49 Angle Road, Walkerville
P.O. Box 378, Walkerville, 1876
Tel: 073 462 4937
walkerville.divinemercy@catholicjhb.org.za
28 December 2014
The Feast of the Holy Family (Luke 2:22-40)
Today’s Gospel shows the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph in the temple in Jerusalem, where they’ve come to offer their Baby, Jesus, to God. Mary and Joseph are both quite aware that Jesus isn’t a gift God has given them to keep for themselves, but that like every gift, He is meant to be offered back to God and shared with others.
God is so generous to us with His gifts, yet we are merely His stewards. He has entrusted us with His own possessions, and He wants us to use them for His glory. If we want to use our gifts to glorify God, we can start by offering Him each day everything we have, for it doesn’t belong to us anyway. We can imitate St. Faustina, who prayed this way once after Holy Communion: “Jesus-Host, whom I have this very moment received into my heart, through this union with You I offer myself to the heavenly Father as a sacrificial host, abandoning myself totally and completely to the most merciful and holy will of my God. From today onward, Your will, Lord, is my food. Take my whole being; dispose of me as You please. Whatever Your fatherly hand gives me, I will accept with submission, peace and joy” (Diary 1264).
Prayer: Merciful Lord Jesus, I thank You for every gift You have ever given me, but most of all, I thank You for the gift of life. Lord, I offer my life back to You. May it be a gift pleasing in Your sight. Amen.
21 December 2014
The Fourth Sunday of Advent (Luke 1:26-38)
In this Sunday’s Gospel we hear again the beautiful response of Our Lady to the angel Gabriel: “Let it be to me according to your word.” Mary’s openness to the Holy Spirit, her complete trust in God, and her faithful cooperation with every grace she received, together enabled her to respond with a loving “yes” to all that God was asking of her.
Our lives are not much different from Mary’s. God has a plan for each one of us, a plan for our happiness not only in this life, but with Him in Heaven for eternity as well. He is waiting for our “yes.” We can learn from St. Faustina, who wrote in her Diary: “I will accept with submission and gratitude everything that God sends me. I will pay no attention to the voice of nature and to the promptings of self-love. Before each important action, I will stop to consider for a moment what relationship it has to eternal life and what may be the main reason for my undertaking it: is it for the glory of God, or for the good of my own soul, or for the good of the souls of others? (...) It is enough for me to know that it is pleasing to God. (...). And if I learn that something flows from my self-love, I will cancel it out right from the start” (Diary 1549).
Prayer: Merciful Lord Jesus, I want to do Your will, as your Blessed Mother Mary did. Give me the grace I need to accept with trust every joy and trial that come my way, knowing that You allow these things so as to prepare me for eternity with You in Heaven. Amen.
14 December 2014
The Third Sunday of Advent (John 1:6-8, 19-28)
In this week’s Gospel from St. John, as in last week’s, John the Baptist is calling us to prepare for our Lord’s coming. We can learn a great lesson of humility from John. Whenever the attention was on John, he would direct the focus off of himself and onto Jesus. He humbly explained that someone was coming after him “the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to unfasten.” Jesus himself said, “History has not known a man born of woman greater than John the Baptist” (Mt 11:11), and yet John had no pride whatsoever. He knew exactly who he was (a voice in the wilderness) in relation to Jesus (the Word of God), and resisted every temptation to make himself a superstar. St. John the Baptist can help us to cast off all the false myths about ourselves and to stand in the truth that all of us are sinners in need of God’s Mercy. Jesus told St. Faustina: “My child (…) I want you to detach yourself, not only from creatures but also from yourself. My daughter, I want to delight in the love of your heart, a pure love…” (Diary 279).
Prayer: Merciful Lord Jesus, help me to forget about myself and to detach myself from the “me” that is always calling out for attention and recognition. Help me to always remember my own unworthiness, and like John the Baptist, to point others toward You when they pay attention to me. Never allow me to try to take credit for the beautiful things You have done in my life. Amen.
7 December 2014
The Second Sunday of Advent (Mark 1:1-8)
In this week’s Gospel John the Baptist is calling us to prepare for the Lord’s coming through repentance. In John’s day, people were going out to him to be baptized, as they publicly confessed their sins. Thank God, we are spared the humiliation of public confession! Today we have the Sacrament of Reconciliation where we tell our sins privately to the priest, who forgives everything, acting in the person of Christ.
Let us heed the call of John the Baptist and make a resolution to prepare our hearts for Christmas through Sacramental Confession. We need not be afraid. Jesus told St. Faustina: When you approach the confessional, know this, that I Myself am waiting there for you. I am only hidden by the priest, but I Myself act in your soul. Here the misery of the soul meets the God of Mercy. Tell souls that from this fount of Mercy, souls draw graces solely with the vessel of trust. If their trust is great, there is no limit to My generosity” (Diary 1602).
Prayer: God, Merciful Father, help me to prepare to make a good confession this Advent, so that I will be able to receive the Baby Jesus into a pure heart on Christmas Day. Amen.