Sharing the Bethlehem Peace Light is a beautiful ecumenical Advent activity that can be received at the Reception Ceremony and throughout the Christmas Season.

Each year, a child from Upper Austria is chosen and Austrian Airlines flies them and their family to Tel Aviv, Israel. They then travel to the grotto in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem where Jesus was born. The child transfers the flame from the lamps there, which have been tended to for nearly 2,000 years, to two blast-proof miners’ lamps. Austrian Airlines then flies the family and the lamps back to Vienna, Austria. There the Peace Light is distributed at a Service of Dedication to delegations from across Europe who take it back, with a message of peace, to their own countries. Austrian Airlines then flies the miners’ lamps containing the Peace Light from Bethlehem to New York City. The goal is to help the light spread like the branches of a huge tree rooted in New York and spreading across the continent. 

In 2019, the Peace Light arrived in New York on December 1st and volunteers have passed it along, transferring it from one lantern to the next, and is here as a result of the cooperation of so many. You're welcome to bring a candle or lantern, light it from this flame, and take the Peace Light to your home and keep a candle burning with it throughout the Christmas season. Please share it with your friends, family, and churches. Many churches across the country, and around the world, embrace and promote the sharing of this sign of Christ's Peace by hosting and advertising public lighting ceremonies so more people can have the light of the peace of Christ in their homes. The Boy and Girl Scouts have embraced this symbol and are instrumental in moving the Peace Light across the country. 

Go to www.peacelight.org for more details.
Follow the Peace Light journey on Facebook:  Peace Light - North America 

May Christ’s Peace Flood Over Us All

December 14, 2019 - Transport to MN
The Cancino family of St. Joseph Catholic Community received the Peace Light which originated from Bethlehem and then traveled to New York, Indiana, Illinois, and then to Wisconsin where Chuck Roach from Hudson, WI delivered it to Plymouth, MN.

December 17, 2019 - St. Joe's Reception

The Peace Light arrived at St. Joseph Catholic Community where it will burn throughout the Christmas season.  It will be available to all who want to receive the flame of peace.

For transporting the flame, a lantern fueled by smokeless paraffin oil is suggested.

December 17, 2019 thru January 5

The Peace Light glows peacefully in the St. Joseph's sanctuary as a sign of hope for peace throughout the world..








 

Song of Sending Forth:  Prayer of St. Francis
(click the link for a beautiful video and to listen to the song of St. Francis)

Make me a channel of your peace, where there is hatred let me bring your love.  Where there is there is injury, your pardon Lord, and where there’s doubt, true faith in you.
Make me a channel of your peace. Where there’s despair in life, let me bring hope.  Where there is darkness, only light, and where there’s sadness ever joy.
O Master, grant that I may never seek so much to be consoled as to console.  To be understood, as to understand.  To be loved as to love with all my soul.
Make me a channel of your peace.  It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, in giving of ourselves that we receive, and in dying that we’re born to eternal life.