Social Justice Group

The third mark of mission of the Anglican Communion is ‘to respond to human need by loving service’, and the fourth ‘to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation.’ Part of the Cathedral’s Mission Statement is to ‘stand with St Alban for truth and justice.’

St Albans Cathedral Social Justice Group Advent Calendar 2022 As we know, Advent is a time of preparation for the birth of Jesus and such preparation includes acts of service, mediation, and prayer. This year, the Social Justice Group is introducing an initiative to provide the Cathedral community with guidance through Advent, in the form of an Advent Calendar.

For each day, from 1 December until 24 December, the Advent Calendar will have an action or a prayer/ meditation aimed at encouraging members of the Cathedral community to make social justice an integral part of our Advent season. To create the actions included in the Advent Calendar, we approached a number of local charities and community groups and asked them to suggest actions that members of the Cathedral community could undertake during Advent that would assist those they support.

We hope that, with the assistance of the Calendar, members of the Cathedral community will take up the opportunity to perform some, or all of the acts of service, whether big or small. “Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in truth and in action.” (1 John 3:18)

In addition, prayers and meditations will be specially written for the Calendar. We hope that these will be useful in guiding people in their preparations during the Advent period. The Calendar will be available in digital form on the Cathedral website and there will be some hard copies for those who would prefer it.