Weekly Reflections
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Today, Sunday 1st June, we have 806 people from all over the world and from many Christian and some non-Christian denominations joining together in prayer. Life's back to normal here, if we can ever say that. The Cajuns have returned home. My brother Jimmy, a former Parish Priest now Carmelite Novice did his monastic thing and spent some precious time with Mom, while I, along with Fr. Bob and occasionally my sister Ann, hit the highways and  byways showing them some of the real ecclesiastical treasures of hidden Ireland. Ann is well and truly settled into her new home and I now feel that my time is my own again. It has been a bit hectic since last February. Next  week the writing starts in earnest DV (Latin abbreviation for 'if it pleases God')

The focus of this week's reflection is on The Father and the reflection from Bob and Debbie Gass is kinda ties in with it a wee bit. It's called You've Got To Take The First Step!

http://www.ucb.co.uk/wft/index.php

The Weekly Intentions are  available on a plain page to be able to print off and kept to hand for your own prayer time. The list has become too long now to include each week but please say the two wee prayers below. The Loving Father knows each of you intimately - your needs, wishes and hurts.

http://www.circleofprayer.com/weekly-intentions.html

"Father, bless all those who have requested prayers in whatever it is that You know they may be needing this day! Father, we ask You to heal the broken bodies, broken hearts, broken spirits and broken relationships and may all their lives be full of Your peace, prosperity, and power as they seek
to have a close relationship with You. Amen."

"Thank You Jesus for answering our prayers because we know You hear every prayer and never refuse to answer. You are providing answers and healings from the prayers of all these wonderful people. Praise God!"

Today we celebrated Ascension Thursday - huh? sez you - Thursday on a  Sunday! In recent years we have seen many of the Solemn Feasts of the Church moved from their actual day to the nearest Sunday, today's feast day being just one of them. The reasons given were that Mass attendance had declined on the Holy Days of Obligation and by moving the feast day it might increase Mass attendance. Of course that never happened and we have lost just one more beautiful tradition. Holy Days mean we celebrate the feast with Mass and reflections on the meaning of the feast. For us as children growing up in the 50s and 60s these days were really special. We got the day off school and usually went somwhere nice after Mass. For the days leading into the feast our religious instruction was based all around the feast and its meaning and importance.

This week I'm going to tell a wee story around events of yesterday. I rarely believe in coincidence anymore and see every little happening in life as part of a jigsaw puzzle. Michelle, my daughter, and her family moved back to the UK yesterday and I will miss her terribly. Her daughter, Kelly, loves to say the Rosary and is a real whizz at it but she gets the Mysteries and the Decades all mixed up. I took her shopping earlier in the day to get a child's booklet on  the Rosary as well as the usual mundane household shop. There was also a  message to be done in the building opposite the Church in Mervue where  Perpetual Adoration is held.

We popped in so Kelly could say a wee prayer for a safe journey and for her to be happy in her new school and the family to be happy and successful in their move. It was her first time in the little chapel and she was facinated. On the bench where we sat was a little booklet called: "The Father Speaks to His Children". It wasn't there on Friday morning when I did my hour and in fact  it had not been read as four of the pages needed to be separated. Scanning  through it I discovered it was about messages given to an Italian nun called  Sister Eugenia Elisabetta Ravasio in July and August of 1932. So home it came to be read at leisure and will be returned during the week.

Public Revelation ended with Christ and some people have great difficulty with the idea of Private Revelation. But to my mind man does not change and even though Christ gave of His life for our Salvation, we still need to be reminded of God's Love and Forgiveness. The prophets of Old Testament times did just that, is it possible that God discontinued this very effective practice after the Death and Resurrection of His beloved Son. All over the world are reports of apparitions
and messages, some false of course. The Church investigates these under very strict criteria to determine a supernatural intervention or purely human imagination.

The two lengthy messages given to Sr. Eugenia were purported to be from God the Father Himself. After a period of strict investigation the local Bishop of Grenoble declared them to be, in his opinion, of supernatural means and therefore as valid by the Church. His successor upheld his declaration and in 1981 the messages came to the attention of the Bishop of Grenoble, the Right Reverand
Alexandre Caillot. He published them in Italian and they have been published in  English since 1994 and in other languages. Basically The Father asked that He be taught as a loving and forgiving Father instead of being portrayed as a wrathful and vengeful Judge. He also asked that a special day to be given over in the Liturgical Calendar for  particular devotion to Him. We have numerous feasts for Jesus and we have feast days for the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Trinity but nothing for The Father.

You can find the contents of this little booklet on the website as it is far to long to include here. I found them to be very consoling but you must form your own  conclusions.

http://www.circleofprayer.com/the-father-speaks-preface.html

Back to the jigsaw puzzle. During the week I had started a book by Scott Hahn  called 'First Comes Love' about the family and the Blessed Trinity. Last night when I opened the page where I'd left off there was a section on the pure Love of the Father. In it he describes the first time he took his newborn son from his wife after a night-time feed and sitting with him in a rocking chair. The wew fella had sput up on him after a huge burp and when he lifted him off the shoulder onto his lap the overwhelming  feeling of love he had for this tiny mite nearly suffocated him and swelled his heart to bursting point. It was right then that he realised that this was just a fraction of the love that the Father has for us. Amazing eh? 

He also made points around the father-son/daughter relationship in regards to rules within the home and discipline. So too are they given to us from the Father for a healthy and loving relationship. One paragraph in my final reading of that book last night confirmed for me the messages given to Mother Eugenia. He writes:

"It seems almost blasphemous to say this, but Christians can place too much emphasis on Christ - if we also neglect the stated purpose of His coming. He came to earth in order to give us the Spirit. He ascended to the Father so that the Spirit could descend on the Church. In these divine actions, salvation history manifested the divine processions. The Father sending the Son in history is an image of the Father generating the Son in eternity. The descent of the Spirit upon the Church 
at Pentecost is an image of the Spirit's procession from the Father and the Son in eternity."

Look at your own beloved child and ask the question could you sacrifice him out of love as Abraham was prepared to do and as the Loving Father in Heaven did? Now that's complete, absolute and infinite love! The one and only prayer given to us by Jesus in the Scriptures is the one to the Father. As we say it slowly and reverently we should reflect on the love He has for us. It really is the most powerful of prayers covering everything we need in life - Praise of Him, Submission to Him, our Daily Bread in Holy Communion, Forgiveness, Protection and Exocism from Evil.

This time of the year is so rich with Liturgical Celebrations and next week we will be speaking about Pentecost. Meanwhile here's a lovely prayer to the Holy Spirit we might include as preparation for the Feast day:

"O Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore You. Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me, tell me what I should do. Give me Your orders. I promise to submit myself to all that You desire of me and to accept all that You permit to happen to me. Let me only know Your will. Amen" 

Coincidently (??!!??) today is also dedicated by the Church as World Communications Day so what better way to make use of this 'medium' today than to spread the good news about the Love of the Father? Geesh, these reflections seem to get longer and longer each week! Sorry!

God Bless you all for praying for and with each other and for a sad world,

Mary in Galway
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You've Got To Take The First Step!

" BE STRONG AND OF GOOD COURAGE AND DO IT. "  1 CHRONICLES 28 : 20

Larry Walters got tired of sitting around doing nothing. So, on 2 July, 1982, he rigged 42 helium-filled weather balloons to a garden chair and lifted off. Armed with an air gun to shoot out a few balloons should he fly too high, he was shocked when he quickly reached 16000 feet - and he wasn't the only one!

Pilots reported seeing, 'Some guy in a garden chair floating through the sky.'

Forty-five minutes later when he landed in Long Beach, he was asked why he did it. He replied, 'It was something I had to do. I just couldn't sit there any longer.' When The Prodigal Son finally got sick and tired of being sick and tired, he said, 'I will arise and go to my father...' (Lk 15:18). Did he have any idea how his father, whose heart and whose law he'd broken, would treat him? No, but he refused to sit in his pigsty another day!

When Israel came to the River Jordan, God told the priests carrying the ark, to step into the water and it would dry up. But nothing happened until they took that first step!

There could be a song in you that's never been sung, a sermon that's never been preached or a gift that's just waiting to be released! The moment you stop holding back, the doors will open, the right people will come and the resources will be provided. But you've got to take that first step!

God Bless you all,

Mary in Galway

Pray before the Cross:

"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, send now Your Spirit over the earth. Let the Holy Spirit live in the hearts of all nations, that they may be preserved from degeneration, disaster and war. May
the Lady of All Nations, who once was Mary, be our Advocate. Amen."