Year of Saint Joseph | OLR 75th Anniversary Year | April 24 –25, 2021: Good Shepherd Sunday
Pope explains praying to the saints
We never pray alone, says Francis.
Pope Francis continued his catechesis series on prayer, on April 7 taking up the theme of praying to and with the saints. The heart of his reflection focused on how the saints accompany us, such that “we are immersed in a majestic river of invocations that precedes us and proceeds after us. A majestic river.” There is no grief in the Church that is borne in solitude, there are no tears shed in oblivion, because everyone breathes and participates in one common grace.
The Holy Father noted how we are still connected with the saints in heaven, those recognized by the Church and those known to us personally.
He reflected how the ancient church had burial grounds around sacred buildings, “as if to say that, in some way, the hosts of those who have preceded us participate in every Eucharist.
Our parents and grandparents are there, our godfathers and godmothers are there, our catechists and other teachers are there […] There is a mysterious solidarity in Christ between those who have already passed to the other life and we pilgrims in this one: from Heaven, our beloved deceased continue to take care of us. They pray for us, and we pray for them and we pray with them.”
The pope said that we should call on these older brothers and sisters in heaven, and that this should be the “first way to face a time of anguish.”
And prayer should also be our answer in times of difficulty: “Even in conflictual moments, a way of dissolving the conflict, of softening it, is to pray for the person with whom I am in conflict.”
Kathleen N. Hattrup – Aleteia, 07/04/21
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On one’s own vocation, call from God:
- St Francis de Sales:
"A good vocation is simply a firm and constant will in which the called person has to serve God in the way and in the places to which Almighty God has called him."
"It is well to remember that there is no vocation without its trials, bitterness and weariness, and with-out hearty resignation to God's will everyone is tempted to wish he could change his troubles for those of other men."
- Cardinal Saint John Henry Newman
“God has created me to do Him some definite service, He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission: I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught, I shall do good. I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place... if I do but keep His Commandments.
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirit sink, hide my future from me - still He knows what He is about.”
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