Start seeing the women in the Gospels. Meet the women in Mark’s Gospel in both word and illustration and pray with them.
32 pages. 1-9, $8 each; 10-99, $7 each.
Click here to order online or call Good Ground Press at 800-232-5533.
Tag Archives: spirituality
Host A Passover Meal!
28 Mar
The meal Jesus shares with his disciples the night before he dies celebrates Passover, a feast remembering Israel’s escape from slavery in Egypt and journey to freedom in the Promised Land. In the Christian tradition the Holy Thursday Eucharist we share celebrates Jesus’ gift of himself to us and his model of service in washing his friends’ feet.
Make this Holy Week and Easter special by hosting a Freedom Supper based on the Passover story for your family, your neighbors, perhaps the whole parish. It is easy to prepare. Just click here for instructions and a simple script.
Check out our Lent resources page for more activities that you, your family, friends, and parish can participate in.
Visit goodgroundpress.com for daily prayers, reflections, and spiritual resources.
Celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation
25 Mar
Sister Joan and Sister Ansgar have created a book celebrating the women of Luke’s Gospel. First among them is Mary of Nazareth, whose visit from the angel Gabriel we celebrate today. Click here to find the pages of prayer and reflection on Mary. The entire book, Holy Women of Luke’s Gospel, will be available in mid-April.
Hail, Mary. Full of grace. Blessed are you among all women.
Pray for us.
Visit goodgroundpress.com to pre-order your copy of Holy Women of Luke’s Gospel, or call Lacy at 800-232-5533. Only $8.00!
Gospel Reflection for March 24, 2019, 3rd Sunday of Lent
21 MarGospel Reflection for March 24, 2019, 3rd Sunday of Lent
Sunday Readings: Exodus 3.1-8, 13-15; 1 Corinthians 10.1-6,10-12; Luke 13.1-9
Jesus spoke a parable. A man had a fig tree, came looking for figs, but found none. He said to the gardener, “For three years I have come looking for figs and found none. Cut it down. . .” The gardener said, “Sir, leave it one more year while I hoe around it and manure it. Perhaps then it will bear figs.” – Luke 13.7-8
How do we see ourselves in Jesus’ parable? What to do with a tree that bears no fruit? Who likes to cut down a tree? If we think of the gardener as God, then God is nurturing, caring more about another chance to bear fruit than cutting it down. If we think of the tree as ourselves or our children, who doesn’t need or won’t give another chance to grow? A fourth, a fifth?
In the Old Testament steadfast, generative love is God’s signature characteristic. Sunday’s responsorial psalm provides one of the most famous descriptions of God: “Merciful and gracious is the Holy One, slow to anger and abounding in kindness” (103.8).
Our daily interactions cultivate conversion. Like the gardener we nourish and encourage one another. Listening to others can cultivate the fruit of compassion or courage or insight. Other believers can freshen our commitments.
In what ways are you like the owner of the fig tree? In what ways like the gardener? What or whom will you give one more chance to bear fruit? What special care with this require?
If you enjoy this Gospel Reflection, please visit the Sunday By Sunday page to order a subscription or to view sample issues. Start a small bible study. Be a leader.
What’s more Catholic than fish dinners?
21 MarDid you know the fish is an ancient Christian symbol? The word for fish in Greek is ichtus, pronounced ick-toose. The word fish in Greek letters look like:
The first Christians, who were sometimes persecuted for their faith in Jesus, made an acrostic out of this word. In an acrostic, each letter is the first letter of a word.
I Jesus
CH Christ
TH God’s (the Greek word is Theos)
U Son
S Savior
When Christians wanted to show someone else they followed Jesus, they might draw a fish symbol on paper or on the ground. The fish meant the person drawing it believed in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Savior.
So patronize your local fish dinner this Friday. Bring a neighbor or carry fish back to a shut-in person. Do it in the name of Jesus.
Feed Your Spirit This Week
Choose an activity each day to keep Lent alive.
PLANT
• Work in your yard. Meet and visit with neighbors.
• Plant a tomato in a large pot. Put it in a sunny spot and wait for your first BLT.
SIMPLIFY
• Organize a storage area.
• Turn off the TV for the whole evening.
PRAY
• Thank God for spring. Make a litany of life, using each letter of the alphabet.
• Pray for Pope Francis and the future of the Church.
READ
• The gospels for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Sundays of Lent are all on forgiveness and second chances. Read them at goodgroundpress.com.
• Read a Gospel Reflection for March 24.
FAMILY and FRIENDS
• Tell a family member five lovable things about him or her.
• Let go of a grudge you have held on to long enough.
PARTICIPATE
• Go to a fish dinner.
• Contribute to a food shelf at church or in your neighborhood.
Happy St. Joseph’s Day!
19 Mar
When Joseph didn’t know what to do about his pregnant fiancée, he slept on it. In his dreams, an angel eased his doubt and gave him courage to act. Pray to Joseph today to fill your heart with hope and with the willingness to see God at work where you never imagined. Joseph is patron of the Universal Church. Ask him to bless Pope Francis’s efforts to dream a more merciful church into being. The Sisters of St. Joseph share one of their favorite prayers below.
Joseph most ordinary, on this your feast,
help us listen to our dreams with compassion and openness as you did.
Help us stretch, hold, and deepen our relationships.
Open our embrace of the future as you opened
your arms to a child not your own.
In these hard times may we, like you, dream compassionately,
provide wisely, and build community that can hold us together.
We ask this through Jesus, whom you claimed and named. Amen.
Visit our website—goodgroundpress.com—for Lenten reflections and activities.
Two Books For Lent!
14 Mar
This Lent we read from Luke’s Gospel with his stories of forgiveness, compassion, and second chances. Sister Joan’s new book is ideal for faith-sharing groups, Bible study, RCIA, homilists, and anyone who wants to understand scripture better. Only $10!
Order online at goodgroundpress.com or call us at 800-232-5533.
Sister Joan and Sister Ansgar have collaborated for a second time on Gospel women. In both his Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles, Luke tells women’s stories — Mary and Martha, the widow of Nain, Mary Magdalene, Phoebe and Priscilla. You will meet them and more in word and illustration and prayer.
Book available in April, 2019. Click here to pre-order your copy of Holy Women of Luke’s Gospel today.
Softcover, 88 pages. 1-9 copies, $8; 10-99, $7; 100+, $5.50.
Ash Wednesday
6 MarPhoto via Flickr user Lawrence OP
“So let us be marked not for sorrow.
And let us be marked not for shame.
Let us be marked not for false humility
or for thinking we are less than we are
but for claiming what God can do
within the dust, within the dirt,
within the stuff of which the world is made,
and the stars that blaze in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral inside the smudge we bear.”
– Jan Richardson from Blessing the Dust
Happy Mardi Gras!
5 Mar
Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday. In years past people didn’t eat meat for all of Lent, so this was their last chance to fry pancakes in bacon fat. We have gone beyond that small feast to all-out parties and carnivals.
Margaret Murray, CSJ, from the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Los Angeles province, gives us thoughts on feasting and fasting to take into Lent. May they be a blessing to you.
This Lent we read from Luke’s Gospel with his stories of forgiveness, compassion, and second chances. Sister Joan’s new book is ideal for faith-sharing groups, Bible study, RCIA, homilists, and anyone who wants to understand scripture better. Only $10!
Order online at goodgroundpress.com or call us at 800-232-5533.
Ash Wednesday Prayer Service
1 Mar
Ash Wednesday is next week, March 6. We have prepared an Ash Wednesday prayer service for those of you who cannot make it to church or who would like to celebrate with the homebound or those in nursing homes.
If you have a little bit of palm from last Palm Sunday, burn it to make the ashes. Or write down a way you wish to grow during Lent and then burn that paper to create ashes.
Visit goodgroundpress.com for more resources to make Lent a blessed time for yourself and for those you love and serve.
