Next weekend we pick up the Church’s Season of Ordinary Time at the 11th Sunday. In the Gospel, Jesus sends the apostles out to the “Lost tribes of Israel”, but he does this after he was “moved with pity for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd”. Jesus sends us out too, as a movement from His heart. Last Friday was the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, when we celebrate the unconditional, sacrificial, and merciful love of Jesus outpoured for us from his Holy Heart. The Josephites have a most beautiful daily prayer of consecration to the Sacred Heart.
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, we consecrate ourselves to you. Bless our family, our home, our undertakings.
Grant us the grace to fulfil all our duties as well as we can. Give us peace and confidence, console us in our sufferings, and make us love thee more and more. Amen
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. May thy Kingdom come.
Perhaps we could adopt this prayer as part of our family prayer life, thereby uniting our lives more closely to the heart of Jesus. Then, we need to do what His impelling mercy asks of us. We must go out and welcome back, in love and hope, those Catholics we know are not regularly receiving the food of our salvation that we most powerfully commemorated last weekend at Corpus Christi. If each of us could bring one person back to regular Sunday worship, then we would double our community at prayer…and be all the more effective as God’s agents of mercy in the world. Don’t tell them they must go to church, but invite them by giving witness to the importance of the Eucharist in your life.
God bless you and your families,
Fr Aidan-Peter CJ
May God bless you, your families, and the week ahead,
Fr Aidan Peter