Dear Friends,

Do you remember Corpus Christi processions many of us experienced in our pre-Vatican 2 childhood? Honoring the Body and Blood of Christ as we walked in procession usually singing?

It is just striking me—do we honor each other as the Body and Blood of Christ with the same reverence?

When we celebrate Eucharist, we pray that the bread and wine will be blessed and that these elements ....and ourselves will become the body and blood of Christ “alive in our world today”!

We received an email from Fr. Roy Bourgeois and SOA watch urgently asking our help: “Teo is a young woman in El Salvador. She has one son and was eagerly awaiting the arrival of her second baby when she started feeling strong pains. She was home alone, so she called the police to take her to the hospital. However, it took hours for the police to arrive and while she was waiting she slipped and fell, passing out unconscious. When she came to, she was in jail. She was crushed to learn she had lost the baby. Teo has now been in jail for 8 years with 22 more years to go. Her son is growing up without her. Why? She was sentenced to 30 years in prison on homicide charges.

Alba was 5 months pregnant with her third child when she received news that her mother had died. She went into shock and this caused her to go into premature labor and lose the baby. When she sought help, she was taken to jail and has been there since, for 5 years with many, many more to go. Alba is visibly traumatized at not being able to raise her two daughters. She is intimidated by the jail guards who tell her not to share what happened to her. Her homicide sentence has so many irregularities that it even refers to a male involved in a shooting, not a woman who lost a baby, as if it had been copy and pasted from another homicide case.”

Fr. Roy asks us all to join him and SOA Watch in pleading for these women to be freed! We invite you to sign on the SOA Petition at this link: Click here to sign the petition calling for freedom for Teo, Alba, and other women in the same situation.
Another email from the LGBTQ community celebrated today’s Pride week events:
10am AIDS Walk Boston
Event organized by the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts
Boston Common (Boston, MA)

11am-2pm
Black & Latin@ Pride Black & Latin@ Pride Brunch
Norvia’s Place (2805 Washington St, Roxbury, MA)

3-7pm Annual Pride Tea Dance for LGBT Seniors
Event organized by the LGBT Aging Project
Holiday Inn (1200 Beacon St, Brookline, MA)

9pm Laugh. Out. Proud.
A night of comedy hosted by Will Smalley, featuring Sam J, Emma Willmann and Mehran Khaghani
Laugh Boston (Boston, MA)
Tickets available here

We want to likewise invite you to walk in the Pride Parade next Saturday June 13 behind The Spirit of Life banner. (See details below) Every year when we walk we are so touched by how many people shout out, “Look, they’re Catholic!” and find hope in our presence in the parade. This is in contrast to the past where they have usually felt so abandoned by a Church that condemns them This year, as we walk we will be in the company of walkers from Dignity and the Holy Spirit Catholic Community. Together we can make a powerful witness of solidarity with those who are marginalized in our church due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identification.
Jan Richardson offers us poetic inspiration translating today’s feast to our living it out in the world with those who need us to witness God’s care for them—those right next door to us as well as the women in El Salvador and the LGBTQ community mentioned above.
Blessing the Bread,
the Cup
Let us bless the bread
that gives itself to us
with its terrible weight,
its infinite grace.
Let us bless the cup
poured out for us
with a love that drenches,
that makes us anew.
Let us gather
around these gifts
simply given
and deeply blessed.
And then let us go
bearing the bread,
carrying the cup,
laying the table
within a hungering world.
©Jan Richardson
- See more at: http://paintedprayerbook.com/2013/05/20/trinity-sunday-poured-into-our-hearts/#sthash.Ukkgl0tv.dpuf

Come and journey with The Spirit of Life community during your journey through “ordinary time” and we will help you contemplate making it extraordinary. Come and make us your ‘spiritual home’. In our community’s midst you will find support for your inner spirit’s growth. We promise you a unique experience of community; one where members and guests find support and hope in the journey through time and body to deepen our spiritual lives, and work together to transcend our limitations and grow in faith. Our liturgies are not “cluttered’ with non-inclusive language and messages that discount the dignity of all people. Rather, we are radically simple in embodying the “good news” of Jesus Christ... “uncluttered” by messages caught in the moral time warp so present in more traditional Catholic liturgies. At the Spirit of life... the call of women to ordained priesthood is affirmed...the sacredness of all loving relationships is honored and celebrated, and as Jesus did, we welcome ALL to the Table! If you are seeking a Catholic community where you do not need to mentally/silently “insert” inclusive language into your prayer at Mass, or lament that your children are hearing non-loving messages about people whose sexual orientation is other than heterosexual, or feel that your “voice” is not heard.....we invite you to come and experience life in our community. We are an inclusive and interactive community, where everyone has a “voice.” We are truly a people of “justice & Joy.”

May you find joy in nurturing and being nurtured,

Ron & Jean