COLLECT SERIES
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The Mass: Collect Series Icon. |
COLLECT
The Collect for the Fifth Sunday of Eastertide Year A reads as follows:
Almighty
ever- living God,
You constantly accomplish the Paschal Mystery within us,
That those
you were pleased to make new in Holy Baptism
may, under Your protective care,
Bear much
fruit and come to the joys of live eternal.
Through
our Lord Jesus Christ Your Son,
Who lives
and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
One God
for ever and ever.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
In making
this prayer tangible for during the week, the following reflection questions emerged:
1.What
does the Paschal Mystery mean to me?
2. How
has God accomplished the Paschal Mystery within me during my life up to this
point?
3. How
will God accomplish the Pascal Mystery within me during this coming week?
4. What
does Holy Baptism provide throughout my life?
Why not spend some time this coming week reading either Compendium of
Catholic Church and/or Catechism of Catholic Church to understand more about
the gift of Baptism.
5.Consider how God has protected You in my life. Have I acknowledged this protective care
and said thank to God?
6.What
fruits will I bear this coming week?
7. Why
do I want to come to the joys of life eternal?
8 How
can I live the joys of life eternal this coming week?
GOSPEL
In
this time of pandemic or even at other times, we can feel alone, abandoned, fearful
and desolate. In these times, we may
even doubt that Jesus is with us. We
might even feel that Jesus is not hearing our prayers, not listening or perhaps
even does not care. We may feel that we do not know the way and have given up
on life.
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| lighting a candle. |
The
truth from today’s Gospel is that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He
is the face of the Father and to know Him is to know the Father. When we are fearful, alone, feel abandoned,
desolate or have given up on life, we need to turn to Jesus because not only He
is the Way, the Truth and the Life but
He is the light who will shine in our darkness, in our despair, in our
bleakness.
Of
course, Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life always. We need to turn to Him always, not just in
difficult times. Is Jesus no 1 in our
lives? Is Jesus our best friend whom we
can share every detail of our lives with Him.
Yes, He knows before we share with Him, but nothing is too small for Jesus
to know about us. He wants to spend time
with us too, because He made us in the image of likeness of God- in other words,
in His own image. How amazing!!
When
truth these days has been resorted to relative truth, Jesus is Truth- absolute
and unchanging, steady and compassionate.
When we are uncertain, we can ask Him to show us His truth. Jesus will
give us enlightenment so that we will know with certainty His truth and His
truth for our lives.
Jesus
offers us eternal life. Jesus is the
Life. Life with Jesus starts here on earth-
imperfect because we, as His creatures are imperfect. Yet, Life with Jesus
starts here when we place Jesus as no 1 in our lives. Where is Jesus in our lives today?
We are
here to know, love and serve and be happy with Him for ever in Heaven. That is
the purpose of life. They are not my own
words about the purpose of life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us
so. We need to draw near to Jesus and ask Him to help us to know Him better, to
love Him and to serve Him. In doing this every day, we will also come to know a
happiness in our souls that is a glimpse of what it may be in Heaven. When we say the Our Father, we say
’ Thy
will be done on earth as it is in Heaven’.
Is this a reality for our lives?
How do
we response to this pandemic? We can view
it as a problem which is too big, to complicated, to difficult to solve or we can
view the pandemic as an opportunity to view our lives totally- to take a stock
take of both physical, emotional and especially our spiritual lives. We can use
this time of lock down as a time to come to know, love and serve Jesus and we
can use it to come to know Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Yes,
these are uncertain times but we know that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
We do not need to fear with Jesus as our best friend, our guide and our hope.
May we
all turn our lives to Him and come to Our Father through Jesus.
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