Renewing Hope Advent Calendar - December 4th, by Mothers' Union ✴

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Welcome to our Renewing Hope Advent Calendar, sent to all Grapevine subscribers. Each day until Christmas Eve, we will open a snapshot of ministry and mission in our Diocese during the Advent period.

Renewing Hope Advent Calendar

DECEMBER 4th

Not all stories in this Renewing Hope Advent Calendar have a festive feel. Sometimes this season of Advent, of preparation and waiting, is chosen to highlight an issue or subject that as Christians we need to be aware of, to pray about and even to work to change. Every year the Mothers Union chooses Advent to highlight an issue that affects women through the world...

Ending Gender Based Violence

The Revd Jacqui Clark - Chaplain to Trustees of Salisbury Mothers' Union

Today some of the Diocese’s 1300 Mothers Union members will be gathering at Salisbury Cathedral, not to celebrate Christmas early, but instead to highlight once again Gender Based Violence.

This isn’t the first year that our 60 branches, spread over the areas from Swindon, Bradford on Avon, Lyme Regis, Bournemouth and Winterslow, have been involved in highlighting this issue close to season of “goodwill to all”

Our past services have highlighted violence across the world, as well as at home and how some females have successfully embraced the "masculine" world. However, we live in a "human" world and for it to be safe for us all, it is the feminine that needs to find respect in this world and until we embrace that message and cherish that thought, both women and men will continue to suffer.

Feminine is not female; it is Christ like, it is, inter alia, carers, neighbours, and nurturers. The feminine is gentle, yet strong in a different way to the masculine.

The Mothers’ Union is an international organisation of Anglicans rooted in prayer, not all of whom are mothers and some of whom are men. It has 4.1 million members in 83 countries worldwide, with a particularly large number of members in Africa. And so the campaign, known as “16 days of activism” is truly an international one.

We desperately need to combat GBV; for this to happen, we need awareness, government initiatives across the world and equality for the feminine; and for Christians to fortify the message of the majesty and strength in the meekness and humility of Jesus, a baby born to a young mother in a stable.

We live in a world that worships power, money and status, it is at odds with Christ's commandment to Love God above all else and to Love our neighbour as ourselves.

But the aim of the MU is of a world where God’s love is shown through loving, respectful and flourishing relationships.

Relationships free from gender based violence.

And so not only this Advent and Christmas, but throughout the year, we pray for peace over all the earth, and remember that it begins with us".

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