Shalom

5 Mar Tue	3rd Week of Lent
	Dan. 3:25, 34-43 Ps. 25:4-5,6-7bc,8-9 Mt. 18:21-35

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"Remember your mercies, O Lord." Is it not rather ironic that we should call upon God to remember? We ourselves so easily forget God, whereas God will never forget us. God eternally remembers His divine mercy and compassion, the covenants with Israel and with all humanity. It seems, then, especially unfitting that we should call upon God to remember "that your compassion, O Lord, and your kindness are from of old".

It makes a lot more sense to pray: "In your kindness remember me, because of your goodness, O Lord". This prayer provides the key to making sense of asking God to remember His mercy and compassion. If we truly confess our faults and failings and all our sins, we will experience a sense of unworthiness: we are unworthy of God's remembrance. Yet we know in faith that God will never forget us. Therefore we ask God to remember us, to remember His compassion and mercy, because we ourselves need often to remember that the Lord is always merciful and kind, always accepting and forgiving. We ask God to remember, not because God will ever forget, but because we need the consolation of remembering the infinite love by which God keeps even us sinners in His heart forever.

In Your kindness remember me, because of Your goodness, O Lord.

DAILY OFFERING

Eternal Father, I offer You everything I do this day; my thoughts, words, joys and sufferings. Grant that, vivified by the Holy Spirit and united to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, my life this day may be of service to You and to others. I also pray that all those preparing for marriage discover in Sacrament the source of Christ's grace for living a fithful and fruitful love. Amen.

PRAYING WITH THE CHURCH

INTENTION
For the ecclesial organisations and groups engaged in social action, that in their testimony they may proclaim strongly and consistently the Gospel of Love.
Elaboration

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P R A Y I N G W I T H T H E C H U R C H

INTENTION :	For the ecclesial organisations and groups engaged in social action, that in their testimony they may proclaim strongly and consistently the Gospel of Love.
It is the Church's desire that all social-charitable initiatives might always be inspired, in their implementation, by the immutable principles of the Gospel. There is danger, however, that professional organisations engaged in the social field risk losing the fundamental motivation for their existence: that is bearing witness to Christ's charity which the Church has the duty to communicate and to share with others. In order to be effective, then, continual spiritual formation is needed for voluntary co-operators who wish to devote themselves to social action. All these initiatives tend to develop the awareness that the foundation and centre of our action is Christ, in whom the God of love revealed himself and gave himself to men and women. Consequently all those who welcome Christ follow him and answer the call to be faithful witnesses to it. This awareness must totally imbue the hearts and minds of individuals so that it also inspires the Communities they set up for organised action in support of underprivileged persons and communities suffering from material and moral poverty. Being thus imbued and formed it becomes necessary that volunteers pray to draw Christ into their midst and have him accompany them.
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