Dear Friends,
This Christmas is
a very special Feast, taking place as it does during this very unique
year that started on the 8th of December 2015 and that
will finish with the Solemnity of Christ the King, on 20th
of November. It is a year, in accordance with the wishes of the Holy
Father, in which the floodgates will be opened to allow the torrents
of God's mercy to flow freely upon us all. Indeed, this year is
dedicated to the discovery and deepening of God's Mercy, making it a
year of inestimable value.
Christmas is the
second major Feast in the Liturgical Year after Easter, and this
means that each one of us – those who are both close to as well as
far from God – is invited to receive a very special and powerful
healing Grace. The Mercy of God is manifest in a very unique way each
Christmas: again and again we can live that moment where humanity was
expecting a Saviour, a Messiah. He is God's Gift, given freely, where
He humbles himself and reaches out to each one of us. In the Baby
Jesus, the Most High does not ask us to climb the heights to reach
Him – He himself comes to us in an overwhelming act of Mercy.
This year,
therefore, the School of Mary will follow the intentions of the Pope
and do its best to deepen our experience of God's Mercy.
As you know the
School is a place for teaching Spiritual Life. “Teaching” is an
act of Spiritual Mercy. The School sees the great poverty of today's
world, especially the First World which thinks it has the
means and the power, which considers itself to be highly civilised,
but does not know how poor it is spiritually, how needy it has
become. The half-dead man of the Parable of the Good Samaritan is
often before us in the First World, waiting for somebody to
come and take good care of him, giving him the Spiritual Doctrine
that can restore him to real Life, giving his life Light, Guidance
and Meaning.
Let us, in the
School of Mary, humbly renew our commitment to serve Spiritual Life
and Spiritual Theology. It is a very hard mission, and even if the
door is wide open very few undertake it. Let us entrust ourselves to
Mary, as God the Father entrusted to Mary and Joseph his Eternal Son,
incarnate as a little Baby.
May the Lord
bless us all and bless our families, and may He give us plenty of
Graces especially this year, day after day, so we can discover,
deepen and dwell in God's Mercy for ever.
I would like to
take this opportunity to invite you to read, meditate and put into
practice the Pope's Letter on Mercy (please click here to find it);
it embodies a very deep message which is essential and to the point
for all of us Christians. Mercy is not optional in the Gospel,
it is God's Face, it is our Way to Him...
The teaching this
year in the School of Mary will pay special attention to Mercy in
Spiritual Life. A new and very exciting Course on the Sermon of
the Mount will be announced soon which will be open to everybody.
Further courses for 2016 will be announced at the appropriate times.
Counting on your
prayers as always, I wish each and every one of you a Happy Christmas
filled with the choicest blessings, and graced by the Presence of Our
Lady.
Jean
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