15 Jun
Fri
10th Week in Ordinary Time
2 Cor. 4:7-15
Ps. 116:10-11, 15-16, 17-18
Mt. 5:27-32
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Say the daily
Novena to the Sacred Heart

The interplay between internal and external experience, is perhaps nowhere in Scripture brought out as clearly as in this passage from Paul's very personal and poignant Second Letter to the Corinthians. His external experience seems to be unremittingly dark and bleak: afflicted in every way possible, full of doubts, persecuted, struck down. However, his internal experience is one of grace and God's unfailing presence and love. Paul is not crushed because God is his strength. Paul is never driven to despair, because his hope is not an emotion but the very person of Jesus, risen from the dead. Paul knows he is not abandoned even in the midst of persecutions, because Jesus was persecuted and rose triumphant from the grave.

This interplay of interior and exterior experiences becomes a veritable opposition between the appearance of death and the reality of life, the death of Jesus coexisted with the life of Jesus. Paul needed a great spirit of faith to see the truth which he affirms in his contradictory experiences, that "spirit of faith of which Scripture speaks". That spirit of faith allowed him to see the truth and to affirm it.



Lord Jesus, grant us that spirit of faith of which Scripture speaks, that in every threat of death we may experience the fullness of life.

DAILY OFFERING
Eternal Father, I offer You everything I do this day; my thoughts, words, joys and sufferings. Grant that, vivified by the Holy Spirit and united to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, my life this day may be of service to You and to others. I also pray that all those preparing for marriage discover in Sacrament the source of Christ's grace for living a fithful and fruitful love. Amen.

PRAYING WITH THE CHURCH
INTENTION
That our every activity may have its beginning and its end in Christ present in the Eucharist
Elaboration

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P R A Y I N G    W I T H    T H E    C H U R C H    

INTENTION : That our every activity may have its beginning and its end in Christ present in the Eucharist

In this month, dedicated to the Sacred Heart, we are encouraged to contemplate the Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist. It will spur us to seek in that Heart the inexhaustible mystery of the priesthood of Christ and of the Church. It will enable us to taste the spiritual sweetness of charity at its very source. It will make us rediscover our baptismal promises and thus be made more aware of having to live our apostolic dimension by spreading love and participating in the mission of evangelisation.

We pray the Lord of the harvest to grant the Church "shepherds after His own Heart" who will be ready to go out into the highways of the world to proclaim that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. We pray that today's young people, docile to the voice of the Holy Spirit, will let the great expectations of the Church and of humanity resonate in the depths of their hearts and respond to Christ's invitation to consecrate, themselves enthusiastically and joyously with Him "for the life of the world".

The entire devotion to the Heart of Jesus is rooted and finds its summit in participation in the Holy Mass where we fraternally assembled, listen to the Word of God and learn to offer with Christ our lives.




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