Feast of the Ascension

Feast of the Ascension

How about we try this? Let's read this reflection on the Feast of the Ascension by Sr. Mary McGlone and then, between now and up to the Feast of Pentecost next week, we pray daily for our Vincentian Conference - as a community and for each and every individual - that the Holy Spirit fall afresh on us with new power, wisdom and courage.

As an aid, you might like to pray this prayer to the Holy Spirit of St. Pope John XXIII which he prayed upon opening the Second Vatican Council:


We stand before you, Holy Spirit,
conscious of our sinfulness,
but aware that we
gather in your name.

Come to us, remain with us,
and enlighten our hearts.
Give us light and strength
to know your will,
to make it our own, and to
live it in our lives.

Guide us by your wisdom,
support us by your power,
for you are God, sharing the
glory of Father and Son.

You desire justice for all:
enable us to uphold the rights of others;
do not allow us to be misled by ignorance
or corrupted by fear or favour.
Unite us to yourself in the bond of love
and keep us faithful to all that is true.

As we gather in your name
may we temper justice with love,
so that all our decisions may be pleasing
to you, and earn the reward promised to
good and faithful servants.

You live and reign with the Father
and the Son, One God, forever and ever.
Amen.

Pray before "the fixed tabernacle and mobile tabernacles"

"We will be helped by staying before the tabernacle and before the many living tabernacles who are the poor. The Eucharist and the poor, the fixed tabernacle and the mobile tabernacles: It is there that we remain in love and absorb the mentality of bread broken," that is of Jesus, who gives himself in the Eucharist.

Pope Francis spoke these words on May 23 when he opened the general assembly of Caritas Internationalis, the Vatican-based federation of national Catholic charities with some 450 delegates from around the world.

"... Jesus asks us to remain in him, not in our ideas; to leave behind a desire to control and run things. He asks us to trust one another and give ourselves to the other."

"... Seek in others the presence of God, who does not dwell in the greatness of the things we do, but in the smallness of the poor we encounter. If we do not look directly at them, we end up always looking at ourselves and making them instruments of our self-affirmation."

Read the full report on this event: True charity means focusing on Jesus and the poor, pope says, by Cindy Wooden in the National Catholic Reporter.

Stations of the Resurrection (Via Lucis)

Have you heard of the "Stations of the Resurrection"?

In this article posted in FAMVIN, Fr.  John Freund, CM tells us how we can use these Easter "Stations" to help us be people of Easter life, hope and joy: Being Easter People in a Good Friday/Holy Saturday World.

Mar 11, 2019 - Spiritual Reading - Stones into bread

Yesterday, Sunday, I read a short reflection on the Sunday readings by a nun, Sr. Mary McGlone. A particular paragraph that she wrote rang my Vincentian doorbell.

With reference to the Sunday gospel where Jesus rejected Satan's temptation to turn stones into bread, Sr. McGlone writes, "The devil took normal human desires and blew them out of proportion in such a way that pursuing a natural good deteriorated into a perversion of the human vocation to love God and neighbor. When Jesus rejected the temptation to turn stones to bread, he rejected both the opportunity to devote his power to his own satisfaction and the impulse to feed the hungry without converting those who hoard the world's goods."