Saint Luke, Evangelist Feast
October 18th, 2010
"Your words are spirit, Lord and they are life. You have the message of eternal life"
Jn. 6 : 68
What is my response to Christ’s message? Is it a full response, a half hearted one, a lukewarm one or none at all? Christ is waiting for my answer. It is only when they went aside with Jesus that the Apostles began to know Jesus as a person. This is part of our openness to his message, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening” Sam. 3 : 11.
Prayer is listening to God, spending time with him to get his message. It is a hunger and each of us whether we are aware of it or not has a deep seated hunger for God and his Word.
St. Augustine says: “You have made us for yourself O Lord and our hearts will never rest until they rest in you.” God is offering us eternal life. That’’s his message. Will it find a home with me? Perhaps we are not ready to receive the call, to understand it fully. But God is never outdone in generosity. “Ask and you shall receive.” Lk. 11 : 9
Prayer
Prayer : Lord, may your message find a home in our hearts, take root there and bring eternal life to all whom we meet in our daily lives. Amen.
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.”
