NEWSLETTER INSERTS FOR THE SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

The First Reading on Boldness in Mission:

‘How often we are tempted to keep close to the shore! Yet the Lord calls us to put out into the deep and let down our nets (cf. Lk 5:4). He bids us spend our lives in his service. Clinging to him, we are inspired to put all our charisms at the service of others. May we always feel compelled by his love (2 Cor 5:14) and say with Saint Paul: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Cor 9:16)’.

Pope Francis, Rejoice and be Glad

‘We need the Spirit’s prompting, lest we be paralyzed by fear and excessive caution, lest we grow used to keeping within safe bounds. Let us remember that closed spaces grow musty and unhealthy. When the Apostles were tempted to let themselves be crippled by danger and threats, they joined in prayer to implore boldness: “And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness” (Acts 4:29). As a result, “when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31).

Pope Francis, Rejoice and be Glad

The Second Reading on Hope:

‘It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.’

Pope Benedict XVI, Hope Saves

‘The capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reigns supreme.’

Pope Benedict XVI, Hope Saves

The Gospel on Truth:

‘Truth draws strength from itself and not from the number of votes in its favour’.

Pope Benedict XVI

‘Many people have no stable points of reference on which to build their lives, and so they end up deeply insecure. There is a growing mentality of relativism, which holds that everything is equally valid, that truth and absolute points of reference do not exist. But this way of thinking does not lead to true freedom, but rather to instability, confusion and blind conformity to the fads of the moment’.

Pope Benedict XVI

‘We might not have to die for the truth like the martyrs did, but let us live for it. From the least matter to the greatest, may we once again commit ourselves to the truth for it will set us free and dispel our fears. This is the freedom of the children of God that he wants us to enjoy – to be courageous and strong Easter Christians, consecrated in the truth, as Jesus prayed on the night before he died’.

Fr Billy Swan

‘Do not accept anything as true if it lacks love. Do not accept anything as love if it lacks truth’.

St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross