Parish News for Sunday - 23/01/2011

Mary our Mother: Week of Prayer/ Pilgrim Statue. St Josephs Cradien 17th January 2011.

On Monday Evening we begin our time of Prayer to Mary our Mother. The Pilgrim Statue will be an aid to our prayer. It will help us focus on Mary who continually intercedes with her Son for us. She is his mother, and she is our mother. In her message at Fatima she revealed herself as the Queen of Peace. She reminded us that our world has gone astray, and is in rebellion against God. Here she told us of the atrocities that would happen during the Second World War, and predicted many of the atrocities that are happening in our time.

We see this rebellion ourselves in the lack of respect for the unborn child. We see it in the break up of Marriage and the Family. We see it in the Church of Christ (the Body of Christ) in which we have had the paedophile scandals by priests and by lay people. We see it in our own lukewarm response to Jesus in our lives. We see it in the fall off in numbers of those who worship God on the Sabbath, and the fall of in Confessions where people admit their sin and begin again. We see it in the new attitude to the Eucharist, and in the lack of respect for the Eucharist in the House of God. We see it in the lack of visits to the Eucharist, and in our cavalier attitude to receiving the Eucharist. We see it in the refusal to help Jesus build up the Kingdom of God in parishes and countries. We see it in grudges, and spites carried and allowed growth in our lives. We see it in the lack of forgiveness in our world. We see it in the lack of prayer in our lives, and the lives of many people in our world. We see it in the amount of greed, dishonesty, and corruption in our society, and we see and hear it everyday on the news on TV and Radio.

Our world is not at peace with God and therefore not at peace with itself. We live at a time of great insecurity in Society; in the World; in the Church; and in the Family. We know that we live in a new world, but unfortunately we don’t live in a renewed world. Our Lady tells us that this is not the will of the Father who sent his Son into our world to bring us peace. And she tells us that it can be changed. Her message for us is that all conflict, all wars, and rebellion against God comes not from outside ourselves, but from inside ourselves. The lack of peace in our world begins within our own hearts, and lives. And so if we are to bring renewal and peace to a rebellious world we begin from within ourselves. We bring about in our own lives the peace we want to see in our world. We bring about in ourselves the change we want to see outside ourselves. Mary reminds us that Jesus promised us the peace we seek, after he rose from the dead. He suffered, died, and rose from the dead, so that we could have this peace. After his resurrection when he appeared, these were his first words: “Peace be with you”. This is his gift to us if only we take the gift. It is a Personal Gift for each of us, as well as a Community Gift for all of us.

Mary our mother tells us specifically, how we will get this peace in our inner lives. She tells us that the gift of peace comes to all who listen to “The Word of God”. We are to listen to “The Word of God” and ask God to help us translate it into our lives. We are to Listen, Pray, and Act. We first listen to God; we then pray to God for the help to translate his word into our lives; and than we do so; we act. Our Lady puts this more simply by saying Pray, Worship God a Mass, Confess your Sins, Adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. And she sums up this whole message by asking us: “to pray the rosary each day” for the Rosary is a meditation on “The Word of God”. The disciple of Jesus must always have “The Word of God” at the very centre of life.