Walking With The Father: November 2015

November 14, 2015

Saint Gertrude's Purgatory Prayer

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the Universal Church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen.
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Our Lord told Saint Gertrude the Great that the following prayer would release 1,000 souls from Purgatory each time it is said. The prayer was extended to include living sinners to alleviate indebtedness accrued during their lives. -- http://holyspiritmims.com/news/purgatory-prayer

November 7, 2015

Bringing the Word of God to Children

By Father Matthew Keshwah

The Word of God has tremendous power to change lives, to inspire young people, and to open hearts to receive God’s love. Spending time with Sacred Scripture is fundamental to developing that deep personal relationship with God. If we want the next generation of believers to be active in their faith, they must first encounter the Lord in their own lives through the Sacraments and the Word. The person of Jesus Christ must be someone who they know, he must be someone that they can share their lives with, and he must be someone that they love personally.
To help develop this deep relationship with Jesus Christ, I visit our grade four students each year and give them their own copy of the New Testament. Their eyes light up each time I arrive with the box of books since children love to receive gifts. We take the time to discuss how this book is sacred, holy and to be treated with great care because it is the Word of God; the stories of His Son Jesus. We talk about how the Bible came to be written, how it is the best-selling book of all time, and how if there is only one book they read in their life, it should be this one – God’s book.
The children love to share what they know about Jesus. They eagerly tell “Father” everything they know about Jesus – from the Nativity story of Christmas to the Easter story of Jesus’ death on the cross and rising again on the third day. To stir up their excitement to read more of the New Testament, we take time to share our favourite stories of Jesus’ life. By doing this, children are witnessing to each other (evangelizing peer-to-peer), which is a powerful experience at any age. This sharing stirs interest to read the Word of God in other students who may not know these stories yet but find themselves captivated as their friends describe a story.

Let us pray that many of our young people will fall in love with the Lord by reading his story and experience the invitation to relationship that we are all called to in Christ Jesus. May their hearts be open to receiving God’s love, and may their lives be transformed into one that earnestly desires to be a faithful disciple who loves God and neighbour, making our world a better place one person at a time.