NEWSLETTER INSERTS - FOR THE NINETEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

‘Look into this mirror every day, O Queen, spouse of Jesus Christ, and continually examine your face in it, so that in this way you may adorn yourself completely, inwardly and outwardly.... In this mirror shine blessed poverty, holy humility, and charity beyond words’.

St Clare of Assisi, Letter to Blessed Agnes of Prague

‘You come to me and unite Yourself intimately to me under the form of nourishment. Your Blood now runs in mine, Your Soul, Incarnate God, compenetrates mine, giving courage and support. What miracles! Who would have ever imagined such!’

St Maximilian Kolbe

‘Dear young people, Jesus is our hope. It is he, as Saint John Paul II said, “who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives [...] to commit… to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.” (XV World Youth Day, Prayer Vigil, 19 August 2000). Let us remain united to him, let us remain in his friendship, always, cultivating it through prayer, adoration, Eucharistic Communion, frequent Confession, and generous charity, following the examples of Blessed Piergiorgio Frassati and Blessed Carlo Acutis who will soon be declared saints. Aspire to great things, to holiness, wherever you are. Do not settle for less. You will then see the light of the Gospel growing every day, in you and around you’.

Pope Leo XIV, Homily to Young People, Jubilee of Youth, 3^rd August 2025

‘So, I encourage you to carry this Jubilee of Hope home with you.  Let it shape your life.  Don’t let it stay up the mountain.  Let it walk with you – in your prayer, your friendships, your courage to love and serve.  Because God is with you.  And you were made for greatness’.

Bishop Fintan Gavin

‘In the Gospel this Sunday, Jesus urges his followers to be attentive, focused, ready and awake. The opposite to all this is to be asleep – complacent, unprepared, drifting and unsure. What the Lord is asking of us is that we be clear about who we are – attentive to his voice and guidance in prayer; committed to the sacraments; conscious of our daily calling to be witnesses to his love and truth; to be intentional disciples and missionaries with a clear understanding of who we are and what we are about in these new and challenging times in modern Ireland. It is also a call that one day, Christ will come back again as he promised. Will we be ready?’

Fr Billy Swan