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The Lord's Prayer in Filipino Sign Language Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)  Gospel  Mark 7:31-37   (Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition) Then Jesus returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of the Decapolis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech; and they besought him to lay his hand upon him. And taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. And he charged them to tell no one; but the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were asto

 Estefanio Luceño with his wife Teresita, 60 years married, taken in Dahilayan, Bukidnon, last year Please pray for the repose of the soul of Estefanio A Luceño who died in Pagadian City on Holy Saturday, 7 April, and will be buried there on Easter Saturday, 14 April. He was 85 and the father of Aurora Luceño, a long-term Columban lay missionary who has spent much of her time in Pakistan. Many of us have read stories, including vocation stories, about and by missionaries and been inspired by them. We don't hear quite as often from the parents of missionaries, about their part in the vocation stories of their sons and daughters or of what it costs them. Below is an article we published in Misyon , the Columban magazine I edit here in the Philippines, in January-February 2004 by the late Estefanio: We had to let her go . Now God has asked his wife and family to let him go. As the Irish prayer for the dead goes, 'May the light of heaven shine upon him'. Aurora Luceño, kno

Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin , with the round tower over the grave of Daniel O'Connell  There is a beautiful letter in today's Irish Independent expressing the writer's gratitude to those who had helped his mother in her latter days. He mentions, among others, bus drivers. I have seen many acts of kindness by drivers and passengers over the years on buses here in Dublin and similar acts of kindness in all sorts of ordinary situations. 'Whoever has eyes to see . . .' I buried my mother in Dublin last week. Her quality of life became poor over her last two years as she battled against the effects of earlier smoking on her eyesight, heart and lungs. But the people of Dublin were there to help. Bus drivers left their buses and walked her across to her little apartment; some even helped her up the steps and into her little 'home'. Three complete strangers, her "three angels", did her shopping, washing and ironing and took her to get her silver hair

I wasn't familiar with the movement called Rachel's Challenge until recently, when the public high school where I work sponsored a speaker from the nonprofit organization. The father of Rachel Scott, the first victim of the Columbine High School shootings on April 20, 1999, started the group to promote his late daughter's two-page Code of Ethics, which she wrote a month before her murder. The code challenges people to be kind. Priest friends and psychologists have told me that the death of one's child is a loss that is impossible to "get over." It is hard to consider how Rachel Scott's father feels, knowing his 17-year-old daughter was gunned down for no reason except she was sitting outside eating lunch in the sunshine with friends. Read more here...

I recently read an article titled “ The Teaching of the Catholic Church on Home Schooling – Parents for Eternal Life ” by Jesuit priest Fr. John Hardon, and the following paragraph really struck me: “...what they (children) mainly need is to know why God made them; why they are on earth at all; why they are in this world; that  they are here in this life in order to prepare and train themselves for the world to come . In a word,  children are to be taught that their short stay here in time is only a preparation for the world that will never end . They are to be trained for heaven.” Our kids need to be “trained for heaven”?! What a big responsibility we parents have then! In fact, Fr. Hardon goes on to say: “The Church teaches that, ‘Under God, parents are the  first in time, first in authority, first in responsibility, first in supernatural ability, and first in dignity  to  educate their children for eternal life .’” “... believing Catholic parents ...must be convinced that

Picture source "We are pilgrims, we live in a temporary inn, we are in transit, and this is not our homeland." - St. Gaspar del Bufalo - Magnficat, January 2011 "Detach yourself instantly which removes or can remove you from God.  Let us instantly renounce in affection the goods of this earth before death strips us of them by force." "...if you believe that you must die, that there is an eternity, that you can die only once, and that if you then err your error will be forever, irreparable, why do you not resolve to begin at this moment, to do all in your power to secure a good death?..." - St. Alphonsus de Liguori - Preparation for Death

At a recent funeral of the bother of a very dear family friend I was struck by how comforting all the rituals were to all of us. Almost everyone there was knowledgable about the funeral rites and it allowed us to relax, to be carried along by the rhythm of the liturgy and to be consoled by the comfort of familiar roles and responsibilities. In Catholic funerals, the Church seeks to provide spiritual support for the deceased and honor their bodies, as well as to provide a measure of hope for the family and friends of the deceased. I have been to funerals where the closest thing to ritual was a CD playing “I can’t give you anything but love, Baby,” as the crematorium doors opened. [I kid you not.] Others might find such off-beat funerals meaningful and original, but, when I am deep in sorrow, I don’t want anything new – I want the comfort of the tried and true. Do you feel the same way?