SAINT AUGUSTINE'S, GRAHAME PARK
  • ABOUT US
    • Identity Statement >
      • Mission through the Eucharist
      • Sant Augustine of Canterbury - Legacy
      • Serving the Catholicity of Church - A Compassionate Mission
    • A Brief History of the Estate
    • Resources for our DCC members
    • Our personal data policy
    • Contact us
    • Financial Support
  • WHAT'S ON
    • This week's services and newspaper
    • Sunday School and Mass For Children
    • LIVE STREAM - Services/Prayers
    • Our Youtube and Facebook Channels
    • Our Social Media Notice Board
  • DONATIONS
  • SPIRITUALITY
    • PASTORAL CARE >
      • Visiting the sick
      • Weddings/ Reading of Banns
      • Funerals, bereavement
      • Baptism
      • Monastery Without Walls - Join Us
      • Confessions (Reconciliation)
    • Daily Online Old Testament study with Rabbi Gordon
    • Daily Online Bible Study
    • Daily meditations on the readings of the Mass
    • Sermons
    • The Rule of Saint Benedict in the life of our community
    • A Selection of Prayers
    • A Short Catechism - Christian faith
    • How to pray the ROSARY
    • Media Resources
    • 'Monastery Without Walls'
    • An Ignatian Spiritual Retreat
  • BLOG
  • GALLERY of our Events
    • Photo-meditations
    • For Children
    • Confirmation 2017 >
      • Confirmation and First Communion 2016
  • Hall Rental
  • YOUTHWORK
    • Art Workshops for children
    • Guitar Classes
  • our SOCIAL MEDIA
  • NURSERY

Our Biblical Blog /'Examined Life'

READINGS FOR LENT: 'OLD AND NEW' (Ash Wednesday)

2/17/2021

0 Comments

 
READINGS FOR LENT: 'OLD AND NEW'

I. Vocation and Discernment

Jesus is walking in our midst, as he did in Galilee. He walks through our streets, and he quietly stops and looks into our eyes. His call is attractive and intriguing. Yet today the stress and quick pace of a world constantly bombarding us with stimuli can leave no room for the interior silence in which we can perceive Jesus' gaze and hear his call. In the meantime, many attractively packed offers will come your way. They may seem appealing and exciting, although in time they will only leave you feeling empty, weary and alone. Don't let this happen to you, because the maelstrom of this world can drive you to take a route without real meaning, without direction, without clear goals, and thus thwart many of your efforts. It is better to seek out that calm and quiet that enable you to reflect, pray, look more clearly at the world around you, and then, with Jesus, come to recognise the vocation that is yours in this world.


I mentioned there that all of us, but especially the young, are immersed in a culture of zapping. We can navigate simultaneously on two or more screens and interact at the same time with two or three virtual scenarios. Without the wisdom of discernment, we can easily become prey to every passing trend. Indeed, this is all the more important when some novelty presents itself in our lives. Then we have to decide whether it is new wine brought by God or an illusion created by spirit of this world or the spirit of the devil.

Such discernment, even though it includes reason and prudence, goes beyond them, for it seeks a glimpse of that unique an mysterious plan that God has for each of us... It has to do with the meaning of my life before the Father who knows and loves me, and with the real purpose of my life, which nobody knows better than he'

(From Pope Francis' letter to young people, Christ Is Alive, articles 277-279)



II. Bishop NIkolai Velimirovic, 'The fear of the Lord'


The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But, if a person has not begun aright, how shall he/she finish aright? If a man has followed the wrong path from the beginning, he must go back and find the beginning, setting his feet on the right path. he who has not the fear of God cannot have love for God. The greatest ascetics, torturers of self who spent forty or fifty years in incessant ascetism, day and night, were filled with the fear of God right up to the time of their death; and these, the most sinless of mortals, cried out in the hour of death: 'Lord, have mercy on me a sinner!'


The fear of the Lord is the salt of devotion. If this salt is lacking, all our devotion is insipid and tepid. The fear of the Lord girds up the loins, encircles the waist, gives the heart sobriety, curbs the mind and chastises self will. Where is repentance without the fear of the Lord? Where is humility? Where is restraint? Where are chastity and patience, service and obedience?


Oh, my brothers and sisters, let us embrace this teaching as holy truth: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.


(Bishop Nikolai Velemirovic, Prolog, 2 June)


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    newmansermon4advent.docx
    File Size: 23 kb
    File Type: docx
    Download File

    newmansermon4advent.pdf
    File Size: 108 kb
    File Type: pdf
    Download File

    j_h_newman_advent_sermon1.pdf
    File Size: 107 kb
    File Type: pdf
    Download File

    j_h_newman_advent_sermon1.docx
    File Size: 23 kb
    File Type: docx
    Download File

    living_in_imagination_vs_real.docx
    File Size: 260 kb
    File Type: docx
    Download File

    living_in_imagination_vs_real.pdf
    File Size: 179 kb
    File Type: pdf
    Download File

    Support OUR FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN

    Soliloquy

    These are verbal Icons, expressions of how the world is seen from Saint Augustine's..

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    May 2022
    March 2022
    November 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016

    Categories

    All

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • ABOUT US
    • Identity Statement >
      • Mission through the Eucharist
      • Sant Augustine of Canterbury - Legacy
      • Serving the Catholicity of Church - A Compassionate Mission
    • A Brief History of the Estate
    • Resources for our DCC members
    • Our personal data policy
    • Contact us
    • Financial Support
  • WHAT'S ON
    • This week's services and newspaper
    • Sunday School and Mass For Children
    • LIVE STREAM - Services/Prayers
    • Our Youtube and Facebook Channels
    • Our Social Media Notice Board
  • DONATIONS
  • SPIRITUALITY
    • PASTORAL CARE >
      • Visiting the sick
      • Weddings/ Reading of Banns
      • Funerals, bereavement
      • Baptism
      • Monastery Without Walls - Join Us
      • Confessions (Reconciliation)
    • Daily Online Old Testament study with Rabbi Gordon
    • Daily Online Bible Study
    • Daily meditations on the readings of the Mass
    • Sermons
    • The Rule of Saint Benedict in the life of our community
    • A Selection of Prayers
    • A Short Catechism - Christian faith
    • How to pray the ROSARY
    • Media Resources
    • 'Monastery Without Walls'
    • An Ignatian Spiritual Retreat
  • BLOG
  • GALLERY of our Events
    • Photo-meditations
    • For Children
    • Confirmation 2017 >
      • Confirmation and First Communion 2016
  • Hall Rental
  • YOUTHWORK
    • Art Workshops for children
    • Guitar Classes
  • our SOCIAL MEDIA
  • NURSERY