All Saints’ Day and all Souls’ Day.......immersed within the Body of Christ...

Yesterday we celebrated All Saints’ Day.... a Solemnity which was instituted to honor all the saints, known and unknown, and, according to Urban IV, to supply any deficiencies in the celebration of saints' feasts during the year.” Praise be to God for all of his saints!

Today we celebrate All Souls’ Day. Take a moment or two to soak deep within the blessing of being surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses! Let us become deeply aware of the saints who assist us and the souls who need our offerings. The saints are praying for all souls and we can join them in our offerings for the dear departed souls who are being purified to stand before God. We are all intricately linked to one another as members of the Body of Christ. Let us intently help one another by our prayers and good works and we offer our joys and sufferings for another’s sake. When we do for others, we demonstrate our “yes” to living our commitment to ever increasing gift-of-self.

Take in the joy and strength of our loving interdependence. We are instructed.... “But the souls of the just are in the hand of God and no torment of death will touch them. In the eyes of the foolish, they seemed to die, and their departure was considered an affliction, and their going away from us, a banishment. Yet they are in peace. And though, in the sight of men, they suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality. Troubled in few things, in many things they will be well compensated, because God has tested them and found them worthy of himself. Like gold in the furnace, he has proved them, and as a holocaust victim, he has received them, and in the time of their visitation they will shine, and they will dash about like sparks among stubble. They will judge the nations and they will rule over the people, and their Lord will reign forever. Those who trust in him, will understand the truth, and those who are faithful in love will rest in him, because grace and peace is for his elect.” (Wis 3:1-9)

Sharing in ENDOW studies increases our knowledge and trust in the loving plan of Our Father. ENDOW is helping so many women, their friends and families shine forth as faithful souls on our journey together! Enjoy this blessed Solemnity of All Souls!

We are never alone! Our Holy Father speaks about praying the “Our Father...”

As we pray, we draw into closer and closer friendship with God. Today I saw this beautiful butterfly doing exactly what he was created to do. Trough prayer, we can ask for the grace to do what our Father has planned for our lives...“Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you...” (Is 43:4, RSV) Imagine! These are the true words of our Father in heaven to us.

The Lord’s Prayer “is the most perfect of prayers..” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2763). When we gather together in prayer at mass, in our ENDOW studies....in our families...even when we are by our selves, we are never alone when we pray the Our Father! An article from ZENIT reports Pope Benedict XVI’s instruction to the faithful on the Lord’s Prayer. Our Holy Father says “Every time we recite the Our Father our voice interweaves with the voice of the Church, because no one who prays is ever alone.” In saying this prayer we all know and love, “We are before the first words of sacred Scripture that we have known since childhood. They fix themselves in the memory, they form our lives, they accompany us until our last breaths. They reveal...”(read full article).

I encourage all women of ENDOW to spend time today praying the Our Lord's Prayer with focused attention. You might ask in prayer, “What will you have me do for you today, our loving Father?” Let us join into this blessed interweaving of voices by praying now “Our Father who art in heaven......."