Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!
Alleluia.
Gospel: Luke 23:35-43
‘Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’
At that time: The rulers scoffed at Jesus, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!’ The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, ‘If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!’ There was also an inscription over him, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’
One of the criminals who were hanged there railed at Jesus, saying, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.’ And he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’
Notes from meeting on 18 November:
Picture
Picture of World in grey thick cloud, through the cloud in little partings a piercing azure blue light shines with streaks of gold, as we look further and get closer we can see pockets of these colours in many different countries, as we look even further we can see it is a Praying Army and all over the world the prayers join together making a gold light that meets up in the air to form an ever upward spiral reaching to the Heavens. The blue light is the protection of blessed Mothers Mantle.
"My dear little children
Your prayers are heard by the Almighty and Jesus takes delight in them, for by praying you are aligning yourselves with the task of Heaven to bring all peoples to the Holy Spirit, He who will pierce their cold hearts and make them feel Love again, He who draws all to the Holy Father and Son, enlivening and showing the Way of Truth, this Truth, that my Son Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
My little ones turn your eyes to my Son and soon miracles will be seen in the coldest of hearts even in your families and throughout your Country.
I Your Mother cover you with my Motherly Mantle of Protection, do not be afraid just persevere my little ones.
The clouds will part and pass and all will be well.
Mary"
We were a praying Army for the Lord pushing back against the darkness.
Psalm 139
1Yahweh, you examine me and know me,
2 you know when I sit, when I rise, you understand my thoughts from afar.
3 You watch when I walk or lie down, you know every detail of my conduct.
4 A word is not yet on my tongue before you, Yahweh, know all about it.
5 You fence me in, behind and in front, you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such amazing knowledge is beyond me, a height to which I cannot attain.
7 Where shall I go to escape your spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I scale the heavens you are there, if I lie flat in Sheol, there you are.
9 If I speed away on the wings of the dawn, if I dwell beyond the ocean,
10 even there your hand will be guiding me, your right hand holding me fast.
11 I will say, 'Let the darkness cover me, and the night wrap itself around me,'
12 even darkness to you is not dark, and night is as clear as the day.
13 You created my inmost self, knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 For so many marvels I thank you; a wonder am I, and all your works are wonders. You knew me through and through,
15 my being held no secrets from you, when I was being formed in secret, textured in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes could see my embryo. In your book all my days were inscribed, every one that was fixed is there.
17 How hard for me to grasp your thoughts, how many, God, there are!
18 If I count them, they are more than the grains of sand; if I come to an end, I am still with you.
19 If only, God, you would kill the wicked!-Men of violence, keep away from me!-
20 those who speak blasphemously about you, and take no account of your thoughts.
21 Yahweh, do I not hate those who hate you, and loathe those who defy you?
22 My hate for them has no limits, I regard them as my own enemies.
23 God, examine me and know my heart, test me and know my concerns.
24 Make sure that I am not on my way to ruin, and guide me on the road of eternity.
Intercessions
I am the salvation of the people, says the Lord. Should they cry to me in any distress, I will hear them, and I will be their Lord for ever...
We pray in reparation for all offences against the life and dignity of the human person from conception until natural death. Lord have mercy on us!
Pray for our new Pope, Leo XIV, that he may shepherd the Church and proclaim Christ to the World.
Pray for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis
Lord give us a spirit of Hope in this Holy Year of Hope.
Sacred Heart of Jesus have Mercy on us.
Immaculate Heart of Mary pray for us.
Please pray for the repose of the soul of Leo McCormack a member of Theotokos Prayer Group in its early days. May he Rest in Peace
Pray for his wife Sandra and family.
Pray for the soul of Mary, may she Rest in Peace, bring consolation to her family.
Pray for Yvonne Plucknett who has injured her back badly;
Margaret who had Pneumonia but has now been told she has Blood Cancer;
Melanie who has Lung Cancer.
Pray for healing for a young man in hospital after having his drink spiked, he has been unresponsive since admission 4 weeks ago.
Pray for Marcin, Terry, John Morgan, Lisa, Frances, Rosie, Adam Grey with cancer, Charlotte, Susan, Kyle, Catherine and Peter, Anne Shepherd, Felicity, Jessica, Marie Bedingfield, Milo, John Joynes, Vanessa, Cathy, Matthew, Gina Hardy, Owen McEneaney, Reese, Tony, Joan, Jackie, Nathan, David, Derek, Malcolm, Hollie, and Harlan Moon.
Pray for healing for Lynn and Anne both with chronic illness.
Pray for Gina (aged 31) who is waiting for a further pancreas transplant.
Pray for Alan Guile may the Lord strengthen him and his ministry.
Pray for Grace who is dying - Lord be with her
Pray for the sanctity of life from conception to natural death.
Pray for upbuilding of Marriage and Family.
Pray for peace in our Country and our communities.
Pray for our young people that they may be protected from the evil one, that they may find a home in the loving Heart of Jesus.
Pray for all in our Parishes who are ill in body, mind or spirit.
Pray for Disha that he may find employment.
Pray for all those we have been asked and have promised to pray for.
Pray for all who are grieving give them strength, consolation and healing.
Pray for our Priests and for vocations to the Priesthood.
Pray for lost souls.
Pray for the conversion of the World.
Lord we continue to pray for Peace in Ukraine and in Israel and Gaza and throughout the World.
Lord we pray for persecuted Christians throughout the World.
Lord we pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all peoples and nations.
Pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory may they be granted eternal rest.
Mary, Mother of God, Theotokos, pray for us.
Mary Queen of Peace, pray for us.
Mary, Bride of the Spirit, pray for us.
If anyone has any prophecy, prayers, readings or intercessions I encourage you to please send them to
me. Let us share with one another the gifts and inspirations of the Spirit!
Also if there any changes necessary to the intercessions - please let me know
Resources
1.Theotokos Prayer Group:
https://www.facebook.com/Theotokos-Prayer-Group-142398089120415
/http://theotokosprayergroup.blogspot.co.uk/
2. Daily Mass readings can be found at:
https://universalis.com/mass.htm
3. Bishops Conference of England and Wales Website -
https://www.cbcew.org.uk
4. Diocese of Hexham & Newcastle Website:
Home - Diocese of Hexham & Newcastle (diocesehn.org.uk)
5. Catholic Charismatic Renewal in England:
http://www.ccr.org.uk/
6. Catholic Charismatic Renewal International
https://www.charis.international/en/home/
7. Celebrate Conference website
https://www.celebratetrust.org/
8. CHARIS in England and Wales
www.charisuk.com
9.CaFE - Catholic Faith Exploration (faithcafe.org)
Events
Next meeting will be on 25 November 2025 at 7.30pm in The Creche in St Patricks Church, Glenfield Road, Fairfield, Stockton TS19 7PL. All welcome.
Jubilee 2025 - Pilgrims of Hope
The 2025 Jubilee officially opened on December 24, 2024 with the rite of Opening of the Holy Door of the Papal Basilica of St. Peter by the Holy Father.
Link to Jubilee website: Jubilee 2025 https://www.iubilaeum2025.va/en.html
LEO XIV
GENERAL AUDIENCE
St Peter's Square
Wednesday, 19 November 2025
___________________________________
Catechesis Cycle – Jubilee 2025: Jesus Christ Our Hope. IV. The Resurrection of Christ and the Challenges of today's world. 5. Easter spirituality and integral ecology
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!
We are reflecting, in this Jubilee Year dedicated to hope, on the relationship between the Resurrection of Christ and the challenges of the contemporary world, that is, our challenges. At times, Jesus, the Living One, wants to ask us too: “Why do you weep? Who do you seek?”. Indeed, challenges cannot be faced alone and tears are a gift of life when they purify our eyes and liberate our gaze.
John the Evangelist draws to our attention a detail that we do not find in the other Gospels: weeping near the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene did not immediately recognize the risen Jesus, but thought he was the gardener. Indeed, already narrating the burial of Jesus, at sunset on Good Friday, the text was very precise: “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb where no one had ever been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, as the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there” (Jn 19:40-41).
Thus, in the peace of the Sabbath and the beauty of a garden, the dramatic struggle between darkness and light that began with the betrayal, arrest, abandonment, condemnation, humiliation and killing of the Son, who “having loved his own who were in the world … loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1), comes to a close. Cultivating and keeping the garden is the original task (cf. Gen 2:15) that Jesus brought to fulfilment. His last words on the cross – “It is finished” (Jn 19:30) – invite each of us to rediscover the same task, our task. For this reason, “he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (v. 30).
Dear brothers and sisters, Mary Magdalene was not entirely mistaken then, believing she had encountered the gardener! Indeed, she had to hear her own name again and understand her task from the new Man, the one who in another text of John says: “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev 21:5). Pope Francis, with the Encyclical Laudato si’, showed us the extreme need for a contemplative gaze: if he is not the custodian of the garden, the human being becomes its destroyer. Christian hope therefore responds to the challenges to which all humanity is exposed today by dwelling in the garden where the Crucified One was laid as a seed, to rise again and bear much fruit.
Paradise is not lost, but found again. In this way, the death and resurrection of Jesus are the foundation of a spirituality of integral ecology, outside of which the words of faith have no hold on reality and the words of science remain outside the heart. “Ecological culture cannot be reduced to a series of urgent and partial responses to the immediate problems of pollution, environmental decay and the depletion of natural resources. There needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking, policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance” (Laudato si’, 111).
For this reason, we speak of an ecological conversion, which Christians cannot separate from the reversal of course that Jesus asks of them. A sign of this is Mary’s turning around on that Easter morning: only by conversion after conversion do we pass through that vale of tears to the new Jerusalem. This passage, which begins in the heart and is spiritual, changes history, engages us publicly, and activates solidarity that now protects people and creatures from the longings of wolves, in the name and power of the Lamb-Shepherd.
In this way, the sons and daughters of the Church can now meet millions of young people and other men and women of good will who have heard the cry of the poor and the earth, letting it touch their hearts. There are also many people who desire, through a more direct relationship with creation, a new harmony that will lead them beyond so many divisions. On the other hand, still “the heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world” (Ps 18:1-4).
May the Spirit give us the ability to listen to the voice of those who have no voice. We will see, then, what the eyes do not yet see: that garden, or Paradise, which we will only reach by welcoming and fulfilling our own task.
____________________________
Special greetings
I am happy to welcome this morning the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors, especially those from England, Ireland, Senegal, Uganda, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam and the United States of America. A special greeting to the students and faculty from Xavier University of Louisiana and the University of Dallas, Texas. With prayerful good wishes that the present Jubilee of Hope may be for you and your families a time of grace and spiritual renewal, I invoke upon all of you the joy and peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
________________________
Summary of the Holy Father's words
Dear brothers and sisters, in our continuing catechesis on the Jubilee theme of “Jesus Christ our Hope,” today we consider Christ’s Resurrection and its impact on the challenges of today’s world, especially in living out integral ecology. If we allow it, Christ’s salvific act can transform all our relationships: with God, with other people and with creation. Like Mary Magdalene on Easter morning, who turned around to look at Jesus, we too must allow the seed of Christian hope to bear fruit, convert our hearts and influence the ways we respond to the issues that we face. As followers of Jesus, we are called to promote lifestyles and policies that focus on the protection of human dignity and of all of creation. Let us ask for the grace to see our struggles through the gaze of the Resurrection and may we influence the world with hope and Easter joy.
GENERAL AUDIENCE
St Peter's Square
Wednesday, 19 November 2025
___________________________________
Catechesis Cycle – Jubilee 2025: Jesus Christ Our Hope. IV. The Resurrection of Christ and the Challenges of today's world. 5. Easter spirituality and integral ecology
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!
We are reflecting, in this Jubilee Year dedicated to hope, on the relationship between the Resurrection of Christ and the challenges of the contemporary world, that is, our challenges. At times, Jesus, the Living One, wants to ask us too: “Why do you weep? Who do you seek?”. Indeed, challenges cannot be faced alone and tears are a gift of life when they purify our eyes and liberate our gaze.
John the Evangelist draws to our attention a detail that we do not find in the other Gospels: weeping near the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene did not immediately recognize the risen Jesus, but thought he was the gardener. Indeed, already narrating the burial of Jesus, at sunset on Good Friday, the text was very precise: “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb where no one had ever been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, as the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there” (Jn 19:40-41).
Thus, in the peace of the Sabbath and the beauty of a garden, the dramatic struggle between darkness and light that began with the betrayal, arrest, abandonment, condemnation, humiliation and killing of the Son, who “having loved his own who were in the world … loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1), comes to a close. Cultivating and keeping the garden is the original task (cf. Gen 2:15) that Jesus brought to fulfilment. His last words on the cross – “It is finished” (Jn 19:30) – invite each of us to rediscover the same task, our task. For this reason, “he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (v. 30).
Dear brothers and sisters, Mary Magdalene was not entirely mistaken then, believing she had encountered the gardener! Indeed, she had to hear her own name again and understand her task from the new Man, the one who in another text of John says: “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev 21:5). Pope Francis, with the Encyclical Laudato si’, showed us the extreme need for a contemplative gaze: if he is not the custodian of the garden, the human being becomes its destroyer. Christian hope therefore responds to the challenges to which all humanity is exposed today by dwelling in the garden where the Crucified One was laid as a seed, to rise again and bear much fruit.
Paradise is not lost, but found again. In this way, the death and resurrection of Jesus are the foundation of a spirituality of integral ecology, outside of which the words of faith have no hold on reality and the words of science remain outside the heart. “Ecological culture cannot be reduced to a series of urgent and partial responses to the immediate problems of pollution, environmental decay and the depletion of natural resources. There needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking, policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance” (Laudato si’, 111).
For this reason, we speak of an ecological conversion, which Christians cannot separate from the reversal of course that Jesus asks of them. A sign of this is Mary’s turning around on that Easter morning: only by conversion after conversion do we pass through that vale of tears to the new Jerusalem. This passage, which begins in the heart and is spiritual, changes history, engages us publicly, and activates solidarity that now protects people and creatures from the longings of wolves, in the name and power of the Lamb-Shepherd.
In this way, the sons and daughters of the Church can now meet millions of young people and other men and women of good will who have heard the cry of the poor and the earth, letting it touch their hearts. There are also many people who desire, through a more direct relationship with creation, a new harmony that will lead them beyond so many divisions. On the other hand, still “the heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world” (Ps 18:1-4).
May the Spirit give us the ability to listen to the voice of those who have no voice. We will see, then, what the eyes do not yet see: that garden, or Paradise, which we will only reach by welcoming and fulfilling our own task.
____________________________
Special greetings
I am happy to welcome this morning the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors, especially those from England, Ireland, Senegal, Uganda, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam and the United States of America. A special greeting to the students and faculty from Xavier University of Louisiana and the University of Dallas, Texas. With prayerful good wishes that the present Jubilee of Hope may be for you and your families a time of grace and spiritual renewal, I invoke upon all of you the joy and peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
________________________
Summary of the Holy Father's words
Dear brothers and sisters, in our continuing catechesis on the Jubilee theme of “Jesus Christ our Hope,” today we consider Christ’s Resurrection and its impact on the challenges of today’s world, especially in living out integral ecology. If we allow it, Christ’s salvific act can transform all our relationships: with God, with other people and with creation. Like Mary Magdalene on Easter morning, who turned around to look at Jesus, we too must allow the seed of Christian hope to bear fruit, convert our hearts and influence the ways we respond to the issues that we face. As followers of Jesus, we are called to promote lifestyles and policies that focus on the protection of human dignity and of all of creation. Let us ask for the grace to see our struggles through the gaze of the Resurrection and may we influence the world with hope and Easter joy.
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