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8 October

October 8th, 2010

"The one who asks always receives"
Luke 11 : 10

Jesus was a great story teller. When He wanted to teach us a lesson that we”d always remember He enshrined His teaching in a good story. One such story is about the man who comes to his friend in the middle of the night asking for 3 loaves because he had an unexpected visitor. At first the friend refuses – he doesn””t want to disturb his family who are abed on their shared mat. However for the sake of peace he eventually opens the door and the request is granted.

Our Lord goes on to make the point that if a friend can be induced to answer our need at a very inconvenient time, how much more ready will our Heavenly Father – who is Abba, Daddy – be to listen to all our requests. So Jesus urges us to ask, to seek and to knock and to do it with childlike trust. We may not always receive the answer we””d like but we can be sure that God will give us what he sees is for our best. And, of course, the best of all gifts is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Prayer


Prayer : Heavenly father in the name of your Son, Jesus, we ask you to fill us with your Spirit so that we may see what is your will for us in our daily lives and have the strength to do it with joyful hearts. Amen.

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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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