Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. Blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

—Traditional prayer 

Lent: a Time for Renewing Faith, Hope and Love.

Faith calls us to accept the truth and testify to it before God and all our brothers and sisters. 

Hope as "living water" enabling us to continue our journey.

Love, following in the footsteps of Christ, in concern and compassion for all, is the highest expression of our faith and hope.

Repentance (...) it's a way of embracing our vulnerability and brokenness. The dust of Ash Wednesday reminds us that life is larger than our individual experiences of it. We are not in control.

www.franciscanmedia.org

"God never imposes his will (...) He "wants to be loved and not feared" (...) love can only be lived in freedom.

To learn to live one must learn to love, and for this it is necessary to discern, (...)  to invoke the Holy Spirit when we have choices to make."

Pope Francis

source: www.oblates.ie

We meet God, as Jesus did, in the human realities of our lives."You are my child, my beloved..." he will say to us, "... my favour rests on you."

Fr Brian Maher OMI

source: www.oblates.ie

"We were conceived in the heart of God,

and for this reason each of us is the result of a thought of God.

Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."

Laudato Si, 65

source: www.ignatianspirituality.com

So let's try Advent once again. Let's practice a hopeful way of being in the world.

Open your home to those who need welcome; pretend that each one of them is the baby Jesus, born on the road and needing help

Don't hurry through Advent because you're not terribly good at living it; just let it live in the real life you have. Don't forget that God loves you. And please don't forget that God loves everybody else too. He came for us all. Together, we wait for the holy child.

Vinita Hampton Wright

'He is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.'"

Luke 20:38

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Jesus said .... come down. Hurry, because I must stay at your house today"

Luke 19:1-10

"Christ has no body now, but yours. No hands, no feet on earth, but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks compassion into the world.Yours are the feet with which Christ walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which Christ blesses the world."

St. Therese of Avila

invites us to acknowledge God's gifts with wonder and gratitude

Pope Francis

When human history seems to develop contrary to the will of God, "we are called to live this period as a season of trial, of hope and in vigilant waiting for the harvest". The Kingdom grows mysteriously; its power is hidden in a small seed that is filled with "victorious vitality". When times are dark, we need to trust in "God's quiet but powerful action," and "remain anchored in God's faithfulness, in his presence which always saves".

Pope Francis

We ask the Lord today for the grace of not falling into indifference, the grace that all the information we have about human suffering might penetrate our hearts and move us to do something for others.

Pope Francis

God is watching, and waiting, and hoping. God rejoices beyond measure when we restore dignity and value to even one human life.

Fr Brian Maher, OMI

"Jesus tells us that in order to follow him, to be his disciples, one must deny oneself - that is, the claims of one's own selfish pride - and take up one's very cross. (...) Then he gives everyone a fundamental rule. And what is this rule? 'Whoever wants to save his life will lose it.'"

Pope Francis

"Let us ask the Virgin Mary - who was humble all her life - to lead us every day on the way of humility, so that we are capable of making our own gestures of welcome toward and solidarity with the marginalised, seeking nothing in return, so that we might become worthy of the divine reward."

Pope Francis

"The lamp of faith needs to be nourished continuously, with a heart to heart encounter with Jesus in prayer, and in listening to His Word". "True faith opens the heart to one's neighbour, and spurs us on to concrete communion with our brothers and sisters, especially with those in need".

Pope Francis

Lord Jesus, teach me to be generous;

Teach me to serve you as you deserve,

To give and not to count the cost,

To fight and not to heed the wounds,

To toil and not to seek for rest,

To labor and not to seek reward,

Except that of knowing that I do your will.

St. Ignatius of Loyola

CHOOSIING THE BETTER PART

"The most important task in life is to pray, not to pray with many words ... but to pray with the heart" 

to gaze upon the Lord, to listen to the Lord, and to ask the Lord for what we need". "And we know that prayer can work miracles".

Pope Francis

"The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest."

Luke 10

"The Eucharist is the sacrament of love: it signifies love, it produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life."

St. Thomas Aquinas: 

"The Holy Spirit makes Jesus present in us, beyond the barriers of time and space, to make us His witnesses in the world," 

Pope Francis

What will you do when your nets are full?

She explains the situation to him and he seems to dismiss her; but she is not giving up that easy! She then goes to servants and confidently tells them, 'Do whatever he tells you.'

"no prophet is accepted in his hometown"

'Do whatever he tells you.'

 Image by Jesuit Fr. Marko Rupnik

May Mary help us to keep and ponder all things. 

Pope Francis