Newsletter February 5th 2023 (5th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

A thought on todays Gospel

¨ In today’s Gospel Jesus says “let your light shine before others..” But how can we reconcile “letting our light shine” with the fact that Jesus spent most of his own life  quietly in Nazareth, as the son of the carpenter. What Jesus practised at Nazareth was fidelity to the ordinary, the daily routine, which requires its own kind of courage. What sets him apart was anchoring his whole life in God, to let the Father be the guiding force in his life.

¨ The quiet practice of virtue was the hallmark of the saints, who never published their   holiness, but just tried to remain close to God, in a spirit of “loving attentive expectancy,” as St John of the Cross put it.

¨ This spirit marked the life of saint Therésè of Lisieux, who died at the age of 24, after living as an enclosed nun from her teenage years. Some of the other nuns thought that Therese had achieved nothing at all in her short life. Yet within a generation, this young nun who had never left her convent was proclaimed Patroness of the Foreign Missions. Even from her cloister she let her light shone out. Reflecting on the three virtues that last, faith, hope and love, Therese saw prayerful love as her special mission in life. “In the heart of the Church,” she said, “I shall be love.” And from that loving spirit the grace of God was richly channeled out to the missionary world.