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April 2nd -- FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT
That moved by a spirit of repentance,
we may turn from the temptations of this world,
and embrace the Gospel of Life;
We pray to the Lord:
April 9th -- FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT
For all who are imprisoned,
and especially for those sentenced to die,
that they may trust in God's all powerful love;
We pray to the Lord:
April 16th -- PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD'S PASSION
That all those whose hearts are torn by the memory of violence,
and especially those touched by the sin of abortion,
may open their hearts to the tender, healing mercy of God;
We pray to the Lord:
April 23rd -- EASTER SUNDAY
That the glory of the Risen Christ
might destroy the powers of darkness and death,
and lead all men and women to the Gospel of Life;
We pray to the Lord:
April 30th -- SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER
That throughout this Easter Season,
we might cherish the gifts of life God gives to us:
in children, in teenagers, and in those who have grown old;
We pray to the Lord:
"Everyone–rich and poor–is invited to make Christ's love present through generous works of charity. During this Jubilee Year our charity is called in a particular way to manifest Christ's love to our brothers and sisters who lack the necessities of life, who suffer hunger, violence or injustice. This is the way to make the ideals of liberation and fraternity found in the Sacred Scripture a reality, ideals which the Holy Year puts before us once more. The ancient Jewish jubilee, in fact, called for the freeing of slaves, the cancellation of debts, the giving of assistance to the poor. Today, new forms of slavery and more tragic forms of poverty afflict vast numbers of people, especially in the so-called Third World countries. This is a cry of suffering and despair which must be heard and responded to by all those walking the path of the Jubilee. How can we ask for the grace of the Jubilee if we are insensitive to the needs of the poor, if we do not work to ensure that all have what is necessary to lead a decent life?"
Bulletin Briefs
The century just ended and has shown clearly that immense suffering results when economic and political systems do not respect the full truth about man, his spiritual nature, and his quest for the transcendent in his search for truth and freedom. ... Is not the quest for a social order in which all members of the human family can flourish and live in a manner worthy of their innate dignity the great moral challenge of this new millennium?
–Pope John Paul II, Letter to the participants in the Fiftieth National Prayer Breakfast
Your nation was built as an experiment in ordered freedom, an experiment in which the exercise of individual freedom would contribute to the common good. The American separation of Church and State as institutions was accompanied from the beginning of your Republic by the conviction that strong religious faith, and the public expression of religiously-informed judgments, contribute significantly to the moral health of the body politic.
–Pope John Paul II, Letter to the participants in the Fiftieth National Prayer Breakfast
Will America continue to inspire people to build a truly better world, a world in which freedom is ordered to truth and goodness? Or will America offer the example of pseudo-freedom which, detached from the moral norms that give life direction and fruitfulness, turns in practice into a narrow and ultimately inhuman self-enslavement, one which smothers people's spirits and dissolves the foundations of social life? These questions pose themselves in a particularly sharp way when we confront the urgent issue of protecting every human being's inalienable right to life from conception until natural death. This is the great civil rights issue of our time, and the world looks to the United States for leadership in cherishing every human life and in providing legal protection for all the members of the human community, but especially those who are weakest and most vulnerable.
–Pope John Paul II, Letter to participants in the Fiftieth National Prayer Breakfast
Democracy is our best opportunity to promote the values that will make the world a better place for everyone, but a society which exalts individual choice as the ultimate source of truth undermines the very foundations of democracy. If there is no objective moral order which everyone must respect, and if each individual is expected to supply his or her won truth and ethic of life, there remains only the path of contractual mechanisms as the way of organizing our living together in society. In such a society the strong will prevail and the weak will be swept aside.
–Pope John Paul II, Letter to participants in the Fiftieth National Prayer Breakfast