God is still On Mission - but we need to change Hearts.

"Missio Dei." God is on mission.  His on-going mission is to reach every man, woman, and child with the message of hope in His Son, Jesus Christ. God has called us to join Him on this incredible Mission. Yet the fragility of humanity is such that evil enters. It has been so since the story of the apple in the Garden of Eden. This past week we saw such frailty, such evil, approach our Nation and even infect its Capital; resulting in the injury, and loss of human life, including those who have dedicated themselves to the service of the virtues and ideals for which we stand strong, proud and free. While this is a time of shock, it is not a time for despair.

We on our part, within our circles of influence, must name what we saw for what it is – pure evil - and pray for its revoking from further hearts, wills and lives. We will accomplish this through working in unity with others, expressing as the Body of Christ, Hope in the moments of fear, Calm in the times of storm and Peace in the occasions of aggression. This comes by our lives of prayer.

Let us this Lord’s Day Weekend gather as a Family of Faith, and offer prayers for those slain in the acts of violence in Ottawa and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. Let us pray for families mourning, for lives affected, and most of all for our nation and our world. A book of remembrance will be available in our Parish Centre this Lord’s Day and special prayers will be offered. May the shining light from our hill remove the shadow and retrench in human hearts the only beacon that can abolish evil - Jesus Christ.

Prayer for Peace in the World by St. John Paul II

Immaculate Heart of Mary, helpPrayer for Peace in the World by St. John Paul II us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasurable effects already weigh down upon our modern world and seem to block the paths toward the future.

From every kind of injustice in the life of society, both national and international, deliver us. From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us. From attempts to stifle in human hearts the very truth of God, deliver us. From the loss of awareness of good and evil, deliver us.

From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us.

Accept, O Mother of Christ, this cry laden with the sufferings of all individual human beings, laden with the sufferings of whole societies. Help us with the power of the Holy Spirit conquer all sin: individual sin and the “sin of the world,” sin in all its manifestations.

Let there be revealed once more in the history of the world the infinite saving power of the redemption: the power of merciful love. May it put a stop to evil. May it transform consciences. 

May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope. Amen