Communication

Recommended Holy Week Services

How are you holding up? I know I have already given you a few recommendations, but allow me to offer one more. I have always admired Bishop Barron, and if you would like to try a different online experience of Holy Week (or future Sunday Masses), I suggest you give him a try, OK? He is a priest’s priest and a great gift to the church. Actually, my favorite for many years!

Give him a try at:

https://www.wordonfire.org/daily-mass/

Thank you to those who have reached out to me fearing that I may feel lonely or alone. I assure you, I am doing very well. Please remember I have lived a hectic life for almost 6 years now and was always yearning for an extra minute or two. Being the only full-time priest for two parishes is not an easy task. But God has always given me the strength. I have accepted this time of reclusion as a retreat and the days just fly by. I have peace in my heart and pray for all those who are suffering. I pray especially for those who have lost a loved one. I guess I am saying that by accepting this situation from day 1, I have clearly felt God’s protection and love. Silence is a cherished friend and I believe it allows us to look at ourselves and evaluate if we have chosen the correct path. If we simply “fill up the time” and return to the “way it was” asap, we will certainly miss a time of grace and opportunity. There is power in being alone with the God of love who made us and everything.

A bit about charity. Since the crisis began, we have paid out 2400 Euros in food expenses for the families in the most precarious of situations. The Good Neighbor Fund has now been depleted and we are using church funds. As you know, the weekly collections add up to zero. I have been edified but those parishioners who see the value of OLM and have made a true commitment.

If you wish to help a parishioner in need, simply make an online bank transfer:

(tax deductible if you pay Spanish taxes and provide our treasurer your DNI number in the concept)

Account holder:
PARROQUIA HABLA ING. N. S. MERCED MADRID
Bank Details: IBAN: ES07.0186.5001.64.0511473809
Bank Name: Banco Mediolanum
BIC (or SWIFT): BFIVESBB

Thank you for reading all this. May you feel close to the Christ up hung upon the cross for you and me this Good Friday.

May God bless you and keep you safe,

Fr. Ron

A simple email to make your day lighter

I decided to write a simple email today to try and lift your spirits. Elke has contributed some music, and I have given you something to make you smile. BE BLESSED AND KNOW THAT GOD IS NEAR!!!

First, Elke asked the choir to send her their favourite OLM Hymns and then she put them all together in this list.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkzaCrU7PUC8QVH-GchzVbsAMnYxmHaSu

Second, Laughter is the best medicine:

THE MONASTERY

A new monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand. He notices, however, that they are copying from copies, not the original manuscripts. So, the new monk goes to the head monk to ask him about this, pointing out that if there were an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.

The head monk says, “We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son.”

So, he goes down into the cellar with one of the copies to check it against the original. Hours go by and nobody sees him. So, one of the monks goes downstairs to look for him. Hearing sobbing coming from the back of the cellar, he finds the old monk leaning over one of the original books crying. He asks the old monk what’s wrong, and in a choked voice came the reply, “The word is celebrate.”

THE GIFT FROM BELOW

There was an atheist living next door to an old woman who was a Christian.

Everyday he could hear her praying and praising God for all of the things He had done for her. One day the old woman fell on hard times and she had no food in her house.

The atheist overheard her praying to God to please send her some food. So, off the atheist goes to the grocery store, thinking he was gonna fix the old gal once and for all. He bought two bags of groceries and, after placing them on her porch, he rang her bell and then hid in some nearby bushes.

When the old woman came out of her house, she saw the bags of groceries and started giving thanks to the Lord for sending her the food.

At that point, the happy atheist JUMPED from the bushes and shouted, “AH-HA! The Lord didn’t send you those groceries! It was I who put them there!”

Without a pause, the old woman shot back, “PRAISE YOU, DEAR LORD. NOT ONLY DID YOU SEND THE GROCERIES, BUT YOU MADE THE DEVIL PAY FOR THEM!”

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR

A CCD teacher was telling the story of the Good Samaritan to her class of 4 and 5 year-olds. She was making it as vivid as possible to keep the children interested in her tale.

At one point, she asked the class, “If you saw a person lying on the roadside all wounded and bleeding, what would you do?”

A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence, “I think I’d throw up.”

Finally, a NICE AH AND OOH video from Ontario, Canada:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5IYvKdvsNI&feature=emb_logo

Daily Prayer

This beautiful prayer was written by an Italian priest who is self-isolating at the moment and very sadly lost his own brother a few days ago to Covid-19…

I’m staying at home, Lord!

I’m staying at home, Lord! And today, I realise, you taught me this, remaining obedient to the Father, for thirty years in the house of Nazareth, waiting for the great mission.

I stay at home, Lord, and in Joseph’s studio, your keeper and mine, I learn to work, to obey, to round the corners of my life and prepare you a work of art.

I’m staying at home, Lord! And I know that I am not alone because Mary, like any mother, is in the next room, doing chores and preparing lunch for all of us, God’s family.

I’m staying at home, Lord! And I do it responsibly for my own good, for the health of my city, for my loved ones, and for the good of my brother, whom you have put beside me, asking me to take care of him in the garden of life.

I’m staying at home, Lord! And in the silence of Nazareth, I pledge to pray, to read, study, meditate, be useful for small jobs, in order to make our home more beautiful and more welcoming.

I’m staying at home, Lord! And in the morning, I thank you for the new day you give me, trying not to spoil it and welcome it with wonder, as a gift and an Easter surprise.

I’m staying at home, Lord! And at noon I will receive the greeting of the angel, I will make myself useful for love, in communion with you who have made you flesh to live among us; and, tired of the journey, thirsty, I will meet you at Jacob’s well, and thirsty for love on the Cross.

I’m staying at home, Lord! And if the evening takes me melancholy, I will invoke you like the disciples of Emmaus: stay with us, the evening has arrived and the sun sets.

I’m staying at home, Lord! And in the night, in communion of prayer with the many sick, the lonely and all the caregivers, I will wait for the dawn to sing your mercy again and tell everyone that, in the storms, you have been my refuge.

I’m staying at home, Lord! And I don’t feel alone and abandoned, because you told me: I’m with you every day. yes, and especially in these days of confusion, O Lord, in which, if my presence is not necessary, I will reach everyone, only with the wings of prayer.

Amen

A reflection you may find helpful

Although this inspiration is a reflection on the past 3rd Sunday of Lent readings (Jesus and the Samaritan woman), I think that it might be useful for us in our present situation. The question being: Can God forget His people?

Away With Despair

by John W. Martens

When my oldest son was a little boy, he was shopping with my mother and father and saw something on a display shelf that he wanted. He said so. “I want that, I want that.” My mother explained that you cannot have everything you want, but that we buy what we need. He thought about that for a while and then said, “I need that, I need that.” God knows we need things—material things, friends, spiritual insight and love—and God knows that our true needs do not grow out of selfishness or misplaced craving.

We need, though, to discern genuinely between our wants and our needs. For a perfect way to stunt spiritual growth, in Lent or at any time, is to yearn for all the things we want and complain about all the things we do not have. What makes this spiritual discernment particularly difficult is that sometimes we do lack those things that we need, materially, emotionally or spiritually. We must not only discern between want and need; we must maintain trust and hope that God knows our needs and continues to care for us, and will supply our needs.

The Israelites, after being released from slavery, wandered in the desert and soon began to grumble about their situation. The source of their grumbling was a genuine need for water, essential for life, but their need started to erode trust and hope in God’s care for them. Despair was at the heart of their “quarrelling” and “testing,” which resulted in the question, “Is the Lord among us or not?” This is not a question regarding the existence of God, but whether God’s care and compassion extend to the people in need. Trust in God and hope in God begin to wear away. This spiritual erosion can lead any of us to despair, or to ungratefulness and forgetfulness about God’s care in the past, even the recent past, leading us to ask, “What have you done for me lately?”

Sometimes events can overwhelm us. During the years when I worked in crisis intervention, I saw that people in crisis, when their lives were falling apart (and often things truly were falling apart), were not able at certain points to perceive God’s action in their lives or the many blessings and gifts they still had. It is important in this spiritual wandering to simply walk alongside people, because how God was working and why God was working in certain ways often become clear only with time and distance. Only with a glance behind us do we see the ways in which what we have been given was precisely what we needed and at the right time, how sufferings have shaped and molded us and how God has watched out for us when we thought we were abandoned.

The Samaritan woman, for instance, could not have been expecting some new spiritual awakening when she went to perform the simple task of drawing water. Yet her daily chore of drawing water, as necessary for her life as for the Israelites in the desert, led to her encounter with Jesus, who offers her “living water.” Jesus says that anyone who drinks this water “will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” Initially, she misunderstands and just wants this water “so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Ultimately she grasps that what Jesus offers fulfills more than material desires; it is exactly what she and everyone needs.

The water Jesus offers, made visible in the sacrament of baptism, leads to eternal life. In grasping this truth, the Samaritan woman recognizes Jesus for who he is, the Messiah, and grasps the truth about God’s knowledge of our ultimate need.

The Samaritan woman might have been considered on many counts unworthy of Jesus’ visitation, but God has come to her, a woman (which astonishes his own disciples), a Samaritan and someone who had been married five times. But her life had prepared her for this meeting, to become the voice of Jesus among her people. When we are prepared for the “living water” to become what we want, despair is banished and we have all that we need.

Something simple spiritual

A Possible Interview with God

What would you say if you could sit down with God for a conversation? If you were to interview God, what questions would you have for Him? There are many many questions of why? Why did you do this God? Why did you do that God?

A Conversation with God

“Come in,” God said. “So, you would like to interview Me?”

“If you have the time,” I said.

God smiled and said: “My time is eternity and is enough to do everything; what questions do you have in mind to ask me?”

“What surprises you most about mankind?”

God answered:

“That they get bored of being children, are in a rush to grow up, and then long to be children again.”

“That they lose their health to make money and then lose their money to restore their health.”

“That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live neither for the present nor the future.”

“That they live as if they will never die, and they die as if they had never lived.”

God’s hands took mine and we were silent for a while and then I asked:

“As a parent, what are some of life’s lessons you want your children to learn?”

God replied with a smile:

“To learn that they cannot make anyone love them.”

“What they can do is to let themselves be loved.”

“To learn that what is most valuable is not what they have in their lives, but who they have in their lives.”

“To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others. All will be judged individually on their own merits, not as a group on a comparison basis!”

God continued:

“To learn that a rich person is not the one who has the most, but is one who needs the least.”

“To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in persons we love, and that it takes many years to heal them.”

“To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness.”

“To learn that there are persons that love them dearly, but simply do not know how to express or show their feelings.”

As I listened intently, God said:

“To learn that money can buy everything but happiness.”

“To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it totally different.”

“To learn that a true friend is someone who knows everything about them and likes them anyway.”

“To learn that it is not always enough that they be forgiven by others, but that they have to forgive themselves.”

I sat there for a while enjoying the moment. I thanked Him for His time and for all that He has done for me and my family

He replied:

“Anytime.”

“I’m here 24 hours a day.”

“All you have to do is ask for me, and I’ll answer.”

Many helps and my own 2 cents

Hello again,How are you holding up? I am fine. I want to send you some links to help you with your spiritual enrichment during this time of confinement.First, Elke sends the Sunday Playlist: (thanks Elke)https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkzaCrU7PUC90BQKnR83a10iWOBRHIxiCYou can sing along and worship as you would have at OLM! You can also donate to help struggling OLM families by going to: http://www.ourladyofmercy.info/the-good-neighbour-fund/Please remember that daylight savings time goes into effect this Saturday evening. Put your clocks one hour ahead Saturday night before going to bed. I don’t think it will be as difficult losing an hour of sleep this year! :)I know I have not been inundating you with emails and spiritual links. I have always been in favor of encouraging Catholics to have an adult faith and to trust in their own spirituality. The clergy does not have a monopoly on spirituality. Please don’t rely on us too much, you can access God just as easily as we can. One group of nuns have been asking us priests to celebrate 20 Masses a day so that God will end this crisis. I know they have good intentions, but let us never forget that Jesus had to wait 3 days after his death to rise from the dead. If the Son of God had to wait the appointed time, so must we.Yes, we need to pray, but we need to accept God’s will. It’s right there is the Lord’s prayer. THY WILL BE DONE. God did NOT cause this crisis, Man did. Although God can help us sanctify the situation.It would be a tragedy if we did not get to know God better during this time. One of the biggest challenges for us to grow in spirituality is that we have no time. Right? So, now we have the time. Are we using it well or are we running from the silence? Are we moving from device to device, TV to telephone, WhatsApp to Facebook? Why not STOP and listen to His voice. I promise you, a peace that you did not know before will enter you. Silence is good for the soul. Besides, you are never really alone.There was a story of a man who was so BUSY, so busy with so much to do. He had work, he was focused on advancing in his career, there was exercising, time with friends, hobbies, TV, emails, text messages, meetings, and so much going on. He was so busy that he did not have time to go to church, no time to help his neighbor in need, no time to even notice the suffering and pain of others. He was REALLY BUSY. When he died, and was before St. Peter, there was a review of his life. And St. Peter said, Wow! according to this review, you did nothing for others. You were going non-stop all the time but did not use any time for God or your neighbor. I am sorry, but you can’t get into heaven. The man protested: But God is a good God, please, go plead on my behalf, you must do that for me. And St. Peter said: I am so sorry, normally I would do that, but I am too busy. You might say I am bad, but the rule here is that I must treat you in the same way you decided to live your life. It was your decision, not mine.My advice, for what it is worth, is don’t try and fill up your time so that it passes by more quickly. Use it to better your heart and soul. Cherish every moment. Pray for those who are truly suffering. This time of crisis will end one day. It would be a shame if we went back to our former way of life without having taking advantage of the many graces God bestows upon us, in good times, and in bad.Be blessed and trust in God! (Joke at bottom),Fr. Ron

Now I am going to copy many links to many resources provided by our friends at Redemptorist publications:

Reflections, news and prayers to lift your spirit

PRAYER

Pope Francis

Pope Francis called for all Christians to respond to the coronavirus pandemic “with the universality of prayer, of compassion, of tenderness”, adding, “Let us remain united. Let us make our closeness felt toward those persons who are the most lonely and tried”.

Speaking after the traditional recitation of the Angelus, the Holy Father called on all Christians to join together in prayer. “In these trying days, while humanity trembles due to the threat of the pandemic, I would like to propose to all Christians that together we lift our voices towards Heaven.”

Urbi et Orbi Blessing Friday 27 March 5pm

Pope Francis invites all the Christian faithful to participate in a special time of prayer led by him at Saint Peter Square on Friday, 27 March 2020. The ceremony will include readings from the Scriptures and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. It will conclude with the Pope imparting the Urbi et Orbi blessing which is usually held only twice per year, at Christmas and Easter, from the balcony over the entrance of Saint Peter Basilica. The prayer and blessing will be live-streamed on the Vatican News website (www.vaticannews.va) at 5:00 pm.

Spiritual Exercise

We encourage you to sit in stillness for ten to fifteen minutes and open your heart to receive God’s gift of the Holy Spirit.

This spiritual exercise will deepen your awareness of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your heart and give you confidence that the Spirit will be with you in everything you do to make Christ known.

Centre yourself; sit upright, two feet firmly on the floor; breathe rhythmically with deep breaths, in and out, from the abdomen; clear your mind of all preoccupations.
Bring yourself to bodily stillness.
Now welcome in your heart this gift that Jesus has for you: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27).
Quietly repeat those words of Jesus and hand over to him all worries or trouble.
You may find it helpful if you name to God a specific area where you need healing or forgiveness.
Now be still for some time in the presence of God as you welcome the Holy Spirit into your heart.
As you are about to finish your time of prayer, focus again on your breathing while you relax in God’s presence.
Bring yourself gently back to your daily concerns.

May you receive that peace of Christ each day.

Good News From Around The World

Prior to many US states going into lockdown a priest in Maryland was offering drive-thru confessions during the coronavirus pandemic.

Father Scott Holmer administered the confession every day in the parking lot of St. Edward Church in Bowie. He sat on a chair while cars pulled up to him. Fr Scott kept a distance of 6-feet between himself and those wishing to confess.

Every cloud has a silver lining

In the battle against global warming, scientists say that the number of people staying in their homes has caused levels of air pollutants and warming gases to fall. In fact, it’s down almost 50 percent on this point in time last year.

Air Conditioning BrokeThe Catholic Church’s air conditioning broke down, so they had to hire a man to crawl around in the ducts and figure out what was wrong. As the man peeked down through one of the vents in the sanctuary, he saw little old Mrs. Murphy kneeling by the altar, apparently saying her rosary.

Since the man was a fundamental Baptist, he thought it’d be funny to try and mess with the lady’s mind. In his best authoritative voice, he said, “This is Jesus. Your prayers will be answered.”

The little old lady didn’t even blink, just kept on saying her prayers. The man decided maybe she didn’t hear him, and tried again.

“This is Jesus, the Son of God! Your prayers will be answered!”

Again, she didn’t react at all. Mustering up a big breath of air, the man decided to try again. “THIS IS JESUS CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD! YOUR PRAYERS WILL BE ANSWERED!”

The lady looks up and says, “QUIET DOWN! I’M TALKING TO YOUR MOTHER!”

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Communication

Away With Despair

A Possible Interview with God

A Conversation with God

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