September 14. Triumph of the Cross.  Everybody has got his one favourite “love is……’ saying.  Melody asked the family to sit together and share their own.  Eventually they concluded that maybe our general concept of love can be rather too sentimental.  Reflecting on this feast of the Triumph of the Cross the pains and joys of love made their thoughts more comprehensive and real.  “We learned a lot about love and care and responsibility during the covid-19 pandemic.” Pauline reflected.  “It also makes me think of the poor little scaly pangolins that somehow got blamed for causing the start of the pandemic. They are the most trafficked of all the animals on earth, even here in South Africa they are captured and sold. Surely they need love and protection as much as the poor and all the human family.” Dad reminded them again that the cross is a very real sign of suffering but on this day it is also a sign of conversion and of faith, hope and love, of God, of one another and of all of nature.  

Reflect, share, act. Scripture: Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a servant.  He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. therefore God has exalted him.  Philip 2:6-11.  Pope Francis: As part of the universe called into being by one Father, all of us are linked by unseen bonds and together form a kind of universal family. God has joined us so closely to the world around us that we can feel the desertification of the soil almost as a physical ailment and the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement. LS89. Eco-tip.  on social media start an ecological renewal campaign with the slogan “Love is ……………………     Pray for an increase in love as the basis for ecological conversion and change.

DAILY FAMILY PRAYER from Season of Creation 2026.  May God our Father, who brought water from a rock, sustain us in the desert. May Christ our Lord, who is Living Water, refresh us for the work of restoration.  May the Holy Spirit carry us on currents of grace until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amen. St Francis guide and inspire us on our way.

I SEE HIS BLOOD UPON A ROSE . poem by Oliver Plunkett.

I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice—and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.