Welcome to the Beatitudes Center for the Nonviolent Jesus!
January 13, 2025
#2, Fr. John Dear in Conversation with Martin Sheen
This week’s guest is actor and activist Martin Sheen, one of our most celebrated, award-winning actors from movies such as “Apocalypse Now,” “Gandhi,” “Selma,” “The American President,” “Gettsyburg,” “The Way,” “Badlands,” and many more, and the star of the TV series, “The West Wing,” where he played President Bartlett. Martin is perhaps the most committed activist celebrity, who has been speaking out against war, injustice, homelessness, and nuclear weapons and advocating for justice, disarmament, and peace for over 4 decades. Fr. John will ask Martin about his activism, his understanding of Gospel nonviolence, and how his movies and activism have shaped his life and his peacemaking faith journey.
Next week…
The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes Bernard LaFayette! For more information, visit here.
January 6, 2025
#1 – Fr. John Dear on “Living the Beatitudes”
In this podcast, the first one, Fr. John Dear will read the Beatitudes, the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount (from Matthew 5:1-11), and reflect on them as Jesus’ vision of living a nonviolent life and working for a more just, more peaceful, more nonviolent world. He will invite us to live out the Beatitudes and become people of Gospel nonviolence, peacemakers, the beloved sons and daughters of the God of peace. Fr. John Dear is a priest, activist, and author of 40 books including The Beatitudes of Peace and The Gospel of Peace: Reading Matthew, Mark, and Luke from the Perspective of Nonviolence, and the founder and director of www.beatitudescenter.org See www.johndear.org
Next week…
The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes Martin Sheen! For more information, visit here.
Upcoming Zoom Programs:
“War Isn’t Over When It’s Over” with Kathy Kelly
Saturday January 25, 2025
11 am Pacific, 12 PM Mountain, 1 PM Central, 2 PM Eastern
“The Little Way of Merciful Love: Real-World Mentoring from St. Therese of Lisieux” with Marisa Guerin
Saturday February 8, 2025
11 am Pacific, 12 PM Mountain, 1 PM Central, 2 PM Eastern
“The Gospel According to John,” A Lenten Series with Fr. John Dear
Monday, March 10th. Session #1—4:00 PT/7 pm ET
Monday, March 17th. Session #2—4:00 PT/7 pm ET
Monday, March 24th. Session #3—4:00 PT/7 pm ET
Monday, March 31st. Session #4—4:00 PT/7 pm ET
Monday, April 7th. Session #5—4:00 PT/7 pm ET
Host Fr. John Dear on his 2024 Speaking Tour for his Forthcoming Orbis Book:
“The Gospel of Peace: A Commentary on Matthew, Mark and Luke from the Perspective of Nonviolence.”
For more info, click here
John Dear’s new book now available
“The Gospel of Peace:
Reading Matthew, Mark & Luke
from the Perspective of Nonviolence”
To invite John Dear to speak in your city, write to: john@beatitudescenter.org
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LATEST NEWS FROM THE BEATITUDES CENTER
Quote for the Day:
“The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid. The calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the
adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the God of peace as the waters cover the sea.”
(Isaiah 11:6–9)
Quote for the Day:
“I am called in the Word of God — as is everyone else — to the vocation of being human, nothing more and nothing less … To be a Christian
means to be called to be an exemplary human being. And to be a Christian categorically does not mean being religious. Indeed, all religious versions of the gospel are profanities. In the face of death, live humanly. In the middle of chaos, celebrate the Word. Amidst Babel, speak the truth. Confront the noise and verbiage and falsehood of death with the truth and potency and efficacy of the Word of God. Know the Word, teach the Word, nurture the Word, preach the Word, define the Word, incarnate the Word, do the Word, live the Word. And more than that, in the Word of God, expose death and all death’s works and wiles, rebuke lies,
cast out demons, exorcise, cleanse the possessed,
raise those who are dead in mind and conscience.”
–William Stringfellow
January 13, 2025
Dear friends, blessings of Christ’s peace and hope to you!
Here we are, living in a world of permanent warfare and systemic injustice, called by the nonviolent Jesus to make peace, love universally, practice nonviolence, and welcome God’s reign of peace. Where do we begin? What do we do? Peacemaking requires daily prayer and meditation, getting with a community, and regular public action and speaking out. I think the Gospel calls us everyone to become lifelong peace activists and peacemakers.
My friend Kathy Kelly has travelled the world to the places bombed and attacked by our country over the last three decades in an effort to “make peace” and “love our enemies.” In 1999, for example, she led my FOR delegation of Nobel Laureates to Iraq. One of the great lessons that she has learned along the way is the importance to listening to those who have been hurt and affected by our “forever wars.” Such compassionately listening is a first step in the Gospel call to make peace, and inspires us to pursue publicly the abolition of war.