Shalom

20 May Mon	7th Week in Ordinary Time
	James 3:13-18 Ps. 18:8-10,15 Mk. 9:14-29

How To Pray With Shalom

Home Page of Shalom

Index of This Month

Today we are back to "Ordinary Time", down on the ground again after being on the high plateau of the Easter season, and the time of Lent before that. Resuming daily reading again from St Mark's Gospel, we find Jesus (with Peter, James and John) rejoining His other disciples after coming down from the mountain of the Transfiguration. The first "case" He has to deal with brings up the same question as before, about faith or lack of faith in asking for God's healing. The faith of the man who asked Jesus to cure his son has been a strength and inspiration to many people since. But, "if you can", he had said to Jesus, as if not being sure of what He could do. Perhaps like a lot of our own prayers, asking but not quite sure? But then when Jesus forcefully told him that everything is possible for a person who believes, the man immediately asked for the fullness of that gift: "I do believe, but help my lack of belief". Having these many weeks been celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus, been "with Him on the mountain", should we not now be full of a joyful faith and trust in Him and in the transformation He's brought us? Of course He can help, but can we trust enough, believe strongly enough, and really pray for the power to work with Him?

Lord, help me in the weakness of my faith and trust, which is still there even though I have seen Your risen glory and the power of God's love in my world.

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
That Christians may live their faith coherently and so be credible witnesses of the hope of the Gospel
Elaboration

- END -

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

INTENTION :	That Christians may live their faith coherently and so be credible witnesses of the hope of the Gospel
That we may live a "coherent faith" that is a faith which produces the testimony of good works is the ecumenical intention of the Holy Father. In the Joint Declaration on the doctrine of justification signed between the Catholic Church and the World Lutheran Federation in 1999 it is stated that "only through grace, by means of faith in Christ and his salvific work, and not through any merit of ours, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit which renews our hearts, enabling us to perform and leading us to good works". It has to be understood that no human effort is capable of buying salvation. It is fundamentally a gift of God for which we have a duty to respond and co-operate through "faith-in-action" or "practised faith". Hence, the strengthening of one's inner faith through prayer and the sacraments will assist in the growth of charity which leads us to live the new commandment of love more fervently. Now is the time to look at charity in a new way. It is not a matter of doing the same thing in the same way. It is a time to seek and find new expressions of love for every human being. Then we become "credible witnesses of evangelical hope"
- END -