Lent: April 8th

Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent

MASS READINGS

April 08, 2017 (Readings on USCCB website)

COLLECT PRAYER

O God, who have made all those reborn in Christ a chosen race and a royal priesthood, grant us, we pray, the grace to will and to do what you command, that the people called to eternal life may be one in the faith of their hearts and the homage of their deeds. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever..

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Recipes (1)

Lenten Eggs Benedict

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Activities (2)

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Prayers (3)

Old Calendar: St. Julie Billiart, religious (Trad./ some places)

According to the 1962 Missal of St. John XXIII the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, in some places today is the feast of St. Julie Billiart, a French religious who founded, and was the first Superior General of, the Congregation of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.

Stational Church

St. Julie Billiart
Saint Julie was a woman completely immersed in God’s love and goodness, even in the midst of great suffering. She was a woman of vision who responded to the needs of the suffering world around her.

Born in Cuvilly, France, on July 12, 1751, Julie lived a humble life in a loving family. She was a woman of serenity, despite the great personal suffering she endured. The Billiart family survived many hardships, including the deaths of several children. When Julie was 16, she went to work to help support her family. At the age of 23 she became paralyzed by the trauma of a shooting that was aimed at her father. She spent more than 20 years confined to her bed, unable to care for even her most basic needs.

Besides her physical pain, Julie suffered religious persecution, lived in hiding as a refugee. Throughout her suffering, she steadfastly trusted in God’s goodness. At the age of 53, Julie and her very good friend, Françoise Blin de Bourdon, along with two other women, made their vows as Sisters of Notre Dame in Amiens, France. A variety of difficult circumstances caused her to move her congregation to Namur, Belgium, several years later. Today these sisters are known as the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. Julie’s spirit and charism also influenced the Sisters of Notre Dame of Amersfoort, The Netherlands, as well as our own congregation of the Sisters of Notre Dame, which began in Coesfeld, Germany.

Julie reached out to the poor and forgotten, she brought comfort and hope to those around her, she encouraged faith in the seeking and the lost. More than anything else, she was a witness to the deep, loving goodness of God. Her motto and mantra was: “Oh, how good God is!” In 1969 Julie was named a saint by the Catholic Church. The impact that Saint Julie had on the world continues through the life and ministry of the sisters who share in her heritage.

Excerpted from The Sisters of Notre Dame

The Word Among Us

Meditation: Ezekiel 37:21-28

5th Week of Lent

I will . . . bring them back to their land. (Ezekiel 37:21)

It has become common to think of a prophet as a person who can foretell the future, one who lives an eccentric life and who speaks passionately about obscure topics.

What a caricature! According to Scripture, a prophet is simply someone who hears from the Lord and is able to share what God has said. In today’s first reading, Ezekiel was given one clear and comforting message for the Israelites who were in exile: “I, the Lord, will bring you home.” Not the rulers in the lands to which they were exiled. Not the gods of these rulers. Only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He alone has to power to restore his people.

Ezekiel’s message had a special sense of urgency because the Israelites were living in despair. Their persistent disobedience to God’s commands had finally caught up with them, and they ended up living as exiles in Babylon. Through the destruction of war, they had been banished from the familiar sights, sounds, and smells of the land God had given them.

But even though the Israelites had abandoned God, he did not abandon them. Through the prophet Ezekiel, he promised that he would bring them home. No longer would they be isolated or abandoned. God was going to deliver them, shepherd them, establish peace with them, and live with them forever.

Few of us are living in physical exile, but we all know what it’s like to live in exile far from the Lord. Our “foreign lands” have their own set of idols and their own particular ways that are opposed to God. Sometimes these lands of sin discourage us, divide us from each other, and cause us to get down on ourselves. Sooner or later, we feel as separated from God as the Israelites felt.

That’s why we need to know that Ezekiel’s words are for us. God is with us. His loving gaze is upon us, and his hand is stretched out to rescue us. Patiently but persistently, he is calling to us, asking us to leave these foreign lands and come home to him.

It’s not too late to go to Confession before Easter. Go to the Lord and let him bring you home from every foreign land of sin.

“Father, I want to come home. Nothing compares to being with you.”

(Psalm) Jeremiah 31:10-13
John 11:45-56