April 22, 2020 Reflection – There must be holiness in the family
There must be holiness in the families… April 22, 2020 Dear Family of May! “Dear children! Today I am calling you to pray even more, until you feel the holiness of forgiveness in your heart. There must be holiness in the families, little children, because there is no future for the world without love and holiness – because in holiness and joy, you give yourselves to God the Creator who loves you with immeasurable love. This is why He sends me to you. Thank you for having responded to my call.” (January 25, 2020) Our families are so important. We are bound together, for good or ill. So many blessings come through our families…the first being our lives. But so many wounds can also come through the family as well. So we have to seek holiness and forgiveness, constantly. It is key for our future. St. John Paul II poured himself out trying to bless and heal the family throughout his pontificate. He gave us so much good teaching, so much counsel and light!! So, I looked for a prayer written by him for the family and found this beautiful prayer written to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Let’s pray it in response to the January 25, 2020 message: St. John Paul II visited Mexico the first year of his pontificate in 1979. He visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe and recited the prayer below. Prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe by St. John Paul II O Virgin of Guadalupe, Mother of the Americas, grant to our homes the grace of loving and respecting life in its beginnings, with the same love with which you conceived in your womb the life of the Son of God. Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Fair love, protect our families so that they may always be united and bless the upbringing of our children. Our hope, look upon us with pity, teach us to go continually to Jesus, and if we fall, help us to rise again and return to him through the confession of our faults and our sins in the sacrament of penance, which gives peace to the soul. We beg you to grant us a great love of all the holy sacraments, which are, as it were, the signs that your Son left us on earth. Thus, Most Holy Mother, with the peace of God in our consciences, with our hearts free from evil and hatred, we will be able to bring to all others true joy and true peace, which come to us from your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen. Thank you, St. John Paul II!! Pray for us!! In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2020