News
All Souls envelopes are in the church, to have your loved ones remembered in the masses throughout November. The Book of Remembrance will also be in the Church, near the tabernacle. Kindly use your own pen to add names.
62. Yet this call to love could be misunderstood. Saint Paul, recognizing the temptation of the earliest Christian communities to form closed and isolated groups, urged his disciples to abound in love “for one another and for all” (1 Thess 3:12). In the Johannine community, fellow Christians were to be welcomed, “even though they are strangers to you” (3 Jn 5). In this context, we can better understand the significance of the parable of the Good Samaritan: love does not care if a brother or sister in need comes from one place or another. For “love shatters the chains that keep us isolated and separate; in their place, it builds bridges. Love enables us to create one great family, where all of us can feel at home… Love exudes compassion and dignity”.[56]
Excerpt: FRATELLI TUTTI
Pope Francis Encyclical
On Fraternity and Social Friendship
*Part of a sequential daily series to read and reflect on this new encyclical.
Reading 1. PHIL 1:1-11
I give thanks to my God at every remembrance of you,
praying always with joy in my every prayer for all of you,
because of your partnership for the Gospel
from the first day until now.
I am confident of this,
that the one who began a good work in you
will continue to complete it
until the day of Christ Jesus.
#dailyingodsword
📷pre-pandemic community prayer during mass
Friday, Oct 30, 2020
A time for healing
One of the comforting takeaways from our experience of church during the pandemic is that people are more important than rules. The obligation to physically participate in Sunday Mass has been dispensed during the pandemic by our bishops. We are given the opportunity to make a “spiritual communion” instead. We don’t have to go to Confession to be absolved of our sins. A sincere Act of Contrition and a resolve to celebrate the sacrament when it once again becomes available is sufficient. Just as Jesus set aside the sabbath commandment in order to heal, so too our bishops set aside the precepts so that we may be healed. Let’s pray today for our bishops, and for a time of healing.
TODAY'S READINGS: Philippians 1:1-11 Luke 14:1-6
“The one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it.”
#takefiveforfaith
“When one prays, everything acquires depth. This is interesting in prayer, perhaps something subtle begins but in prayer that thing acquires depth, it becomes weighty, as if God takes it in hand and transforms it. The worst service someone can give God, and others as well, is to pray tiredly, by rote. To pray like parrots. No, one prays with the heart. Prayer is the centre of life. If there is prayer, even a brother, a sister, even an enemy becomes important. An old saying from the first Christian monks reads: 'Blessed the monk who regards every human being as God, after God.” Those who adore God, love His children. Those who respect God, respect human beings." - Pope Francis
#daily_pope_francis
Wonderful comments—
59. In earlier Jewish traditions, the imperative to love and care for others appears to have been limited to relationships between members of the same nation. The ancient commandment to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:18) was usually understood as referring to one’s fellow citizens, yet the boundaries gradually expanded, especially in the Judaism that developed outside of the land of Israel. We encounter the command not to do to others what you would not want them to do to you (cf. Tob 4:15). In the first century before Christ, Rabbi Hillel stated: “This is the entire Torah. Everything else is commentary”.[55] The desire to imitate God’s own way of acting gradually replaced the tendency to think only of those nearest us: “The compassion of man is for his neighbour, but the compassion of the Lord is for all living beings” (Sir 18:13).
60. In the New Testament, Hillel’s precept was expressed in positive terms: “In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets” (Mt 7:12). This command is universal in scope, embracing everyone on the basis of our shared humanity, since the heavenly Father “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good” (Mt 5:45). Hence the summons to “be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36).
Excerpt: FRATELLI TUTTI
Pope Francis Encyclical
On Fraternity and Social Friendship
*Part of a sequential daily series to read and reflect on this new encyclical.
TAKE THE HELMET OF SALVATION
Therefore, put on the armor of God,
that you may be able to resist on the evil day
and, having done everything, to hold your ground.
So stand fast with your loins girded in truth,
clothed with righteousness as a breastplate,
and your feet shod in readiness for the Gospel of peace.
In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield,
to quench all the flaming arrows of the Evil One.
And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God.
Ephesians 6:8
#dailyingodsword
58. The Book of Job sees our origin in the one Creator as the basis of certain common rights: “Did not he who made me in the womb also make him? And did not the same one fashion us in the womb?” (Job 31:15). Many centuries later, Saint Irenaeus would use the image of a melody to make the same point: “One who seeks the truth should not concentrate on the differences between one note and another, thinking as if each was created separately and apart from the others; instead, he should realize that one and the same person composed the entire melody”.[54]
59. In earlier Jewish traditions, the imperative to love and care for others appears to have been limited to relationships between members of the same nation. The ancient commandment to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:18) was usually understood as referring to one’s fellow citizens, yet the boundaries gradually expanded, especially in the Judaism that developed outside of the land of Israel. We encounter the command not to do to others what you would not want them to do to you (cf. Tob 4:15). In the first century before Christ, Rabbi Hillel stated: “This is the entire Torah. Everything else is commentary”.[55] The desire to imitate God’s own way of acting gradually replaced the tendency to think only of those nearest us: “The compassion of man is for his neighbour, but the compassion of the Lord is for all living beings” (Sir 18:13).
Excerpt: FRATELLI TUTTI
Pope Francis Encyclical
On Fraternity and Social Friendship
*Part of a sequential daily series to read and reflect on this new encyclical.
