Once again this year the Lasallian World, through the leadership of the International Council of Young Lasallians, is calling on all Lasallians to join in the International Days of Peace that run from 21 September-21 October 2014.  The theme for the month is: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty to Build Peace.

New Superior General of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, Brother Robert Schieler, FSC has written to the Lasallian World:

One hundred years after the start of World War I, the War to End All Wars, peace still eludes our planet. That is why these International Lasallians Days for Peace are so important for our world-wide Lasallian Family. Some of you and your families live in the midst of great conflict and suffering. You have a special place in our prayers. You can speak so eloquently to all Lasallians about the desire for a universal peace.

As the Lasallian Family we want to take up Pope Francis’ appeal (http://goo.gl/jD3mNA) to support the Caritas International’s #Food4All Campaign. This appeal provides us with the opportunity to study how the promotion of peace and the cycles of poverty are related. In this sense, we would like this year’s ILDP to be an opportunity for all members of the Lasallian Family to engage in learning and action around the issues of:

 Fair Trade
 Ethical Retail Practices
 Food Consumption Practices
 Issues of hunger in our communities

Over these next few weeks each Lasallian and each Lasallian ministry is invited to find ways to build peace, to break the cycle of poverty, to confront violence whether in our city streets or in faraway Syria and Iraq, to ask ourselves the difficult questions about the connections between poverty, deprivation of civil and personal rights and violence, to focus critically on violent responses to violence without weighing the consequences of such responses, and to consider the role of Christian pacifism in peace-making.  AND--we are challenged to pray using this video.

Brother Frederick Mueller