Weekly Prayer Guidelines: May 27 - June 2, 2019

"And the greatest is Love..."

(1 Cor. 13:13)
 
May 27 - June 2, 2019

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​General Theme: 
Your Life is For Loving
 
General Objective:
--To love with the love of Christ is vital in order to live.
-To convince the people that to love is to plant God’s love in all through the Word and this is the deepest and most effective way of responding to the cry of Jesus in the suffering of the world.
-To be convinced that the concrete way to love as Verbum Dei is to evangelize.
 
Specific Objective:
To be able to participate in bringing a real transformation in our world through loving in the same way as Christ

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INTRODUCTION

​Each Christian’s words and life must make this proclamation resound: God loves you, Christ came for you, and Christ is for you “the way, the truth, and the life”. (Pope Francis)
 
Love for our brothers and sisters is the first and foremost responsibility for each of us baptized Christians, for it is the very reason of our existence. It is the greatest calling that we are being called to the proclamation of his great love to others who are hungry for this great gift from the Father. As  baptized Christians, LOVE is our very identity which needs to be nourished, to exercise, and to be lived out.
 
Faced with the different suffering in our world today, this truth is where we discover that the deepest and most effective way of responding is to love others at their root, returning to them their identity.

​It is, then, through the living out of this identity where others can recognize us as disciples of Christ. It is through there where we can fulfill the mission that we share with Christ by virtue of our baptism. It is through there where we can enjoy the fullness of our being because love is a beautiful path to happiness.

Transforming this empty world that we are living today is a profound  and essential invitation for all of us. Many of our brothers and sisters are being kept prison in the darkness of their own realities. Many were on the brink of hopelessness, when it is the will of the Father, that everyone who see the Son of Man may have eternal life (Jn. 6:40). To love with the love of God is to live eternal life and to give what you live.
 
Eternal life encompasses happiness and freedom, and man can truly be happy and be free if he encounters the light that comes from the great love of the Father for him. It is our mission as Christ of today, as Verbum Dei, to bring forth this quality of love to our brothers and sisters. To be this candle of light that brings hope into their lives can only be fulfilled if and only if we truly love others like the way Christ has loved us from the very beginning not out of obligation but out of free will.    
 
“Be under obligation to no one – the only obligation you have is to love one another. Whoever does this has obeyed the Law.” (Rom. 13:8)

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MONDAY
Loving Selflessly bringing the Good News

The greatest love you can have for your friends is to give your life for them.
​(Jn. 15:13)

Christ in his passion, death, and resurrection has laid the foundation for us in loving the Father, ourselves, and others. That the greatest love that we can have and give is through our selfless self-giving - in service for love. Allowing ourselves to be the medium and channel of this great gift since creation has begun which is LOVE.
 
How open am I in receiving this great gift of love? Did I allow it to transcend to others through me?

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TUESDAY
Loving Obediently to set others free

No one takes my life away from me. I give it up on my own free will. I have the right to give it up, and I have the right to take it back. This is what my Father has commanded me to do.
​(Jn. 10:18)

Giving everything, our all, to this love is the greatest ideal and projection of our life, for this is our very own identity. We came from love for we are created by love, and in obedience to the will of the Father, Christ showed us how to live this identity.It is in giving everything even his life to the cross to give glory to the Father, to bring into fulfillment God’s plan of salvation.
 
Have I given my all to LOVE? Or I have made myself hidden away from the cross?

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WEDNESDAY
Loving Compassionately to let others experience His love

As he saw the crowds, his heart was filled with pity for them, because they were worried and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
(Mt. 9:36)

Living out this identity is a calling with which everyone is called to as a baptized Christian, and as a disciple of Christ. As Verbum Dei it is embedded in us, with the charism that we received, to live out this love, and Christ teaches us to see our brothers the sisters with the eyes of compassion, empathizing in their need and hunger for love.
 
How do I relate myself with my brothers and sisters? Do I look at them or see them with compassion

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THURSDAY
Loving Humbly to reveal God’s presence

Love must be completely sincere. Hate what is evil, hold on to what is good. Love one another warmly as Christians, and be eager to show respect for one another. Work hard and do not be lazy serve the Lord with a heart full of devotion. Let your hope keep you joyful, be patient in your troubles, and pray at all times. Share your belongings with your needy fellow Christians, and open your homes to strangers.
Ask God to bless those who persecute you – yes, ask him to bless, not to curse. Be happy with those who are happy, weep with those who weep. Have the same concern for everyone. Do not be proud, but accept humble duties. Do not think of yourselves as wise.
​(Rom. 12:9-16)

Christ’s humility invites us to exercise a compassionate heart in order for us to be sensitive in relating ourselves with our brother and sisters. In the humbleness of oneself we will be able to recognize that everything that we have received is a grace coming from the Father because of his great love for us and it is our calling to transmit it to others.
 
Am I being sensitive to the needs of my brothers and sisters for LOVE?

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FRIDAY
Loving to give generously what we receive freely to build up the church

For the Father himself loves you. He loves you because you love me and have believed that I came from God.
​(Jn. 16:27)

Without love, life is empty, since there is no life in the first place without love, and it’s our responsibility to fill up this empty world with the love that each of us, disciples of Christ, are receiving. It is through devotion to love that we can persevere with our mission – to receive and to give love that builds up.
 
Did I allow the love that I received from Christ fill up this empty world?

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SATURDAY
Loving to form Responsible and Committed Christians

And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
​(Jn. 13:34)

How can we say that we love God if we don’t love others? How can we say that we love God if we harbor hatred for others? How can we say that we love God if we abandoned others? How can we say that we love God if we refuse to see others equal, brothers and sisters in Christ? How can we say that we love God if we neglect the needs of the other of love? For it is through loving our neighbors without any reservation that we can truly say that we love God. It is also in help- ing and promoting the other to form  themselves and become more and more capable of performing faithfully the same mission of
Christ.
 
Did I love without any reservation? Or I love superficially?

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SUNDAY
7th Sunday of Easter
Ascension of the Lord

First Reading: Acts 7:55-60
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 97:1-2, 6-7, 9
2nd Reading: Revelations 22:12-14, 16-17, 20
Gospel: John 17:20-26