For growth in the Spirit of Mary |
| International Marist Family Year of Prayer 2010-2011 Dear Marist Friends, The USA was asked to compose this year's daily Marist International 2010/2011 Prayer beginning on the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary September 12th, patronal feast of the Society of Mary. The intention is: Prayer for Families of the World in union with The Holy Family at Nazareth, solidarity with families separated through grief, migration, drug abuse, war, floods and other natural or man made disasters. We remember too our deceased extended family members and those with no family to pray for them. Kindly email/give out to your friends around the world to reach as many friends, family, co-workers and others by September 12th. There are three formats to choose from: half page full page/double-sided bookmarks (need double-sided printing and cut from the text side along lines) If anyone needs the original (MS Publisher/WORD version) to add your own websites addresses please email me for a copy of the original or tell me what website you wish me to add. I'll be happy to comply and return it in .pdf format. With Mary, Sheila |
| Listening (reflection) "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him". (Matthew 6:8) I thought that in prayer everything depended on me and my efforts, on the books passing through my hands, and the beauty of the words which I was able to introduce into my conversation with God. What was worse, I thought the knowledge of God I was acquiring through study and reasoning was the real and only one … but God is unknowable, and only He can reveal Himself to me through ways which are wholly His, unrepeatable in words and in concepts beyond our understanding. So true prayer demands that we be more passive than active; it requires more silence than words. More adoration than study, more concentration than rushing about, more faith than reason. We must understand thoroughly that true prayer is a gift from heaven to earth .. from Him who has to him who has not, from everything to nothing. Prayer: Dear Lord, may I do more listening and less talking when I pray. Amen. |