Photo Essay: St. Mary of Providence

I was invited to the annual meeting for the Eastern Province of the Lay Dominicans which doubled as a retreat.  It spanned from Thursday evening and concluded Sunday morning after Mass of the last weekend in October, Sunday being November 1^st, All Sou’s Day.  The meeting/retreat was held at St. Mary of Providence in Elverson, Pennsylvania, about 50 miles west of Philadelphia.  It was a beautiful fall weekend with perfect though unusually warm weather.

St. Mary of Providence is a facility centered around the Langoma Mansion, the former mansion of the Potts family and now run by the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence.  The mansion was built in the 1890s by Joseph D. Potts, who died before it was completed in 1897 but taken over by his son William and his family.  The Daughters of St. Mary of Providence took possession in 1948.  You can read its history. 

This was an honest to true, real life mansion!  Other than some museum that might have once been a mansion, I had never been in one, let alone slept in one.  According to the website it says it has 76 rooms.  It had an East Wing and a West Wing connected by family rooms.  Each wing had a spiral staircase which must have gone up three or four floors.  Each area had an abundance of fireplaces. 

I am going to share a large number of photos I took while there.

Let’s start with the outside of the mansion.

Inside between the two wings on the ground floor is the Dining Room.

If you don’t get the scope of the room from the picture, that’s three long dinner tables with ten places each with a chandelier above each table and plenty of room after the tables to fit more tables.  You can see one of the fireplaces in that picture.  The second identical fireplace is by the first table.  Here is a close up.

In between the two fireplaces is the entrance to the solarium.

We held a number of our informal discussions in the solarium.

Each wing had an identical spiral staircase.  Here are pictures of the west wing’s.

I can imagine Scarlett O'Hara of Gone with the Wind coming down those stairs!

I did not see what the regular bedrooms were like but I was told some had four or five beds in a room.  I for one was given a servant’s bedroom, a very humble and spare room.

I felt quite at home in the little room, and the simplicity of it did good for my humility.  Outside my window was the chicken coop, and I got to hear some roosters crow in the morning.  Here are the chickens from my window.  That little structure is part of the coop.

I was quite fascinated with the chickens, and so I went down and took some pictures of the coop.

Breakfast included eggs of various sizes and colors, and I suspect they were fresh from the flock.

Off to the side of the chicken coop was what I thought a strange structure, a round, stone tower.

I asked Sister Brenda, one of the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence who runs the facility, what the tower was used for.  She said the bells are now located inside, and we did get bell chimes at various hours of the day.  She said at one time it served as a water tower to provide water pressure for the facilities.  It would rank as the most beautiful water tower I have ever seen.  Here is the tower at sunset.

My time there was just perfect autumn days at the height of fall colors.  Here are some gorgeous pictures of the grounds.

Goodness.  Some of those are breathtaking.  Could heaven be this beautiful?

The grounds were filled with all sorts of Catholic statues for devotion.  From my other bedroom window, I could see a statue of St. Joseph.  

The first picture was snapped from my bedroom, the second outside where I had a better angle.

There was the Good Shepherd.

Behind the statues of the Good Shepherd were the Stations of the Cross.

And inside the little stone hut nearby was the Resurrection.

I couldn’t see the light switch, so I snapped the photo in the dark.

Elsewhere there was a set of statues for Fatima.

And a display for Lourdes.

Finally, there was a display for the rosary with a plaque for each of the twenty mysteries similar to those for the Stations of the Cross.  Unfortunately night had settled and it was so dark I only took a picture of Our Lady of the Rosary which stood in the center.

It was not my last night when I took that picture, so I figured I would return the next day with better light for the mysteries.  Unfortunately I never got the chance.

But I was blessed to have the chance to spend three days there.  I certainly recommend you do if you can.

These were a lot of pictures for one post.  I hope you enjoyed them.

Sunday Meditation: All Depend on These Two Commandments

A note.  The Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time was last week.  I had a complicated week, and I’m trying to catch up. 

 

In the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time of Year A, Jesus continues to confront the Temple elders.  Today’s Gospel has the Pharisees questioning Jesus on the greatest commandment.  They only asked for one, the “greatest,” but Jesus provides His now well-known twofold reply: To love God and to love your neighbor as yourself.  Fr. Geoffrey Plant in the embedded video (19:03) below will quote Pope Francis explanation of Jesus’s response:

 

"The novelty is in his placing these two commandments together—love for God and love for neighbor—revealing that they are in fact inseparable and complementary, two sides of the same coin. You cannot love God without loving your neighbor, and you cannot love your neighbor without loving God.”

Gina Hens-Piazza of the Jesuit magazine, America, identifies the biblical passages from where Jesus roots His answer:

 

Jesus is drawing from two different Torah texts here to answer the Pharisees. The commandment to love God comes from Dt 6:5, and the commandment to love your neighbor can be found in Lv 19:18. Jesus brings both together because of his understanding of God, which warrants the intimate oneness between these two seemingly distinct dynamisms: love of God and love of our neighbor. 

Hens-Piazza continues explaining a difficulty I have had with the link between the two commandments.

 

Over the centuries and, perhaps, even today, some struggle with the notion that love of God and love of neighbor take the form of a commandment. A law requiring one to love seems to contradict the very character and dynamism of love itself. We might justifiably argue that love is not something that can be compelled or mandated. Further, even if one is willing to be obedient to this command, how does one actually respond? After all, the very notion of God is difficult to grasp. Sometimes God is referred to as the “Beyond within our midst,” or the “Ultimate Holy Other” or the “Infinite Reality.” How does one even obey a command to love God, a reality so in excess of our capacity to behold, to say nothing about loving this Divine Being with all of one’s heart, soul and mind?

So what is the answer?  Can you force yourself to love an abstract Being?  But Gina finds the answer in a less than abstract means. 

 

Jesus, who answered the Pharisees regarding the greatest commandment, is the answer itself.  By way of the Incarnation, Jesus discloses the very revelation of God and the possibility of loving God as Jesus showed us. His life becomes a concrete manifestation of God, the divine self.

 

 

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees,

they gathered together, and one of them,

a scholar of the law tested him by asking,

"Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"

He said to him,

"You shall love the Lord, your God,

with all your heart,

with all your soul,

and with all your mind.

This is the greatest and the first commandment.

The second is like it:

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

~Mt: 22:34-40

 

 

For the exegetical homily, Fr. Geoffrey Plant provides a full background.

 

Fr. Goeffrey:

Pope Benedict made the observation that “today, the term ‘love’ has become one

of the most frequently used and misused of words, a word to which we attach

quite different meanings.”  He writes about the vast semantic range of the word “love.”  That is certainly true of the way we use the word in the English language.  Someone can say, “I love playing sport.”  I love my country.  I love ice cream.  I love my sister; I love my brother.  I love you.   I love God…

 

“We need to ask,” Pope Benedict says, “are all these forms of love basically one,

so that love, in its many and varied manifestations, is ultimately a single reality, or

are we merely using the same word to designate totally different realities?” I think

we would have to answer that the word “love” is certainly being used to

designate very different realities. Loving ice cream is a totally different human

experience from loving my children, my husband or my wife.

 

There is ἔρως (erōs).  This is love as desire and attraction: the longing that draws us towards what we find beautiful or good, towards that which we do not yet possess.

This word does not appear in the New Testament, and that absence is significant. The

love revealed in Jesus does not begin with a lack of any kind. God is not drawn

towards us because something is missing in God. God's love begins from fullness, not

need. It moves outwards in giving, not inwards in grasping.

 

Then we have στοργή (storgē).  The word refers to the natural affection found within a family: between parents and children, or between siblings.  Although the noun itself does not appear in the New Testament, the reality it describes is clearly recognised and valued.

 

There is φιλία (philia) and the related verb φιλέω (phileō).  These words refer to the love of friendship, warmth and personal attachment. Both the noun and the verb appear in the New Testament.  John's Gospel uses this word to describe the affection that Jesus has for Lazarus. It names real closeness and tenderness, the kind of love that grows out of familiarity and shared life.

 

Precisely because φιλέω (phileō) normally presupposes affection and personal

attachment, it is not the word used in the great New Testament commands to love our

neighbour or to love our enemies. Those commands require a form of love that does

not depend on attraction or emotional closeness. So while φιλέω (phileō) names

something genuine and important, it is never used when the New Testament

commands us to love. Whenever the New Testament commands us to love God, to

love our neighbour, or to love our enemies, it uses ἀγαπάω (agapaō).

And that brings us to the word Matthew uses in today’s Gospel: ἀγαπάω (agapaō).

The noun ἀγάπη (agapē), the verb ἀγαπάω (agapaō), and the adjective ἀγαπητός

(agapētos) — what we might call the ἀγάπη (agapē) family — occur about 320 times in

the New Testament, and at least one member of the family is found in every book of

the New Testament.

 

Unlike the language of friendship or affection, ἀγαπάω (agapaō) does not necessarily

depend upon emotional warmth or personal attachment. In both the Septuagint and

the New Testament, it can refer to an attitude and a mode of action rather than simply

an emotion.  It is love shown in deliberate action: seeking the good of the other, acting faithfully towards them, treating them according to what God requires rather than according to how one happens to feel. That is why Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself,” is rendered with ἀγαπάω (agapaō) in the Septuagint, and why Jesus’ command to love our enemies uses the same verb.

 

The point is not that this love is colder or morally superior. It is that this is the kind of

love that can be commanded. It can be lived out even when affection is absent.

Indeed, it is precisely in such circumstances that its true character becomes most

apparent. A person can forgive, refrain from vengeance, act justly and pray for

another’s good without feeling warmth or closeness towards that person.

 

The difficulty is with English diction that only has one word to signify all the multiple uses of the word, “love.”

 

For the pastoral sermon (not a homily) I’m turning to SOLT (Society of Our Lady) again, this time to Fr. Brady Williams.

 

Fr. Brady:

In this 30th Sunday of ordinary time Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees the Sadducees the scribes and the lawyers who asked him a very demanding question; they asked him what's the greatest commandment?  Now there were 600 different prescriptions and laws and asking Jesus to boil it down, to whittle it down to what's the most important thing, what's the central thing, and Jesus is going to say it's love: to love God with all your heart mind and soul and to love your neighbor as yourself.

 

When we reflect in our own life do we recognize have I loved God with everything I've got with my whole heart my whole mind my whole soul?   We imagine in a family that's talked about God and loving God with our whole heart mind and soul that it eventually quoted in a sense kind of seeps in deep down and takes root in the heart of the person.  What do we talk about the most we recognize it that's the greatest thing in our life love and loving God with our whole heart mind and soul that's the most important thing and do we see that reflected in our life because our love for God constantly grow more and more and more intense.

 

GK Chesterton once in his very British wit said the Bible tells us to love our neighbor and to love our enemy; this is probably because generally they are the same person.  Love really is to will the good of the other person.  The greatest good that we can will for someone else of course is eternal life.  See once we have realized that we have been loved intensely by God not because of anything we have done or accomplished or how good we are or even how bad we are we are loved by God then that love in turn flows out to love for our neighbor.

 

Jesus is going to take these two Commandments, and he's going to boil it down to one: to love one another as I have loved you, and he's going to show that love by giving his life on the cross for us; that's the love that each of us have; that's the love that each of us is to give.

 

What we have received, we are to give.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

 

 

This is so beautifully done, by Lauren and David Moore.

 

 

Immaculate Mary, your praises we sing.

You reign now in Heaven with Jesus, our King.

 

Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria!

Ave, Ave, Maria!

   

In Heaven, the blessed your glory proclaim.

On earth we, your children, invoke your fair name.

 

Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria!

Ave, Ave, Maria!

       

We pray for our Mother, the Church upon earth.

And bless, Holy Mary, the land of our birth.

 

Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria!

Ave, Ave, Maria!

 

Ave Maria, our blessed Mother!

 

 

Handmaids and Warriors Newsletter: October 2026

This is Alice’s September newsletter.  I explained Alice’s monthly newsletter here.  This month focuses on the Our Lady of the Rosary.

Before the newsletter, let us pray: For Pope Leo XIV

Hail Mary, full of grace…

Hail Mary, full of grace…

Hail Mary, full of grace…

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

 

 

Handmaids of Mary

St. Michael’s Warriors

October 2026 Newsletter

 

OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY

OCTOBER 7^TH

 

Deus omnes amat et malum non pranalebit

God Loves Everyone, Evil Will Not Prevail

  

THE BATTLE OF LEPANTO

 

In the year 1571 the Turks had reached the zenith of their power.  Christendom seemed to be at their mercy.  Their armies were flush with victory; they were powerful, well-equipped and directed by the ablest of generals .  Their objective was to capture France, Italy, Rome and transform St. Peter’s into Turkish mosque.  Pope St. Pius V ruled the church.  This great Pontiff and Saint was appalled at the overwhelming danger that threatened the ruin of Christian civilization.  Christendom was not only weak but sadly divided among themselves.

The Holy Pontiff put ALL his confidence in the Rosary, while laboring indefatigably to unite the Christian forces. Such as they were.  He sent orders to them to put out to sea and though inferior in number, in equipment, in artillery, and in ships, they were to fight without fear in the name of God and Our lady.  On October 7th of that year the two fleets approached each other.  Obeying the orders of the Sovereign Pontiff and placing themselves under the protection of Mary,  the Christian fleet dashed on the enemy with undaunted bravery.  Suddenly the wind shifted and blew violently in the face of the Turks and in favor of the Christians.  The battle raged with unabated fury for several hours ending in the complete overthrow of the Turkish Fleet. 

The victory was so crushing and complete that the power of the Moslem forces was broken, and Christendom  was saved until now the year 2026.  We are once again at this very moment in time in a battle with the Moslem country.  Iran.

When the pontiff heard the news of this victory he fell on his knees and thanked God and Our Blessed Mother.

It was Pope Leo the XIII who insisted that the seventh of October be especially consecrated to the Rosary.

Is Mary’s plea’s to us a voice in the wilderness? She came many times to promote the Rosary. And especially at Fatima.

Is it possible for today’s Christian Catholic to once again unite and put All their faith in the Rosary and to believe Mary can once again defeat all the enemies of our day.

She has asked us many times,  and if the church itself doesn’t, with great fervor,  as in the past popes did,  plead with us to say the rosary, we the laity are being called to be brave and courageous and to believe with all our hearts in the power of the Rosary.  As in the battle of Lepanto “with undaunted bravery,”  Our Mother  Mary has given us the tool for our day and times.

An old Irish woman’s reply to someone who asked her why she was saying that silly prayer the Rosary.

She said. “Silly prayer, you call, it but for me my joy and consolation.  When i am sad and sorrowful it consoles me,

And when I am well and happy, it gives  me more joy and pleasure.  How could it. Be silly, to speak to the Holy Mother of God, and for sure that is what i am doing when I say the rosary.”

 

As promised, the last two of the seven Sacramentals

The Brown Scapular:

The Brown Scapular owes it origin to the direct intervention of the Blessed Mother, who chose St. Simon Stock to reveal it as proof of her love for her earthly children.  St Simon Stock a devout servant of Mary, was a native of England and joined the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel soon after its introduction into that country.

On July 16, 1251, while he was at Cambridge, the Mother of God favored him with a vision. Appearing to him with a Scapular in Her hand she said to him, “Receive my beloved son this scapular of Thy Order.  It is a special sign of my favor.  He who dies clothed with this habit shall be preserved from eternal fire.  It is the badge of salvation, a shield  in time of danger, and a pledge of special grace and protection”

Those who wear the Scapular have the promise of the Blessed Mother to be adopted as her favorite and privileged children and enjoy the special protection both body and  soul.  When death approaches those who wear the scapular they may hope for her powerful intercession to preserve to the end; or sinners, if they will make use of the graces offered, may obtain the grace of conversion.

A very special privilege known as the Sabbatine indulgence which is based on a revelation to Pope John XII is also connected to the Brown Scapular.  This assures the prompt deliverance from Purgatory on the Saturday following their death.  “One day through the Scapular and the rosary I will save the world” (Blessed Mother to St. Dominic).

 

Blessed Medals:

The origin of medals as devotional objects date back from the early days of Christianity when the pagans wore various medals and charms around their necks.  The church strove to counteract these pagan symbols by the wearing medals depicting Christian symbols and mysteries.  In our day there are many medals approved and blessed by the church.

Among the best known are the Miraculous Medal, the Scapular medal, and the medal of St. Benedict.

The Miraculous Medal:

The Miraculous Medal owes its origin to the Blessed Mother herself, who in the year 1830 appeared on three different occasions to St. Catherine Laboure, a member of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul.  Mary revealed to her the model of the medal which she ordered to be struck.  She promised great graces to those who would wear it blessed.

Countless instances have been recorded of remarkable favors received through the devout use of this medal.

The church shows her love and solicitude for us through the Sacramentals.  She blesses us, and even in our last place of rest pronounces a blessing.  The Sacramentals unite us to the Mystical Body of Christ, the church animated by the Holy Spirit.

“Oh how wonderful it will be to hear.  Mary is Queen of the universe…It will be a time of peace, joy, and good fortune.  That will last long: She will be carried as a banner and She will make a tour of the whole world”

-Blessed Mother to St. Catherine Labore

Hail Mary, White Lilly, of the Glorious and always- serene Trinity.

Hail brilliant Rose of the Garden of Heavenly delights.

Nourish our souls with effusions of divine grace.

Amen!

 

Alice, Handmaid of the Handmaids of the Handmaids of Mary

Manny, Servant of St. Michael Warriors

 

Sunday Meditation: Testing a Truthful Man

For the Twenty-Nineth Sunday in Ordinary Time of Year A, we are still in what  Dr. Nina Heereman calls the “Temple Discourse,”  as I explained last week.  At the Temple during Christ’s last week leading to His passion, He comes in direct confrontation with the Jewish leaders.  In today’s passage the Jewish groups of the Pharisees and the Herodians try to lay a trap for Jesus. 

This passage is well-known for Christ’s saying of giving unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and onto God what is God’s, but what I find fascinating, and perhaps less mentioned is how the Pharisees deviously egg Jesus into being as frank as possible.   They tell Him He is a “truthful man.”  The irony is Jesus is the Truth, the Truth with a capital “T.”  Buttering Him up is a means of getting Him to answer their question. 

And He will answer their question, and He will answer it with Truth but it is not as the Pharisee’s expected.  Jesus will have none of it.  He calls them hypocrites to their face.

The key to this passage is not so much the implied division of church and state from Jesus’s answer, but the play on the word “image”: the image of Caesar versus the image of God in which humanity was made in. 

 

 

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

The Pharisees went off

and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech.

They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying,

"Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man

and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.

And you are not concerned with anyone's opinion,

for you do not regard a person's status.

Tell us, then, what is your opinion:

Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?"

Knowing their malice, Jesus said,

"Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?

Show me the coin that pays the census tax."

Then they handed him the Roman coin.

He said to them, "Whose image is this and whose inscription?"

They replied, "Caesar's."

At that he said to them,

"Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar

and to God what belongs to God."

~Mt: 22:15-21

 

 

I’m returning to Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger from the diocese of Detroit for the exegetical homily.

 

Archbishop Weisenburger:

Now, recall that there were three taxes for the Jews of Jesus' day. First, an income tax, about 1% of your annual income. Second, a 10% tax on grain and grapes used for wine, but then a third tax that was the same for every adult Jewish citizen, roughly the equivalent of a day's wage. That third tax historically began as a way to rebuild the Great Temple in Jerusalem, but when the Roman armies overtook and occupied Palestine during Jesus' era, the Romans shifted this sacred temple tax to pay for the upkeep of their own temple to the pagan gods in Rome. And thus, you can see the crisis. Many faithful Jews saw the payment of that tax as an evil cooperation in reusing a tax meant for the holiest of purposes instead for something blasphemous. Notably, the Herodians quietly had no problem with it. They were actually the ones cooperating with King Herod and the Roman occupiers, and their cooperation with them brought them wonderful privilege.  The Pharisees, for their part, were less open about it, but they also pretty much had free movement in the culture, and so they may quietly have grumbled about paying that blasphemous tax, but few took a public stance, knowing it easily could lead to their being disappeared.  And so now in the temple precincts, these two groups try to force Jesus to either one, be a sellout with the Romans, with overtones of blasphemy, or two, the other option, publicly place a target on his back with the Romans.

 

Okay, it's at this point that Jesus, standing on sacred temple ground, asks them to show him a Roman coin, which of course was imprinted with the emperor's face.  It also bore an inscription we know for a fact indicating Caesar was God's "high priest."  A blasphemous statement. And two, most biblical scholars note that for a faithful Jew to simply have that coin on his person while on holy temple ground was itself blasphemous.  Which perhaps explains the reason why Jesus had to ask someone to "show me the coin,"   not having one on him himself. And revealing the Pharisees' own hypocrisy.  Okay, with that background in mind, Jesus takes the dilemma of them trying to trap him, and as we so often see, flips it right back on their heads. The coin itself is a blasphemous thing. Money in Jesus' day, much like our own day, technically belonged to the government, with citizens being able to use it for commerce.  Technically, in the law, it did belong to Caesar.  So, it seems Jesus says: give that horrible thing back to a horrible person. But if that's really more context or background, then I think there's still a deeper meaning of the encounter. A deeper meaning for those with the ears to hear and the eyes to see.  And that real or deeper meaning of the encounter was the remainder of what Jesus said to them.  "Give to God what belongs to God." And to the extent that we focus too much on what the coin meant might be the extent to which we too missed the point. Rather, Jesus' intent was the teaching. Give to God what belongs to God.

 

Brothers and sisters, just as a coin in Jesus' day was stamped with an image, you and I have been created, stamped if you will, in God's image. And you and I are no investment of which he wants simply a part. He really, really wants all of us. And he wants all of you. Moreover, God calls us to recognize and reverence that image of him imprinted on every human being.  And to be sure, the image has little or nothing to do with physical appearance.   Being in the image of God is to reflect God's love in creative and redemptive ways…. Brothers and sisters, I pray that you will have what Jesus would call  "the ears to hear, and the eyes to see."  Be not like the Pharisees or Herodians, twisting religion into something self-serving with a hefty benefit of status and stature. Rather, in recognizing first and foremost in whose image you have been created, and from there recognizing that same divine imprint on every human being, your task is to find ways in life to give to God what belongs to God. Trust me, the Caesars of today can take care of themselves.

And what belongs to God?  Your worship and your service.

 

For the pastoral sermon (not a homily) I’m going to turn to someone new, Susan Breton of U. S. Catholic Magazine.

 

Ms. Breton:

Have you ever lost something? How did you get it back?  Maybe it was your purse, your wallet, your phone, your keys, something of sentimental value.  When someone found it, they knew it belonged to you because there was something on it that identified it as being yours. Your name, your picture, something that said, "This belongs to someone." And maybe that's what we are being asked today.  What Jesus is asking us, who do we belong to?

 

So Jesus asks for a coin. He asks whose image is this and whose inscription? And they answer Caesar. And Jesus says, then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. The word Jesus uses for image is the Greek word eikōn which means icon, image and likeness. The coin bears the icon, the image and likeness of Caesar. So Jesus is acknowledging that the coin belongs to Caesar. But Jesus's answer goes much deeper than taxes. In another place in scripture, we hear this word image. In Genesis, we hear God created human beings in his image and likeness. And in the Greek translation of Genesis, that same word icon is used, icon.  The coin bear Caesar's image or icon. We bear God's image, his icon.  Maybe that's the deeper question that Jesus is putting before us today.  If the coin bears Caesar's image and therefore belongs to Caesar, then if we bear God's image, to whom do we belong?  We belong to God.

There’s an interesting perspective.  Your image stamped by God identifies you as God’s possession!

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man."

 

 

One of my son Matthew’s favorite hymns as a child, “We Are the Light of the World.”  Here is Chris Brunelle performing.

 

 

Chorus: We Are the light of the world, may our light shine before all, that they may see the good that we do, and give glory to God

 

Vs.1

Blessed are they who are poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of God. Bless us, O Lord, make us poor in spirit

 

Vs. 2

Blessed are they who are meek and humble, they will inherit the earth. Bless us, O Lord, make us meek and humble; bless us, O Lord, our God

 

Vs. 3

Blessed are they who will mourn in sorrow, they will be comforted. Bless us, O Lord, when we share their sorrow; bless us, O Lord, our God

 

Vs. 4

Bless those who hunger and thirst for justice, they will be satisfied. Bless us, O Lord, hear our cry for justice; bless us, O Lord, our God

 

We, whose image is of God, are the light of the world!