Father of all goodness, I thank you for the beautiful world that you created. Give me the grace to open my eyes to see the beauty where I live, where I am studying or where I work every day. Help me to discover the beauty of the people who cross my path. I offer you my day, in union with Mary, for the Pope’s intention for this month.
That our parishes, animated by a missionary spirit, may be places where faith is communicated and charity is seen.
Pope Francis has encouraged parishes to be an ‘oasis of mercy’, and to be missionary: looking out to all sorts of people both in the area, and in the wider world. Both are linked. We reach out to people with the message of Christ from our conviction that the message is the mercy of God. This is the outreach of the Trinity to the world. They ‘weep’ over our needs: the loss of meaning of people in the developed world. The mercy of God hears the needs of millions for food and shelter, and the cries of the refugees on seas far away and in houses up the road. Can we feel also compassion of the Trinity? Our prayer this month will open our hearts to be merciful, for mercy, according to Pope Francis, is the ‘heartbeat of the gospel’.
- Fr Donal Neary SJ, extracted from Living Prayer