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THE MANTLE [Please send your prayer requests to pray@marianmantle.com or maryann@marianmantle.com] ************************************************** Marian Mantle Prayer Group Update For March 23, 2007 ************************************************** ++MESSAGE FROM THE COORDINATOR Hi, Everyone, Three points of business: 1. With deepest sympathy we report that two of our members, Anita and Mary, have lost their husbands. Please pray for the repose of the mens souls and for comfort and strength for the women. 2. Prayer Group Leader Jane Stucker continues to struggle to regain her health so that she can receive a knee replacement. She is home now, but unable to walk, of course. She continues to fight a bad infection. Please remember her in your prayersand pray for those who are leading the Leavenworth prayer groups in her absence. 3. Do you have news to share with us? We all need to hear about the movement of God in your life and the lives of your prodigals. Thats what helps us all build our own faith that all things are possible for those who love God. Please let us know what is happening in your little corner of the world. 4. One of our prayer group leaders suggested I mention to the group that this is a good time to pray the Way of the Cross from the Prayers for Prodigal series. Her group is doing that during Lent and she thought others may want to also. 5. Aside from praying the rosary novena, what positive action are you taking to light the path for your prodigals return to the church? We would like to compile a list of things our members are doing so we can share it with the group. Please email MaryAnn. 6. If you are part of a small group who gathers to pray for prodigals and would like your group to be included in our prayers and receive emergency prayer requests by email, please let MaryAnn know by email.
Last Sunday we heard the parable of the Prodigal Son. We who have stood and watched with a feeling of helplessness as our children, and other loved ones, seemingly walked away from the Faith of their childhood, may often be tempted to respond to them with motives other than love. In our minds, they have turned away from everything we taught them for so many years. It is difficult to accept. It is sometimes even more difficult to continually show love for them through it all. Last Sunday, Father Balachandra, a priest from India who is helping out at my parish, gave a wonderful homily on the Parable of the Prodigal Son. I asked him for a copy of his words and he generously provided them. I felt we all might benefit from some excerpts. Father first told of a preacher who held up a new $20 bill and asked who wanted it. All hands went up. Then he crumpled it and rubbed it in the dirt and asked who still wanted it. Again, all hands went up. He then said God feels the same way about a good person and a bad person. Basically, both stand equal before God since, as St. Paul says in Romans, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Father says the story of the Prodigal Son begins with a Father and his sonsone bad, one good. By the end of story, Both of them prove themselves to be obstacles to the family unity and harmony which the father desired more than anything. He said that we understand the younger son is a sinner. Sin leads people far from living a life of morality. But no matter how far sinners stray from the father's house, the loving heart of the father always follows them, gently whispering in their hearts, Come home! Come home! " But, Father pointed out, that while the sinful, younger son put his pride aside and went to his father and apologized, the good, elder brothers pride doesnt let him share in the joy. His anger distances him from his own family. Father said, [Because he refuses to join the party] the "good" elder brother brings disunity to the father's house and sorrow to himself. The sins of those who are not good enough (younger brother) as well as the sins of those who are too good (elder brother) are equally obstacles in the realization of unity and harmony in the father's house. Fathers message was, We are all sinners. Whether your sins are more visible like those of the younger son or more hidden like those of the elder son, the message for us today is that we all need to repent and return to the father's house. The younger son needs to turn back from his frivolous lifestyle and return to the father's house and be a responsible and obedient son. The elder son needs to turn back from anger and resentment and learn to share the house with the apparently undeserving younger brother. Father told of a religion teacher who asked her class, Who was hurt the most in the story? One child answered, The fatted calf! Smiling, Father agreed, but suggested the one next to that who was hurt was the elder son who remained outside the family relationship. All because he stuck to his own ideas of fairness and justice and failed to see that the father's ways are not our ways. I agree that the elder son hurt himself tremendously by his refusal to show compassion and love for his brother. But, I think there was another whose heart must have been torn even more. I think the one hurt the most was the Father who felt such joy for the sinner who repented, but at the same time felt such sorrow for the other sinner whose pride kept the family apart. Here at Marian Mantle we have always urged those who pray for a prodigal loved one, to become like the Father of the Prodigal Son who values his children, who gives them the space to exercise their free will, and who waits patiently for his son to return. If we pattern our lives after that father, we are following the example of God the Father who values each of his children, who allows you and me our free will, and who waits patiently for us to return to Him when we sin. Today I ask myself, and I ask each of you to take a look--only at yourself--and ask, In my attitude toward my prodigal Catholic, am I behaving like the Father or am I behaving like the elder son? The future of your familys unity depends upon your answer. May God grant each of us the perseverance of St. Monica and the unconditional love of the father of the Prodigal Son. May the day come swiftly when we, too, are able to say those glorious words, The child for whom I have prayed has come home. Peace, MaryAnn
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[Prayer intentions submitted to this group are shared only in the semi-weekly email update sent to members of the online prayer group. Please keep all of us and our prodigals in your prayers--just as we will pray for you.]
+Our Lady of
Sorrows, pray for us and for our children.
.. If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love. ~1 Corinthians 13: 1, 4-8, 13 .. WORDS OF HOPE
St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) speaks about love: *** If we want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. *** I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I don't know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will NOT ask, How many good things have you done in your life?, rather he will ask, How much LOVE did you put into what you did? *** Intense love does not measure, it just gives. *** Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home. *** The success of love is in the loving - it is not in the result of loving. Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done. *** .. WISH LIST +Stamps +Volunteers to pray before or during the talks scheduled in April and May .. FYI
+If you have good news to
share, contact MaryAnn.
+MaryAnn will present the
talk Silent Strength: Has Someone You Love Left the Church? at
St.
Josephs in Conway Springs, KS on Saturday April 21, 2007 at 1:00pm. All are
invited. Please contact Sally at
phone: 620-456-2403 or
email: sunsally@havilandtelco.com
to reserve your place. +If you attend any of these talks, please stop and say hello and introduce yourself. MaryAnn is always happy to meet our members in person. +If you no longer wish to receive this update, reply with unsubscribe in the body of the email
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