Apostleship of PrayerMarch, 2008
The Holy Father's General Intention:That the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation may be understood and that the Church through her testimony, may spread Christ’s love, the source of new humanity.
God is love which saves, a loving Father who wants t see his children look upon one another as brothers and sisters. God is the unfailing source of the hope which gives meaning to personal and community life. History has amply demonstrated that declaring war on God in order to eradicate him from human hearts only leads a fearful and impoverished humanity towards decision which are ultimately futile. This realization must impel believers in Christ to become convincing witnesses of the God who is inseparably truth and love, placing themselves at the service of peace in broad cooperation with other Christians, the followers of other religions and with all men and women of good will.
Jesus says in the Gospels: forgive and you will be forgiven. The Canossian Sisters have in their rule book an outstanding guideline in “If a Sister had occasion of even the least displeasure to another she must not go to rest until she has asked forgiveness and is reconciled with the Sister offended. The Sisters are reminded that Jesus Christ, ….., still loves us when we are ungrateful. In imitation of Him, they too, If they were to receive some offense from another in spite of all the recommendations and cautions, must not allow their charity, which cannot be extinguished by floods of water, to be affected or diminished”.
This love, we are talking about, is not merely a sentiment, a feeling. This sentiment or feeling can be a marvelous first spark, but it is not the fulness of love.
It is the characteristic of mature love that it calls into play all the gifts that we have bestowed with. As we mature in this deep love of personal commitment to other(s) forgiveness and reconciliation will be a real and true fact of our lives.
His Mission intention:That Christians, who are persecuted in many parts of the world and in various manners because of the Gospel, may continue, sustained by the strength of the Holy Spirit, to bear witness courageously and openly to the Word of God.
The witness of all those Christians who suffer persecutions in the cause of their faith can challenged us to make an ever more sincere and generous commitment to go out to the other to evangelize. We, ourselves, though we are unable to go out to be missionaries, can express the warmest solidarity to those who can be evangelists. Do we really try to find out the name of some of our missionaries who are being persecuted.
Therefore we can deeply pray for those evangelist who are being persecuted. It can be through our deep personal prayer that we can joined ourselves with them in their work for Jesus Christ.
Vince Hurley, S.J.
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