Our parish Forty Hours Devotion begins this Wednesday. The Wednesday and Thursday liturgies will be celebrated at Our Lady of Peace. Friday’s liturgies will be celebrated at Notre Dame de Lourdes. The schedule is as follows:
at Our Lady of Peace
8:30 am Mass both Wednesday and Thursday
7:00 pm Wednesday – Evening Prayer with Benediction
7:00 pm Thursday – Healing Mass with the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick; and Benediction
Friday 4 October – at Notre Dame de Lourdes
8:30 am First Friday Mass with our School Students
6:00 pm Evening Prayer and Benediction
7:00 pm Blessing of Animals in the parking lot
Today, 29 September is World Day of Migrants and Refugees. In his message on this occasion, Pope Francis reminds us that God walks with his people.
Many migrants experience God as their traveling companion, guide and anchor of salvation. They entrust themselves to him before setting out and seek him in times of need. In him, they find consolation in moments of discouragement. Thanks to him, there are good Samaritans along the way. In prayer, they confide their hopes to him. How many Bibles, copies of the Gospels, prayer books and rosaries accompany migrants on their journeys across deserts, rivers, seas and the borders of every continent!
God not only walks with his people, but also within them, in the sense that he identifies himself with men and women on their journey through history, particularly with the least, the poor and the marginalized. In this we see an extension of the mystery of the Incarnation.
For this reason, the encounter with the migrant, as with every brother and sister in need, “is also an encounter with Christ. He himself said so. It is he who knocks on our door, hungry, thirsty, an outsider, naked, sick and imprisoned, asking to be met and assisted”. The final judgment in Matthew 25 leaves no doubt: “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me” (v. 35); and again “truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me” (v. 40). Every encounter along the way represents an opportunity to meet the Lord; it is an occasion charged with salvation, because Jesus is present in the sister or brother in need of our help. In this sense, the poor save us, because they enable us to encounter the face of the Lord.
October is Respect Life Month. We continue to pray for an end to abortion, for the respect of life from conception until natural death, and that the dignity of life may be upheld.
Jesus, you came that we might have life— and have it in abundance. Together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, you form us in our mothers’ wombs and call us to love you for all eternity. As your most precious gift of human life is attacked, draw us ever closer to your Real Presence in the Eucharist. Dispel the darkness of the culture of death, for you are the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. By the power of your Eucharistic Presence, help us to defend the life of every human person at every stage. Transform our hearts to protect and cherish all whose lives are most vulnerable. For you are God, forever and ever. Amen.