Weekly Guidelines
Read this week's guidelines and be nourished as you journey with our Community in Cebu.
 We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses(Heb.12:1) Week 1 November 2 – 8, 2020 Theme: The Holy Spirit bestows holiness in abundance among God’s holy and faithful people. General Objective: To live our greatest calling as prophets next door. Orientation: Our humble, daily conversion in the faithful following of Jesus, will mean that this experience is repeated and continues, despite the weaknesses of our human condition, in order to entrust ourselves more and more each day to the certain love of Him in whom we have put our faith and absolute confidence. Specific Objective: To see how it has pleased God to save mankind and make them holy.
MONDAY (All Soul's Day) GAUDETE ET EXSULTATE # 6 Nor need we think only of those already beatified and canonized. The Holy Spirit bestows holiness in abundance among God’s holy and faithful people, for “it has pleased God to make men and women holy and to save them, not as individuals without any bond between them, but rather as a people who might acknowledge him in truth and serve him in holiness”. In salvation history, the Lord saved one people. We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people. That is why no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual. Rather, God draws us to himself, taking into account the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships present in a human community. God wanted to enter into the life and history of a people. The call to holiness is present in various ways. As Verbum Dei, what means are you using to bring the Word of God to others to the road of holiness? TUESDAY (St. Martin de Porres, religious) Hebrews 2:11 “Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.” VD STATUTES # 148 There is no doubt that an intimacy and living with Jesus will lead to an unstoppable enthusiasm to communicate Christ and a life of living faith will oblige us to speak at least with our immediate brothers and sisters. Having the same perspective as Jesus himself, with our gaze fixed on the harvest, “Look around you, look at the fields; already they are white, ready for harvest!”, we will throw ourselves decidedly and without delay into the harvest. Do you witness to the truth of His word to a lost and dying soul? If so, how do you response to the call to holiness in a practical way ? WEDNESDAY (St. Charles Borromeo, bishop) GAUDETE ET EXSULTATE # 9 Holiness is the most attractive face of the Church. But even outside the Catholic Church and in very different contexts, the Holy Spirit raises up “signs of his presence which help Christ’s followers”. Saint Pope John Paul II reminded us that “the witness to Christ borne even to the shedding of blood has become a common inheritance of Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants”. In the moving ecumenical commemoration held in the Colosseum during the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, he stated that the martyrs are “a heritage which speaks more powerfully than all the causes of division”. Do you believe that the Lord has chosen you to be holy before Him in love as such that you are to be a bearer of His word amidst the risk and challenges? THURSDAY (St. Spinulus) VD STATUTES # 149 Seeing the true situation of the world and hearing the cry of the members of Christ, our brothers we will feel ourselves exhaustively taken up by the urgency of the mission. Neither day or night will be sufficient to attend to it. We will apply ourselves fully to the whole person of Jesus, and we will feel the obligation to ask for and to see workers for so much labor. Do you feel the urgency to be a prophet to the next-door neighbors --- family, relatives and friends? FRIDAY (St. Leonard of Noblac) GAUDETE ET EXSULTATE # 3 The Letter to the Hebrews presents a number of testimonies that encourage us to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us” (12:1). It speaks of Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Gideon and others (cf. 11:1-12:3). Above all, it invites us to realize that “a great cloud of witnesses” (12:1) impels us to advance constantly towards the goal. These witnesses may include our own mothers, grandmothers or other loved ones (cf. 2 Tim 1:5). Their lives may not always have been perfect, yet even amid their faults and failings they kept moving forward and proved pleasing to the Lord. Does the testimony of your life show that you are a next-door prophet to those lives who walk behind you in the faith? SATURDAY (St. Florentius) Exodus 19:5-6 “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.” Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.“ Do you believe that by God’s grace you can be saint next-door bringing others to the Lord? SUNDAY (32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time) 1st Reading : Wisdom 6:12-16
Resp. Psalm: Psalm 63:2-8 2nd Reading: 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18 Gospel: Matthew 25: 1-13 (Light our lamps!) |
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