ENDOW Study Groups educate and encourage women to live more virtuous lives. At the end of each year, ENDOW sends out a special packet to each Facilitator. This packet contains a “Virtue Card” for each member of the ENDOW Study. We are directed to read the following prayer together:
“Come Holy Spirit, we entrust to you the work of furthering the holiness in the souls of each woman here today. Please guide our hands as we choose the virtue you desire us to work on diligently this coming year. We abandon ourselves to your guidance and welcome the light and assistance you offer to us in this New Year.”
After praying together, each member of the study reaches into the bag and choose a Virtue Card. This year I chose the Virtue “Courage.”
Here is a bit I found in a CNA article on Fortitude (courage)....
“Or: The Determination to Become Happy
In our lives many situations arise in which it becomes difficult to do the right thing, even when we know what it is. There may be all sorts of reasons for why it is disagreeable to act according to what we know is best. In order to stay strong, to do what is good, we need the third cardinal virtue, known alternately as fortitude, courage, or bravery. This is the virtue by which we do the right thing, even in the midst of hardship.
Fortitude helps us to overcome any dangers, obstacles, and fears; it enables a person to withstand whatever difficulties may block him from attaining his true goal.”
Read the full CNA article on Fortitude here.
Come Holy Spirit!
I pray that all the women of ENDOW receive the virtues God desires to make manifest in them!
JOY to the world!
Let earth receive her King!
Christ the Savior is born!
Come let us adore him, alleluia!
Praying for all to be filled with the love and light of Christ Jesus!
Merry Christmas to ALL!
Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, the 76-year old Capuchin friar who is the official preacher of the Papal Household, recently spoke of the call to re-evanglize our world which is experiencing these three obstacles of accepting the Christian message: atheistic scientism, secularism and relativism. Fr. Cantalamessa encourages us with the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John which say “Take courage: I have conquered the world." Read full CNA article here.
How do we bring the light of Christ to our world which needs true light? Let us ask in prayer as we ready ourselves to more fully receive Jesus into our hearts this Christmas. One way to equip ourselves is to facilitate and ENDOW study. Our late Pope John Paul II taught about this time of the New Evangelization. One of my favorite ENDOW studies (I must admit, I have loved them all!) is Lumen Gentium (Light of the Nations). Pope John Paul II encourages all the faithful to continue to grow in understanding of the Church with these words from a 1979 homily: "The Pope expects a noble and generous effort on your part to always know better your Church. The Second Vatican Council wanted to be a council about the Church. Take the documents of the Second Vatican Council, especially Lumen Gentium, and study them with loving attention."
Set out to BE the light of Christ we are called to be....read more here about ENDOW’s Lumen Gentium Study.
Christ be our light!
Come Lord Jesus!
If you haven’t facilitated an ENDOW study....might this be the call to give this gift to the women of your parish? Please prayerfully consider facilitating....it is a blessing which cannot be fully described! Please check out the available ENDOW studies here and start planning a new study group. Bringing women together to discover their God given dignity...and to grow in the love of Christ and his Body the Church! .....YES! God loves a cheerful giver!
