OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

  Compassion! Compassion! Compassion! Three times this word appears in the Responsorial Psalm of the seventh Sunday and four times we respond, “the Lord is compassion and love” and this response is our act of faith. We believe it, and when God says something three times He means us to take particular notice, He wants us to experience His compassion. Jesus indicates in the Beatitudes that compassion is the perfect expression of who God is. In Matthew’s Beatitudes He calls us to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”, while in Luke’s Beatitudes he says, “be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate.”

“A blessing on the man who puts his trust in the Lord, with the Lord for his hope.  He is like a tree by the waterside that thrusts its roots to the stream: when the heat comes it feels no alarm…” (Jeremiah 17) Happy and blessed is the man, the woman and the child who trust in the Lord. Whatever our life situation, however challenging, we who trust in the Lord can endure anything because of Him, because He is with us.

For some, this was the first experience of Zoom; others have had their fill of the platform and we wondered how it would all work. A virtual Provincial Assembly spread over six different time zones, six countries, four continents and twenty two men – ever conscious that we represent thousands of women, men and children whose lives we share in ministry.