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POPE BENEDICT XVI'S MONTHLY PRAYER INTENTIONS
- February 2012 |
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POPE BENEDICT XVI'S MONTHLY PRAYER INTENTIONS 2012
Access to Water.
That all peoples may have access to water and other resources needed for daily life.
Health Workers.
That the Lord may sustain the efforts of health workers assisting the sick and elderly in the world's poorest regions.
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Prayer for the Sick |
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Father, your Son accepted our sufferings to teach us the virtue of patience in human illness. Hear the prayers we offer for our sick brothers and sisters. May all who suffer pain, illness, or disease realize that they have been chosen to be saints and know that they are joined to Christ in his suffering for the salvation of the world. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Notice 1
CONGRATULATIONS!
2012 January
Infant Baptism Ceremony
Mariel Rei Yonezawa
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Sunday Japanese Language Classes 2012
January 8 to April 1, 2012
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM Kibe Hall Rooms 304,305, 306, 307
Please bring your own notebooks and pencils.
St. Ignatius Church, through John de Britto English Center, wants to reach out especially to the English-speaking Catholic community and to help all, in the best possible way, to grow in their faith life.
If you want to help St. Ignatius Church, come and visit the English center for possibilities of collaboration. Thank you and God's blessings.
John de Britto English Cente TEL 03-3263-4576
Office Hours Mon to Fri 10 AM - 12 PM: 1 PM - 3 PM
Rosary: Every Sunday after the 12 PM Mass we pray the Holy Rosary in front of Our Lady's statue, to your right as you go out of the Main Chapel.
Baptism
Every 3rd Sunday of the month. Please inquire about the requirements as early as possible. For further information see Fr. Barry or call the Center.
Catechism for Adults
Every Sunday except the 3rd Sunday
1:30 PM - 3 PM Room 305 c/o Fr. Barry, SJ (Japanese)
Faith Sharing Group (English)
Every 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM Kibe Hall Room 309. To inquire, please contact: the John De Britto English Center (St. Ingatius Church)
Marriage
Please inquire about the requirements as early as possible, at least 6 months before the wedding day.
English-speaking Group Meeting:
Every third Sunday of the month, the English-speaking Community gathers to plan and to think of better ways to serve St. Ignatius Church. 1:30 PM at Room 309 (Kibe Hall).
You are most welcome!
Every 1st Sunday of the Month Dedication of the 12 noon English Mass for Children
A group called "Angels" will gather the children age 6-12 at Xavier Chapel just after the opening prayer before the Liturgy of the Word starts. The "Angels will provide stories of the Gospel reading in language that is understood by the children. Then, the "Angels" will lead the children for the blessing with holy water by the priest during the offertory. After the blessing, the children go back to their families to continue the Mass.
Offering for the upkeeping and activities of our Church
Collection offering for the upkeep and activities of our church is done on the first Sunday of the month. For the English-speaking group kindly use the blue envelope. You are encouraged to write your name and address for record purposes. Any information given will be for the use of the Church only. Thank you for your kind support.
Catholic Faith Adult Formation Class
Every First Sunday of the Month, Catholic Faith Adult Formation Class in English
Sunday from 1:45 PM to 3 PM Kibe Hall Room 310.
Adult Catholics who wish to deepen their understanding of the faith are encouraged to attend.
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QUOTES |
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"O Virgin Mother, guide and sustain us so that we might always live as true sons and daughters of the Church of your son." ---Blessed Pope John Paul II
"The Lord has loved me so much:
We must love everyone…
We must be compassionate!"
.- - St. Josephine Bakhita
"I am the bread of life.
Those who eat my flesh and
drink my blood
will have eternal life."
-- --John 6:35, 54
"When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, make yourself cheerful, because you are not fasting for appearances or for people, but for your Father who sees beyond appearances. And your Father, who sees what is kept secret, will reward you."
- Matthew 6:17-18
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SAINTS |
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The Presentation of the Lord concludes the celebration of the Nativity and with the offering of the Virgin Mother and the prophecy of Simeon, the events now point toward Easter.
In obedience to the Old Law, the Lord Jesus, the first born, was presented in the Temple by his Blessed Mother and his foster father. This is another 'epiphany' celebration insofar as the Christ Child is revealed as the Messiah through the canticle and words of Simeon and the testimony of Anna the prophetess.
Christ is the Light of the nations, hence the blessings and processions of candles on this day, the "Candlemas". The candles kept by the faithful in their homes should be seen as a sign of Christ, the Light of the World and an expression of faith.
Graces of the Presentation by Blessed Guerric of Igny
Embrace God's Wisdom, then, O blessed old man Simeon, and may your heart beat high and glow again as it did in youth. Hold God's Loving-Kindness tight to your breast and your grey hairs shall be blessed with love and kindness. "Close to my heart, it is written, shall he lodge, and even when I give him back to his Mother he shall remain with me. And when he is snuggled close to his Mother's heart he shall none the less linger close to mine. My heart, too, will be drunk with the overflow of his Loving-Kindness, though not so much as his Mother's. For she is the one-only Mother of Mercy All-High; so that in a wonderful way she is fruitful with the fruitfulness of the divine mercy. O Full of Grace, you I congratulate and praise. You gave birth to the Loving-Kindness I received; you gave shape to the candle I accepted, you prepared the wax for the touch of the light, O Virgin, the Virgin of Virgins, when as the unblemished Mother you clothed the unblemishable Word in unblemished flesh."
Come then, my brethren, give an eye to that candle burning in Simeon's hands. Light your candles too by borrowing from that Light; for these candles I speak of are the lamps which the Lord orders us to have in our hands. Come to him and be enlightened, so as to be not merely carrying lamps but to be very lamps yourselves, shining inside and out, for yourselves and for your neighbors. Be a lamp then in heart, in hand, in lips.
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In 1597, 26 Catholics - six European Franciscan missionaries, three Japanese Jesuits and 17 Japanese laymen including three young boys - were executed by crucifixion in Nagasaki. On the way up the hill, a man tempted the youngest boy Louis Ibaragi, age 12, to renounce his faith. He would not yield but eagerly asked, "Where is my cross?" When they pointed out the smallest one to him, he immediately embraced it and held on to it as a child clings to his toy. The martyrs were raised on crosses and then pierced through with spears. They were crucified for their belief in the Lord Jesus and their loyalty to the Catholic Church.
Paulo Miki was born into a wealthy Japanese family. He was educated by the Jesuits in Azuchi and Takatsuki. He joined the Society of Jesus and became a well known and successful preacher, gaining numerous converts to Catholicism. The Japanese daimyo, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, fearful of the Jesuits influence and intentions began persecuting Catholics. Miki was jailed along with others. He and his fellow Catholics were force marched 600 miles from Kyoto to Nagasaki, all the while singing Te Deum. On arriving in Nagasaki, the city with the largest Catholic population in Japan, Miki was crucified on February 5, 1597. He preached his last sermon from the cross, and it is maintained that he forgave his executioners, stating that he himself was Japanese.
Let us remember the courage of the martyrs when daily annoyances cause us to be anxious and troubled.
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Our Lady of Lourdes is the name used to refer to the Marian apparition said to have appeared on separate occasions in Lourdes, France.
The apparition of Our Lady began on February 11, 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous, a fourteen year old peasant while she was collecting some firewood and bones to buy some bread, near the cave of Massabielle with her sister Toinette and friend Jeanne Abadie. After taking their shoes and stockings to wade through the water near the cave, she said she heard the sound of two gusts of wind but the trees and bushes did not move. She said she saw a light in the cave and a "lady" dressed in white with a blue belt fastened around her waist and golden yellow roses, one on each foot. Bernadette tried to keep this a secret but Toinette told their mother. After parental cross-examination, the sisters received corporal punishments for the story.
Three days later, Bernadette returned to the grotto. She had brought holy water as a test that the apparition was not of evil provenance. However, she said the vision only inclined her head gratefully when the water was cast. Bernadette's companions are said to have became afraid when they saw her in ecstasy. She remained ecstatic even as they returned to the village. On February 28, she spoke of being told by the "lady" to return to the Grotto over a period of two weeks.
On February 24, Bernadette related that the apparition asked for prayers and patience for the conversion of sinners. On the sixth day, she said the apparition asked her to dig in the ground and drink from the spring she found there. This made her disheveled and some of her supporters were dismayed but this act revealed the stream that soon became a focal point for pilgrimages.
During the seventh appearance, the Lady instructed Bernadette to ask the priests to build a Chapel by the Grotto for people to process there, and this is at the heart of Lourdes today. All the appearances held the same prayerful characteristics, and at the fifteenth appearance the Lady disclosed herself as the Immaculate Conception. She appeared only three times more to Bernadette, but had nothing more to say.
In spite of enormous opposition from the town and church elders of the time, with Bernadette being scrutinised by all and sundry, eventually the Bishop of Tarbes declared the Apparitions as genuine, and from there the whole concept of Lourdes as it is today was developed.
Bernadette quoted the apparition: "I promise to make you happy, not in this world, but in the next."
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Ash Wednesday this year falls on February 22nd, and while we still have time to plan out and think about our penances and prayers for this Lent, today would be a good day to meditate on the Feast of the chair of St. Peter we lose as we begin our Fast.
We begin each Lent begging for the blessing of forgiveness. God longs for us to return to him with our whole heart. For without such repentance we remain tormented by the question," Where is our God?" God has not cast us out of his presence; rather, he desires us to "become the righteousness of God." The Father "who is hidden" waits for us to pray, "A clean heart create for me, O God." Then the way that we reach out to reality to become one with it will reveal God's saving Presence in every circumstance. "The joy our salvation" begins today.
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LENT 2012: Reflect, Repent, Renew
Jesus' Lent
After his baptism, Jesus goes to the desert for forty days. And, during that time, he is tested by the Evil One.
These tests are really examples of the kind of tests that Jesus was to face in the course of his public life. The meaning and symbolism of the passage is to be focused on rather than its historical accuracy. Its purpose is to help us to understand the conflicts that were in Jesus' own life and which will also be found in ours too.
In God's Word today, the rich image of the rainbow is a symbol of hope and trust in the loving God who is faithful and constant. The contract or covenant between God and all of humanity is a promise of a close relationship where our worth is praised without any discrimination and our difficulties acknowledged. Some of us seem to reach the 'pot of gold' materially while others lose out because of lack of opportunity. The 'time has come' for us to recognize that the covenant with God involves a relationship with the rest of humanity.(livingspace.sacredspace.ie)
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it is time for me
to see the flaws of myself
and stop being alarmed
it is time for me
to halt my drive
for perfection
and to accept
my blemishes
it is time for me
to receive
slowly evolving growth
the kind that comes
in God's own good time
and pays no heed
to my panicky pushing
it is time for me
to embrace my humanness
to love my incompleteness
it is time for me
to cherish the unwanted
to welcome the unknown
to treasure the unfulfilled
if I wait to be perfect
before I love myself
I will always be unsatisfied
and ungrateful
if I wait until
all the flaws, chips,
and cracks disappear
I will be the cup
that stands on the shelf
and is never used --- Joyce Rupp
"...the main purpose of a cup is to have its contents given away."
A cup is a container for holding something. Whatever it holds has to eventually be emptied out so that something more can be put into it. I have learned that I cannot always expect my life to be full. There has to be some emptying, some pouring out, if I am to make room for the new. The spiritual journey is like that--a constant process of emptying and filling, of giving and receiving, of accepting and letting go.
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Compassionate God, with my diversity and uniqueness, I know I have a place in the multi-coloured bow of your love. As a member of the Church give me courage to follow Jesus into the desert during these forty days of Lent. There I will face the darkness of my neglect of others who I have consigned to the fringes of my consciousness where they scavenge for dignity and respect. Help me to journey from the penitential violet of this season through the bright promise of Easter light to the joyful celebration of the Spirit at Pentecost. AMEN
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This method shows that the happiness the human heart longs for has only one name: "JESUS". This is the method for the new evangelization which the Pope suggested last June 13 when he inaugurated the Ecclesial Convention of the Diocese of Rome.
For this reason he chose to refer to St. Hilary of Poitiers, one of the Church Fathers. Hilary himself testified that he became a believer the moment he understood that for a truly happy life both the possession and the tranquil enjoyment of things were insufficient and that there is something more important and precious: Knowledge of the truth and the fullness of the love given by Christ.
Benedict wondered: "Should we not today to show the beauty and reasonableness of faith, carry God's light to the people of our time, with courage, with conviction, with joy?
Faith still has a chance of succeeding in our day and age. How can this be? Because of the profound reasonableness of Christian truth, in other words because of its correspondence with the human heart. Demonstrating the truth about faith, and not only of the act of believing, is an art to which we are by and large unaccustomed. A certain apologetic method considers that the reasons for adhering to Christian revelation rely mainly on the topic of the divine authority that it reveals rather than on its response to the reason of the revealed truth.
Thus, due to the excessive emphasis of its supernatural character, there is a tendency to conceive of this truth as lacking in any form of proof in the face of human reason, at least, is this not proof that it should be sought first of all? In this perspective, in fact, all the energies of reason are channeled into the factual ascertainment of God's revelation.
And so it can happen, the Pope said, that many, although they have heard talk of the faith, no longer appreciate, no longer know the beauty of Christianity, on the contrary, at times they even view it as an obstacle to achieving happiness.
A split occurs between Christian truth and the gratification of the heart, as if happiness could lie anywhere else, in something that human beings are able to give to themselves. Hence the idols that have replaced happiness: lust, meanness and power, the new idols that T. S. Elliot speaks in "The Waste Land."
Pope Benedict XVI repeated what he said at the World Youth Day in Cologne: "The happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face, it is that of Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist."
No evangelization, in fact, can be said to have been accomplished other than an evangelization that leads to the recognition of Christ, perceived as the answer to all the questions of our heart and to the most profound needs of our reason.
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