The seeds have been planted.
Over the past few days we have experienced the Lenten retreat in our parish. This year, the Word was preached to us by a missionary of the Order of the Most Precious Blood from Czestochowa, Father Damian Siwicki CPPS. The theme of the retreat was: ‘come back home’ and the main message was to be open to God’s love in such a way as to enable you to find a place in His heart, find your own home in Him and become one of His children. In this way, we can desire to cling to Him even more and allow Him to lead us in our everyday life.
As Father Damian was in our parish, there was an opportunity for the three persons, who had previously expressed a desire to become members of the secular Community of the Blood of Christ, to be accepted into the Community. These three people who were officially admitted to the members of the Community of the Blood of Christ, are: Irena Maryniak, Helena Kmieciak and Miroslav Kruszynski. As a condition of joining the Community, they placed their letters to Jesus into the hands of Father Siwicki.
In these letters they stated their gratitude to Jesus for His guidance in their lives, and the lives of their families, and gave thanks for being accepted into the Community of the Most Precious Blood. Father Damian handed each new member a badge with a red cross and red rosary which symbolises the Blood of Christ. Father Siwicki observed that our new Community of the Blood of Christ, of which I myself have been a member for 20 years, is the first such community in the British Isles.
The rule of life of the Community of the Blood of Christ is summarized in the words of the Gospel: ‘ greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends’ ( John 15:13). As Jesus, the Son of God, showed his love by shedding his Blood, so we, guided by the Holy Spirit, commit ourselves to love others and to make a sacrifice of our lives to God and for our brothers and sisters ( Lumen Gentium 42). Now that our new Community is established in our parish, we will pray for the necessary graces to be given to our priests and all our parishioners so that the Blood of Jesus, which in the modern world should be heard more loudly than the blood of Abel ( Hebrews 12:24), becomes for us a solace and remedy for our daily worries.
Deacon Kris
