Join us for our first MDP Young Adults lunch held on the grounds of MDP! After 11:30 Mass this Sunday (March 3), young adults in the Parish (Ages 20-39) are welcome to join us in Providence Hall for a delicious pizza lunch! A small donation is suggested.
RSVPs to youngadults@mdpparish.com are recommended but not required.
During Lent our focus is on Prayer, Fasting and Alms Giving. Our Lectio Divina Prayer Series continues on the Thursdays during Lent up to and including March 14th. We meet in the parish office building after the 8 A.M. Mass and at 7 P.M. Our hope is that these times can accommodate all who wish to attend. If you are not able to be with us, scroll down to the Lectio Divina “Lesson” in this blog for the steps for this prayer with Sacred Scripture. We use the Gospel for the upcoming Sunday.
Our Rice Bowl Collection is a way to participate in Alms Giving. Each week we highlight a country that is helped by our donations to Catholic Relief Services and how that donation is used. Let us reflect on the help needed in East Timor and be as generous as possible.
Country Spotlight: East Timor (an island nation near Australia) Tuberculosis is a major health crisis for the close knit people. Catholic Social Teaching: Community and Participation — Human beings are not only sacred, but also social. How we participate in our families and communities, from our daily actions to our policy decisions, affects each and every person. How CRS helped: CRS is working with health centers, prisons, boarding schools and orphanages in East Timor to help reduce the incidence and burden of TB using several strategies:
Reflection Question: If you recognize Christ in the faces of the human family, what new steps might you take this Lent to draw closer to Him? Can you commit to one of those steps?
The Church has been through a lot this week. Our Holy Father has confronted and revealed his human weakness and in humility has retired from the Petrine Ministry given him.
The Holy Spirit moves in mysterious ways and so when Jesus becomes ‘filled with the Holy Spirit,’ as He does in today’s Gospel, He is moved into the desert to confront and reveal. Jesus was just not pretending to be tempted. His humanity was so complete that the devil himself felt arrogant enough to approach Jesus face to face.
Jesus confronts these temptations and from these temptations He reveals the Truth that conquers lies.
The first lie is that you need material things to satisfy your hunger for sin. But Jesus reveals that there is more to life than material things. The second lie is that if you make other people gods and allow them to lead you into sin, you will have power and glory. But Jesus reveals that we should worship God alone and be led by Him to heaven. Him alone do we serve.
And the third deception is if you put God to the test by trying to bargain with Him. If you try to use Him as an excuse for why you make bad decisions or why bad things have happened to you. If you make yourself God, the angels will help you and lift you up. Jesus reveals, ‘You shall not put the Lord to the test.’
We confront these temptations every day. We need prayer and spiritual disciplines to face these deceptions and be open to the revelation of Jesus from the Cross on Calvary. We need to call upon Jesus to help us.
When Saint Paul tells us “no one who believes in Him will be put to shame,” he means that we will never be left alone. We will always have parishioners to help us, the Sacraments to strengthen us, Saints to lift us up, and Jesus to love us. We are not alone.
Today begins our parish’s special devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. These next Forty Hours will be a turning point in our lives if we leave off our temptation not to participate and make every effort to attend. There is great power here. We have much to pray for, much to be thankful for and much to adore.
Friends, like life, Lent can be difficult, but it is also a gift that helps us confront the reality of sin in our life and reveal the power of His reconciling love.
During the season of Lent, we are asked to Pray, Fast and Give Alms. Our parish is offering a Lectio Divina Prayer series on the Thursday’s in Lent in the morning after the 8 A.M. Mass and again in the evening at 7 P.M. in the Parish Office Building. This will offer parishioners an opportunity to experience another form of prayer.
Our Rice Bowl Collection (in the poor boxes) give us an opportunity to give alms to those most in need. By participating in this effort, we can assist our neighbors across the world. Each week we will be spotlighting a country helped by Catholic Relief Services. We will also highlight a Catholic Social teaching on which we can reflect. How do I live my life in keeping with what the church teaches about social justice? The following is our first offering:
Country Spotlight: Burkina Faso (West Africa) As a result of poor rainfall, soil degradation, high population density and inadequate agriculture practices, farmers are often unable to produce enough food to feed themselves and their families for the entire year.
Catholic Social Teaching: Option for the Poor. As a community of faith, we have the obligations to reach out to those who are most in need. The Gospel calls us to take action on behalf of the most vulnerable members of society.
How CRS helped: CRS helped to establish a small irrigated plot of land in Lelegse that the local population could use to practice new planting techniques. The plot is managed by three committees comprised of local farmers and community members: 1) the water supply and management committee, 2) the motor pump repair and management committee and 3) The seed supply committee.
Reflection Question: How does the world, society or community in which we live tempt us to live for ourselves, without regard to other?
On the Thursdays during Lent, we will be meeting in the parish office building after the 8 A.M. Mass and again at 7 P.M. to pray with the scriptures. Lectio Divina is a form of praying with sacred scripture that moves the Word of God from our mind to our heart. We will be using the Gospel for the upcoming Sunday.
If you are not able to join us, you can pray with the Scriptures at home. This prayer is done in four easy steps. Each step begins with the reading of a particular scripture passage.
Step 1 – LECTIO — Read the scripture passage that you have chosen with a different mind set. Remember that we are reading the WORD of God. What is God saying to you today? What word or words in the passage touch your heart.
Step 2 – MEDITATIO — Read the passage again and reflect on the Word. Where do you see yourself in this reading? Are you an observer? Are you one of the characters in the passage? Are you able to place yourself in this picture?
Step 3 – ORATIO — Read the passage again and see how the Spirit is drawing you through the passage. How might God be touching your deepest desire? How might God be inviting you to attune your mind and heart to goodness, love and compassion? Pray your desire in the form of a petition.
Step 4 – CONTEMPLATIO — This final step is that of Contemplation – being with. This movement takes us to a sense of peace in God’s presence. Enter into the silence and rest in the heart of God. How is He touching your life?
“This is nothing else than a secret and peaceful and loving inflow of God, which, if not hampered, fires the soul in the spirit of love.” This is God’s action in us.
This pray may be done with any scripture passage,piece of poetry or spiritual reading.God
touches us in ways we cannot imagine. Let us be transformed by the Word of God during this time of Lent.
Luke describes for us the beginning of the Public Ministry of Jesus by remembering Him opening the Scriptures. The living Word of God is proclaimed and when it is, the Word is fulfilled.
This, my friends, is the ancient Tradition of the Church called, Lectio Divina, the Divine Word. It is a practice of meditating with the Scripture and allowing the Holy Spirit to direct you in ways He wills. It is a surrender to the thoughts and direction of God for each of us in our lives.
This gathering today of the People of God in King of Prussia reveals to our community that we are part of the Body of Christ. We are members of the Church. Paul describes the character of that body for us: First, we are one in communion with Christ, the High Priest. And second, even the weak have a place among us as equals not greater or lesser. If one member suffers in any way all members suffer. If one is honored, all are honored.
We do not all share the same gifts. I am a celibate, many of you are single, married, consecrated, or are maturing toward those vocations. But though we are called in different ways, we share the same goal: union with Christ in heaven.
And so, God has determined to reveal to us a Scripture passage on which all of us should meditate: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me, to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim this good message to the world.”
My friends, there are many in our community who are captives in sin, who are blinded by their ambition, greed or busyness, oppressed by their own perceptions of how things should and must be. Go out to them and reveal to them in your thoughts, words and deeds that there is a better way. Tell them about your own encounters with Jesus. Welcome them to our parish Church and help them encounter Christ for themselves. Help them see God among us. This is the Living Word given to us today in the Holy Scripture!
As we come together to pray on the eve of the March for Life, I would like to look back to the prophetic document of Paul VI, On Human Life, and in that light, acknowledge the rapid collapse of the human family, but also the great hope given to us by Christ Who makes all things new!
Paul VI addresses the question of human procreation, which touches the purpose and nature of human life. The human person involves more than science or statistics. It involves the whole person, body and soul, who is called to reflect God Himself.
Certainly, we can ignore the need to be a integral person, blaming our busyness and distractions for the problems we encounter, but we cannot avoid the natural consequences of our ignorance that hinder the nurturing of a life in holy communion with Christ.
The social and cultural crisis we face today centers on our coming abandonment of true married love and on our growing inability to relate to one another with a love that is centered in the life and sacrifice of Jesus.
Marriage is an institution of God to fulfill His Plan for our salvation. As a consequence, husband and wife, through mutual sacrifice, and a maturing in their life together, cooperate with God in the conception and rearing of children.
Without God as the core of the family, human life will disintegrate along with its dignity. As our society continues to separate itself from God, even in our public discourse, Paul VI predicted a growing marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards that leads to a greater false tolerance of self-indulgence in a cruder, less human and more angry public sphere.
All of us are aware of how far human nature can be isolated from God. We are just now coming to understand the dangers this isolation brings to the young who are overly exposed to temptation, bombarded with useless information, noise and busyness. These are all distractions that will isolate them from the nurturing family we try so hard to create. Our children need new and more creative incentives to keep the moral law, and participate in a family that has God and marital love at its core.
It is an evil thing to make it easy for children not to choose Christ.
Another issue which has become common place in our society even among fellow Christians and contributes to the further isolation of the human heart is the use of contraceptives which isolate the marital act from God and leads to a lesser reverence for a spouse as the image of Christ; reducing the Act to a means of personal satisfaction rather than elevating it as the sacred bond it is. When we isolate God, we forget true love.
Finally, the Pope warned against giving to a state the power to regulate marital life, which is the heart of every human family. “We run the risk of having an amoral authority intervening in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife,” he said.
Just this past Monday, we were promised a more active disintegration of marriage and a continuance of the culture of death whose tenets arrogantly defy natural life as God created it.
We continue to hear of Catholic hospitals and universities where administrators separate themselves from the Bishops and gloss over moral discernment in an attempt to become more secular, more ‘sensitive’ to the culture of death or more falsely ‘tolerant’ of other opinions rather than a true respect for them. This has led to the taking of more innocent life and the acceptance of more inhuman acts toward human dignity.
What is more tragic for us as Christians is our tendency to ignore the progress of this alienation and pretend it will all go away; that somehow people will get a hold of themselves and start behaving more Christian, more polite, more human. Our silence gives consent and the Truth remains the Truth. When we reject the dignity of human life, we reject Christ and cannot claim to be in full communion with Him.
My dear friends, all around us we see the effects of our cultural attempt to separate God and Man; denying the sanctity of human life, on streets, in our work and in the market. What happens there affects us all. It influences our families, our spouses and our children.
Paul VI wrote these things in the late sixties and he has proved prophetic for us today. He recognized that within this great human suffering would emerge a great longing for holiness. People will begin in their deserted, lonely and alienated lives to appreciate the need for grace and real human love.
These are dangerous times; they are also times of great hope based in the faith we profess here before God. We are the unashamed believers in Christ. We believe in the Church as Christ Who teaches through our Archbishop. We believe in true human freedom, and in the right of all people to live and pursue the mission God has given them to complete.
We have each other and we have Christ in the Sacraments. It will not be easy, but it will be the right thing to do. So we believe, so we must act!
For young adults in the parish, we have a Holy Hour and dinner with Father Cioppi this coming Friday (January 18th) at MDP! Event starts at 6:30 at the Church. To RSVP or if you have any questions, please email youngadults@mdpparish.com
Most Reverend Daniel E. Thomas, our Regional Bishop, will be making a Canonical Visit to Mother of Divine Providence Parish on Saturday, February 2nd through Monday, February 4th. Every parish in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is visited every five years. Bishop Thomas will be celebrating the 5:15 PM Vigil Mass on Saturday evening and the 11:30 AM Mass on Sunday morning.
While he is here, Bishop Thomas will be meeting with the priests and deacon and the Director of Religious Education of the parish and will be reviewing the Sacramental Records. On Monday, Bishop Thomas will be visiting our regional elementary school. He will meet with Mrs. Garvin, the principal and Mrs. Gilmore, the Director of Religious Education. He will also visit all the classrooms and have lunch with the school faculty.
The occasion of the Canonical Visit of our Regional Bishop is an important event in the life of our parish. Bishop Thomas is the representative of our Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M., Cap. He is visiting us on Archbishop’s behalf to learn about our parish and to support and encourage us a community of faith. Their visit is a wonderful expression of our union with our Archbishop and with all the other parishes in the Archdiocese.
Please join me in welcoming Bishop Thomas and praying for the success of the upcoming Canonical Visit.