NEWSLETTER INSERTS – THIRTEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

‘Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, for He is going to say: 'I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’

St Benedict

'The bread you store up belongs to the hungry; the cloak that lies in your chest belongs to the naked; the gold you have hidden in the ground belongs to the poor. Christians should offer their brethren simple and unpretentious hospitality'.

St Basil the Great

'We ought to pour out our hearts and our time for the poor. We are called to serve them, not just with bread, but with a cheerful and willing heart.'

St Elizabeth of Hungary

‘There is no St. without a past no Sinner without a future. it is sufficient to answer the invitation with the humble and sincere heart. The church is not a community of the perfect but rather of journeying disciples who followed the Lord because they recognized themselves as sinners and in need of his forgiveness.’

Pope Francis, Gen. Audience, 13th April, 2016

On dying and rising:

‘Each day deep within ourselves Israel departs from Egypt each day it is nourished with mana each day it fulfills the law each day it must engage in combat.’

H. de Lubac

‘In middle age we may lose some of our youthfulness but realize that what’s inside is more important than how we look on the outside. In retirement we may lose income, but we find more freedom to do the things maybe we had no time for before. In old age we may lose independence, but we receive back some of the love we gave to others. When we lose possessions, we find after mourning their loss we are freer and less burdened, realizing that we were meant to travel lightly through this world. We may lose items or abilities, only to realize how much we appreciate that which we have left. We might lose loved ones and mourn their loss but come in time to see the time we had with them as sources of blessing, gratitude and reasons to praise. Finally, when that moment comes for all of us to die, if we have grasped this freedom from fear that Jesus has given us then there will be no reason to be afraid for the one who loved us since we were conceived will be waiting for us’.

Fr Billy Swan

'Christian tradition has always considered Saint Peter and Saint Paul to be inseparable. By keeping together the lives of Peter and Paul, the Church is bringing something important to our attention: namely the need to hold together what Peter and Paul represent in the Christian life, namely the necessity of both structure and spirit’.

Fr Billy Swan