10th Sunday in ordinary time

May the Lord bless you and fill your heart with Peace and Joy.
This computer has been going off and on during the past two months due to the small generator biting the dust. I just barely managed to put the readings on line using the laptop battery which must be charged each day. Since there is no electricity in the village it is difficult to get a charge.

The saddest news was that my dear and loving brother Jackie died about 3 weeks ago. Jackie had always been my 'hero' big brother. It is hard to imagine him not sending e-mail or me not sharing what the Lord is doing at Nazareth. Please pray for my sister in Law, Bettye...and two sons, Steven and James. This has been real hard on the three of them especially since they lost two of their siblings recently. Now Jackie is gone and they need some real emotional support. Owing to my vow of Poverty I was unable to travel from Gambia to Texas and back. The priests and sisters in this diocese have all been offering Masses and praying for Jackie and the family. Bishop Ellison was especially kind and sent a sympathy card from the entire diocese.

I know I left off while I was begging and we are still needing funds to buy Medicines. Since the beginning of the week I have had to send many folks away due to our lack of drugs. You can really help by sending your donations in care of:
Mr. Robert Shrigley
339 Monarch Drive
Houma, Louisiana, 63368

We had a 'warning' rain at the beginning of this week which means that the full rains will be here real soon. With the rains come the 'suu suu lah' (Mosquito's) and with the 'suu suu lah' comes malaria.
I definitely need to get the more malaria meds so we do not run out. When folks come to Nazareth with malaria it is too late to tell them to go to the clinic to get meds. They don't have money to buy the Medicines, are too poor to pay for a private clinic and when they are sick with malaria they can barely move let alone walk. Some folks just walk into Nazareth and lie down in the driveway because they just can't make it any further. Some arrive on donkey carts and need help right away. Last year one donkey cart came to the gate with 6 people with Malaria.
I beg you to please help!
My love and prayers

Br. dismas Mary







St Ignatius of Antioch's letter to the Romans

I do not try to please men, but God

From Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which has obtained mercy through the majesty of the Most High Father and of Jesus Christ, his only Son; to the Church which is beloved and enlightened by the will of him who wills all things that are, according to the love of Jesus Christ our God; to the Church which has precedence in the lands of the Romans; to the Church which is worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of the blessing, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy in its holiness, pre-eminent in love, named after Christ, named after the Father. I greet that Church in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father. To those who are united in flesh and spirit to every one of his commandments, filled with the grace of God without wavering and filtered clear from every foreign stain, abundant greeting in Jesus Christ, our God, in blamelessness.

  I have prayed to the Lord to see your godly faces and I have persevered in prayer until I have been granted this — for I hope to greet you, as a prisoner in Christ Jesus, if only I am found worthy to reach the end of my journey. Things have begun well and all now depends on my receiving the grace to reach my goal and receive my inheritance unhindered. But I fear your love for me and I fear the harm it can do me: it is so easy for you to do what you want and so hard for me to reach God if you do not spare me your help.

  You habitually do what pleases God: do what pleases him now and not what pleases men. I shall never have a better opportunity of reaching God, and you will never have the opportunity of performing a better act than now, by keeping silence. If you remain silent, I shall become the word of God; but if your love of my physical life makes you speak, I shall be nothing but a meaningless cry.

  Grant me nothing more than this: that I should be poured out to God, while an altar is still ready for me. Form yourselves into a chorus of love and sing praise to the Father in Christ Jesus for permitting this bishop of Syria to be summoned from the place of the sun’s rising to the sunset lands. Just as the sun sets only to rise again, how good it is to set to this world, to set and then to rise in God.