We’re sharing this email from Fr. Paul Lininger at Blessed Sacrament Church in Burlington as a reminder that ID Drives continue to bring our communities together. For more information call: (336) 226-8796

From: Fr. Paul Lininger
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2020 11:54 AM
Subject: Reminder & Brief Reflection: Faith ID Card Drive – Friday, February 21st @ 9:00 AM

Good morning everyone:

This is a gentle reminder that the Faith ID Card Drive is scheduled for Friday, February 21 @ 9:00 AM at Blessed Sacrament Church.

The following is a brief reflection by Henri Nouwen that I read during the weekend.  The message truly does apply to our collective ongoing efforts.  Thank You for all you are doing to help aid and support the strangers amongst us.

Pax et bonum…

Fr. Paul

Create Space for the Stranger  (from Henri Nouwen)

In our world full of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture, and country, from their neighbors, friends, and family, from their deepest self and their God, we witness a painful search for a hospitable place where life can be lived without fear and where community can be found. Although many, we might say even most, strangers in this world become easily the victim of a fearful hostility, it is possible for men and women and obligatory for Christians to offer an open and hospitable space where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings. The movement from hostility to hospitality is hard and full of difficulties. Our society seems to be increasingly full of fearful, defensive, aggressive people, anxiously clinging to their property and inclined to look at their surrounding world with suspicion, always expecting an enemy to suddenly appear, intrude, and do harm. But still—that is our vocation: to convert the hostis into a hospes, the enemy into a guest, and to create the free and fearless space where brotherhood and sisterhood can be formed and fully experienced.