Dear Friends in Christ

Jesus had the habit of praying early in the morning in isolated places. The Disciples would often find Him there in deep conversation with the Heavenly Father. When they asked Him how they should pray, He answered their request with the perfect prayer, the Our Father. He pronounced every petition and word of that prayer with care, teaching them how to put their trust in whatever they said to their Father God. The Lord has solemnly promised us that He will give every attention to what we say. Because prayer is the oxygen and wings of the Christian life, enabling us to breathe and to soar to the heights, we cannot exist without it. Above all, we should go before Jesus in the Tabernacle very, very often, just as the sick and needy did in the Gospels. In the words of Pope St John Paul: What does praying mean? Prayer means feeling ones insufficiency through the various necessities which man has to face, necessities that are part of his life. Such as, for example, the need for bread to which Christ refers in the example of that man who wakes up his friend at midnight to ask him for bread. Similar necessities are numerous. The need for bread is, in a way, a symbol of all material necessities the necessities of the human body, the necessities of this existence which springs from the fact that man is a body. But the range of the necessities is wider. Indeed, we have an immortal soul which is embodied, and it is the soul which needs to be fed weekly on this daily - super-substantial - bread, which is the Holy Eucharist. For this reason, as we begin the Summer holidays, let us be eager to be fed even more frequently on the Bread of Life: by making sure that even when we travel we find a church for Holy Mass, and by even availing of the opportunity for weekday Mass at this time.

We have just arrived home from our days in Lourdes. I prayed for your intentions and offered Holy Mass for the Parish on Friday morning. I would like to record our gratitude to the many young people who participated and assisted pilgrims this year, and especially the nine from our own Parish; that is a great accolade for us and a tribute to their families!

With every blessing.

Msgr Kevin Hale

Priest@LourdesLeigh.org ✚ 01702 478078
The Sunday Homily is available as a podcast at LourdesLeigh.org