Prayer Intentions of Pope Benedict for July 2011

General Intention:

Those Suffering with AIDS.  That Christians may ease the
physical and spiritual sufferings of those who are sick with AIDS, especially in
the poorest countries.

Missionary Intention:

Religious Missionary Women.  That religious women in
mission territories may be witnesses of the joy in the Gospel and living signs
of the love of Christ.

General Intention - Those Suffering with
AIDS
That Christians may ease the physical and spiritual
sufferings of those who are sick with AIDS, especially in the poorest countries

The Gospels tell how Jesus brought the good news of God's love to
people through healing. When sick people came to him, Jesus typically asks,
"What do you want me to do for you?" (Mark 10:51). He does not ask, "How did you
get sick?" Pharisees ask that, but never Jesus. Jesus looks upon sick people as
individuals. He loves each of them in their suffering, heals them, and forgives
their sins.

Today through the Church, Jesus continues to bring about physical and
emotional healing that can lead to spiritual healing. Pope Benedict asks us this
month to pray that Christians may reach out to all those who suffer from AIDS,
that we may strive to ease both their physical and spiritual suffering.

Because they are so often judged for how they got sick, AIDS victims tend to
feel alienated from society and from God. Yet Jesus wants to reach into their
isolation, touch, and heal them, just as he did the leper in Mark's Gospel (see below).

The United Nations estimates that there
are 33 million people who are HIV-positive, 22 million living in sub-Saharan
Africa. We pray especially for those who suffer in the poorest countries in the
world. Helpful medications are not readily available there even though AIDS is
common.

Pope Benedict has called on us to recognize our solidarity with those
suffering from AIDS. "I urge everyone to make his or her own contribution, with
prayer and practical attention, to ensure that all who are affected by the HIV
virus may experience the presence of the Lord who gives comfort and hope. By
redoubling and coordinating our efforts, I hope it will be possible to eradicate
this disease." (St. Peter's Square, November 2009).

Reflection: 
How does AIDS in your own
community challenge you to imitate Jesus?

Reading:
Mark 1:40-42  Moved with
pity Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, "I do will it.
Be made clean."

Links

• Pope John Paul II's 2005 Message for World Day
  of the Sick
• June 9, 2010 Statement of the Permanent Observer
  Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations
• Message for World AIDS Day,
  December 1, 2005, by Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, Prefect of the Pontifical
  Council for Health Pastoral Care
• Interview with Fr. Michael
  Czerny, S.J.
• African Jesuit AIDS Network

This month we are praying for missionaries who are women
religious (that is, members of religious congregations who take vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience). Nuns play a tremendously important role in bringing
Christ to to the world through their teaching, their pastoral care, and their
medical work.

By the latest estimate, there are 740,000 women religious in the world. While
their number is declining in Europe and North America, it is rising in many
mission countries, especially in Africa, India, and Vietnam. The growth is a
sign of the growing vitality of the Church in developing countries, where often the Church provides many of the educational and health
services that these societies are unable to provide to their own poor.

Blessed Pope John Paul II appreciated the importance of women religious. "The
future of the new evangelization," he said, "is unthinkable without a renewed
contribution from women, especially consecrated women." The late Holy Father
urged missionary women to desire above all, in the words of St. Therese of
Lisieux, "to love you [God] and make you loved." He challenged them to seek
knowledge of the divine will and to say, "Lord, here I am. What do you want me
to do?"

This is our prayer for religious missionary women. May they walk in the love
and joy of the Gospel and bear much fruit.

Reflection:
How can you show your gratitude
for the vital missionary work of women religious?

Reading:  
Luke 9: 57-62 As
they were proceeding on their journey someone said to him, "I will follow you
wherever you go." Jesus answered him, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have
nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head." And to another [Jesus]
said, "Follow me." But he replied, "Lord, let me go first and bury my father."
But he answered him, "Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the
kingdom of God."

Links

• Pope John Paul II's 1990 encyclical Redemptoris Missio
• Pope John Paul II's 1996 Apostolic Exhortation Vita
  Consecrata
• Missionary Sisters of St. Peter Claver

O, Mary, Mother of the
Church, I entrust all consecrated people to you, that you may obtain for them
the fullness of divine light: may they live in listening to the Word of God, in
the humility of following Jesus, your Son and our Lord, in the acceptance of the
visit of the Holy Spirit, in the daily joy of the Magnificat, so that the Church
may be edified by the holy lives of these sons and daughters of yours, in the
commandment of love. Amen.

- Pope Benedict , February 2011