OXYGEN

24 May – Seventh Sunday of Easter; 43rd World Communication Sunday

The Spirit Of God’s Life
The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church, the principle of its life and unity. God is living in us because he lets us share his Spirit.

- The Sunday Missal
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For World Communications Sunday, the Vatican has launched www.pope2you.net, a new web portal for young people to access Pope Benedict’s talks and writings, and videos of his activities online or on the go. The website encourages young people to build a culture based on dialogue, respect and friendship and invites the Catholics among them to make Christ known to their digital generation peers.

The site works with Facebook and YouTube and is accessible through the iPhone, while messages can also be downloaded to your iPod Touch. It offers four applications to young people: Facebook, iPhone, WikiCath, and the Vatican YouTube channel.

Pope Benedict’s message for today can be found here.

Here at OXYGEN, we’ve been using digital technology to help you apply the Word of God to your lives for the past 8 years. We recently underwent an internal restructuring to improve our system and productivity. One of the new features is a way that you can reach our writers directly instead of going through me. Each of them now have their own email addresses. They are: “firstname”@thecatholicwriter.com – that is, insert the first name of the writer in the space marked by the quotation marks. [This is used to reduce automated spam.]

In celebrating this year’s World Communication Sunday, we hope that you too will reflect on your lives and see how you can use the Internet and other modern digital technologies to bring the Good News to people around the world. Please also pray for us in the OXYGEN team, that we may constantly find new ways of bringing the Word of God to others.

Peace,
Dan
on behalf of the OXYGEN team
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Acts 1:15-17, 20-26

One day Peter stood up to speak to the bothers – there were about a hundred and twenty persons in the congregation: ‘Brothers, the passage of scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit, speaking through David, foretells the fate of Judas, who offered himself as a guied to the men who arrested Jesus – after having been one of our number and actually sharing this ministry of ours.

‘In the Book of Psalms it says:
Let someone take his office.

‘We therefore choose someone who has been with us the whole time that the Lord Jesus was travelling around with us, someone who was with us right from the time when John was baptising until the day when he was taken up from us – and he can act with us as a witness to his resurrection.’

Having nominated two candidates, Joseph known as Barsabbas, who surname was Justus, and Matthias, they prayed, ‘Lord, you can read everyone’s heart; show us therefore which of these two you have chosen to take over this ministry and apostolate, which Judas abandoned to go to his proper place.’ They then drew lots for them, and as the lot fell to Matthias, he was listed as one of the twelve apostles.
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1 John 4:11-16

My dear people,
since God has loved us so much,
we too should love one another.
No one has ever seen God;
but as long as we love one another
God will live in us
and his love will be complete in us.
We can know that we are living in him
and he is living in us
because he lets us share his Spirit.
We ourselves saw and we testify
that the Father sent his Son
as saviour of the world.
If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God
God lives in him, and he in God
We ourselves have know and put our faith in
God’s love towards ourselves.
God is love
and anyone who lives in love lives in God,
and God lives in him.
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John 17:11-19

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said:

‘Holy Father,
keep those you have given me true to your name,
so that they may be one like us.
While I was with them,
I kept those you had given me true to your name.
I have watched over them and not one is lost
except the one who chose to be lost,
and this was to fulfil the scriptures.
But now I am coming to you
and while still in the world I say these things
to share my joy with them to the full.
I passed your word on to them,
and the world hated them,
because they belong to the world
no more than I belong to the world.
I an not asking you to remove them from the world,
but to protect them from the evil one.
they do not belong to the world
any more than I belong to the world.
Consecrate them in the truth;
your word is truth.
As you sent me into the world,
I have sent them into the world,
and for their sake I consecrate myself
so that they too may be consecrated in truth.
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Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth

There was once a teenager who was grieving for his dead parents whom died in a car accident. He was angry with God for letting such a tragedy happen in his family and wanted to give up on God all together. A priest who had seen sufficient cases of this sort in his pastoral ministry brought him to a rehabilitation centre for people whom have lost their limbs through accidents. The young man was shocked to see the enthusiasm and joy that illuminated the faces of these people. The priest whispered to the teenager in his deep and kindly voice, “They have chosen to move on because they hold in their hearts the hope of a better future.”

Today’s readings remind us of the hope of a better future after the Ascension of Christ. The apostles were sad that they would no longer see Jesus but Jesus knew that His prayer to God the Father to protect them from the forces of the evil one would be answered. The Holy Spirit would come down upon them to strengthen them in their ministry and guide them in making decisions that were consistent with what God desired of us.

We depend on our own strength in making decisions in our lives because we believe that we are superior compared to all around us. Our intellect is sufficient enough to be our moral guide but this is clearly wrong.

Human intelligence is limited. There can never be a situation where we possess all the knowledge needed to make a decision. It is only when we admit that we are limited by human weakness can we ask for the Holy Spirit to guide us in our lives. We must give up the steering wheels of our lives to God and trust that He will bring us to something good.

(Today’s OXYGEN by Nicholas Chia)
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Prayer: Lord, we pray not to become smarter but to be humble and realise that we are nothing without you.

Thanksgiving: We give thanks for the saints whose lives of humility we can emulate.

Upcoming Readings:
Mon, 25 May – Acts of the Apostles 19:1-8; John 16:29-33; Memorial for St. Bede the Venerable, Priest and Doctor of the Church; Memorial for St. Gregory VII, Pope; Memorial for St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, Virgin
Tue, 26 May – Acts of the Apostles 20:17-27; John 17:1-11; Memorial for St. Philip Neri, Priest
Wed, 27 May – Acts of the Apostles 20:28-38; John 17:11-19; Memorial for St. Augustine of Canterbury, Bishop
Thu, 28 May – Acts of the Apostless 22:30; 23:6-11; John 17:20-26
Fri, 29 May – Acts of the Apostless 25:13-21; John 21:15-19
Sat, 30 May – Acts of the Apostles 28:16-20.30-31; John 21:20-25
Sun, 31 May – Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11; Galatians 5:16-25; John 15:26-27; 16:12-15; Pentacost Sunday