Prayer for Mother's Day

 A blessing for all Mothers, living and deceased...

Before our God, and before one another, we want to honor you
and the work you do. For we live in a society that overlooks and
belittles your God given status. But we say that you are blessed.
For you have been called, set aside, commissioned to bear fruit –
fruit that will last.

We declare that your work is holy work. It is sacred. It is Christ-like.
For we recognize that you lay down your lives for others, that you
give without thought of cost or repayment. You serve above and
beyond what is seen or asked for. You bless and you love in ways
that words cannot capture. Your thinking is so often of others, your
time spent on others, your prayers spent on others. You are a
blessing to others. You have indeed laid down your whole lives.

This is a high calling. To nurture and shepherd God’s own children.
For this we honor you. And in this calling we bless you.

We bless you to be wise. To see what is hidden, to hear what is not
said, and to do what has been undone. To know when to speak
and when to listen.

 
We bless your discernment. May it be sharpened. May your
prayers be arrows in a bulls eye. May you hear the whisper of God
on behalf of His children.

 
We bless your words. May you speak goodness and kindness into
your children. May you strengthen, encourage and comfort with
great skill. May your children thrive in your praise and correction.
We bless your time. May God bless your sleeping and your waking.
May you have the time you need. May you have time to laugh and
time to reflect. May you have time to share deeply with dear friends,
to walk closely with your God.

 
We bless you to be free. Free from the expectations of others and
the eye of the world. May you be free to be yourself and free to
enjoy all that God gives you. May you be free to allow your children
the freedom to discover their call in God.

We bless the work of your hands. May you find God in the
mundane and know Him in the business. May your homes be
blessed with peace and love. May they be places of light and joy.
We bless you to be a reflection of God. To reflect to others the
meaning of love, of truth and hope, of faith and trust, and grace, of
generosity and humility. To embody these before us. May your
children see you walk the narrow way, may your investment in them
be not just for this age, but also for those to come.

We bless you: Name by name

Come Holy Spirit. See these anointed ones. We ask that you would
increase your anointing on them.

We ask that God would grant you, according to the riches of His
glory, to be strengthened with might through His spirit in your inner
woman. That Christ will dwell in your hearts through faith, that you,
being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend
together with all the saints, what is the width and length and depth
and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.
That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

We set you aside. You are a blessing to your families, and a
blessing to this church. Thank you. Well done. And may Christ be
with you.

Snow???

Good Afternoon, Church

Your author finds himself in Flin Flon, MB for the weekend liturgies. It is Mother's Day Weekend and one in which I had hoped to see the beginnings of Spring.

Alas, Mother Nature is working her magic and we all woke up to more snow this weekend. It seems that Spring is still a little way off as of yet and like the rest of the province of Manitoba we need to take our turn in waiting.

A blessed weekend one and all.

On the Road to Emmaus

 

This Sunday marks the third Sunday of Easter and offers us a chance to reflect on a Resurrection passage from St. Luke's Gospel (24.13-35) which is the story of the Road to Emmaus.

A great deal has been written about this account of Jesus with two of his disciples. I encourage you to listen attentively at mass this weekend. It is a beautiful story of God meeting humanity where we are at: broken, wounded and often in grief.

It is by far one of my favourite accounts in the Gospels and it speaks to me of an 'embracing' God who seeks me out when I need God most.

The disciples were not unlike us: they were griping among themselves over a situation that had befallen them. Things had not worked out the way they wanted them to. They had not gotten their way. If they had gotten their way, Jesus would be alive instead of dead and laying in the tomb.

They were so entrenched in their grief that they could not see the risen Lord in their very midst. 

How often am I so encompassed and occupied with my troubles that I fail to recognize the goodness of the present moment? That I fail to recognize Jesus in my midst? Far too often, I am afraid.

This Sunday offers us an opportunity to let go of our sufferings, our grief and our preoccupation in favor of recognizing the Risen Christ in our midst. A Christ that touches us and embraces us where we are at. No strings attached. We are as we are. Beautiful in God's sight.

Join me in celebrating this tremendous gift of God's love in our midst by letting go of pride and sinfulness and allowing ourselves to be embraced by God's love....the love of our Christ Jesus who blesses us and makes us whole.

Thought for the Day: Touching God

God insists that we ask, not because He needs to know our situation, but because we need the spiritual discipline of asking.
-- Catherine Marshall

An omniscient God must know what we desire before we ask. God knows that what we really need most is reliance on God. And how do we develop reliance? Like most other things, by practicing.

If it weren't for the need to remind us daily or hourly that all power flows from God, we could just say a quick prayer at the beginning of each week, or each year, and be done with it. Surely God could fill our requests a year ahead of time. But getting our wishes granted isn't the purpose of prayer. Getting to know God is the purpose.

I need to be in touch with God every hour of the day.

Defend & Promote Right to Religious Freedom: Pope

Today was made public the Pope's message to Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, and the members of that institution at the closure of their seventeenth plenary assembly held in Rome from 29 April to 3 May on the theme: "Universal Rights in a World of Diversity: The Case of Religious Freedom".

  The Holy Father writes that the freedom of religion and of worship that suffered the "systematic denial by atheistic regimes of the twentieth century ... are again under threat from attitudes and ideologies which would impede free religious expression. Consequently, the challenge to defend and promote the right to freedom of religion and freedom of worship must be taken up once more in our days".

  "Since man enjoys the capacity for a free personal choice in truth, and since God expects of man a free response to his call", he writes, "the right to religious freedom should be viewed as innate to the fundamental dignity of every human person, in keeping with the innate openness of the human heart to God.  In fact, authentic freedom of religion will permit the human person to attain fulfillment and will thus contribute to the common good of society".

  Benedict XVI emphasized that "every state has a sovereign right to promulgate its own legislation and will express different attitudes to religion in law. So it is that there are some states which allow broad religious freedom in our understanding of the term, while others restrict it for a variety of reasons, including mistrust for religion itself. The Holy See continues to appeal for the recognition of the fundamental human right to religious freedom on the part of all states, and calls on them to respect, and if need be protect, religious minorities who, though bound by a different faith from the majority around them, aspire to live with their fellow citizens peacefully and to participate fully in the civil and political life of the nation, to the benefit of all".

  This afternoon, in the Holy See Press Office, the president of the academy, Mary Ann Glendon, summarized the plenary's acts of these days, which focused on four main areas. The first, she said was the "state coercion and persecution of religious believers"; the second, "state restrictions upon the religious liberties of religious minorities; third, "societal pressure on religious minorities that may or may not be state sanctioned, but nonetheless curtails the liberties of those minorities", and fourth, "the growth of secular fundamentalism in Western counties which considers religious believers a threat to secular, liberal democratic politics".

Thought for the Day: Happy People

Happy people are likeable

Who are the people we really like, and like to be with? Most of the time, they are happy people, people who like themselves and others.

Being happy is almost the entire secret of being likeable. Though no person can expect to be liked by everybody, the likeable people have the inside track most of the time.

How do we become happy and thus likeable? We're continuously told that happiness cannot be found in property, power, and prestige. It is rooted instead in self-acceptance, in feeling loved and wanted, and in giving genuine service, maybe just in the form of very useful work.

Taking time to reflect each day on my personal level of happiness will lead me closer to God. If I call on God frequently and ask for His aid and guidance I will be able to face my own weaknesses and grow through them. Only by asking God to help me will I discover areas of my life that need addressing and will trust that God will place others in my life to help me in growing.

I can be happy today in spite of things that others would consider burdensome and depressing. Happiness really comes from God, and it also serves to attract friends into my life.

May1st: John Paul Beatified

At 10:00am this morning, the Second Sunday of Easter of Divine Mercy Sunday, Benedict XVI presided over the Eucharistic celebration during which Servant of God John Paul II, Pope (1920-2005) was proclaimed a Blessed, and whose feast day will be celebrated 22 October every year from now on.

  Eighty-seven delegations from various countries, among which were 5 royal houses, 16 heads of state - including the presidents of Poland and Italy - and 7 prime ministers, attended the ceremony.

  Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world filled St. Peter's Square and the streets adjacent. The ceremony could also be followed on the various giant screens installed in Circo Massimo and various squares around the city.

  The text of the Pope's homily follows:

  "Dear Brothers and Sisters,

  Six years ago we gathered in this Square to celebrate the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Our grief at his loss was deep, but even greater was our sense of an immense grace which embraced Rome and the whole world: a grace which was in some way the fruit of my beloved predecessor's entire life, and especially of his witness in suffering. Even then we perceived the fragrance of his sanctity, and in any number of ways God's People showed their veneration for him. For this reason, with all due respect for the Church's canonical norms, I wanted his cause of beatification to move forward with reasonable haste. And now the longed-for day has come; it came quickly because this is what was pleasing to the Lord: John Paul II is blessed!

  I would like to offer a cordial greeting to all of you who on this happy occasion have come in such great numbers to Rome from all over the world - cardinals, patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches, brother bishops and priests, official delegations, ambassadors and civil authorities, consecrated men and women and lay faithful, and I extend that greeting to all those who join us by radio and television.

  Today is the Second Sunday of Easter, which Blessed John Paul II entitled Divine Mercy Sunday. The date was chosen for today's celebration because, in God's providence, my predecessor died on the vigil of this feast. Today is also the first day of May, Mary's month, and the liturgical memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker. All these elements serve to enrich our prayer, they help us in our pilgrimage through time and space; but in heaven a very different celebration is taking place among the angels and saints! Even so, God is but one, and one too is Christ the Lord, who like a bridge joins earth to heaven. At this moment we feel closer than ever, sharing as it were in the liturgy of heaven.

  'Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe' (Jn 20:29). In today's Gospel Jesus proclaims this beatitude: the beatitude of faith. For us, it is particularly striking because we are gathered to celebrate a beatification, but even more so because today the one proclaimed blessed is a Pope, a Successor of Peter, one who was called to confirm his brethren in the faith. John Paul II is blessed because of his faith, a strong, generous and apostolic faith. We think at once of another beatitude: 'Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven' (Mt 16:17). What did our heavenly Father reveal to Simon? That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Because of this faith, Simon becomes Peter, the rock on which Jesus can build his Church. The eternal beatitude of John Paul II, which today the Church rejoices to proclaim, is wholly contained in these sayings of Jesus: 'Blessed are you, Simon' and 'Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe!' It is the beatitude of faith, which John Paul II also received as a gift from God the Father for the building up of Christ's Church.

  Our thoughts turn to yet another beatitude, one which appears in the Gospel before all others. It is the beatitude of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer. Mary, who had just conceived Jesus, was told by Saint Elizabeth: 'Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord' (Lk 1:45). The beatitude of faith has its model in Mary, and all of us rejoice that the beatification of John Paul II takes place on this first day of the month of Mary, beneath the maternal gaze of the one who by her faith sustained the faith of the Apostles and constantly sustains the faith of their successors, especially those called to occupy the Chair of Peter. Mary does not appear in the accounts of Christ's resurrection, yet hers is, as it were, a continual, hidden presence: she is the Mother to whom Jesus entrusted each of his disciples and the entire community. In particular we can see how Saint John and Saint Luke record the powerful, maternal presence of Mary in the passages preceding those read in today's Gospel and first reading. In the account of Jesus' death, Mary appears at the foot of the Cross (Jn 19:25), and at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles she is seen in the midst of the disciples gathered in prayer in the Upper Room (Acts 1:14).

  Today's second reading also speaks to us of faith. St. Peter himself, filled with spiritual enthusiasm, points out to the newly-baptized the reason for their hope and their joy. I like to think how in this passage, at the beginning of his First Letter, Peter does not use language of exhortation; instead, he states a fact. He writes: 'you rejoice', and he adds: 'you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls' (1 Pt 1:6, 8-9). All these verbs are in the indicative, because a new reality has come about in Christ's resurrection, a reality to which faith opens the door. 'This is the Lord's doing', says the Psalm (Ps 118:23), and 'it is marvelous in our eyes', the eyes of faith.

  Dear brothers and sisters, today our eyes behold, in the full spiritual light of the risen Christ, the beloved and revered figure of John Paul II. Today his name is added to the host of those whom he proclaimed saints and blesseds during the almost twenty-seven years of his pontificate, thereby forcefully emphasizing the universal vocation to the heights of the Christian life, to holiness, taught by the conciliar Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium. All of us, as members of the people of God - bishops, priests, deacons, laity, men and women religious - are making our pilgrim way to the heavenly homeland where the Virgin Mary has preceded us, associated as she was in a unique and perfect way to the mystery of Christ and the Church. Karol Wojtyla took part in the Second Vatican Council, first as an auxiliary Bishop and then as Archbishop of Krakow. He was fully aware that the Council's decision to devote the last chapter of its Constitution on the Church to Mary meant that the Mother of the Redeemer is held up as an image and model of holiness for every Christian and for the entire Church. This was the theological vision which Blessed John Paul II discovered as a young man and subsequently maintained and deepened throughout his life. A vision which is expressed in the scriptural image of the crucified Christ with Mary, his Mother, at his side. This icon from the Gospel of John (19:25-27) was taken up in the episcopal and later the papal coat-of-arms of Karol Wojtyla: a golden cross with the letter 'M' on the lower right and the motto 'Totus tuus', drawn from the well-known words of Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort in which Karol Wojtyla found a guiding light for his life: 'Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt. Accipio te in mea omnia. Praebe mihi cor tuum, Maria - I belong entirely to you, and all that I have is yours. I take you for my all. O Mary, give me your heart' (Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 266).

  In his Testament, the new Blessed wrote: 'When, on 16 October 1978, the Conclave of Cardinals chose John Paul II, the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, said to me: "The task of the new Pope will be to lead the Church into the Third Millennium"'. And the Pope added: 'I would like once again to express my gratitude to the Holy Spirit for the great gift of the Second Vatican Council, to which, together with the whole Church - and especially with the whole episcopate - I feel indebted. I am convinced that it will long be granted to the new generations to draw from the treasures that this Council of the twentieth century has lavished upon us. As a Bishop who took part in the Council from the first to the last day, I desire to entrust this great patrimony to all who are and will be called in the future to put it into practice. For my part, I thank the Eternal Shepherd, who has enabled me to serve this very great cause in the course of all the years of my Pontificate'. And what is this 'cause'? It is the same one that John Paul II presented during his first solemn Mass in Saint Peter's Square in the unforgettable words: 'Do not be afraid! Open, open wide the doors to Christ!' What the newly-elected Pope asked of everyone, he was himself the first to do: society, culture, political and economic systems he opened up to Christ, turning back with the strength of a titan - a strength which came to him from God - a tide which appeared irreversible. By his witness of faith, love and apostolic courage, accompanied by great human charisma, this exemplary son of Poland helped believers throughout the world not to be afraid to be called Christian, to belong to the Church, to speak of the Gospel. In a word: he helped us not to fear the truth, because truth is the guarantee of liberty. To put it even more succinctly: he gave us the strength to believe in Christ, because Christ is Redemptor hominis, the Redeemer of man. This was the theme of his first encyclical, and the thread which runs though all the others.

  When Karol Wojtyla ascended to the throne of Peter, he brought with him a deep understanding of the difference between Marxism and Christianity, based on their respective visions of man. This was his message: man is the way of the Church, and Christ is the way of man. With this message, which is the great legacy of the Second Vatican Council and of its 'helmsman', the Servant of God Pope Paul VI, John Paul II led the People of God across the threshold of the Third Millennium, which thanks to Christ he was able to call 'the threshold of hope'. Throughout the long journey of preparation for the great Jubilee he directed Christianity once again to the future, the future of God, which transcends history while nonetheless directly affecting it. He rightly reclaimed for Christianity that impulse of hope which had in some sense faltered before Marxism and the ideology of progress. He restored to Christianity its true face as a religion of hope, to be lived in history in an 'Advent' spirit, in a personal and communitarian existence directed to Christ, the fullness of humanity and the fulfillment of all our longings for justice and peace.

  Finally, on a more personal note, I would like to thank God for the gift of having worked for many years with Blessed Pope John Paul II. I had known him earlier and had esteemed him, but for twenty-three years, beginning in 1982 after he called me to Rome to be Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I was at his side and came to revere him all the more. My own service was sustained by his spiritual depth and by the richness of his insights. His example of prayer continually impressed and edified me: he remained deeply united to God even amid the many demands of his ministry. Then too, there was his witness in suffering: the Lord gradually stripped him of everything, yet he remained ever a 'rock', as Christ desired. His profound humility, grounded in close union with Christ, enabled him to continue to lead the Church and to give to the world a message which became all the more eloquent as his physical strength declined. In this way he lived out in an extraordinary way the vocation of every priest and bishop to become completely one with Jesus, whom he daily receives and offers in the Eucharist.

  Blessed are you, beloved Pope John Paul II, because you believed! Continue, we implore you, to sustain from heaven the faith of God's people. How many time you blessed us from this very square. Holy Father, bless us again from that window. Amen".