17 Mar Sat 2nd Week of Lent Mic. 7:14-15, 18-20 Ps. 103:1-4, 9-12 Lk. 15:1-2, 11-32 How To Pray With Shalom Home Page of Shalom Index of This Month        How beautifully the parable of the prodigal son illustrates the yearning love of God for His children. How confident we should feel when we turn to such a wonderfully understanding and forgiving Father. All too often we incline towards the niggardly and miserly attitude of the stay-at-home son, as the Scribes and Pharisees did. Jesus shows the same love as the Father has for us when, as the Pharisees said, he welcomes sinners.      The reading from Micah expresses the same confidence in God's forgiving love. It shows us God as tenderly leading His people to safety and providing for our needs. His love is unsurpassable and He is always ready to take away our faults and show pity for our weakness. 'We should celebrate and rejoice' that in Jesus we sinners find a welcome and new life.           Lord, teach us to rejoice in Your forgiveness. 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, with the committed help of all believers, the scourge of poverty may come to an end, eliminating the intolerable social and economic inequality in the world Elaboration
- END - P R A Y I N G    W I T H    T H E    C H U R C H     INTENTION : That, with the committed help of all believers, the scourge of poverty may come to an end, eliminating the intolerable social and economic inequality in the world One might also say that poverty is the negation of economic and social rights and that the poor who suffer from absolute poverty are denied the most fundamental right which is the right to life. The international community too is becoming progressively more aware of the gravity of the problem and has declared solemnly to fight and reduce extreme poverty by 2015. Besides, how can we not realise the situation growing worse in spite of the increase in available resources. The problem of unequal distribution of resources in its correct setting is an ethical one, since it is a problem of justice: the poor are in the first place victims of injustice. In the era of globalisation we can no longer tolerate a world in which the very rich live side by side with the poor, the property less who lack even the essentials with people who shamelessly waste what others desterately need. One of the more evident worrying consequences of this phenomenon is in fact the progressive increase instead of the decrease of inequalities, in both poor countries and rich countries, and between the North and South. Let us pray that the scourge of poverty may come to an end - END -