COVID 19 Pandemic Prayer

Many experts write about the characteristics of leaders, but really a little common sense and reflection can help us figure what are the most important characteristics of good leaders.  Three of the most important characteristics are: Trust, Vision and Respect for others.  Jesus is the leader extraordinaire; James Hind wrote: “Christ was the most effective executive in the history of the human race.  The results He achieved are second to none.  In only three years, He defined a mission and formed strategies and plans to carry it out.  With a staff of twelve unlikely men, He organized Christianity, which has grown to … 1.5 billion … He recruited, trained, and motivated twelve ordinary men to become extraordinary.  He is the greatest manager and developer of people ever.”  (The Heart & Soul of Effective Management: A Christian Approach to Managing & Motivating People (1973), p.13-14)

You and I are called to be part on His organization Christianity, His vision statement is for His followers to “Love God and love each other.”  During the COVID 19 Pandemic loving God and loving each other is challenged in many small ways.  By living each day aware that COVID 19 has temporarily altered our lifestyle, but not our choice to love God and love each other, we can continue to focus on God's love.

 

Today see God in each person you interact with today, and if today you don’t interact with anyone, see God in your mirror.  St. Augustine said, "There are two loves, the love of God and the love of the world.  If the love of the world takes possession of you, there is no way for the love of God to enter into you.  Let the love of the world take the second place and let the love of God dwell in you.  Let the better love take over." 

St. Francis de Sales wrote, "Always be impartial and just in your deeds. 

Put yourself into your neighbor’s place, and him in yours, and then you will judge fairly . . . Frequently, therefore, examine your heart, whether it is so disposed towards your neighbor, as you would have his disposed towards you, were you to change places; for this is the true test."

“God takes pleasure to see you take your little steps; and like a good father who holds his child by the hand, He will accommodate His steps to yours and will be content to go no faster than you. Why do you worry?”

Let the better love permeate you today and every day, take little steps toward Jesus and He will guide you.

May God Be Praised!

COVID 19 Pandemic Prayer

Ask, Seek, Knock, Trust

   

“This is what God asks of you: trust in the one whom he has sent, alleluia.”    

[Antiphon for the Canticle of Mary, Evening Prayer Week III]

During this COVID Crisis TRUSTING that the Lord is with us is hard to do, so we must give every day to God and do God’s will as best we can.  St. Luke tells us, "For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and the one who knocks, the door will be opened."  [Luke 11: 1-13]

A woman asks, "Please, God, cure me of my cancer."  In dealing with her illness, she has accepted her mortality.  She comes to cherish each moment she has.  Her relationship with her husband becomes stronger; she grows closer to her children, especially one daughter from whom she had become increasingly distant.  The disease runs its course - but she learns to live her life to the full and she spends every moment to the end in the embrace of her loving family.  And it is that love that she leaves behind.  She asks - and she receives insight, understanding and peace.

   

Jesus teaches to Ask, Seek, Knock, often His answer is not what we asked for and we must decide to accept His answer and enrich our lives with Him or get annoyed with the Lord and ask Him what are You doing? 

We often approach prayer as trying to wring gifts from an unwilling God; in fact, we come before a God who knows our needs better than we do ourselves. That's the disciple's faith: to TRUST enough to continue to act in the spirit of Jesus' servanthood, to continue to seek God in hidden places with the assurance that, in someone or something, we will find him.  [Ask / Seek / Knock  Connections -- JULY 2016]

 

Prayer is the awareness of God as the source of all that is good and the ultimate fulfillment of our life's journey.  [Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray.]

Trust that God is with you on this COVID 19 Journey, give the Lord your worries, your anxious thoughts and your fears.  God will put them on the Cross with His Son.  Use this pandemic pause in your life to grow more deeply in love with God and to abandon your will for His, TRUST Him.

May God Be Praised!

COVID 19 Pandemic Prayer

 

 

St. Brendan wrote, "Help me to journey beyond the familiar and into the unknown. Give me the faith to leave old ways and break fresh ground with You."  A powerful insight for our COVID 19 Pandemic Times.

Reflect on this story about the man in the desert, he hears a voice say – pick-up stones and pebbles and put them in your pocket; tomorrow you will be both happy and sad.  The next morning he looked in his pocket and found diamonds, gold and rubbies, he was happy he put some in his pockets, but very sad that he didn’t put a whole lot more in his pockets!

    

This time of COVID 19 Stay at Home is our time in the desert, we can pick up the stones of prayer and pebbles of quiet reflection, and when the Pandemic eases we can continue with them and be happy, or we could return to Pre-Covid 19 habits and be sad we didn’t use our stay at home time to grow closer to our Lord and Savior.

Don’t lose confidence and faith in the Lord, ponder this message from scripture, “I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.”  (Jeremiah [31:13])

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque said, “No other grace can be compared with that of carrying the cross out of love for our Lord.” 

[Thoughts and Sayings of St. Margaret Mary, p.79] 

During this COVID 19 Pandemic maybe we are called to be Simon helping Jesus carry the COVID cross while helping each of through this crisis.

May God Be Praised!

 






 COVID 19 Pandemic Prayer

We are in the Third Week, yet it seems like we really haven’t celebrated Easter, so today shout as loud as you can: He is Risen – ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA!

“ So many words ready to burst forth.

Words of poets.

Words of scientists.

Words of musicians.

Words of theologians.

Words of artists.

All waiting to be born.

Words eager to give birth to the one immortal idea of all ages.

And the only words that find life are so simple, so brief, so uncomplicated that many great minds have overlooked them:

‘He has risen!’

The Word is risen.” 

(Stations of the Cross, by Rev. T. Ronald Haney, with Illustrations by Bro. Michael O’Neill McGrath, OSFS)

Today take some time to meditate on that awesome thought, on that awesome reality, on that awesome belief, “HE IS RISEN, HE IS RISEN.” 

COVID 19 diverts us from focusing on God’s great love.  Today thank God for creating you to live during this Pandemic, the world needs your prayers, the world needs your love, the world needs your faith, and most importantly the world needs your hope.

May God Be Praised!

COVID 19 Pandemic Prayer









A Powerful message, into whose hands are you putting your life, your worries, your anxieties, your fears, your hopes and your prayers?

https://twitter.com/franklin_graham/status/1254145119982432258?s=21

Put your life into Jesus' hands, He will hold you and He will guide you to eternal joy.

May God Be Praised!

N.B.  This hands message came from my son [Brian] who got it from Franklin Graham who doesn't know the man, but likes the message.

A Prayer for an End to the Covid 19 Pandemic

During our current Pandemic, we can use Social Distancing, washing our hands with soap & water [or puerile], staying at home and wearing our mask as prayers, asking God to help us end the COVID 19 Pandemic, asking God to help those suffering the most in this crisis.   

St. Luke reminds us about proper social distance, “… all his acquaintances stood at a distance ….”  [Luke 23]

Brother Mickey McGrath Who would have ever thought that Pilate would remind us to wash our hands?

Today take a few minutes to focus on God’s Gift of FAITH and renew your commitment to allow that gift to form you with GRATITUDE!  The COVID 19 Pandemic challenges to think about our perspective on life itself: the peaks and valleys, the joys and sorrows, and the successes and failures.  Each one of them can help us grow closer to God; closer to our creator.

Consider the parable of the workers in the vineyard [Matthew 20], they were each paid the same wage.  Robert De Moor wrote, “This parable … offends our sense of fairness.  Why should everyone get equal pay for unequal work?  Back in Ontario when the apples ripened, Mom would sit all seven of us down, Dad included, with pans and pairing knives until the of fruit was reduced to neat rows of filled canning jars. 

She never bothered keeping track of how many we did, though the younger ones undoubtedly proved more of a nuisance than help: cut fingers, squabbles over who got which pan, apple core fight. … when the job was done, the reward for everyone was the same: the largest chocolate-dipped cone money could buy.  A stickler could argue it wasn’t quite fair since the older ones actually peeled apples. 

But I can’t remember anyone complaining about it.  A family understands it operates under a different set of norms…. God wants all his children to enjoy the complete fullness of eternal.  (Sermon Illustrations 09/18/11)

God wants each of us to know that His love is personal and total.  God loves the first responders and those of us who are in our homes.  We cannot earn God’s love – we can only accept it or reject it!  We can allow God’s love to form us and guide us or ignore the wonderful gift God offers! 

 

Many are sick and we should pray for them, their families, the medical people treating them and for our government leaders.  We can pray for them when we are washing our hands, when we stand 6 feet apart or wear our mask in public.  These COVID 19 actions can remind us of our need to pray at the beginning of the day, in the middle of the day, at evening or all day and night.  May the water you use to wash your hands remind you of your Baptism when you became a child of God.  God wants you to know He is listening and as Julian of Norwich wrote, “All shall be well, all manner of things shall be well.”  Give your anxiety, your worries and your cares to Jesus, He will take care of them.

May God Be Blessed!