The Catholic Leader - 22 April

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The Catholic Leader, April 22, 2018
Your Daily Bread
WE believe that the resurrection is God
raising the Jesus to life.
God does this by the power of love, the
same creative power of God that works in
all things.
Love by its nature creates life.
In creation, God loves the evolving world
into life; in resurrection, God loves Jesus
into the completion of life. It is in this sense
that we believe Jesus is the “first-born of
the dead” as Paul writes (Colossians 1:18).
God’s plan for all creation is achieved
first in Jesus.
It is the sure hope that we share for our-
selves and with all who open their hearts
to the power of God’s love.
Sharing God’s love in our lives must
begin now if with Jesus this love is to be
completed for us in the future.
God’s love opens our lives to wholeness
and mission.
We then begin already now to share
the resurrected life of Jesus. We do this
in all respectful sharing of our daily lives in
service of one another.
In such openness to one another our
lives expand into greater and greater
wholeness.
The Easter readings are always about
wholeness and reaching out: love and
mission.
Pondering next Sunday’s readings can
open more widely our lives to one another
and our hearts to God. Let our hearts ex-
pand as we feel the power of God’s love,
and let our lives expand as we help to
make love more real in the world today.
The First Reading, from Luke’s Acts of
the Apostles, continues the story of Paul’s
graced change of heart. He joins the
Christian community at Damascus, which
he came from Jerusalem to persecute.
Paul begins to share with others the
power of God’s love which God revealed
to him through the risen Jesus, whom he
had before believed to be a false prophet
of God.
In the Psalm and Response, together in
our gathering, we praise and thank God
for what love is working in our world.
Our Easter word “Alleluia!” means this –
“Praise and thank God!”
The Second Reading, from the First
Letter of John, tells us that a Christian life
is a graced learning from Christ. Love em-
powers us to live more and more as Jesus
lived: open to
God’s love in faith, and sharing in our
lives this love with others. God’s love, the
source of all love, is always greater than
our hearts can receive.
The Gospel Reading is the parable of
the Vine and the Branches from John’s
Gospel.
Its simplicity is staggering.
God relates with Jesus and with our-
selves in the same way.
We are the branches of the vine. Jesus
is the vine. God is the vine-grower.
The sap of divine love flows in all things.
The late Fr John Reilly SJ wrote this
commentary in 2012.
IF a poor man needed some clothing,
St Fidelis would often give the man the
clothes right off his back. Complete gen-
erosity to others characterised this saint’s
life.
Born in 1577, Mark Rey became a law-
yer who constantly upheld the causes of
the poor and oppressed people.
Nicknamed “the poor man’s lawyer,”
Rey soon grew disgusted with the cor-
ruption and injustice he saw among his
colleagues.
He left his law career to become a
priest, joining his brother George as a
member of the Capuchin Order.
Fidelis was his religious name. His
wealth was divided between needy semi-
narians and the poor.
As a follower of Francis, he continued
his devotion to the weak and needy. Dur-
ing a severe epidemic in a city where he
was guardian of a friary, Fidelis cared for
and cured many sick soldiers.
He was appointed head of a group of
Capuchins sent to preach against the Cal-
vinists and Zwinglians in Switzerland.
Almost certain violence threatened.
Those who observed the mission felt
that success was more attributable to the
prayer of Fidelis during the night than to
his sermons and instructions.
He was accused of opposing the peas-
ants’ national aspirations for independ-
ence from Austria.
While he was preaching at Seewis, to
which he had gone against the advice of
his friends, a gun was fired at him, but he
escaped unharmed.
A Protestant offered to shelter Fidelis,
but he declined, saying his life was in
God’s hands.
On the road back, he was set upon by
a group of armed men and killed.
Fidelis was canonised in 1746. Fifteen
years later he was recognised as a martyr.
SAINTLY LIFE
St Fidelis of Sigmaringen
Fifth Sunday of Easter
April 29
First Reading: Acts 9:26-31
Second Reading: 1 John 3:18-24
Gospel: John 15:1-8
Fourth Sunday of Easter
April 22
First Reading: Acts 4:8-12
Second Reading: 1 John 3:1-2
Gospel: John 10:11-18
Next Sunday’s readings BY FR john reilly SJ
Martyr: St Fidelis of Sigmaringen.
Marian devotion is Christ-centred
Marian devotion: St Louis de Montfort statue in St Peter’s Basilica, Rome.
April 27 is St Louis de Mont-
fort’s feast day. The Zenit
news agency reflects on
Pope John Paul II’s message
on the 160th Anniversary of
“True Devotion” on January
13, 2004.
THE 160th anniversary of the pub-
lication of True Devotion to Mary
gave Pope John Paul II (pictured)
the chance to recall the doctrine of
its author St Louis-Marie Grignion
de Montfort.
It is to the saint that the pope owes his epis-
copal motto, “Totus Tuus”, an expression of his
total belonging to Jesus through Mary.
In his youth, Karol Wojtyla received “a great
help” from the work.
“I found the answer to my per-
plexities due to the fear that the
devotion to Mary, if excessive,
might end by compromising
the supremacy of the wor-
ship owed to Christ,” the
Pope said in his message
to the religious of the
Montfort family.
“Under the wise guid-
ance of St Louis-Marie,
I understood that, if one
lives the mystery of Mary
in Christ, such a risk does
not exist,” the Pope said in a
letter.
St Louis de Montfort wrote True
Devotion to Mary at the start of 1700, but
the manuscript was practically ignored until it
was rediscovered in 1842 and published a year
later.
Re-read in the light of the Second Vatican
Council, the Montfort doctrine retained “its
substantial validity”, Pope John Paul II said.
FEAST DAYS THIS WEEK
Monday - St George
Patron of England
Tuesday - St Fidelis of Sigmaringen
Capuchin martyr
Thursday - St Mark
Evangelist
Friday - St Louis Grignion de Montfort
Marian preacher
Saturday - St Peter Chanel
Patron of Oceania
“As is known, in my episcopal coat of arms …
the motto ‘Totus Tuus’ is inspired by the doctrine
of St Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort,” Pope
John Paul II wrote.
“These two words express total belonging to
Jesus through Mary.
“‘Totus tuus ego sum, et omnia
mea tua sunt’, St Louis-Marie
wrote; and he translates: ‘I am
all yours, and everything of
mine belongs to you, my
beloved Jesus, through
Mary, your holy Moth-
er’,” the Pope said.
According to the saint’s
thought, Our Lady “ac-
companies us in our pil-
grimage of faith, hope and
charity toward an ever more
intense union with Christ, only
Saviour and Mediator of salva-
tion”, the Pope wrote.
For St Louis-Marie, true Marian devo-
tion is Christ-centred and becomes a privileged
means “to find Jesus Christ perfectly, to love him
tenderly, and to serve him faithfully”.
In this connection, Our Lady becomes the
faithful echo of God, the Pope said: “Every time
that you honour Mary, Mary praises and honours
God with you.”
“St Louis-Marie contemplates all the myster-
ies beginning with the Incarnation, which takes
place at the moment of the Annunciation”, in
such a way that in the treatise “Mary appears
as ‘the true earthly paradise of the New Adam’,
the ‘virgin and immaculate earth’ from which
he has been formed.
“She is also the New Eve,” Pope John Paul
II wrote, “associated to the New Adam in the
obedience that repairs the original disobedience
of man and woman.
“Through this obedience, the Son of God
enters into the world.
“The cross itself is already mysteriously pre-
sent in the instant of the Incarnation.”
St Louis-Marie wrote: “All our perfec-
tion consists in being conformed, united and
consecrated to Jesus Christ. … Now, from Mary
being the creature most conformed to Jesus
Christ, one learns that, among all the devotions,
the one that most consecrates and conforms a
soul to Our Lord is devotion to Mary, his holy
Mother, and that the more a soul is consecrated
to Mary, the more consecrated it will be to
Jesus Christ.”
The cross, the Pope said, was the culminating
moment of Mary’s faith: “Through this faith,
Mary is perfectly united to Christ in his despolia-
tion.
“… This is, perhaps, the most profound keno-
sis of faith in the history of humanity.”
Zenit
(Mary) is
also the New
Eve associated to
the New Adam in
the obedience that
repairs the original
disobedience of man
and woman.