Monday, October 27, 2008

Novena for Faithful Citizenship - Day 9


Opening Prayer:
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in us the fire of your love.

Reading: Matthew 5:13-16

"You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father."

Reflection:
How am I salt for my community? How do I shine your light for all the community to see? What deeds am I performing in order to glorify God?

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you give your love and your grace to do great things. Give us the faith to shine our light by waling humbly and acting justly before our God. Amen.

Novena Prayer:

Immaculate Heart of Mary,
Help us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasureable effects already weigh down upon our modern world and seem to block the paths toward the future.
From famine and war, deliver us.
From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us.
From sins against human life from its very beginning, deliver us.
From hatred and from the demeaning of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us.
From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us.
From attempts to stifle in human hearts the very truth of God, deliver us.
From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us.
Accept, O Mother of Christ, this cry laden with the sufferings of all individual human beings, laden with the sufferings of whole societies. Help us with the power ofthe Holy Spirit conquer all sin; individual sin and the "sin of the world", sin in all its manifestations.
Let there be revealed once more in the history of the world thi infinite saving power of the redemption: the power of merciful love.
May it put a stop to evil.
May it transform consciences.
May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope.
Amen.

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