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Hello everyone, 

Today, Saturday 8th. November we have 1555 people from all over the world and from many Christian and some non-Christian denominations joining together in prayer. Our reflection this week is all about sex!

Here in Ireland we have a freebie monthly publication called Alive and it's great. My favourite piece each month is by Dumbag, a master devil writing to Nettles, a trainee devil. In the September issue he 'wrote a very thought-proving letter' to Nettles and I thought it would be a good one for the weekly reflection. Then I thought ... hmmmm ... should I?

Then today the ZENIT email arrived and in it was a Pastoral Letter by Bishop Victor Galeone Bishop of Saint Augustine, Florida. It was good stuff and again very thought-provoking and the two are linked
in content and separated only by the Atlantic Ocean. So the little reflection below is Dumbag's letter to Nettles from the September issue of Alive, called: 'It changed the Meaning of Sex'

When anyone asks me what is the greatest evil of all time I have no hesitation in stating ABORTION. When nations legally kill their own children they have lost all respect for life. There is a natural 
progression as a consequence of actions. For me the natural progression from artificial contraception opened the doors to adultery, promiscuity, abortion, eugenics, embryonic research, cloning and just 
around the corner we have euthanasia. If we can kill the babe in the womb we can kill off the infirm, the elderly, the incapacitated. There will be no limit to the criteria needed to 'qualify' for 'gentle and easy death', the meaning of the word euthanasia. Until legalised abortion ends all over the world there will never be peace!

Now I know that many of you reading this will disagree with the contents and sadly the world has produced many 'a la carte' Christians, picking the bits that suit us and discarding the bits that don't. 
But that was never Christ's way and if we are to truly proclaim ourselves as Christians we have to look at those bits we discard too and see where they fit into God's plan and Christ's Teachings.

We have a wide band of Christian denominations and some non-Christians, but I would ask you please 'don't shoot the messenger' instead study the message and see if you can see truth in it. Just because the author of the piece below is a Catholic Bishop does not make it in any way suspect. Truth is truth no matter which mouth proclaims it! Again, I have to warn that it's quite a long piece of reading but most interesting and even the footnotes are worth including.

Marriage: A Communion of Life and Love

A Pastoral Letter by Bishop Victor Galeone 
Bishop of Saint Augustine, Florida 

My brothers and sisters in the Lord, 

Some state legislatures are presently considering bills that would redefine marriage as the stable union of any two adults regardless of gender. Such legislation would equate same-sex unions with traditional marriage. Furthermore, divorces continue to escalate to the point where couples may now get a bona fide divorce online for fees ranging from $50 to $300. 

These latest developments are mere symptoms of a vastly more serious disorder. Until the taproot of that disorder is cut, I fear that we will continue to reap the fruit of failed marriages and worsening sexual behavior at every level of society. 

The disorder? Contraception. The practice is so widespread that it involves 90% of married couples at some point of their marriage, cutting across all denominational lines. Since one of the chief roles of the bishop is to teach, I invite you to revisit what the Church affirms in this area, and more importantly, why. 

God's plan for marriage

The vast majority of people today consider contraception a non-issue. So much so that to label it a disorder sounds like a gross exaggeration. And to revisit it seems analogous to studying a treatise from the Flat Earth Society. But contraception is an issue, an absolutely vital issue. To comprehend why it is wrong, it's first necessary to understand what God originally intended marriage to be. In the opening chapters of Genesis we learn that God himself designed marriage for a twofold purpose: to communicate life and love. 

There are two accounts of creation in the book of Genesis. The first account occurs in chapter one: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them."(1) The next verse contains the very first command given by God: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." We thus see that God's first purpose for marriage is that it be life-giving. 

Without the love embrace between husband and wife, human life would cease to exist on this earth. In the second account of creation in Genesis 2, we learn that the other purpose God has for marriage is that it be love-giving: "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helpmate as his partner."(2) Yes, God meant husband and wife to be intimate friends, supporting each other in mutual and lasting love. Accordingly, marriage exists to communicate both life and love. 

The two purposes of marriage are so mutually interconnected as to be inseparable. First, recall that Jesus ruled out the possibility of divorce by applying these words to the union of husband and wife: "They are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one ever separate."(3)

In other words, spouses form an organic entity, like head and heart -- not a mechanical one, like lock and key. So the separation of the head or heart from the body -- unlike the removal of a key from its lock -- entails the death of the organism. So too, with divorce. Likewise, it was God who also combined the love-giving and the life-giving aspects of marriage in one and the same act. 

Therefore, we can no more separate through contraception what God joined together in the marital act than we can separate through divorce what God joined together in the marriage union itself.(4)

The body language of marital love

Before examining what the Church teaches about contraception, I would like to digress for a moment. According to Pope John Paul II, God designed married love to be expressed in a special language -- the body language of the sexual act.(5) In fact, sexual communication uses many of the same terms that verbal communication does: intercourse, to know (carnally), to conceive, etc.(6) With this in mind, let's pose some questions: 

-- Is it normal for a wife to insert ear-plugs, while listening to her husband? 

-- Is it normal for a husband to muffle his mouth, while speaking to his wife? 

These examples are so abnormal as to appear absurd. Yet if such behavior is abnormal for verbal communication, why do we tolerate a wife using a diaphragm or the Pill, or a husband employing a condom during sexual communication? 

Worse still, how can one justify a husband having a surgeon clip his robust vocal cords, or a wife having her healthy eardrums surgically removed? Yet in the area of sexual communication, how do such horrific examples differ from a vasectomy or a tubal ligation? 

Isn't it the task of a surgeon to remove an organ only when it is diseased and threatens human life? If the testes or ovaries are not diseased, on what grounds are we frustrating their purpose? Could it be that we have been so indoctrinated by the culture of death that we now consider babies a disease, from which we must immunize ourselves through sterilization? 

Yes, we have been created in the image and likeness of God! Jesus revealed God's inner life to us as a Trinity of persons. Accordingly, the body language of the marital union between husband and wife must reflect God's own inner life, namely, the mutual love between the Father and the Son, which is the person of the Holy Spirit. From the first page to the last, the Bible is a love story. 

It begins in Genesis with the marriage of Adam and Eve and it ends in the Book of Revelation with the wedding feast of the Lamb -- the marriage of Christ and his Bride, the Church. From all eternity God craves to give himself to us in marriage. No one expressed that fact more graphically than the prophet Isaiah: 

"As a young man marries a maiden, so will your Maker marry you. 
As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you."(7)

St. Paul embellished this theme when he wrote, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her."(8) How did Christ give himself up for the Church? Totally -- to the last drop of his blood! He held nothing back. If husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved, can they hold anything back? Not even their fertility? 

Contraception: Telling lies with our bodies 

Since God fashioned our bodies male and female to communicate both life and love, every time that husband and wife deliberately frustrate this twofold purpose through contraception, they are acting out a lie. The body language of the marital act says, "I'm all yours," but the contraceptive device adds, "except for my fertility." 

So in actual fact, they are lying to each other with their bodies. Even worse, they are tacitly usurping the role of God. By thwarting the purpose of the marital love embrace, they are telling God, "You may have designed our bodies to help you transmit life to an immortal soul, but you made a mistake -- a mistake we intend to correct. You may be Lord of our lives -- but not of our fertility." 

Thirty-five years ago this month, Pope Paul VI said essentially the same thing when he issued his encyclical "Humanae Vitae": "There is an inseparable link between the two meanings of the marriage act: the unitive meaning (love-giving) and the procreative meaning (life-giving). This connection was established by God himself, and man is not permitted to break it on his own initiative."(9)

Pope Paul went on to condemn every form of contraception as being unworthy of the dignity of the human person. A tidal wave of angry dissent erupted over this teaching. Catholics and non-Catholics alike berated "the celibate old man in the Vatican" for failing to read the signs of the times and thus hindering the Church's full entry into the modern era. But the Holy Father was merely restating the unbroken teaching of the Church from the beginning, upheld by all Christian denominations until the Anglican Church made the first break at the Lambeth Conference of 1930.(10) In substance -- though not expressed in these exact words -- he was declaring: "It is not right for man to separate what God has joined together. Attempting to do so would enshrine man in the place of God, and unleash a series of unspeakable evils on society." 

Many scoffed at the dire consequences that Pope Paul predicted if the use of contraception escalated. Among his predictions were: 

1) increased marital infidelity; 

2) a general lowering of morality, especially among the young; 

3) husbands viewing their wives as mere sex objects; and 

4) governments forcing massive birth control programs on their people. 

Thirty-five years later the moral landscape is strewn with the following stark reality: 

1) The divorce rate has more than tripled. 

2) The number of sexually transmitted diseases has expanded from six to 50. 

3) Pornography grosses more than all the receipts from professional sports and legitimate entertainment combined. 

4) Sterilization is forced on unsuspecting women in Third World countries, with China's one-child-per-couple policy in the vanguard. Today, even critics of "Humanae Vitae" admit that its teaching was prophetic.(11)

Many Catholics who make use of contraceptives claim that they are doing nothing wrong since they are merely obeying the dictates of their conscience. 

After all, doesn't the Church teach that we must follow our conscience to decide if a behavior is right or wrong? Yes, that's true - zzz\a\VC\cv\ \ZV provided that it's a properly formed conscience. Specifically, we must all conform our individual consciences to the natural law and the Ten Commandments, just as we have to adjust our clocks to sun time (Greenwich Mean Time). If a clock goes too fast or too slow, it will soon tell us that it's bedtime at dawn. And to say that we must accommodate our individual conscience to behavior that clearly contradicts God's law is to say that we must rule our lives by the clock, even when it tells us that night is day.(12)

NFP: Speaking the truth with our bodies

I fear that much of what I have said seems harshly critical of couples using contraceptives. In reality, I am not blaming them for what has occurred during the past four decades. It was not their fault. With rare exceptions, because of our silence we bishops and priests are to blame.(13)

A letter I received from a young father last year is characteristic of many others: "Early in our marriage, Jan and I used artificial contraception like everybody else. Today's culture was telling us that this was the normal thing to do. We knew the 'official' Church teaching was against it, but we were not taught why. We even had priests tell us that it was a personal decision; so if we felt the need to use contraception, it was okay. But couples need to be taught why contraception is wrong. We were never taught that the Pill is an abortifacient, that can possibly abort a [newly conceived] child without us knowing it. We were not taught that artificial birth control is a hindrance to building a healthy marriage. We did not know that there is a healthier, Church-approved alternative to artificial birth control." 

While contraception is always wrong, there is a morally acceptable way for married couples to space their children -- natural family planning (NFP). Couples may regulate births by abstaining from the marital act during the wife's fertile period. NFP instructors teach couples how to identify the fertile days, which can last from seven to 10 days per cycle. 

NFP has a number of benefits: It is scientifically sound, it involves no harmful side effects, and it entails no cost after the initial fee for materials. Studies have shown that NFP, when accurately followed, can be 99% effective in postponing pregnancy. That's equivalent to the Pill and better than all the barrier methods. Best of all, while complying with God's will, husband and wife discover the beautifully designed functions of their fertility, enhance their intimacy, and deepen their love for each other. 

But how does natural family planning differ from contraception? And why bother, if their objective is the same? To understand the difference, one must realize that having a right intention for an action does not always justify the means. 

For example, two separate couples want to support their families. The first couple does it through legitimate employment, while the other couple does it by trafficking in illegal drugs. Or two persons want to lose weight. The first accomplishes the objective by adhering to a strict diet, while the other person grossly overeats and then induces vomiting. Or to return to our analogy of the language of the body: To say that NFP is no different from contraception is like saying that maintaining silence is the equivalent of telling a lie. 

Paul VI expressed the same idea more poetically: "To experience the gift of married love while respecting the laws of conception is to acknowledge that one is not master of the sources of life, but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator."(14)

What would you think of a scientist who discovered the cure for cancer but refused to divulge it? Confronted with the spiritual cancer attacking the family today, how can one explain the reluctance of us bishops and priests in spreading the good news of the Church's full teaching on married love and life? 

Consider this statistic: Today at least 30% of all marriages end in divorce, compared with only 3% of NFP users.(15) Since the use of contraception burgeoned in the early 1960s to the present, there has been a corresponding increase in the incidence of divorce. How does one account for such a dramatic increase in failed marriages? As we saw in Paragraph 4, to separate what God joined together in the marital act through contraception is bound to have repercussions on what God joined together in the marriage union -- namely, divorce. The solution is clear. What's needed is courage. 

In order to counter the silence surrounding the Church's teaching in this area, as your bishop, I ask that the following guidelines be implemented in our diocese: 

-- All pastoral ministers should study the liberating message of John Paul II's "theology of the body" in order to share it with others.(16)

-- Confessors should become familiar with the "Vademecum for Confessors Concerning Some Aspects of the Morality of Conjugal Life." 

-- When appropriate, priests and deacons should present in their homilies the Church's teaching dealing with marriage, including why contraceptive behavior is wrong. 

-- Adequate instruction in NFP is to become a part of all marriage preparation programs. 

-- Instruction in our high schools, the upper grades of Religious Education classes, and RCIA classes should clearly teach the immorality of those forms of sexual behavior condemned by the Church, including contraception. 

In closing, I would like to quote from an article by Roberta Roane that appeared in the National Catholic Reporter. She began by asserting: "Yes, I was alive and fertile in 1968. I was 19 and I knew the Pill was a gift from God and 'Humanae Vitae' was a real crock. The Pill was going to eliminate teenage pregnancy, marital disharmony and world population problems..." After recounting her odyssey of bearing three children while switching from the Pill, to the IUD, to condoms, she continues: 

"Finally, my husband and I reached a turning point. At a very low point in our marriage, we met some great people who urged us to really give our lives to the Lord and be chaste in our marriage. 

"That blew our minds. We thought it meant 'give up sex.' That's not what it means. It means respecting bodily union as a sacred act. It meant acting like a couple in love, a couple in awe, not a couple of cats in heat. For my husband and me, it meant NFP ... and I won't kid you, it was a difficult discipleship. NFP and a chaste attitude toward sex in marriage opened up a new world for us. It bonded my husband and me in a way that is so deep, so strong, that it's hard to describe. Sometimes it's difficult, but that makes us even closer. We revere each other. And when we do come together, we're like honeymooners. 

"Sad to say, I was past 35 when I finally realized that the Church was right after all. Not the grab-your-sincerity-and-slide Church of Charlie Curran, but the real Church, the Church we encountered in the Couple to Couple League, the Catholic Church. The Church is right about contraception (it stinks), right about marriage (it's a sacrament), right about human happiness (it flows -- no, it floods when you embrace the will of God). It gave us depth. It opened our hearts to love."(17)

Roberta Roane is merely echoing what St. Paul said many centuries ago: 

"Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. You were bought at a great price. Therefore, glorify God with your body!"(18)

* * * 
Endnotes

1. Genesis 1:27. Scripture always considers children a blessing (Psalm 127:3) and barrenness a disgrace (Luke 1:25) 

2. Genesis 2:18 3. Mark 10:8,9 

4. John F. Kipley develops this theme in Birth Control and Christian Discipleship, CCL, Cincinnati, 1994 

5. "Theology of the Body Talks," Wednesday Audience, March 5, 1980 

6. The initial meaning of intercourse is an "exchange of thoughts." In Shakespeare's day it was customary to use the verb to know as a euphemism for having sexual relations. Conceive still applies to both sexual and verbal communication: "She conceived her first child." / "I can't conceive how that happened!" 

7. Isaiah 62:5 

8. Ephesians 5:25 

9. "Humanae Vitae," No. 12 

10. John F. Noonan, in his landmark study, "Contraception" (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), detailed the history of contraceptive practice from ancient times to the present. He documented that from the Didache (A.D. 80) to the Lambeth Conference of 1930, all Christian denominations, without exception, considered contraception intrinsically immoral. 

11. In an article that appeared in U. S. News & World Report (July 1, 1996, p. 57), prominent anthropologist Lionel Tiger blames many of today's problems on the widespread use of the Pill, beginning in the '60s: "As happens frequently, technology (contraception, in this case) has generated an unexpected result: more abortions, more single-parent families, more men abandoning their role as good providers and a higher divorce rate." 

12. Adapted from "Good Work," The Dorothy Day Book (Templegate) 

13. Pope Gregory the Great reprimanded the bishops of his day for being weak shepherds because they failed to speak up when it was their duty: "Pastors who lack courage hesitate to proclaim openly what they should, out of human respect. As the voice of Truth tells us, such leaders are 'mercenaries who flee by taking refuge in silence as the wolf appears.' " (PL 77:30) 

14. "Humanae Vitae," No. 13 

15. Studies vary on the divorce rate for couples using NFP. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention says that it's 5%, while the Family of the Americas says that it is less than 2%. 

16. Revs. Richard Hogan and John LeVoir have written a commentary on John Paul II's theology of the body, in "Covenant of Love," Ignatius Press (1992). For a simplified version of John Paul's audience talks, Monsignor Vincent Walsh has published "The Theology of the Body" (Key of David Publications). And Christopher West, formerly director of the Office of Marriage and Family Life for the Archdiocese of Denver (see www.theologyofthebody.net), has some excellent audio commentaries on the same topic. 

17. National Catholic Reporter, Oct. 31, 1986 

18. 1 Corinthians 6:19,20 

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It Changed the Meaning of Sex 
(Letters from a Master Devil to a Trainee Devil) 

Dear Nettles, 

You've seen the turmoil in the Church of England over homosexuality. The lovely thing is that the chaos will continue for years to come. But what I want you to learn from this case is the importance for us of long-term planning. To understand the present situation in Anglicanism you have to go back to 1930 when the Lambeth Conference permitted the use of contraception by married couples. 
It seemed like a small thing at the time. But lighting a fuse can seem like a small thing too, until a series of explosions leaves a city devastated. Anyway, back to the point. This was the first time that a major Christian communion said that it was alright for a married couple to target their sexual union and rob it of its baby-making power. Contraception, you see, was designed to separate sex from the total self-giving love which is open to new life. Here was a radically new principle in Christianity. It changed the whole meaning of sex. And that changed world culture.

Pregnancy

Pleasure became the main purpose of sex. Pregnancy was seen as "an accident" and disposing of "unwanted babies" became an accepted notion. It was soon argued that if sex could be separated from babies it could be separated from marriage, and even from love. Casual sex, pornography, adultery, divorce, abortion and homosexual behaviour were soon regarded part of the new deal. To make the pill go down more easily, so to speak, we started a scare-mongering campaign about a "population explosion". But I won't go into that here. Of course, the changes had to be made gradually, and often against great opposition. But there was no stopping the train. And if sex without babies was ok, then why not babies without sex? Why not make babies in a tube, or even clone them? Yes, the explosions are still going off in every direction. Of course, we had hoped the Catholic Church would adopt the new view of sex before its consequences became too evident.

Rejected

Then along came Paul VI as pope. In his 1968 letter, Humanae Vitae, against practically all advice and pressure, he rejected contraception. Many Catholics were stunned. But believe me, it was nothing to the shock down here. We had hit a stone wall. Needless to say, we recovered quickly and used the situation for a new assault on the Church, most of it from within. But I can tell you this, if ever there was proof that Him above was guiding the Pope's teaching it was Humanae Vitae. Since 1968 major questions about sex, procreation, marriage and family have arisen. Bur Humanae Vitae is like a compass, always guiding the Church to the Truth. As a result, all its teachings on sexuality fit together like the organs in a living body. Believe me, when the wisdom of Paul VI shines out in full splendour it will create a new dawn for the Catholic Church.

Yours despondently,

Dumbag. 

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So there you have it folks - food for thought. Two little reminders for this week - Eucharistic Adoration for Vocations, the form on the website has the address included where they can be forwarded. And prayers for the Holy Souls, with prayers for them below.

http://www.circleofprayer.com/vocations-poster.html
http://www.circleofprayer.com/vocations-form.html

Here's the Vocations website:

http://www.vocations.com

May God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit bless you and yours and
may Mary keep you in Her heavenly mother's care.

Mary Mullins in Galway, Ireland

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Chaplet of the Holy Souls

This Chaplet can be prayed on a set of Rosary Beads.

Begin with: The Creed, then 1 Our Father, 3 Hail Marys, 1 Glory Be for the Pope’s intentions.

On Large Beads Pray: 

O holy souls draw the fire of God’s Love into my soul to reveal Jesus crucified in me, here on earth, rather than hereafter in Purgatory.

On Small Beads Pray:

Crucified Lord Jesus have mercy on the souls in Purgatory

End with: Glory Be three times

Cardinal Newman’s Prayer for the Holy Souls

O most gentle heart of Jesus, ever present in the Blessed Sacrament, ever consumed with burning love for the poor captive souls in Purgatory, have mercy on the souls of Your servants. Bring them from the shadows of exile to Your bright home in Heaven, where we trust You and Your Blessed Mother have woven for them a crown of unfolding bliss. Amen.

Prayer of St. Gertrude for the Holy Souls

Eternal Father, I offer you the Most Precious Blood of your Divine Son, 
Jesus, in union with all the masses said throughout the world today for 
all the Holy Souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the 
Universal Church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen."

Prayer for Your Family

"O Dear Jesus, I humbly implore You to grant Your special graces to our family this day. In Your Divine Mercy make our home a shrine of peace, love and faith. I beg You, Dear Jesus, to protect and bless all of us and our families absent and present, living and dead. O Mary loving Mother of Jesus and our Mother, pray to Jesus the Divine Mercy for our family, and for all the families of the world. Ask Him to guard the tiny infant in the womb, the cradle of the newborn, the young in the schools and those about to start their vocations in life. Amen"

Prayer for Your Adult Children

"Heavenly Mother, keep us always in mind of Your Son's great mercy and understanding as we pray for our children. They are grown up now and have left us and are living their own lives according to their own ideals. We feel anxious and worried because they do not seem to feel the need for Christ. to understand the wisdom of His ways, or to be fully at ease with us or themselves. Intervene, dearest Mother, in their lives at the moment You know to be right and help them to understand the things that lead to their peace. Help them to see the need of Christ and to experience the greatness of His love, so that we may all proclaim as You did, that His mercy truly is from generation to generation. Amen"

Prayer for the World

"JESUS of NAZARETH has triumphed over Death. His Reign is Eternal. He is coming to conquer the
world and the time.

"Mercy, my God on those who blaspheme You,
Forgive them, they know not what they do.

"Mercy, my God, for the scandal in the world,
Deliver them from the spirit of Satan.

"Mercy, my God, on those who run away from You
Give them an appreciation for the Holy Eucharist.

"Mercy, my God, on those who come to repent at the foot of the Glorious Cross. May they find Peace and Joy in God our Saviour.

"Mercy, my God, so that Your Kingdom may come, but save souls, there is still time; for the time is near, behold, I am coming. Amen

Come, Lord Jesus."

Recite one decade of the Rosary

"Lord, pour out on the whole world the treasures of Your Infinite Mercy."

"Through the Mystery of Your Holy Incarnation,
deliver us from all evil, Lord.

Through Your Nativity,
deliver us from all evil, Lord.

Through Your Baptism and Holy Fasting,
deliver us from all evil, Lord.

Through Your Cross and Passion,
deliver us from all evil, Lord.

Through Your Death and Burial,
deliver us from all evil, Lord.

Through Your Holy Resurrection,
deliver us from all evil, Lord.

Through Your Admirable Ascension,
deliver us from all evil, Lord.

Through the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete,
deliver us from all evil, Lord.

Through Him whose Name reigns eternal,
deliver us from all evil, Lord."

Prayer of Protection

Blessed Michael the Archangel, protect us in the hour of conflict. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God restrain him, we humbly pray, and do thou, Oh Prince of the Heavenly Hosts, by the Power of God, thrust satan down to hell and with him all the wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen

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All of the Reflections to date are available to read in the Archives on the website for anyone who's interested.

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 the heart of each person requesting prayer.

"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 minds, broken spirits, broken hearts and broken marriages 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!"

"Breathe in me O Holy Spirit that my thoughts may all be holy;
Act in me O Holy Spirit that my work, too, may be holy;
Strengthen me O Holy Spirit to defend all that is holy;
Guard me then O Holy Spirit that I always may be holy."

"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"

May God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit bless and guide you and yours and may Mary keep you in Her heavenly mother's care.

Mary in Galway

'The fruit of silence is prayer; the fruit of prayer is faith; the fruit of faith is love; the fruit of love is service; the fruit of service is peace.'