Faith Reflection: Mercy—Love in action
Before Thanksgiving I had the opportunity to work with the 8th graders for a little longer then the ten minutes I spend with them each Tuesday morning after assembly. During this time with them we did a quick write looking at the Beatitudes with modern eyes as Pope Francis had done earlier this month in Sweden. Three of the 8th graders came back with quick writes that were too long to use as a Tweet so I would like to present them here every other week in lieu of the Pope’s beatitudes that I started using last time. I will use William’s first simply because his was the first of the longer quick writes that I received.
As we have concluded the Year of Mercy we keep in mind that “mercy cannot become a mere parenthesis in the life of the Church,” Pope Francis wrote in his Apostolic Letter a week ago. With that in mind Tyler’s thoughts made a nice pairing with both William’s modern beatitude and the Pope’s call to keep mercy alive. These writings also do double duty as thoughtful reflections for this season of Advent.
Modern Beatitude: “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” A modern, more sensical way to explain this is: God will bless those who fight peacefully for what they believe is right, for they will be satisfied with the results. In this modern version, we compare those who peacefully protest for the right things with those hungering for righteousness. We also compare God blessing us by giving us what is right to how God will satisfy our wants for the right things.—William, 8th grade
Mercy essay
by Tyler Nelson
I evangelized mercy by giving to the poor, helping others, and praying for others. Jesus gave his life for us. Jesus gave clothing, food, water, and time for us. God gave us many special things and loved us all. Jesus gave even the people that killed him mercy by sparing them. All in all I give mercy to a lot of people and so should you.
To sign up for more Advent reflections go to WordonFire.org http://adventreflections.com/sign-up-advent. These daily reflections are available in both English and Spanish.
Our parish Advent Mission, With Fr. Patrick Keyes, CSsR, has two more talks, both in English at Olive. Tonight, Wed, 30 Nov from 7-8:00p and Thursday morning 8-9a. The service that concludes the mission is Thursday at Olive from 7-8:30p and is bilingual.
The next Cinema for the Soul will be Thursday, 22 December upstairs in the Olive parish hall. Miss Morrison will be showing The Finest Hours, about a daring rescue made by the Coast Guard in 1952.
Monday night from 7-8p El Carmelo continues to offer a quiet time of Adoration, Rosary and Confession.
Thank you. Mrs. Alhadef