Mission News

Prayers

We pray for all in our community who are sick or suffering. 

We pray for those called home to heaven especially Blake McKeiver (OB 2004)

We pray for our country and our world still living in this pandemic and we remember the many who have suffered and are suffering through COVID-19.

We give thanks for the safe arrival of Shane Ward’s daughter. May our loving God, with Mary and Champagnat, walk with all members of the Marist family. Amen

A Blessing for the Beginning of the Term

May the Lord bless us in our searching questions,

For this is the pathway to our enlightenment,

Our wisdom, our way to the future.

May the Lord bless us in our personal gifts,

For these are God’s present to the world,

Through which we enrich, and ennoble

And take our world to the future.

May the Lord bless us in our reflections,

For these are the seeds of our plans.

They seek nourishment to bring life to the future.

May the Lord bless us in our vision,

For this is the inspiration

To fire our hopes, and reflections

And our belief in the future.

May the Lord bless us in our leadership,

For this is the opportunity given us to

Enable and inspire, and take others to the future.

May the Lord bless us in our decisions,

For these are the steps,

Our ‘yes’ to faith in life and our confidence in the future.

May the Lord bless us today

And throughout this final term,

God, Son and Spirit. Amen.

Chaplain’s Corner 

Our Lady of the Rosary: October 7. The memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary began as a festival to commemorate the victory of the Christian forces over Islam in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. G. K. Chesterton recounts this victory in the rhythmically stunning poem, “Lepanto.” His poem is a series of verbal snapshots that capture the actors and events leading up to this great Christian victory to save Europe.

Pope Pius V originally established this feast as Our Lady of Victory but it was later changed to Our Lady of the Rosary to recall the prayer through which victory came to the Christian world. It is a chance for us to reflect on this and powerful prayer in the Church.

The Rosary is a simple but potent prayer that enables us to review the great moments in the redemption of the world as we proceed through the joyful, luminous, sorrowful and glorious mysteries. In the Rosary, we travel through the entire Paschal Mystery of Christ from the announcement of His birth to the crowning of Mary as Queen of heaven and earth, and our powerful helper on earth.

We journey through the Paschal Mystery in the company of Mary and see the drama of these moments through her eyes. The original Rosary of fifteen decades was based on the Old Testament Book of Psalms with its 150 psalms. The recitation of the prayers was imagined as a necklace of roses or “rosary.”

The Rosary is not magic. Like anything else, it can become mechanical. When, however, we say it prayerfully, thoughtfully and reflectively it becomes a magnificent way of joining our life’s moments of joy, light, sorrow and glory to the mystery of Jesus Christ.

Many Catholic prisoners of war have remarked that they had prayed the rosary in their cells by using the fingers of their hands. It helped them maintain sanity and hope. The beauty of the Rosary is that it is a prayer for all people of every culture. It is a prayer for all ages, for the young who cannot yet read or the old who can no longer read and everyone in between. It is also a prayer for spiritual victory over all the temptations in our life and the evils of our time.

The Rosary is one more way that the Lord teaches us to pray. Through the Rosary, Mary continues to be in prayer with the Church as she was with the Apostles in today’s first reading. Through the Rosary, we open ourselves to God’s will as Mary did in today’s Gospel.

It is a way of bringing healing, grace and spiritual victory to the lives of others and to our world. It is a prayer everyone can say.

Mary, our Good Mother, pray for us.

St. Marcellin Champagnat, pray for us.

St. Mary of the Cross, pray for us.

And may we always remember to pray for one another.