a feeling of resentment, a feeling he could control but does not” he said. The Pope said Cain chose to harbor this sentiment and let it grow.  The sin he will then commit is crouching within this sentiment. ...