Works of Mercy

Your love, O Lord, is an ocean,
An ocean of mercy waiting to quench our burning thirst,
Living water,
Water ready to purify the darkness of sin,
Water to quench the fires of hate,
Water to fill the parched aching within,
Water to wash us clean,
Living water streaming from the heart of a loving God,
Endless fount of mercy,
Gift beyond our imagining.

Open our hearts, O Lord,
and remind us how we need that living water,
how we will perish without the touch of that healing flow,
how life becomes a meaningless desert
when we wander separated from the living water of your presence.
Help us to realize
that when the burning thirst touches us,
it is only you who can quench that fire within,
and when touched by your living waters,
may we remember the giver,
and pass the gift on to those whose lives we touch,
this day, and always,
Amen.

Labels: Prayer

Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB) is the leading U.S.-based Catholic-charity focusing exclusively on global healthcare, particularly the well-being of women and children.

A faith-based leader in global healthcare, CMMB works to fight HIV/AIDS from Africa to Asia, to combat tuberculosis in Zambia, and to provide primary healthcare in Latin America and the Caribbean. CMMB has provided medicines and supplies to more than 100 countries around the world since 1928.

CMMB is focused on the development and management of healthcare programs that meet identified needs, make a lasting impact and utilize all our experience and expertise. Through these programs, we are helping to build a world where quality healthcare is available to all.

CMMB fulfills its mission by building and managing comprehensive healthcare programs that target leading causes of death and suffering in the developing world. We integrate our key strengths – medical donations , and volunteer placement – into our program initiatives. CMMB also provides emergency relief to places that have experienced natural or political catastrophes.

Among US-based charities, CMMB rates as one of the most effective and trusted international healthcare organizations. We have one of the broadest networks of faith-based partners around the world. Many of these faith-based institutions work in the hardest-to-reach areas and thus offer healthcare accessibility that governments cannot. In many developing countries, Catholic health institutions and other church-affiliated programs are leading the response to health crises such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and preventable diseases.

In addition to the work we do overseas, CMMB strives to raise consciousness here at home about the inequalities in basic healthcare throughout the world. We are active in several international groups that effect changes in policies and regulations regarding the distribution of donated drugs. We also publish CMMB Today, a quarterly publication that focuses on international healthcare issues and the impact of our work.

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Labels: AIDS, Charities

When the Lord hears my prayer for mercy (a prayer which is itself inspired by the action of His mercy) then He makes His mercy present and visible in me by moving me to have mercy on others as He has had mercy on me. This is the way in which God's mercy fulfils His divine justice: mercy and justice seem to us to differ, but in the works of God they are both expressions of His love.

Thomas Merton

Labels: Mercy thoughts

Our mission is to alleviate human suffering and promote dignity for all God's children overseas without regard to race, belief, or nationality. Our programs touch the lives of more than 80 million people per year in 99 countries around the world.

This catalog offers you the opportunity to help the most vulnerable and impoverished people through a wide variety of projects. Now you can give your family, friends, and loved ones a gift that embraces our one human family. Review our catalog of projects pertaining to feeding the poor, building a better society, promoting self sufficiency, and promoting better health. Then help celebrate meaningful dates and events such as birthdays, graduations, promotions, holidays, weddings, and anniversaries by supporting one or more of our life-saving projects. Your gift from our CRS Project Catalog will make a world of difference. Thank you.

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Labels: Charities

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Today Pro-life Day is being observed in Italy, promoted by the episcopal conference with the theme "Love and Desire Life."

I cordially greet all those who have gathered in St. Peter's Square to witness to their commitment in favor of life, from conception until natural death. I join the Italian bishops to renew the appeal, launched several times also by my venerated predecessors, to all men and women of good will to receive the great and mysterious gift of life.

Life, which is the work of God, must not be denied to any one, not even the smallest and defenseless newborn, and much less so when he has serious handicaps. At the same time, echoing the pastors of the Church in Italy, I urge you not to fall into the deception of thinking that one can dispose of life to the point of "legitimizing its interruption with euthanasia, masking it perhaps with a veil of human mercy."

The "Week of Life and Family" begins today in the Diocese of Rome, an important occasion to pray and reflect on the family, which is the "cradle" of life and of every vocation.

We know well that the family, based on marriage, constitutes the natural environment for the birth and education of children and, therefore, to ensure the future of the whole of humanity.

However, we also know that it is going through a profound crisis and that it must face numerous challenges.

Therefore, it is necessary to defend, protect and value it in its unique and irreplaceable character. If this commitment is first of all the duty of spouses, it is also a priority duty of the Church and of all public institutions to support the family through pastoral and political initiatives, which take into account the real needs of spouses, of the elderly and of the new generations.

A peaceful family atmosphere, enlightened by faith and the holy fear of God, also favors the rise and flowering of vocations at the service of the Gospel. I am referring in particular, not only to those called to follow Christ on the path of the priesthood, but also to men and women religious, consecrated persons, whom we remembered last Friday on the World Day of Consecrated Life.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us pray so that with a constant effort in favor of life and of the family our communities may become places of communion and hope, in which is renewed, despite the many difficulties, the great "yes" of authentic love to the reality of the human being and of the family, according to the original plan of God.

Let us ask the Lord, through the intercession of Mary Most Holy, that respect will grow for the sacred character of life, that there will be ever greater awareness of genuine family needs, and that the number will increase of those who contribute to bring about in the world the civilization of love.

Pope Benedict XVI

Labels: Pope Benedict XVI, Right to Life

Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.

--Mother Teresa

Labels: Mercy thoughts