Pope’s Prayer Intentions for March

Vatican, Feb. 29, 2008 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican has released the prayer intentions of Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) for the month of March 2008.

The Pope's general intention is: "That the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation between persons and people may be understood and that the Church, through her testimony, may spread Christ's love, the source of new humanity." The Pontiff's missionary intention is: "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 highest degree of meekness consists in seeing, serving, honoring, and treating amiably, on occasion, those who are not to our taste, and who show themselves unfriendly, ungrateful, and troublesome to us.

 

St. Francis de Sales

Bl. Maria Adeodata Pisani (1806-1855)

The daughter of a baron, Maria renounced her life of luxury to become a cloistered Benedictine nun. She was known for her love of the poor, her austere lifestyle, and her ecstacies.


"We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials." St. Teresa of Avila

President's Day

Reflections on Esther, re-visited

It's been a year since this appeared, and here we are another year later, involved in another Lenten season. Are my thoughts still the same as when I first shared this reflection? Moreso, and even more convicted, I would say. Do we need Lent more than ever? Most definitely. I pray you have a deeply moving Lent and in you God will make all things new.

In today's reading, Esther and her handmaids lay prostrate on the ground morning until evening....calling to God for assistance. Further on in the book of Esther, my Ignatius RSV bible, chapter 4, verses 16, 17, state..."and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day...."..."I and my maids will also fast as you do"; even further along we read how Esther puts on the "garments of distress and mourning", covered herself with ashes and dung and prayed, prayed, prayed, fasting and mortifying herself for the next three days..... Quite seriously, she was preparing for a mission, that which Esther is well known for - overcoming her fear and approaching the king in order to save her people. And the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob answers this intensely sincere request.

While, I don't expect to see many people in ashes and dung these days -- nor fasting for up through three days, I do think there is much to learn from such examples. While the "missions" in my life aren't anywhere near as challenging as that of Esther, still, they are uniquely my own that God has given me and have oftentimes required getting over a fear, asking the Holy Spirit for "just the right words" and asking for a special grace to fulfill what is necessary. There are missions in my life that I will fast, mortify and pray in earnest for; I'm sure I'm not alone.

Here are some thoughts from Fr. Francis Fernandez (In Conversation with God, Lenten volume) with more scriptural references in regard to fasting:

"....Fasting .....one more sign of the spirit of penance that God asks of man. In the Old Testament we can find gradually developing with ever increasing richness, the religious sense of penance, as a personal religious act, which has as its end love for and abandoment in God. [Paul VI, Apostolic Constitution, Paenitemini, 17 Feb, 1966] When it is accompanied by prayer it can be used to manifest humility before God. [Lev 16:29-31) The man who fasts turns toward God in an attitude of total dependence and abandonment. In Holy Scripture we see how fasting and other works of penance were performed before the commencement of any difficult task [Jude 20:26, Esther 4:16], to implore forgiveness for sin [1 Kings21:27], to obtain the cessation of a calamity [Jude 4:9-13], to gain the grace needed for the fulfillment of a mission [Acts 13:2], and to prepare oneself to come face to face with God [Ex 34:38, Dan 9:3]."

Lord on the day I called for help, you answered me....(Psalm 138)

"Renew your joy for the struggle"

Sometimes you feel that you are beginning to lose heart and that everything is getting on top of you. This kills your good desires, and you can hardly manage to overcome this feeling even by making acts of hope. Never mind: this is a good time to ask God for more grace. Then, go on! Renew your joy for the struggle, even though you might lose the odd skirmish. (Furrow, 77)

There are many who repeat that hackneyed expression 'while there's life there's hope', as if hope were an excuse for ambling along through life without too many complications or worries on one's conscience. Or as if it were a pretext for postponing indefinitely the decision to mend one's ways and the struggle to attain worthwhile goals, particularly the highest goal of all which is to be united with God.

If we follow this view, we will end up confusing hope with comfort. Fundamentally, what is wrong with it is that there is no real desire to achieve anything worthwhile, either spiritual or material. Thus some people's greatest ambition boils down to avoiding whatever might upset the apparent calm of their mediocre existence. These timid, inhibited, lazy souls, full of subtle forms of selfishness, are content to let the days, the years, go by sine spe nec metu,* without setting themselves demanding targets, nor experiencing the hopes and fears of battle: the important thing for them is to avoid the risk of disappointment and tears. How far one is from obtaining something, if the very wish to possess it has been lost through fear of the demands involved in achieving it! (Friends of God, 206-207)

Courtesy of Opus Dei

www.opusdei.us