Verbum Dei UK

Monday

The missionary vocation of St Paul and his apostolic zeal.

'I am a Jew,' Paul said 'and was, born at Tarsus in Cilicia . I was brought up here in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and… 'I was on that journey and nearly at Damascus when about midday a bright light from heaven suddenly shone round me.

I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?"I answered: Who are you, Lord? and he said to me, "I am Jesus the Nazarene, and you are persecuting me".

The people with me saw the light but did not hear his voice as he spoke to me. I said: What am I to do, Lord? The Lord answered, "Stand up and go into Damascus , and there you will be told what you have been appointed to do".

The light had been so dazzling that I was blind and my companions had to take me by the hand; and so I came to Damascus. Someone called Ananias, a devout follower of the Law and highly thought of by all the Jews living there came to see me; he stood beside me and said, "Brother Saul, receive your sight". Instantly my sight came back and I was able to see him.

Then he said, "The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see the Just One and hear his own voice speaking, because you are to be his witness before all mankind, testifying to what you have seen and heard. And now why delay? It is time you were baptised and had your sins washed away while invoking his name."'Once, after I had got back to Jerusalem , when I was praying in the Temple , I fell into a trance and then I saw him. "Hurry," he said "leave Jerusalem at once; they will not accept the testimony you are giving about me"…Then he said to me, "Go! I am sending you out to the pagans far away."' (Acts 22,3-21 )

Phil. 1,21-25 ; 2 Corinthians 11,23-28

Lets pray today for each one of us, that we can discern in what particular way God is calling us to be his witnesses.

Tuesday

Why do I want to Evangelise?

(An excerpt from the “Herald of the Evangelizer” by Fr. Jaime Bonet, founder of Verbum Dei)

‘Because I want to bring good news to the afflicted, to soothe the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and release to those in prison…" (Isaiah 61,2-2 ).

Because I long to change hate into love, sadness into joy, anguish and despair into optimism and hope, sickness and death into life and resurrection...

Because I want to give direction and meaning to so many paralyzed lives that are bored and lethargic, full of doubts and suspicion, empty and broken by disabling complexes.

Because I see the urgent need for the Gospel to reach the ends of the earth; to break the chains of those who are enslaved, crushed and oppressed by the lack of culture, faith, food and shelter…

I feel a passion to give the Gospel, alive and raw, to restless and rebellious young people who, dissatisfied and unconforming, protest against everything. I want to give them the sword of the Truth as their defence and armour. And to those of them who renounce to life, I want to shout with the powerful voice of the Gospel: “Get up and live!”…

I can’t stop proclaiming the Good News of liberation in order to save the lives of millions of children whose lives I see are broken and disintegrated as soon as they open their eyes to the light or even while in their mother’s womb. I am compelled to announce the Good News of the Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Peace and of justice, Kingdom of life and love, to stop the relentless wars between nations and races, and the painful conflicts between children and parents…

That’s why I can say, without fear of being pretentious or of it being an abstract or unreasonable theory, that evangelizing is for me a duty and a right, a joy and now an irreversible dedication, impossible for me to leave; it as impossible to leave as it for me to renounce to living or to the fact that my brothers and sisters can have life to the full through me…’

Wednesday

Evangelli Nuntiandi 50.55-56 (Apostolic Exhortation by Pope Paul VI on Evangelization on the Modern World

50. ‘In the course of twenty centuries of history, the generations of Christians have periodically faced various obstacles to this universal mission. On the one hand, on the part of the evangelizers themselves, there has been the temptation for various reasons to narrow down the field of their missionary activity. ..Despite such adversities, the Church constantly renews her deepest inspiration, that which comes to her directly from the Lord: To the whole world! To all creation! Right to the ends of the earth! She did this once more at the last Synod, as an appeal not to imprison the proclamation of the Gospel by limiting it to one sector of mankind or to one class of people or to a single type of civilization.

55. …New forms of atheism seem to flow from it: a man centered atheism, no longer abstract and metaphysical but pragmatic, systematic and militant. Hand in hand with this atheistic secularism, we are daily faced, under the most diverse forms, with a consumer society, the pursuit of pleasure set up as the supreme value, a desire for power and domination, and discrimination of every kind: the inhuman tendencies of this "humanism."

In this same modern world, on the other hand, and this is a paradox, one cannot deny the existence of real steppingstones to Christianity, and of evangelical values at least in the form of a sense of emptiness or nostalgia. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there exists a powerful and tragic appeal to be evangelized.

56. The second sphere is that of those who do not practice. Today there is a very large number of baptized people who for the most part have not formally renounced their Baptism but who are entirely indifferent to it and not living in accordance with it. The phenomenon of the non practicing is a very ancient one in the history of Christianity; it is the result of a natural weakness, a profound inconsistency which we unfortunately bear deep within us. Today however it shows certain new characteristics. It is often the result of the uprooting typical of our time. It also springs from the fact that Christians live in close proximity with non-believers and constantly experience the effects of unbelief. Furthermore, the non-practicing Christians of today, more so than those of previous periods, seek to explain and justify their position in the name of an interior religion, of personal independence or authenticity.

Thus we have atheists and unbelievers on the one side and those who do not practice on the other, and both groups put up a considerable resistance to evangelization…

…The Church's evangelizing action cannot ignore these two worlds, nor must it come to a standstill when faced with them; it must constantly seek the proper means and language for presenting, or representing, to them God's revelation and faith in Jesus Christ.

Lets pray for all those challenges we find in our daily lives that prevent us from living more fully our Christian identity, that the obstacles we find in this secular world do not silence God’s Spirit in our lives.

�

Thursday

St Francis Xavier: Patron saint of Roman Catholic missionaries in foreign lands

‘We went through the villages of the new converts who received baptism a few years ago. No Portuguese lives in these parts, which are utterly barren and poverty-stricken. The native Christians are without any priests. The only thing they know about Christianity is that they are Christians. There is no one to offer Mass for them; no one to teach them the Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the commandments.

So, since I came here, I have had no rest. I have been going from village to village and every child not yet baptized I have baptized. So I have brought redemption to a very great number of children who, as the saying goes, cannot tell their right hand from their left. But the children would not let me say my office or eat or rest till I had taught them some prayer. It was then that I really began to feel that of such is the kingdom of heaven.

… Very many out here fail to become Christians simply because there is nobody available to make them Christian. I have very often had the notion to go round the universities of Europe, and especially Paris, and to shout aloud everywhere like a madman, and to bludgeon those people who have more learning than love …If only those people devoted themselves to this care in the way they do to literature. Then they would be able to render God an account of their doctrine and of the talents entrusted to them!

Many of them, moved by this thought, and helped by meditation on the things of God, would take pains to hear what the Lord is speaking in them, and putting aside their own selfish desires and worldly matters, would put themselves fully at God’s beck and call. They would indeed cry from their soul: ‘Lord, here I am. What would you have me do? Send me wherever you wish, even as far as India.’

(A reading from the Letters of St Francis Xavier to St Ignatius, Book 4, Letters 4 and 5).

Lets pray today in particular for foreign missions, especially for countries where Christianity is persecuted.

�

Friday

Excerpt of Dara O’Brien testimony (the whole article will be publicise in the Website in the section of his homilies)

I'm a 43 year old guy from Dublin (born 1967) who became a missionary priest in 1995 with the Verbum Dei community. I'm actually a qualified doctor, but I've had multiple sclerosis since 1998.

I'm Irish…and the strange thing about me is that I'm happy! Fifteen cases of M.S. were diagnosed in my province in 1998, and eight of them ended up committing suicide. It's true that the diminishment of vision and muscle power etc, are annoying, but I honestly still feel very lucky. I have two lungs that work and I never run out of air to breathe! But the basis of my happiness is that a guy two thousand years ago gave his life for us voluntarily in a painful and shameful crucifixion, and the sorrow of his friends didn't last for long. On the contrary, they became very joyful and gathered a big group of followers. The fact is that that 'guy' really did rise from the dead! In other words, He was actually the son of God. He is the Son of God - and that's for ever…

I graduated in medicine in 1985, and I was very glad to be able to do something useful for the sick, but it struck me how many people aren't happy simply because they haven't really realized what that Crucified Son of God brought to us... and is bringing to us…

When I was learning about anatomy in my medical school, I used to examine dead bodies (post-mortems), and I began to take seriously the fact that within a few years, one of the dead bodies will be mine! On the way home that day, by chance, I was passing the house of Verbum Dei missionaries, and I knocked on the front door, and said “Excuse the interruption, but I have a little question: When we die, where are we all going?”. Of course, it's not a little question! The reply didn't come from a book of philosophy or theology, but rather, I was invited to drop into their chapel and sit on a chair. There was a model Cross in front of me, and I'd often seen such things before, but this time I stayed for a little while contemplating. And it bore fruit. For some reason I began to really respect the solidarity of Christ. He has accepted the pain and the shame, and in spite of his condemnation, his friends didn't stop following his new way. I took a good look and I got more and more convinced. He rose from the dead! And this faith in Christ has moved many hearts throughout history, that ended up loving very generously and putting up with persecutions… Technology and politics etc can help, but the fundamental need is to get people to love well... to change 'hearts'! I also came across plenty of depression in our 'first' world (as opposed to 'third world'). In fact, between 1910 and 2010, the suicide rate in Irish 15 to 25 year old males has multiplied by 4! Christ can certainly cure that, and his call to help struck me a lot. It brings challenges, but all in all, it's brought me joy. There is a solution for this human family!

…A few years have passed by, and a decent physical health has passed me by, but I'm still very happy and confident about God's Love. If Our Father wanted me to bite the dust (die) soon, then I'd be glad to 'rest in peace'! But at the moment I don't think that He does. I think that He wants me to play some role in the world. All of us are going to die for sure within a few years, but in the meantime, God wants us all to play some role in loving.

I've got MS, but 99.99% of my life is joyful!� Often you don't really appreciate gifts until you loose them, and the M.S. is teaching me to appreciate so many, many gifts in life - like having loads of air to breathe! One of the tremendous things about Christianity is that it's within poverty that God reveals true richness! From the stable of Bethlehem to the Cross of Calvary, Christ makes clear how the road to resurrection is that road.

…Having faith is itself a gift that I'm lucky to have received, and as the letter of James says, trials in life augment...

But, I hope that I'm not rattling-on too much. John the Baptist didn't 'rattle-on', but pointed to someone who does speak very well: to Jesus Christ!

...........Dara.

---

Publish: