 All Christians today trace our faith back to those first disciples – such as Saint Simon and Saint Jude – who were willing to leave everything familiar to share the good news with strangers. Today’s feast reminds us to pray for modern-day apostles who leave home and family and risk their lives to bring the love of Jesus to those still waiting to hear about Him.
Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, may those who leave home and family and risk all for the Gospel be supported by Your Spirit in the difficult task of bringing Your good news to an often hostile world. Amen.
Jakarta, 28 October 2015
A Christian Pilgrim
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Wednesday October 28 FEAST OF SAINTS SIMON AND JUDE –
October 28, 2015 by
Tuesday October 27 Christ’s Light Will Fill Your Life
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Monday October 26 Faith Moves Mountains
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Sunday October 25 – Gospel for Sunday Lord, That I May See
October 24, 2015 by
JESUS, SON OF DAVID, HAVE MERCY ON ME!
(A biblical refection on THE 30th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME [YEAR B] – 25 October, 2015)
Gospel Reading: Mark 10:46-52
First Reading: Jeremiah 31:7-9; Psalms: Psalm 126:1-6; Second Reading: Hebrews 5:1-6
 The Scripture TextAnd they came to Jericho; and as He was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a great multitude, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; rise, He is calling you.” And throwing off his mantle he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to Him, “Master, let me receive my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he received his sight and followed Him on the way. (Mark 10:46-52 RSV)
There is a high hill on the west side of Jericho which offers a panoramic view of the ancient city. The splendid colors of flowers, mingling with the orange blossoms and palm trees, are a delightful sight. It was in this fertile Jordan River Valley town that Bartimeus lived, smelled the fragrant blossoms and heard the leaves rustled by the gentle wind. But he never saw its beauty, for he was blind.
Through the pen of Saint Mark, Bartimaeus finds his way into today’s Gospel, sitting “in the right place at the right time” – when Jesus happened to be passing by. He had heard of the famous Miracle Worker and when told He was right here in Jericho, Bartimaeus suddenly decided to make the biggest gamble of his life. He would call out for Jesus to work one more miracle in Jericho – for him.
He was afraid that perhaps Jesus wouldn’t even hear his call, that people would laugh at him. Yet the thought of being able to see, capable of finding a job and being independent, strengthened his courage. When the crowd grew louder – meaning Jesus was very near – Bartimaeus out-shouted them with eight well-chosen words: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:47). It was this forceful prayer – said two times – which reached the ears of the Lord, causing Him to stop and ask the bystanders to bring to Him the man who prayed that beautiful faith-filled prayer. Bartimaeus began to tremble, causing someone to offer reassurance, “Take heart; rise, He is calling you.”(Mark 10:49), as if he was saying: “You have nothing to fear from Him”. To Jesus’ question, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51) the frightened but expectant blind man cried out, “Master, let me receive my sight.” (Mark 10:51), … “I want to see!” Bartimaeus’ world of darkness continued a few moments more as he heard the words, “Go away, your faith has made you well” (Mark 10:52) … “Your faith has saved you.” Suddenly he saw the sunshine, colors danced before eyes and the most breath-taking sight of all was the celestial face of Jesus.
We could make the words of Bartimaeus our own prayer for mercy, entreating the Savior to relieve our sufferings with His healing blessings. Try the prayer if you have spiritual blindness and cannot accept others or find any good in them. Pray those words if you are blind to your faults, have lost your way through life or have no hope for a glorious future. Pray with courage and shout twice if you must, even if others tell you to be quiet.
You may feel helpless, sitting on some dark back road of society, but Jesus still passes by. He wants to lift you from your gloomy shadows of despair. Regardless of how far from Him you may be, trust His mercy and ask His help for He will listen to you. Someday you will behold Him face to face, like Bartimaeus. Just you wait, you’ll see!
Prayer: Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! Son of David, have mercy on me!
Jakarta, 23 October 2015
A Christian Pilgrim
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Friday October 23 All is From God and We Give Thanks!
October 23, 2015 by
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Wednesday October 21, We belong to the Universe and Prayer rises up to the King of the Universe
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Monday October 19 Mercy
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Friday October 16 God Is So In Love with Us and all Creation
October 16, 2015 by
Famous Michelangelo Painting . Note in this painting
as God reaches out to Adam God has His arm around Eve.
God is so in love with Us
Eberhard Arnold
In Jesus, God has opened his heart to us. He has turned his face to us. He comes to us, reveals his thoughts, and shows us who he is and what he wills. He gives us everything we need and wants to perfect the work he has begun in us. Amazingly, we feeble and insignificant beings are the object of his concern. Out of the incomprehensible love of his heart, God loves each of us quite personally. In his concern for humankind, God seeks out all people and invites them to take part in his new creation.
Source: The Prayer God Answers
Daily Prayer for October 16Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt
I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way – with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge. 1 Corinthians 1:4–5, NIV Lord our God, we thank you that you are so near to us that we may feel and know we are your children, your children who are in your hands with all that belongs to our earthly life, all our needs and temptations, all our efforts and pain. We come together to thank you, and our thanksgiving wins a victory over everything that makes life difficult for us. In this thanksgiving the harshness, crookedness, and injustice on earth cannot harm us. Protect us with your light, which gives us wisdom for all situations and which lifts us above everything that is base and meaningless and must pass away. Amen.
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Pope Francis’ Mission Statement for Mission Sunday October 18, 2015
October 15, 2015 by
Pope Francis’ Message for 2015 World Mission Sunday
“Today, the Church’s mission is faced by the challenge of meeting the needs of all people to return to their roots and to protect the values of their respective cultures.”
Below is the Vatican-provided text of Pope Francis’ message for the 89th World Mission Sunday to be celebrated October 18, 2015:
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Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The 2015 World Mission Sunday 2015 takes place in the context of the Year of Consecrated Life, which provides a further stimulus for prayer and reflection. For if every baptized person is called to bear witness to the Lord Jesus by proclaiming the faith received as a gift, this is especially so for each consecrated man and woman. There is a clear connection between consecrated life and mission. The desire to follow Jesus closely, which led to the emergence of consecrated life in the Church, responds to his call to take up the cross and follow him, to imitate his dedication to the Father and his service and love, to lose our life so as to gain it. Since Christ’s entire existence had a missionary character, so too, all those who follow him closely must possess this missionary quality.
The missionary dimension, which belongs to the very nature of the Church, is also intrinsic to all forms of consecrated life, and cannot be neglected without detracting from and disfiguring its charism. Being a missionary is not about proselytizing or mere strategy; mission is part of the “grammar” of faith, something essential for those who listen to the voice of the Spirit who whispers “Come” and “Go forth”. Those who follow Christ cannot fail to be missionaries, for they know that Jesus “walks with them, speaks to them, breathes with them. They sense Jesus alive with them in the midst of the missionary enterprise” (Evangelii Gaudium, 266).
Mission is a passion for Jesus and at the same time a passion for his people. When we pray before Jesus crucified, we see the depth of his love which gives us dignity and sustains us. At the same time, we realize that the love flowing from Jesus’ pierced heart expands to embrace the People of God and all humanity. We realize once more that he wants to make use of us to draw closer to his beloved people (cf. ibid., 268) and all those who seek him with a sincere heart. In Jesus’ command to “go forth”, we see the scenarios and ever-present new challenges of the Church’s evangelizing mission. All her members are called to proclaim the Gospel by their witness of life. In a particular way, consecrated men and women are asked to listen to the voice of the Spirit who calls them to go to the peripheries, to those to whom the Gospel has not yet been proclaimed.
The fiftieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Decree Ad Gentes is an invitation to all of us to reread this document and to reflect on its contents. The Decree called for a powerful missionary impulse in Institutes of Consecrated Life. For contemplative communities, Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus, Patroness of the Missions, appears in a new light; she speaks with renewed eloquence and inspires reflection upon the deep connection between contemplative life and mission. For many active religious communities, the missionary impulse which emerged from the Council was met with an extraordinary openness to the mission ad gentes, often accompanied by an openness to brothers and sisters from the lands and cultures encountered in evangelization, to the point that today one can speak of a widespread “interculturalism” in the consecrated life. Hence there is an urgent need to reaffirm that the central ideal of mission is Jesus Christ, and that this ideal demands the total gift of oneself to the proclamation of the Gospel. On this point there can be no compromise: those who by God’s grace accept the mission, are called to live the mission. For them, the proclamation of Christ in the many peripheries of the world becomes their way of following him, one which more than repays them for the many difficulties and sacrifices they make. Any tendency to deviate from this vocation, even if motivated by noble reasons due to countless pastoral, ecclesial or humanitarian needs, is not consistent with the Lord’s call to be personally at the service of the Gospel. In Missionary Institutes, formators are called to indicate clearly and frankly this plan of life and action, and to discern authentic missionary vocations. I appeal in particular toyoung people, who are capable of courageous witness and generous deeds, even when these are countercultural: Do not allow others to rob you of the ideal of a true mission, of following Jesus through the total gift of yourself. In the depths of your conscience, ask yourself why you chose the religious missionary life and take stock of your readiness to accept it for what it is: a gift of love at the service of the proclamation of the Gospel. Remember that, even before being necessary for those who have not yet heard it, the proclamation of the Gospel is a necessity for those who love the Master.
Today, the Church’s mission is faced by the challenge of meeting the needs of all people to return to their roots and to protect the values of their respective cultures. This means knowing and respecting other traditions and philosophical systems, and realizing that all peoples and cultures have the right to be helped from within their own traditions to enter into the mystery of God’s wisdom and to accept the Gospel of Jesus, who is light and transforming strength for all cultures.
Within this complex dynamic, we ask ourselves: “Who are the first to whom the Gospel message must be proclaimed?” The answer, found so often throughout the Gospel, is clear: it is the poor, the little ones and the sick, those who are often looked down upon or forgotten, those who cannot repay us (cf. Lk 14:13-14). Evangelization directed preferentially to the least among us is a sign of the Kingdom that Jesus came to bring: “There is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor. May we never abandon them” (Evangelii Gaudium, 48). This must be clear above all to those who embrace the consecrated missionary life: by the vow of poverty, they choose to follow Christ in his preference for the poor, not ideologically, but in the same way that he identified himself with the poor: by living like them amid the uncertainties of everyday life and renouncing all claims to power, and in this way to become brothers and sisters of the poor, bringing them the witness of the joy of the Gospel and a sign of God’s love.
Living as Christian witnesses and as signs of the Father’s love among the poor and underprivileged, consecrated persons are called to promote the presence of the lay faithful in the service of Church’s mission. As the Second Vatican Council stated: “The laity should cooperate in the Church’s work of evangelization; as witnesses and at the same time as living instruments, they share in her saving mission” (Ad Gentes, 41). Consecrated missionaries need to generously welcome those who are willing to work with them, even for a limited period of time, for an experience in the field. They are brothers and sisters who want to share the missionary vocation inherent in Baptism. The houses and structures of the missions are natural places to welcome them and to provide for their human, spiritual and apostolic support.
The Church’s Institutes and Missionary Congregations are completely at the service of those who do not know the Gospel of Jesus. This means that they need to count on the charisms and missionary commitment of their consecrated members. But consecrated men and women also need a structure of service, an expression of the concern of the Bishop of Rome, in order to ensure koinonia, for cooperation and synergy are an integral part of the missionary witness. Jesus made the unity of his disciples a condition so that the world may believe (cf. Jn 17:21). This convergence is not the same as legalism or institutionalism, much less a stifling of the creativity of the Spirit, who inspires diversity. It is about giving a greater fruitfulness to the Gospel message and promoting that unity of purpose which is also the fruit of the Spirit.
The Missionary Societies of the Successor of Peter have a universal apostolic horizon. This is why they also need the many charisms of consecrated life, to address the vast horizons of evangelization and to be able to ensure adequate presence in whatever lands they are sent.
Dear brothers and sisters, a true missionary is passionate for the Gospel. Saint Paul said: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16). The Gospel is the source of joy, liberation and salvation for all men and women. The Church is aware of this gift, and therefore she ceaselessly proclaims to everyone “what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes” (1Jn 1:1). The mission of the servants of the Word – bishops, priests, religious and laity – is to allow everyone, without exception, to enter into a personal relationship with Christ. In the full range of the Church’s missionary activity, all the faithful are called to live their baptismal commitment to the fullest, in accordance with the personal situation of each. A generous response to this universal vocation can be offered by consecrated men and women through an intense life of prayer and union with the Lord and his redeeming sacrifice.
To Mary, Mother of the Church and model of missionary outreach, I entrust all men and women who, in every state of life work to proclaim the Gospel, ad gentes or in their own lands. To all missionaries of the Gospel I willingly impart my Apostolic Blessing.
From the Vatican, 24 May 2015, Solemnity of Pentecost
FRANCISCUS
[Original text: Italian]
Tuesday October 6, Gospel Story is of Martha and Mary. Today is Sister Natalie’s Birthday . Sister Natalie is 98 years Young – Happy Birthday from all your sisters.
October 6, 2015 by
 “This is the picture of a woman cast in the role of a learner, a pupil, even a rabbinic student. Quite obviously this is a prohibited role for women in those days and in that culture. Yet Jesus affirms Mary in that role. Martha, however, rebukes her. Martha demands that Jesus order Mary to abandon the pupil role for the more acceptable domestic role of assisting with the dinner preparations. Jesus supports Mary and defends her consciousness-raising act by stating that she has elected a higher choice.” – John Shelby Spong
Jakarta, 6 October 2015
A Christian Pilgrim
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