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6 May

May 6th, 2010

‘I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you, and your joy be complete’
John 15. 11

Lord we rejoice that you are risen and are still with us. We ask you to pour out your Spirit upon us so that our joy may increase and that we may bring that joy all those whose life we touch.

We don’t usually associate joy with great suffering. Yet Jesus spoke of his joy on the very night when he was betrayed. Joy is a gift of the Holy Spirit and it doesn’t depend on circumstances. Blessed mother Teresa was someone who always radiated joy and yet we know now that for years she was suffering great inner suffering. There is a story told of Frances of Assisi. When one of the brothers asked him the meaning of true joy he replied as follows, ‘If we went to our monastery tonight and instead of being welcomed we were despised and turned away and if we accepted this humiliation then we would experience deep joy in our hearts.

Maybe that is why Jesus told us to turn the other cheek! Let go and let God. If we look at the spelling of the word JOY, we find something interesting.

J – Jesus first
O – Others next
Y – yourself last

Prayer


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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.”

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