Daily Prayers

Prayer is Love, I want to Love

Sending Out The Twelve Apostles (2)

Extract
Loaf of bread with label - "No"

Jesus sent the Twelve Apostles out two-by-two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He told them to take only, “a staff – no bread, no bag, no money in their belts and to put on sandals but not to wear two tunics”.

The Apostles did as instructed. They preached a message of repentance, cast out many demons and, “anointed many sick people with oil and healed them”. (Mark 6:8-9, 12-13)

Thought

Why did the Apostles anoint the sick prior to healing, they were not administering the sacrament of the sick as we know it today?

Undoubtedly, they were directed to do so by Jesus, most likely, as an “outward sign of healing”. Later the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick was declared by James the Apostle. (James 5:14-15)

Reflection

Lord Jesus, I pray for today’s Apostles, that people will welcome them into their homes and accept the graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit imparted through their work and blessings.

Anointing Of The Sick (CCC 1520) It conveys several graces and imparts gifts of strengthening in the Holy Spirit against anxiety, discouragement, and temptation, and conveys peace and fortitude.

Prayer: Victims of War (Pope St John Paul II)

To You, creator of nature and humanity, of truth and beauty, I pray:

  • Hear my voice, for it is the voice of the victims of all wars and violence among individuals and nations;
  • Hear my voice, for it is the voice of all children who suffer and who will suffer when people put their faith in weapons and war;
  • Hear my voice, when I beg you to instil into the hearts of all human beings the vision of peace, the strength of justice and the joy of fellowship;
  • Hear my voice, for I speak for the multitudes in every country and in every period of history who do not want war and are ready to walk the road of peace;
  • Hear my voice, and grant insight and strength so that we may always respond to hatred with love, to injustice with total dedication to justice, to need with the sharing of self, to war with peace.

O God, hear my voice and grant to the world your everlasting peace.