March 2025: Points to Ponder
Intercom, March 2025
Points to Ponder
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
2 March 2025 • Day of Prayer for Temperance
A good Christian, or even a good person, is not just someone who doesn’t do certain things, but rather someone who does do certain things, someone who seeks the good, who strives to promote beauty, health, holiness, love, friendship, truth, and so on. Our Christian faith calls us to focus on doing good rather than simply avoiding evil. That is why temperance is the last in the order of virtues, though it is as indispensable as the others.
The Catechism defines temperance as ‘the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. It ensures the will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honourable’ (CCC 1809).
It allows us to govern our desires, instead of allowing our desires to govern us. For an intemperate person – that is, someone who permits their impulses to run rampant – it is much harder to see the truth, and much harder to do what is right. One’s life is run by emotional drives, instead of by prudence, justice, and fortitude. But temperance takes the reins from the urges and gives it back to the first three virtues. In a way, we could say that temperance allows the other virtues to do what they are meant to do.
As with all the cardinal virtues, the moderation and self-control of temperance cannot be acquired in one day, but require practice, substantial effort, prayer and time – exactly the sort of practice, effort, prayer and time that this coming season of Lent offers us.
oxfordoratory.org.uk
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First Sunday of Lent
9 March 2025
Throughout the years, the Church has used the season of Lent as a time for Christian reflection and contemplation. Those same promises of comfort, power and privilege are offered to us every day. They can tempt us to stay put, instead of stepping out in faith to follow.
How was Jesus able to turn down bread when his stomach must have been churning with hunger? He relied on a more reliable promise from God. Jesus knew God would protect him and show him a better Way. It requires endurance, persistence and commitment to follow God.
Maybe the challenge for us isn’t quickly to get to the place where ‘we arrive,’ but to find ways consistently to pick the Way of God over the comforts offered by the world. When we can be honest with ourselves about the allure of these things, we can be more open to allowing God to free us from their hold. We can also move further into the ministry to which we have been called and for which we have been equipped to live out in the world, without worrying about the danger lurking.
We are invited to look at ourselves, our practices of faith and our communities, so that we can attend to God’s call in our lives. This may result in a shift of our perspective and possibly a letting go of things that no longer serve us in our commitment to follow Jesus. What might we find if we take a step out, in faith?
Rebecca Craver
Director of Congregational Development
Moravian Church
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Second Sunday of Lent
16 March 2025
Florence Chadwick was the first woman to swim across the English Channel both ways. Back in 1952, she set out to become the first woman to swim from Catalina Island to the mainland of California, a swim of over 20 miles. She stepped into the waters of the Pacific Ocean on a foggy, chilly day, determined to accomplish her goal. She swam for more than fifteen hours, in a fog so dense she could hardly see the boats accompanying her. But after fifteen hours, she was ready to quit. She asked to be taken out of the water. Her mother, in a boat alongside her, told her she was close, and assured her that she could make it. But Florence was physically and emotionally exhausted. She stopped swimming and was pulled out. It wasn’t until she was on the boat that she realized that the shore was less than half a mile away. At a news conference the next day, Florence said, ’All I could see was the fog … I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it.’
It’s amazing what we can endure when we know it will end, when we know for sure how much longer it will be. Seeing the shore can be the difference between swimming on and giving up.
Jesus’ Transfiguration shows us the shore. It reminds us of the day when we will all be transfigured into heavenly glory. At this point of Lent, we are offered a glimpse of Easter. And it can give us the courage to face our sins and to face the cross, just as it did for Jesus and his closest disciples.
mypastoralponderings.com
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St Patrick, Bishop, Principal Patron of Ireland
17 March 2025 • Day of Prayer for Emigrants
Where did Patrick find the courage and confidence he needed to do what was asked of him? And, more pertinently: where can we find ours? In his Confessio he tells us us that he prayed a lot and he explains that thereby the Holy Spirit took complete control of him. He writes: I believe it was Christ my Lord who came to my assistance, and that it was His Spirit, not myself, who was already, calling out on my behalf . The whole of the Confessio is punctuated by Patrick’s testimony about his constant recourse to prayer – humble prayer. In his prayer Patrick expressed his hope and trust in God. He doesn’t blow his own trumpet at any point. He writes: I owe everything to the Lord. It was by His grace working through me that many people were born again to God, and soon after that they were confirmed. Elsewhere he writes: People can laugh and sneer at me if they like. And yet again he comes back on his own littleness and weakness, speaking about how God overlooked his foolishness and negligence. He tells us: Even though I was hand-picked as His helper, I was slow enough on the uptake about what was being revealed to me by the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. Time out of number the Lord had pity on me, for he saw that my heart was in the right place. (…) I have to admit I was slow to grasp how much grace was in me. Patrick’s whole purpose in sharing his experience is to encourage others – to encourage us. It is to turn us in the right direction: in the direction of God’s grace and power which shines forth in weakness.
Benedictinemonks.co.uk
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Third Sunday of Lent
23 March 2025
Real repentance is a reflection about whatever is unfruitful in our lifestyle. Jesus’ words ‘Repent or you will perish’ remind us of what Socrates said at his trial, after he had opted for death rather than exile: ‘The un-examined life is not worth living.’ The parable of the fruitless fig tree is thought-provoking. It is not about doing wrong but about failure to do what is positively right. The fig tree that bore no fruit is like a Christian who attempts no good work and lives a purely selfish life.
Francis of Assisi once invited a young friar to go with him into town to preach. Francis and the young friar spent all day walking through the streets and then came home. When the day’s journey was done, the young friar was disappointed and asked ‘Weren’t we supposed to preach today?’ Francis replied, ‘Son, we have preached. We were preaching while we were walking. We were seen by many and our behavior was noted. It is of no use walking anywhere to preach unless we preach wherever as we walk!’ He summed up his idea in these words ‘Preach the Gospel everywhere, and if necessary, use words.’ To him witnessing to Jesus wasn’t merely quoting some words out of the Bible from time to time but one who lives by the word of God each day.
associationofcatholicpriests.ie
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Fourth Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday)
30 March 2025 • Mother’s Day
Today’s Gospel is one of the world’s most famous stories. This is because it speaks to us as humans, as individuals, in a powerful way.
There are two dramatic moments in the story. The first is when the father runs out to meet the prodigal. We expect otherwise, and that suggests that so did the son. He was prepared to live the rest of his life as a servant under his father. But Jesus is demonstrating, through this wonderful parable, that God is full of surprises, full of a love that we cannot fathom, cannot second guess. The second moment is when the other son, the faithful one, is chastised by his father for being so condemnatory.
So, this is a story in which we learn that our ways have much to change if we are to come into that family. Sometimes in life, we are the prodigal son. Other times we are the condemnatory son. Sometimes we have the grace to act like the prodigal and turn back. Sometimes we have the grace to listen to our Lord through the Gospels and accept that we are being selfish or condemnatory. Perhaps we can sometimes feel like the father: hurt by the selfishness of family decisions but always acting from love ready to welcome our cherished family back. It is a story of perspectives, and a reminder that Jesus is our guide through all of them – Jesus who was humbler yet, even to accepting death on a Cross.
Mount St Joseph Abbey
Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance
msjroscrea.ie
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