Shalom

15 Jan Tue	1st Week in Ordinary Time
	1 Sam. 1:9-20 (R. Ps.) 1 Sam. 2:1, 4-5, 6-7, 8 Mk. 1:21-28

How To Pray With Shalom

Home Page of Shalom

Index of This Month

The crowd were "spellbound" by the teaching of Jesus. That was a positive and an understandable reaction, yet it was not enough. The life of Jesus ?His deeds and His words ?demand a different response, the response of faith, the response of commitment. Jesus later expressed that commitment as "carrying one's cross". The people in Capernaum had not yet had the opportunity to progress to that deeper faith which accepted the cross. Even though their fascination at Jesus' teaching was only a very initial reaction, it was nevertheless both positive and promising. They found Jesus attractive, and some would certainly progress to a deeper faith and a more committed following.

Do people nowadays find Jesus so attractive? How many are truly "spellbound" by the Gospel? Then, we ourselves, is our spiritual life fed by a deep attraction of Jesus, an attraction strong enough to allow us to carry whatever cross comes? Pope Paul VI once said to a group of pilgrims, "You are the only Gospel that many people will ever read!" When others read the "gospel" of our Christian lives, our Christian love, will they be "spellbound" by this gospel? Will they be drawn to Jesus by a deep spiritual attraction?

Lord Jesus, be the deepest attraction of my heart. May my life attract others to Your truth and Your love.

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 intensify their efforts to announce together Jesus Christ, the only Saviour of 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 Christians may intensify their efforts to announce together Jesus Christ, the only Saviour of the world.
In the Apostolic Letter At the Beginning of the New Millennium Pope John Paul II looks towards the future and exhorts the members of the Church not to be afraid to leave the coastal waters "where there is nothing to fish" and move into deep waters. If we are prepared to do this, our catch will be abundant. The Pope particularly exhorts Christ's disciples to intensify their efforts to bring greater unity in the Christian Community. The invocation "Launch out into the deep" is a binding imperative, the strength that sustains us, and a salutary rebuke for our slowness and closed-heartedness. It is on Jesus' prayer and not on our own strength that we base the hope that even within history we shall be able to reach full and visible communion with all Christians. Our trust that we may succeed in attaining the full and visible communion of all Christians, "rests on Jesus' prayer, not on our own capacity". The Lord calls us to unity and will not fail to pour forth His grace on us. But in this context also, as in all our relations with God's salvific grace, we too must do our share. God does not save us against our will; God does not save us if we do not collaborate towards our salvation.
- END -