NEWSLETTER INSERTS FOR THE TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

‘The Catholic Church is not a Voltairean debating society; it is a community that stands for some very definite things, which implies, necessarily, that it sets its back against very definite things.’

Bishop Robert Barron

‘To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you’.

CS Lewis

'Always think of God as your lover. Therefore he wants to be with you just as a lover always wants to be with the beloved. He wants your attention as every lover wants the attention of the beloved. He wants to listen to you, as every lover wants to hear the voice of the beloved. If you turn to me and ask, ‘Are you in love with God?’ I would pause hesitate and say ‘I am not certain but of one thing I am certain that He is in love with me’. He wants also to whisper a word of love into my ear. It may be a word of forgiveness; it may be a word of healing; it may be a word of comfort; it may even be a word of rebuke. He speaks to us deep down. Isn't it sad if the beloved disappoints the lover through negligence or through walking away through stupidity? Two great qualities of God: his with fidelity to us and his tenderness. I love that idea of God being faithful to me. However much I go wrong, however far I may stray, whatever follies I may engage in, he remains faithful to me'.

Cardinal Basil Hume, The Mystery of Love

‘There is something fundamentally disordered about a society and a legal system that not only allows, but promotes and pays for the killing of so many babies.  But where is the support for women that would help them to choose a life-giving alternative?  Our doctors and nurses have come under enormous social pressure to commit abortion, and we can be grateful that so many of them have refused to do so’.

‘In the final analysis, it is not just about the babies, who will always be held in the hand of God.  It is also about the spiritual and emotional harm that abortion does to their mothers, and about the moral decline of a society which voted for this and allows it to continue.  It will continue, unless we stop it.  That calls for prayer, for political action, for outreach in our own communities and for a willingness on the part of all of us to speak the truth’.

Bishop Kevin Doran

‘Forgiveness is one of the most demanding aspects of our Christian commitment and most important. God never tires of forgiving us but wants that we pass on that freedom and blessing. Important? Absolutely! Easy? No! Yet today’s first reading and Gospel show us how it is possible – by contemplating how much we have been forgiven by God and the price that Jesus paid on the cross so that we might enjoy the forgiveness that leads to healing and joy’.

Fr Billy Swan