Faith Reflection: Mercy—The Beauty of Our Young
I don’t know if it’s because a friend in Uganda recently asked for prayers for a couple kids who are suffering from rickets because of the drought they are experiencing, or because I’ve been seeing too much Catholic in-house fighting on Twitter, or because I saw a greater amount of trash on Tuesday when I brought some stuff to the homeless in the park next to the courthouse in San Bernardino, but somewhere along the line I realized I had had an encounter with Christ. It just wasn’t the warm, fuzzy encounter I was hoping for and I almost missed it. That’s exactly the going deeper in the struggle with what we find difficult that I was talking about last week. Luckily the drive home from San Bernardino was during rush hour traffic and I had a little more time in the car to pray and it hit me that Jesus is looking on me with eyes of mercy and a whole host of challenges is leading me to a conversion. I just need to stay the course. It’s only the first week of Lent but I pray you too are thinking, speaking and living God as our 7th grader writes about, even if it’s difficult and not a warm, fuzzy encounter with our Lord you, too, might have hoped for. In the end Jesus will recreate us in the way he knows is best for us.
Our Youth
by Victoria
How do you have strong faith in your adulthood? By always practicing your faith while you are young your faith will be stronger when we are an adult. In our youth we must keep our faith strong. How do you keep your faith strong as a youth? To keep your faith strong as a youth you should follow a few steps to think God, speak God, and live God.
To think God, speak God, and live God, the easiest thing to do is pray. Whenever you want to talk to God you should pray to God. Prayer is talking to God. If you need something you should pray to God for help. Something you can ask God is, ”Please help me to be patient with my little sister,” or “Give me the grace to forgive and forget.” Praying is also thanking God. You should pray to thank God whenever you get something or earn something.
To think God you should read the Bible on your own. By reading the Bible you are reminded that God is always there for you. To speak God you can lector at Mass. By being a lector at Mass you can tell people about the Good News. To live God you can always remember God in everything you do. You can always remember God by doing what God would do and be a friend to all.
To have a strong faith filled adult life it all begins with your youth. As a youth you need to remember to always incorporate God. Remember, think God, speak God, and live God; to do this pray, read the Bible, and always remember God.
Relics of Saint Padre Pio will be here in our Diocese next month. You will be able to venerate his relics at Queen of Angels Church in Riverside on Wednesday, March 14th from 9am to 9pm. There will be both an 8am and 7pm Mass at Queen of Angels. His relics will then move to Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral in San Bernardino the following day, March 15th. The relics will only be available from 8am to 12noon at the Cathedral. Saint Padre Pio was a Fransican (Capuchian) and our Diocese is named after St. Bernardine, a Franciscan who helped popularize the IHS monogram. What a lovely way to begin our 40th anniversary celebration as a diocese.
There will be no fish fry this Friday after the Stations of the Cross because of the retreat that will be taking place this weekend in the parish hall. There will still be Confessions from 6-7p.
Thank you. Mrs. Alhadef