October 2012

Join us each week and pray for an hour before the Blessed Sacrament, for children. They need you to bring them to the Lord in prayer.

This month our prayer intention is for children suffering from material, spiritual and emotional poverty.
 
Jesus said that if you receive a child in his name, you receive him and the one who sent him. Praying for children is a way of receiving them and placing their needs before God.

 

"Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me." (Mark 9:37). 

  

 

 

"To children and to the poor, to all those who suffer and are lonely, give them always a happy smile; give them not only your care but also your heart. We may not be able to give much, but we can always give the joy that springs from a heart that is filled with love." Cf. (Mother Teresa, Essential Writings).

   

"The development of mass communications has made our planet, somehow, smaller.  The ability to know almost immediately the events taking place worldwide, just as the needs of peoples and individuals, is an urgent call to be close to them in their joys and in their difficulties. 

The reality of the great suffering caused worldwide by poverty and misery, both material and spiritual, invites a new mobilization to respond, in justice and solidarity, to all that threatens human society and its environment".  "Urban migration, armed conflict, famine and pandemics, which affect so many people, dramatically develop poverty which today has taken on new forms. 

The global economic crisis has brought more and more families to an increasingly precarious situation while the creation and multiplication of needs led people to believe in the possibility of unlimited enjoyment and consumption, once the necessary means to safisfy these needs were lacking, feelings of frustration emerged.  Loneliness due to exclusion increased.  And when poverty coexists with the very rich, a perception of unfairness is born that can become a source of rebellion. 

It is therefore appropriate that States ensure that the social laws do not increase inequalities and enable people to live decently".  "For this, consideration must be give to helping people overcome this shortfall, by rendering them actors in their society, enabling them to take charge of their own future, helping them to occupy a place within society according to their abilities. 
Because "man is more precious for what he is than for what he has"

(CONC. VAT. 11, Gaudium et specs).

An extract from a Vatican Radio translation of the Holy Father's Lenten address, delivered in French.

Scripture reading Rom 12:1-2
 

My brothers, I implore you by God's mercy to offer your very selves to him: a living sacrifice, dedicated and fit for his acceptance, the worship offered by mind and heart.  Adapt yourselves no longer to the pattern of this present world, but let your minds be remade and your whole nature thus transformed.  Then you will be able to discern the wil of God, and to know what is good, acceptable and perfect.

St. Vincent de Paul looked after the poor

Vincent de paul was born on 24th April 1581 in Gascony in France.  He was educated at the University of Toulouse.  He became a priest of the Catholic Church and he dedicated himself to serving the poor.  He founded the Congregation of the mission (Vincentians) for the purpose of the spirital formation of the clergy and the relief of the poor.  He died on
27th September 1660 in Paris.  He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church.  He was canonized in 1737.

Today the Society of St. Vincent de Paul continue to help the poor.

Jesus feeds the hungry
 

Jesus used a child's loaves and fish to feed five thousand people.

 

"There is a boy here who has five loaves of barley, bread and two fish.  But they will certainly not be enough for all these people."

"Make the people sit down, "Jesus told them. (There was a lot of grass there). So all the people sat down; there were about five thousand men.  Jesus took the bread, gave thanks to God, and distributed it to the people who were sitting there.  He did the same with the fish and they all had as much as they wanted. (John 6:9-11)
 

 

 

This week let us bring all children and young people around the world, who are suffering from material poverty before the Lord in prayer.

 

"Nothing is impossible for God"