Throughout this “Year of Faith,” Pope Benedict has called the universal Church to once again ponder and live the primacy of the encounter with the Person, Jesus the Christ. Throughout the pre-Synodal documents, the Lineamenta and the Instrumentum Laboris, we have been reminded of the privileged encounter with Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist and a robust life of prayer; all of which intends, once again, to re-capture as a Grace of God the Father the joy, beauty and ardor of being a disciple of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.
In the Church’s Prayer known as the Liturgy of the Hours, we have begun to listen to the words of Saint Augustine in the Office of Readings as he penned a “Letter to Proba” in the year 412 (also known as Letter 130). This letter amounts to a short ‘school of prayer’ and his guidance as a Father of the Church can certainly form us in the ways of prayer whose object is always responding to the invitation to commune with God our Father, Jesus His Son and Holy Spirit. The full translation of the Letter can be found here. It is worth a ‘slow and pondering’ read and multiple re-reads throughout this week - AND - perhaps beyond!
COLLECT
O God, who are rich in mercy
and
who willed that the Blessed John Paul II
should preside as Pope over your universal Church,
grant, we pray,
that instructed by his teaching,
we may open our hearts to the
saving grace of Christ,
the sole Redeemer of mankind.
Who lives and reigns.
who willed that the Blessed John Paul II
should preside as Pope over your universal Church,
grant, we pray,
that instructed by his teaching,
we may open our hearts to the
saving grace of Christ,
the sole Redeemer of mankind.
Who lives and reigns.
"...Evangelization needs Christians with their arms raised towards God in prayer; Christians moved by the knowledge that the conversion of the world to Christ is not brought about by us, but given to us." Pope Benedict XVI
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