NEWSLETTER INSERTS FOR THE NINETEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

‘Lord, may our urban communities be open and welcoming homes, places where hope is shared, where no one feels invisible, and where the joy of your Gospel shines in the hidden lives of so many brothers and sisters. Make us your witnesses in the city, bold and creative missionaries, who proclaim your Love with their lives — a Love capable of overcoming haste, noise, and anonymity. Amen.’

Pope Leo XIV, 'For Evangelisation in the Cities'. Prayer Intention for August 2026.

‘The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass, God is waiting for you’.

Werner Heisenberg

‘To my disquiet, I began to realise that the evidence for this was much weaker than I had thought. I also began to talk to Christian friends, read Christian books, attend some Christian lectures. The intellectual case for faith was much stronger than I had realised. I don’t think I had fully understood the Christianity that I had rejected as a younger man’.

Alister McGrath

‘Regarding personal Interior Renewal, we have to start by recharging our own spiritual battery. As Pope Leo put it, “in our life as disciples, we can always risk falling into a rut, a routine, a tendency to follow the same old pastoral plans without experiencing interior renewal and a willingness to respond to new challenges”. All of that starts with a conversion, not in the sense of a conversion from bad to good, but conversion from good to better. It means going deeper in our faith, looking out for ways to help each other take new steps on our faith journey. We need to call on the Holy Spirit to help us be inwardly renewed. Obviously, in this regard, as well as the personal life of charity that is always at the heart of faith, we need to dedicate ourselves to prayer and liturgy, contemplative formation and a striving for personal holiness’.

Bishop Brendan Leahy, Limerick

‘To those who are struggling and drowning in the cares of life, Jesus reaches out his hand and offers us his saving love. Whether we grab that hand or refuse it, is up to us. What Jesus asks of us is that we keep believing in him, keep listening to him, loving him and trusting him. He wants to save us. Will we let him?’

Fr Billy Swan

‘Mary is a profound symbol of hope and healing for body and soul in a broken world. The Assumption is an inspiration for us to protect human rights and defend human dignity especially those who are in danger of their futures being taken away through violence or neglect. In every age and time, dark forces try to reduce the dignity of the human person or convince Christianity that her insistence on the sacredness of human life is too high. The Assumption of Mary holds before us again, the awesome truth of what the Gospel teaches and the awesome dignity to which God has raised humanity’.

Fr Billy Swan