5th Sunday of Easter
May 2nd, 2010
‘He will wipe away all tears from our eyes. There will be no more death, no more mourning or sadness
Apoc. 21. 4
Lord, we rejoice that you are Risen and are now with your father, in glory. Increase your Spirit within us and give us voice to sing your praise during this season of joy.
We are called to be Easter people and have Alleluia on our lips all during Eastertide. But there may be times when we don’t feel like singing that ‘new song’ which today’s entrance antiphon asks of us. ( Ps. 97. 1) It’s consoling to know that it was the same for the early Christians. They needed Paul’s words of encouragement and prayers so that they could persevere in the faith (Acts 14. 21) St. John too offers words of consolation to all who are in sorrow, assuring them that God will wipe away all tears from their eyes’. (Apoc 21. 4 )
What a beautiful picture of our Heavenly Father / Mother. Our creator will do for us what our mother did when she saw her child in tears. We are reminded too
of Jesus encounter with the widow of Naim. Wiping away her tears he restored her only son to life and ‘gave him back to his mother’ ( Luke 7. 16 )
May this intimate picture of our God who is always with us, help us during times of sadness to experience Easter peace in our hearts so that eventually we can rejoice and sing our Alleluia.
Prayer
The prayer for each day has been prepared by various members of the Holy Family Association. All who visit our website are remembered in prayer. If you would like us to pray for a particular need, simply complete and submit the form on the right hand side of this page. You may wish to leave a comment in the space below.
Just a Thought
How the Holy Family prayer: A Reflection by Pope Benedict XVI
“I would like to invite you to reflect on the place of prayer in the life of the Holy Family of Nazareth. The home of Nazareth, in fact, is a school of prayer where we learn to listen, to ponder and to penetrate the profound meaning of the manifestation of the Son of God, drawing our example from Mary, Joseph and Jesus.
Pope Paul VI during his visit to Nazareth said “we come to understand the need for a spiritual discipline, if we wish to follow the teaching of the Gospel and become disciples of Christ.” And he added: “First, it teaches us silence. Oh! That there would be reborn in us the esteem for silence, that wonderful and indispensable atmosphere of the spirit: while we are deafened by so many noises, sounds and clamorous voices in the frantic and tumultuous times of modern life. Oh! Silence of Nazareth, teach us to be resolute in good thoughts, intent upon the interior life, ready to listen well to the secret inspirations of God and the exhortations of the true masters.”
We can glean several insights on the Holy Family’s prayer and relationship with God from the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ childhood. We may begin with the Presentation of Jesus in the temple. St. Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph, “when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, brought the child up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord”(2:22). Like every observant Jewish family, Jesus’ parents go up to the temple to consecrate the firstborn son to God and to offer sacrifice. Moved by fidelity to the law’s prescriptions, they set off from Bethlehem and go up to Jerusalem with Jesus, who is now forty days old. Instead of a one-year-old lamb, they present the offering of simple families; that is two young pigeons. The Holy Family’s pilgrimage is one of faith, of the offering of gifts, a symbol of prayer, and of encounter with the Lord, whom Mary and Joseph already see in the son Jesus.”
