22 Jun
Fri 		FEAST OF THE SACRED HEART
Ez. 34:11-16
Ps. 22:1-3, 3-4, 5, 6
Rom. 5:5b-11; Lk. 15:3-7
How To Pray With Shalom
Home Page of Shalom
Index of This Month
 
Say the daily
Novena to the Sacred Heart

Today is the Feast of God's love for us. This love has been shown to us by the life of God's Son, Jesus. He has won for us entry into friendship with God - "it was while we were sinners that Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). The other readings, both Old and New Testament, use the image of the shepherd who goes to any lengths to protect and nurture his flock. That love, too, as the Gospel indicates, extends in a special way to the wandering sheep. The "good" sheep are secure in His friendship and love. The Heart of Jesus is more than the heart of a good shepherd who goes to find the one that has gone astray. The love of God is seen in His caring tenderness. The Lord Himself says, "The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back . . . " (Ez. 34:16).

How many of us will claim to be always among those "good" sheep? We need to express our gratitude today that we have a God who, through the life of Jesus, demonstrated beyond doubt His love even for the sinner and the social outcast. It is that love we celebrate gratefully today and how better to express our gratitude than ourselves sharing our God's attitude with the sinful and marginalized in our midst?


Jesus, through You God's love has been poured into our hearts. Grant us the gift to open ourselves not only to experience that love in our own hearts but to be instrumental in bringing it to others.

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 our every activity may have its beginning and its end in Christ present in the Eucharist
Elaboration

- END -








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

INTENTION : That our every activity may have its beginning and its end in Christ present in the Eucharist

In this month, dedicated to the Sacred Heart, we are encouraged to contemplate the Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist. It will spur us to seek in that Heart the inexhaustible mystery of the priesthood of Christ and of the Church. It will enable us to taste the spiritual sweetness of charity at its very source. It will make us rediscover our baptismal promises and thus be made more aware of having to live our apostolic dimension by spreading love and participating in the mission of evangelisation.

We pray the Lord of the harvest to grant the Church "shepherds after His own Heart" who will be ready to go out into the highways of the world to proclaim that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. We pray that today's young people, docile to the voice of the Holy Spirit, will let the great expectations of the Church and of humanity resonate in the depths of their hearts and respond to Christ's invitation to consecrate, themselves enthusiastically and joyously with Him "for the life of the world".

The entire devotion to the Heart of Jesus is rooted and finds its summit in participation in the Holy Mass where we fraternally assembled, listen to the Word of God and learn to offer with Christ our lives.



- END -