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Pope
takes refugees to Rome after Lesbos trip
Pope
Francis has taken a dozen highly vulnerable refugees who faced
deportation from the Greek island of Lesbos back to Rome,
offering them refuge in a rebuke to the EU’s policy of sending
migrants and refugees back to Turkey. (More
reports)
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David
Timbs (Melbourne)
Vatican
II, Gaudium et Spes, Francis and Mercy
Pope
Francis has served the Church well in reclaiming the collective
memory of Vatican II, in validating its authority and affirming
its vision. The Council led the People of God out of a tired old
near static ecclesiastical world into a stunning new human
environment with all the challenges of modernity. A major
accomplishment of Vatican II was to shift the Church’s centre
of gravity away from itself into the very centre of human
society, to embrace the world and evangelise it from the inside
as its citizens and not from the outside as strangers
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The
Book Blog
4 readings +
recordings |
|
Readings
are from Simple
Bible
(which has Chinese translation available) |
c.f.
Readings for "Easter 4"
Acts
13.13-52
Paul and Barnabas went to another Antioch,
Antioch in Pisidia.
Out of jealousy, the local Jewish leaders there stopped Paul from preaching to
the Jewish community
Paul and Barnabas then turned their attention to non-Jewish
people, and so the word of the Lord spread through the whole countryside
But the Jewish leaders kept up their campaign,
and had Paul and Barnabas expelled from Pisidia
Jesus, please don't let Gospel workers be
expelled
My recording of
this reading
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Psalm
100
Cry out with joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Serve the Lord with gladness.
Come before him, singing for joy.
Know that he, the Lord, is God. He made us, we
belong to him.
We are his people, the sheep of his
flock.
Go within his gates, giving thanks.
Enter his temple with songs of praise.
Give thanks to him and bless his name.
Indeed, how good is the Lord,
eternal his merciful love.
He is faithful from age to age.
Dear Lord, please help us to
serve you with gladness
Recording
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Daniel
Daring:
I
saw a great multitude
Those
who thrust aside the word of God scorn your faith. They
imprison you, sell you into slavery, and even put you to
death. But have faith Chinese
text
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Revelation 9.9-17
I saw a huge number, impossible to count, of
people from every nation, race, and language
They were standing in front of the throne,
with palms in their hands.
They shouted: "Victory to our God,
who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb"
One of the elders told me who these people
are:
"These are the people who have been through the great persecution.
They now serve God day and night in his sanctuary. The Lamb is their Shepherd. He leads them to springs of living water. God has wiped away all
tears from their eyes"
Jesus, please help sorrowing people who are
crying today
Recording
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John
10.11-14
Jesus said to the religious leaders "I am
the Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd is one who lays down his life for his sheep
A hired man, since he has no real concern for
the sheep,
abandons them and runs away if he sees a wolf coming
I am the Good Shepherd.
I know my own sheep, and my own sheep know me"
Jesus, Good Shepherd, please help me to be a
good sheep, and a good shepherd
Recording
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The
Joy of Love - Pope Francis'
letter - on
love in the family
Full
English text
8:
(Recording
of 8:)
The
Bible is full of families, births, love stories and family
crises. This is true from its very first page, with the
appearance of Adam and Eve’s family with all its burden of
violence but also its enduring strength (cf. Gen 4) to its very
last page, where we behold the wedding feast of the Bride and
the Lamb (Rev 21:2, 9). Jesus’ description of the two houses,
one built on rock and the other on sand (cf. Mt 7:24-27),
symbolizes any number of family situations shaped by the
exercise of their members’ freedom, for, as the poet says,
“every home is a lampstand”.5 Let us now enter
one of those houses, led by the Psalmist with a song that even
today resounds in both Jewish and Christian wedding liturgies:
“Blessed
is every one who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways!
You shall eat the fruit of the labour of your hands; you shall
be happy, and it shall go well with you.
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your
children will be like olive shoots round your table.
Thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord.
The Lord bless you from Zion!
May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your
life!
May you see your children’s children! Peace be upon Israel!”
(Ps 128:1-6).
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20:
(Recording
of 20:)
Some
forms of pollution are part of people’s daily experience.
Exposure to atmospheric pollutants produces a broad spectrum of
health hazards, especially for the poor, and causes millions of
premature deaths.
People
get sick, for example, from breathing high levels of smoke from
fuels used in cooking or heating. There is also pollution that
affects everyone, caused by transport, industrial fumes,
substances which contribute to the acidification of soil and
water, fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and
agrotoxins in general.
Technology,
which, linked to business interests, is presented as the only
way of solving these problems, in fact proves incapable of
seeing the mysterious network of relations between things, and
so sometimes solves one problem only to create others.
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282:
(Recording
of 282:)
This
attitude becomes a prayer of gratitude to God for others.
“First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you”
(Rom 1:8). It is constant thankfulness: “I give thanks
to God always for you because of the grace of God which was
given you in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor 1:4); “I thank my
God in all my remembrance of you” (Phil 1:3).
Far
from being suspicious, negative
and despairing, it is a
spiritual gaze born of deep faith which acknowledges what God is
doing in the lives of others.
At
the same time, it is the gratitude which
flows from a heart attentive to others. When
evangelizers rise from prayer, their
hearts are more open; freed of self-absorption, they are
desirous of doing good and sharing their lives with others.
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Please
join me in praying for one part of the world each day of the
week:
Sun:
Africa
Mon:
Europe & Russia Tues:
South Asia Wed:
East Asia
Thurs:
S.E. Asia & Pacific
Frid:
South America
Sat:
Central & North America
Jesus,
today, Sunday,
please bless the people of Africa
And praying for prisoners in one
part of China each day of the month:
On this 17th of
the month, Jesus please bless the prisoners of Shaanxi
And
praying for one of the
world's poorest countries each day of the month:
On this 17th
of the month, Jesus please bless the people of Malawi
And
praying for one Islam-related
intention each day of the
week:
Jesus,
please bless
all Muslims in my own
country |
Letters
from (mainly African) inmates in Hong Kong prisons - and other
drug trafficking items: 2016
This
website's Tanzania
File
(stopping Africans from being tricked into
bringing drugs to HK)
- letters
from Tanzanian inmates in Hong Kong prisons
This
website's HK
Asylum Seekers' File
(stopping
South Asians from being "people smuggled" to HK) |
Philippines - 
