Apostleship of Prayer

Today is the World Day of Prayer for Vocations and the theme Pope Benedict has chosen for it is “Vocations at the Service of the Church on Mission.” As we pray for religious and priestly vocations today, let us also remember our monthly Mission Intention that the future priests of mission lands may be formed to evangelize their nations and the entire world. Our reflection is from Pope Benedict’s Message for today.

The Risen Jesus gave to the Apostles this command: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19), assuring them: “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matthew 28: 20). The Church is missionary in herself and in each one of her members. Through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, every Christian is called to bear witness and to announce the Gospel, but this missionary dimension is associated in a special and intimate way with the priestly vocation. … Jesus already in his public life, while preaching in Galilee, chose some disciples to be his close collaborators in the messianic ministry. … He was moved to compassion for the people, because while visiting cities and villages, he found the crowds weary and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9: 36). From this gaze of love came the invitation to his disciples: “Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9: 38), and he sent the Twelve initially “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” with precise instructions.

If we pause to meditate on this passage of Matthew’s Gospel, commonly called the “missionary discourse”, we may take note of those aspects which distinguish the missionary activity of a Christian community, eager to remain faithful to the example and teaching of Jesus. To respond to the Lord’s call means facing in prudence and simplicity every danger and even persecutions, since “a disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master” (Matthew 10: 24). Having become one with their Master, the disciples are no longer alone as they announce the Kingdom of heaven; Jesus himself is acting in them: “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me” (Matthew 10: 40). Furthermore, as true witnesses, “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24: 49), they preach “repentance and the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24: 47) to all peoples.

Todays Readings: Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Psalm 23:1-6; 1 Peter 2:20b-25; John 10:1-10

Pope Benedict’s last encyclical letter to us was about Hope. Clearly he feels that in the dark and often hopeless times in which we live, we desperately need this virtue. His General Intention for April is another expression of this as he asks us to join him in praying that Christians may not tire of proclaiming with their lives that Christ’s resurrection is the source of hope and peace. Let us pray with Pope Benedict and a great contemporary witness to hope, Archbishop Michael Sabbah of Jerusalem, by reflecting on the Archbishop’s Easter Sunday homily.

Brothers and Sisters, Christ is risen. Yes, right here, this tomb that we venerate witnessed the events that have been transmitted to us by our faith. Here, the empty tomb, in front of which we celebrate Easter this morning, testifies to our faith. It testifies to God’s love for all of humanity. With the entire Church, we renew our faith and we proclaim that Christ rose here. Yes, He is truly risen. We pray in this Eucharist for Christians, for Muslims, and for Jews, for all religions and for our two peoples, Palestinian and Israeli. We pray so that the hope of the Resurrection might revive and renew the hearts of all, and fill them with the mystery of God and of his love. …

Look up to heaven, contemplate Christ who died and resurrected, in order to learn how to die and resurrect each day and each moment and in order to give new hope to this land. Chosen people, your vocation is the same one that Jesus had: to give new life to the world, but first of all to yourselves…. We are witnesses of the Resurrection, said Saint Peter to the crowd after Pentecost. Like him, here, in this very place, we are witnesses of the Resurrection, in order to give new hope and to maintain this hope in everyone, despite all the evil of the people who destroy this land. Let us pray, my brothers and sisters, so that the Resurrection of the Lord will enable all of us to give new life to our land and to all those with whom we are called to live. With the Psalmist we proclaim our hope: “God will deliver my soul” (Ps 49:16) and deliver our land.

Today’s Readings: Acts 9:31-42; Psalm 116:12-17; John 6:60-69

Praying in a particular way for Pope Benedict’s General Intention, we conclude our reading of his “Urbi et Orbi” Easter Message.

How often relations between individuals, between groups and between peoples are marked not by love but by selfishness, injustice, hatred and violence! These are the scourges of humanity, open and festering in every corner of the planet, although they are often ignored and sometimes deliberately concealed; wounds that torture the souls and bodies of countless of our brothers and sisters. They are waiting to be tended and healed by the glorious wounds of our Risen Lord (1 Peter 2:24-25) and by the solidarity of people who, following in his footsteps, perform deeds of charity in his name, make an active commitment to justice, and spread luminous signs of hope in areas bloodied by conflict and wherever the dignity of the human person continues to be scorned and trampled. It is hoped that these are precisely the places where gestures of moderation and forgiveness will increase!

Dear brothers and sisters! Let us allow the light that streams forth from this solemn day to enlighten us; let us open ourselves in sincere trust to the risen Christ, so that his victory over evil and death may also triumph in each one of us, in our families, in our cities and in our nations. Let it shine forth in every part of the world. In particular, how can we fail to remember certain African regions, such as Darfur and Somalia, the tormented Middle East, especially the Holy Land, Iraq, Lebanon, and finally Tibet, all of whom I encourage to seek solutions that will safeguard peace and the common good! Let us invoke the fullness of his Paschal gifts, through the intercession of Mary who, after sharing the sufferings of the passion and crucifixion of her innocent Son, also experienced the inexpressible joy of his resurrection. Sharing in the glory of Christ, may she be the one to protect us and guide us along the path of fraternal solidarity and peace.

Today’s Readings: Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 66:8-9, 16-17, 20; John 6:44-51

Pope Benedict has asked us to pray with him this month that Christians may not grow tired of proclaiming with their lives that Christ’s resurrection is the source of our hope and peace. In fact, Jesus, who revealed the love of God most clearly through His death on a cross and whose resurrection shows that death is not the end of human existence, is the world’s only hope and peace. We continue to pray with the Holy Father as we reflect on his “Urbi et Orbi” Message of Easter Sunday.

Dear Christian brothers and sisters in every part of the world, dear men and women whose spirit is sincerely open to the truth, let no heart be closed to the omnipotence of this redeeming love! Jesus Christ died and rose for all; he is our hope – true hope for every human being. Today, just as he did with his disciples in Galilee before returning to the Father, the risen Jesus now sends us everywhere as witnesses of his hope, and he reassures us: I am with you always, all days, until the end of the world (Matthew 28:20). Fixing the gaze of our spirit on the glorious wounds of his transfigured body, we can understand the meaning and value of suffering, we can tend the many wounds that continue to disfigure humanity in our own day. In his glorious wounds we recognize the indestructible signs of the infinite mercy of the God of whom the prophet says: it is he who heals the wounds of broken hearts, who defends the weak and proclaims the freedom of slaves, who consoles all the afflicted and bestows upon them the oil of gladness instead of a mourning robe, a song of praise instead of a sorrowful heart (Isaiah 61:1-3). If with humble trust we draw near to him, we encounter in his gaze the response to the deepest longings of our heart: to know God and to establish with him a living relationship in an authentic communion of love, which can fill our lives, our interpersonal and social relations with that same love. For this reason, humanity needs Christ: in him, our hope, “we have been saved” (Romans 8:24).

Today’s Readings: Acts 8:1b-8; Psalm 66:1-3a, 4-7a; John 6:35-40

For the next three days, as we pray that we and all Christians may be living proclamations of Christ’s resurrection, we will reflect on Pope Benedict’s Easter Message.

“I have risen and I am still with you, forever.” These words invite us to contemplate the risen Christ, letting his voice resound in our heart. With his redeeming sacrifice, Jesus of Nazareth has made us adopted children of God, so that we too can now take our place in the mysterious dialogue between him and the Father. We are reminded of what he once said to those who were listening: “All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matthew 11:27). In this perspective, we note that the words addressed by the risen Jesus to the Father on this day – “I am still with you, forever” – apply indirectly to us as well, “children of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:17). Through the death and resurrection of Christ, we too rise to new life today, and uniting our voice with his, we proclaim that we wish to remain forever with God, our infinitely good and merciful Father. In this way we enter the depths of the Paschal mystery. The astonishing event of the resurrection of Jesus is essentially an event of love: the Father’s love in handing over his Son for the salvation of the world; the Son’s love in abandoning himself to the Father’s will for us all; the Spirit’s love in raising Jesus from the dead in his transfigured body. And there is more: the Father’s love which “newly embraces” the Son, enfolding him in glory; the Son’s love returning to the Father in the power of the Spirit, robed in our transfigured humanity. From today’s solemnity, in which we relive the absolute, once-and-for-all experience of Jesus’ resurrection, we receive an appeal to be converted to Love; we receive an invitation to live by rejecting hatred and selfishness, and to follow with docility in the footsteps of the Lamb that was slain for our salvation, to imitate the Redeemer who is “gentle and lowly in heart”, who is “rest for our souls” (Matthew 11:29).

Today’s Readings: Acts 7:51-8:1a; Psalm 31:3cd-4, 6, 7b, 8a, 17, 21ab

As we savor the joy of Easter, we pray with Pope Benedict that all Christians may never tire of proclaiming with their lives that the resurrection of Jesus is the source of hope and peace. Archbishop Michael Sabbah, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, spoke of this hope and the challenge to forgive in his Easter Sunday homily. Let us reflect on his words which include a reference to today’s Gospel.

Christ is risen. We pray this morning, and our prayer is universal just like Christ’s own prayer. It embraces all of humanity…. That is what Easter means for us: death that leads to life, to the Resurrection. Death, which becomes through the power of love and forgiveness a redemptive power, creates a new man, a new person. To pass from death to life, that is the meaning of Easter, that is the meaning of Christian hope: all death, all difficulties lead to renewed life. Death will not remain a death, and difficulties will not remain the occasion for sterile suffering. No one has the right to turn personal suffering, even great and incomprehensible, into a prison for oneself or for generations to come. The sufferings of Christ, his Passion, were great and incomprehensible. He was counted among criminals, as foretold by the Prophets. But he loved and forgave: “He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end” (John 13: 1). On the cross, as he was suffering, he said: “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23: 33).His disciples also ran the risk of turning their sufferings into a prison for themselves: “We were hoping that he was the one who would set Israel free” (Luke 24: 21), said the disciples of Emmaus. Jesus, walking again with them after the Resurrection, freed them from their frustration and from the failure they thought they had had because they had followed him. After Jesus had instructed them once again, their discouragement was transformed into their walking anew toward Jerusalem, “they returned to Jerusalem,” and into their announcing the Resurrection. We have seen the Lord. He is alive. He has given us life again.

Today’s Readings:  Acts 2:14, 22-23;  Psalm 16:1-2, 5, 7-11;  1 Peter 1:17-21;  Luke 25:13-35

As we pray this month that we may never grow tired of proclaiming the Resurrection of Jesus by the way we live our lives, we reflect today on Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa’s commentary for the Gospel of Easter Sunday. Fr. Cantalamessa is a Capuchin Franciscan who has been the Pontifical Household preacher since 1980.

[T]he strongest argument that Christ is risen, is that he is alive! He is alive not because we keep him alive by talking about him, but because he keeps us alive, he communicates the sense of his presence to us, he makes us hope. “He touches Christ who believes in Christ,” St. Augustine said, and the true believers experience the truth in this affirmation.

Those who do not believe in the reality of the resurrection have always advanced hypotheses that it be treated as a phenomenon of autosuggestion; the apostles “believed” to see. But this, if it were true, would constitute, in the end, a miracle no less great than the one that people try to avoid admitting. Suppose that different people, in different situations and places, all had the same hallucination. Imaginary visions usually come to those who intensely expect and desire them, but the apostles, after the events of Good Friday, did not expect anything else.

Christ’s resurrection is, for the spiritual universe, what the initial “Big Bang” was for the physical universe, according to one modern theory: such a massive explosion of energy impressed on the cosmos that expansion of energy that continues even today at a distance of billions of years. Take away from the Church faith in the resurrection and everything stops and shuts down, as when the electrical current goes out in a house.

St. Paul writes: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the death, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). “The faith of Christians is the resurrection of Christ,” St. Augustine said. Everyone believes that Jesus died, even the pagans, the agnostics believe it. But only Christians believe that he has also risen, and one is not a Christian unless he believes this.

Today’s Reading’s:  Acts 5:27-33; Psalm 34:2,9,17-20; John 3:31-36