SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY OF YEAR C
28th July 2019


Dear Parishioner,

I wish and pray that you are keeping fine. In this week as we reflect on prayer, I ask you to keep me in your prayers as I will do the same for you. I will go to Lourdes and Fatima on a coach pilgrimage for 10 days. Let us mutually be united in prayers.

The readings today highlight the importance of prayer and the mode of prayer taught by our Lord Jesus Christ.

The first reading concerns the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. God was fed up with the depravity and impure acts against nature of the people. God decided to destroy the two cities. But Abraham prayed to God for the sake of the people. Abraham gives us an example of sincere and intimate prayer. He talked to God as if he was just talking to another human person. He was that intimate to God in prayer.

The second reading is from St. Paul's letter to the Colossians. He talks about baptism. In Jesus, we were baptised, and this made us God's beloved children and inheritors of His kingdom. We are assured by St. Paul that God will always be gracious and merciful to us for we are His beloved children. When we pray, let this be our source of inspiration and hope.

The Gospel is St. Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer. It is shorter than in the other Gospels. The lesson is not only about the formula of prayer. It also reminds us that God is our loving and good Father, infinitely better than any human father. So, we should pray with tenderness, intimacy and full trust in our loving Father since He looks at us as His beloved children.

So let us realise that our Lord will listen to our prayers as we pray to him. As Abraham prayed, let us pray earnestly and be assured that he will patiently listen to our prayers.

SEND, O LORD: HOLY APOSTLES INTO YOUR CHURCH

Fr Sabu Pariyadan RCJ


Notices:

Please remember to pray for:

Daily for the sick clergy of our Diocese

The sick and housebound

Those who have recently died

Years Mind:
Sunday: John Harding
Monday: Yves Kerfone
Wednesday: Fr Michael O'Sullivan


Next Sunday: EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY OF YEAR C

First Reading: Ecclesiastes 1:2,2:21-23
What does a man gain for all his toil?

Second Reading: Colossians 3:1-5,9-11
You must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is.

Gospel: Luke 12:13-21,16:13-19
This hoard of yours, whose will it be?