Prayer for the Home to our Mother of Perpetual Help

 

Mother of Perpetual Help we choose you as Queen of our homes. We ask you to bless all our families with your tender motherly love. May the Sacrament of Marriage bind husbands and wives so closely together that they will always be faithful to each other and love one another as Christ loves his Church.

We ask you to bless all parents. May they love and cherish the children whom God has entrusted to them. May they always give them the example of a truly Christian life. Help them to bring up their children in the love and fear of God. Bless all children that they may love, honor and obey their fathers and mothers. To your loving care we especially entrust the youth of today.

Give us all a sense of responsibility that we may do our part in making our home a haven of peace like your own home at Nazareth. We take you as our model. Help us to grow daily in genuine love of God and neighbor so that justice and peace may happily reign in the entire family of mankind. Amen.

Who are my brothers and sisters?

Who do you love and cherish the most? God did not intend for us to be alone, but to be with others. He gives us many opportunities for developing relationships with family, friends, neighbours, and co-workers. Why does Jesus seem to ignore his own relatives when they pressed to see him? His love and respect for his mother and his relatives is unquestionable. Jesus never lost an opportunity to teach his disciples a spiritual lesson and truth about the kingdom of God. On this occasion when many gathered to hear Jesus he pointed to another higher reality of relationships, namely our relationship with God and with those who belong to God.

God offers the greatest of relationships 

What is the essence of being a Christian? It is certainly more than doctrine, precepts, and commandments. It is first and foremost a relationship - a relationship of trust, affection, commitment, loyalty, faithfulness, kindness, thoughtfulness, compassion, mercy, helpfulness, encouragement, support, strength, protection, and so many other qualities that bind people together in mutual love and unity. God offers us the greatest of relationships - union of heart, mind, and spirit with himself, the very author and source of love (1 John 4:8,16).

God's love never fails, never forgets, never compromises, never lies, never lets us down nor disappoints us. His love is consistent, unwavering, unconditional, unrelenting and unstoppable. There is no end to his love. Nothing in this world can make him leave us, ignore us, or withhold from us his merciful love and care (Romans 8:31-39). He will love us no matter what. It is his nature to love. That is why he created us - to be united with him and to share in his love (1 John 3:1). 

God is a trinity of divine persons - one in being with the eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - and a community of undivided love. God made us in his image and likeness (Genesis 1:26,27) to be a people who are free to choose what is good, loving, and just and to reject whatever is false and contrary to his love and righteousness (moral goodness). That is why Jesus challenged his followers, and even his own earthly relatives, to recognize that God is the true source of all relationships. God wants all of our relationships to be rooted in his love and goodness.

The heavenly Father's offer of friendship and adoption 

Jesus Christ is God's love incarnate - God's love made visible in human flesh (1 John 4:9-10). That is why Jesus describes himself as the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep and the shepherd who seeks out the sheep who have strayed and lost their way. God is like the father who yearns for his prodigal son to return home and then throws a great party for his son when he has a change of heart and comes back (Luke 15:11-32). 

Jesus offered up his life on the cross for our sake, so that we could be forgiven and restored to unity and friendship with God. It is through Jesus that we become the adopted children of God - his own sons and daughters. That is why Jesus told his disciples that they would have many new friends and family relationships in his kingdom. Whoever does the will of God is a friend of God and a member of his family - his sons and daughters who have been ransomed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

Our brothers and sisters redeemed in the blood of Christ 

An early Christian martyr once said that "a Christian's only relatives are the saints" - namely those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ and adopted as sons and daughters of God. Those who have been baptized into Jesus Christ and who live as his disciples enter into a new family, a family of "saints" here on earth and in heaven. Jesus changes the order of relationships and shows that true kinship is not just a matter of flesh and blood. 

Our adoption as sons and daughters of God transforms all of our relationships and requires a new order of loyalty to God first and to his kingdom of righteousness and peace. Do you want to grow in love and friendship? Allow God's Holy Spirit to transform your heart, mind, and will to enable you to love freely and generously as he loves.

"Heavenly Father, you bless us with many relationships and you invite us into the community of your sons and daughters who have been redeemed by your son, Jesus Christ. Help me to love my neighbour with charity, kindness, compassion, and mercy, just as you have loved me. In all of my relationships, and in all that I do and say, may I always seek to bring you honour and glory."

source: Kairos-EME, Don's Daily Email

Love Thy Neighbours, Be a Good Neighbour

God says that when we look out for others, He will look out for us, as in God's two great commandment for us.

Mark 12:29-31

29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

You cannot say you Love God if your actions are hateful to anyone.

1 John 4:20

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

We need to pray for those who persecute us that they will see the light, and make the choice to change toward the good.

Romans 12:14

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.

With sacrifice comes remembrance as in the wonderful gift and sacrifice by Jesus when He shed blood on the cross for all our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness each time we partake in the celebration of the most Holy Eucharist.

Luke 22:19

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

In respecting someone’s boundaries, they will be more inclined to converse and they will be much more receptive to what we have to say.

Colossians 4:6

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

We are to love the people around us. We are meant to love what comes from God in them. Everything we do that is of some benefit to another person or that gives another person happiness and joy is loving our neighbour. Everyone is special to God and are God's beloved. The love we know God has for ourselves is also the love God also has for the person beside me, in front of me, behind me, for my neighbour who goes to a different church or of a different belief, for the people I may not particularly like, and the people who may not particularly like me. When we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and love our neighbour as ourselves, we become more like God and are filled with the light of God. God has a way of getting us into the habit of loving and serving others. If we stick with it, in time that service will become its own reward.

We should pray that we all can learn daily on how to love even more then the previous day. By loving God and our neighbours, we will experience something of heaven right here on earth.

LOVE is not just a feeling but more of an ACTION, whereby the action of love and service is what makes neighbours out of all people, knitting us together into a human community.

Luke 10:25-37

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’”

28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”

30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”