Author: Editor, Kingdom Revelator

Saints 

Saint Dominic Savio

Sharlet Francis Xavier writes about the young Saint who died in his teens.

 

FAMILY LIFE

Dominic Savio was born in 1842, in the village of Riva in northern Italy. The name Dominic means belonging to God and the name Savio means wise. His devout family was poor, but hard-working. As a child Dominic went to the Oratory of St. Francis De Sales, a school founded by Don Bosco, the future Saint, who later wrote a biography of Dominic as he was so impressed by his holiness. Dominic was very bright. He did well at school and was loved and respected by his friends. He attended Mass regularly and was often seen in Church praying with great passion to Jesus. At that time, children would receive their first Holy Communion in their early teens, but his Parish Priest, inspired by the Holy Spirit, decided that Dominic’s faith and devotion were so strong that he was allowed to receive Jesus in Holy Communion from the age of seven.

LIFE CHANGING DECISIONS

As he prepared for his First Holy Communion, the seven year old Dominic decided that he would make four rules for himself.

1. I will go to Confession and Communion as often as my confessor will allow.

2. I will sanctify Sundays and holy days in a special way.

3. Jesus and Mary will be my friends.

4. I will suffer death rather than sin.

Dominic lived by these resolutions until his death. He always considered God as his Lord and master and he was sure that God would reward those who were faithful with eternal life. He is said to have enjoyed the company of his guardian angel and used to have conversations with him. But while he full of energy and ready to join in any games with his friends, Dominic’s health was not strong.

LIVING LIKE CHRIST

Dominic was a very compassionate boy as he tried to imitate Jesus in all that he did. When he was eleven he was falsely accused of a serious offence at school. Dominic was threatened with expulsion, but because he had never misbehaved before, he was just given a severe scolding before the whole class. Dominic made no reply but stood in silence with his head bowed. A few days later the boy who was actually guilty was discovered. The teacher regretted punishing Dominic and asked him why he had not defended himself. He answered gently, “I remembered how Our Lord had been unjustly accused. I knew that the other boy was in trouble for other things and I hoped that if I kept silent he would be given another chance.”

DEVOTION TO MARY

Dominic had a special love for the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He often prayed asking for the grace to keep his heart like Mary’s, free from every impure desire. Pope Pius IX proclaimed the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854 and Don Bosco and his Salesian brothers offered themselves to Mary, the Immaculate Mother of Jesus in a very special prayer. Dominic remembered his first Communion resolutions and renewed them at this time, especially that he would suffer death rather than sin. Dominic had made such evident progress in virtue that Don Bosco began to write down everything he noticed about the young boy and this would later become his biography.

 

“Like St Dominic Savio, be missionaries of good example, good words, good action at home, with neighbours and colleagues at work. At every age we can and we must bear witness to Christ! Commitment to bear witness is permanent and daily.” His Holiness Pope John Paul II in a Homily on 7th December 1997

 

CALL TO SAINTHOOD

One day, Don Bosco said to his pupils, “Everyone is called to be a Saint. It is easy to be a Saint. You just have to carefully do the ordinary things of the day in an extra ordinary way.” Dominic was deeply touched by this and began to think very seriously about how he might become a Saint. He began to do acts of penance and gradually became more aware of God’s call to holiness in his life. He was already very pious, but he became a person of prayer and began to actively spread the Gospel message of God’s love to others.

VISION OF ENGLAND

Dominic Savio told Don Bosco about a vision that he had. “While praying I found myself in a wide plain that was enveloped by mist and there were many people groping about in the fog as though they had lost their way. A voice said, ‘This is England.” Then I saw another figure coming towards me, wearing robes like those worn by the Pope in the picture in our class room. He was holding a huge, flaming torch in his hand, and wherever he went the mist disappeared. Soon it was all clear. Then the voice said, ‘This torch is the Catholic faith which is to illuminate England.’ Dominic asked Don Bosco to tell Pope Pius IX about the vision.

HIS DEATH

Dominic’s health was never strong and a month before his fifteenth birthday he took sick and died. He was canonised on 12th June 1954 and his feast is kept each year on 6th May.

Christian Living 

FORGET ME NOT

REMEMBER THE MOST PRECIOUS THING

There was once a woman whose life was really miserable, she had a child and they were living in utter poverty. Every day she cried out to God saying, “Jesus, please help me. Save me from this difficult situation.” God answered her prayers and said, “Look, I will take you to a room full of valuable treasure. I will give you five minutes to collect whatever you need to end your poverty. But don’t forget the most precious thing.” She agreed and as God had promised, He showed her the doorway into a room. So, laden with carrier bags, and carrying her child she went in and the door closed behind her. Then she heard the voice of God say, ‘You can collect whatever you want and when the time is over, you will hear a bell and the door will be opened and you must leave immediately.’ She agreed. The woman put the child in a safe place in the corner of the room and began to work. She was amazed to see all the wonderful treasure and started to put the best pieces into her bags. She collected as much as she could and suddenly the bell rang. Though she was tired, she managed to stagger through the door with all her valuables and immediately the door shut behind her. Suddenly she remembered her child, but it was too late. Then she recollected the words of Jesus, “Don’t forget the most precious thing.”

THE BEST YEARS OF YOUR LIFE

During their adolescence young boys and girls should experience the best years of their lives. They have many friends around them to chat and relax with. They share jokes and enjoy themselves with their school friends and they do many risky things. They waste their time with some rubbish things as well. There are so many opportunities for having fun and gradually they can forget the most precious thing in their lives. Teenagers crave for love. Love from their friends, from their family and from the opposite sex. Sometimes they may fall in love with someone who doesn’t respond to them and they get upset and disappointed. They may even feel that there is nobody in this world who they can share their problems with. Where can they find the solution?

HAPPINESS FROM WITHIN

Naturally youngsters are influenced by the world around them and the pleasures that it offers and they can easily get depressed and find no meaning in their lives. They don’t find any real happiness anywhere and feel empty inside. Like the woman in the story, we gather up all the things that the world tells us are important and enjoy all the worldly pleasures but they do not give us any real happiness because true lasting happiness only comes from within. When we hear the voice of God, He will satisfy our hunger for love, and remove the sadness. “For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” (Matthew 16:26). These words changed the life of St Francis Xavier.

SEEDS OF FAITH Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once said that as our stomach craves for food, so our soul should also thirst for God. The problems of our teenage years can be overcome when we become friends with the ever loving Jesus. The seeds of faith were handed on to us by our parents and if we can allow these seeds to grow, we will not become the slaves of any unnatural things of this world. At the same time we will be able to withstand temptation to sin and the bad influences of our peer group. God knows each one of us, our weaknesses, our strengths, our abilities and our talents and like the prodigal son, when we return to God, and recognise Him as the supreme, the most precious God, He will work in us and do miracles in our lives. “Stretch out your hand to Him like a little child to his father so that He may lead you on.” St. Francis de Sales.

Like a fire fly, although it is only tiny, overcomes and removes the darkness, Lord please illuminate the hearts and minds of young people today so that they can live their youthfulness with vigour and enthusiasm and always appreciate the most precious things in their lives. “Do as little children do, who with one hand cling to their father, and with the other gather blackberries along the hedges.” St. Francis de Sales.

 

Written by Sister Mini Puthumana

The holy Spirit 

THE HOLY SPIRIT A REALITY?

As we look forward to celebrating the feast of Pentecost we find out more about the Holy Spirit and how He can help us today.

 

THE TRINITY

As I grew up I learnt a lot about Jesus, His life on earth and all the wonderful things that he did, His death on the cross and His Resurrection. I heard about God the Father, who seemed to be like a big jovial grand-father type figure who loves us all and wants the best for us. But the Holy Spirit was a bit of a mystery. He was often represented by tongues of fire or wind or the breath of God. He used to be called the Holy Ghost and that is how I used to think of Him. A sort of divine power that appeared occasionally in the Bible, which somehow spoke God’s words to the prophets and Holy men and women but it (I didn’t even think of the Holy Spirit as a person) was not relevant to my life.

PENTECOST

How wrong I was. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Blessed Trinity. Equal in importance with God the Father and Jesus the Son. In the Gospels, towards the end of His ministry, Jesus spoke a lot about the gift of the Holy Spirit that His followers would receive after He had ascended to His Father. This is what happened at Pentecost when the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit. God came down to earth in a different form to Jesus and filled the hearts and souls of His disciples. This was wonderful news for the early church. They had just lost their beloved Jesus when He died on the cross but God visited them again in the form of the Holy Spirit, who promised to be with them always.

GOD WITH US

The Holy Spirit was not just for the first disciples, He is the God who is with all His people, so He is ours too! We receive the Holy Spirit in our Baptism and we are strengthened in the Sacrament of Confirmation. When we receive the Eucharist we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus but as God is Trinity, we also receive the Father and the Holy Spirit in Holy Communion. The Holy Spirit also gives us gifts like those mentioned in Isaiah 11 and also other supernatural gifts, sometimes called charisms that help us to build up God’s Kingdom. St Paul lists some of these in 1 Corinthians 12. They include extraordinary gifts of faith, healing, prophecy, teaching and administration.

OUR STRENGTH

We can try very hard but it is impossible to be a Christian without the help of the Holy Spirit. He gives us the inner strength to walk the Christian life, to become more like Jesus and to live his commandments. In our weakness the Holy Spirit makes us strong, He is our defender against the evil one who wants to lead us astray and He will make us more aware of the temptations of sin that are all around us and will give us the strength to fight against these.

OUR GUIDE

The Holy Spirit knows the heart of God and is our guide showing us the path that God wants us to take. He may do this through an inner prompting of our spirit or through conversations with other faithfilled Christians. He sometimes even speaks to us in an audible way. The Holy Spirit can melt the stony hardness of our hearts and change us into the loving, compassionate people that God wants us to be. Jesus said that a good tree produces good fruit and when we are led by the Holy Spirit people will notice in us the fruits of the Spirit in our lives. They will experience our love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22 – 26)

 

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” 1 Corinthians 6:19

 

THE POWER OF GOD

The Holy Spirit is the power of God in us. St Paul said that he had led many non-believers to the Church by displaying powerful signs and wonders. He said that everything that he had said and done was accomplished through the power of the Spirit of God. (Romans 15:18 – 19) Many people became Christians when they saw the miracles that the Holy Spirit worked through the early believers and the Church grew. The Holy Spirit has continued to move with power throughout the history of the Church inspiring the great Saints and Popes over the ages. Today He wants to be more powerful in our lives and to work great signs and wonders through us. This is possible, if we pray for healings and miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit.

SUBMIT TO THE HOLY SPIRIT

I have learnt that the Holy Spirit is just as important in our Christian lives as the Father and the Son, and He wants to be more active and work through us. Each morning we should submit ourselves to God by asking the Holy Spirit to be with us, to guide our thoughts, words and deeds throughout the coming day. In this way He will lead us towards holiness and wholeness in our lives. Come Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Blessed Trinity!

Faith 

FAITH IN THE FAMILY

One of our young readers has written an important message for other young Christians.

 

A CALL TO ALL YOUNG PEOPLE

God is pouring out His Holy Spirit on the younger generation, and I think that he wants to use us, young people for building up his kingdom. Joel 2:28 says “In the last days, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophecy; your young men shall see visions and your old men dream dreams.” Many of us, teenagers and young people, have been touched by the Holy Spirit and our lives have been changed. We don’t want to waste our time on things that have no benefit for our soul. All we want is to build a relationship with God and to grow as a generation ready to serve Him and be used by Him. We know that through personal prayer, reading the Bible, Holy Mass and the Sacraments, we are able to love Jesus and be filled with His power. We live every day wanting to become more immersed in His love. We want nothing more than to love and serve our God and we want people to experience the love of Christ through us. Jesus is calling all young people to live their lives to the full with the true joy and freedom that comes from Him. (John 10:10).

A CALL TO PARENTS

The Church calls us to pray for young people, because it sees them as “the future of the church!” It’s strange that parents work very hard to earn enough money for a comfortable life for themselves and their children, and they strive to make sure that their children get the best education and study hard in school, but rarely do parents look at their children and say, “I want you to become a saint!” It seems such a funny thing to say. But later, when they have problems with their children, they wonder what they did wrong! St. Augustine said, “The life of parents is the book which the children read.” His mother, Monica, spent seventeen years of her life praying for his conversion, as he was living a very sinful life. None of her prayers were wasted and after seventeen years, her son’s life was totally changed. After his conversion St. Augustine became one of our most powerful Saints. This was all due to the prayers of his mother, and she became a Saint too. This is what all parents are called to do. They should spend their time praying for their children but also, they need to teach them how to say no to sin, and yes to holiness.

FAMILY PRAYER

Family prayer is very important and we should make time for it in our homes, praying the Rosary together as a family. The younger generation must see their parents practising their faith; otherwise they will lose it when they grow up. It is said that the family that prays together stays together. If there is no family prayer in your homes ask your parents if you can start it. If they are unwilling then pray for your family and your parents, crying out to God for them. Families should also read Bible stories together. By hearing these powerful stories families are bonded together and grow in faith. “Take care and watch yourselves closely, so you do not forget the things that your eyes have seen, or let them slip from you mind all the days of your life: make them known to your children and your children’s children.” (Deuteronomy 4:9) Let us pray that all the young people in this nation may encounter the love of Jesus and be filled with His Holy Spirit!

Bible Story 

The Wedding Feast at Cana- (John 2:1-12)

What happened?

Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was at a wedding feast in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus and His disciples had been invited and were also there. When the party was in full swing they ran out of wine. Mary told Jesus about the problem because she knew that He could easily stop the family, who were hosting the feast, from being disgraced and humiliated because of their poor planning. In answer Jesus replied, “My hour has not yet come.” But Mary was not at all discouraged by Jesus’ words because she knew that her loving son would listen to her. So, she confidently told the servants to do whatever Jesus told them to do. At the feast, there were six very large stone water jars that were used by the people for the ritual washing of their hands. Each huge jar held about one hundred litres and Jesus told the servants to fill them right up to the brim with water. When they were full, Jesus told the servants to take out some of the water, which had been miraculously turned into wine, and give it to the head waiter. He did not know where the wine had come from, but when he tasted it he was truly amazed. Quickly, he called over the bridegroom and said, “The best wine is always served first. Then, when the guests have had plenty to drink, we serve the wine that doesn’t taste so good, but you have kept the best wine until last!” This was Jesus’ first miracle, and through it he shows His disciples the awesome power that was working through Him. When the disciples witnessed this miracle they realised that Jesus was no ordinary teacher and they began to believe in Him.

What Does It Teach Us?

If we sincerely want to experience inner or physical healing in our lives, we must first invite Jesus into our hearts. If the family had not invited Jesus to the feast, he would not have been able to save them from dishonour. Whenever we are in trouble or danger, our first instinct should be to invite Jesus to come into the situation and take complete control of it, according to His holy will. Jesus is always waiting to be invited into our lives so that He can reveal how extraordinary His love and mercy is. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20) Let’s open the door of our hearts and let Jesus in!

Do you love your mum? Of course you do! Just like us, Jesus dearly loves His mother. When we ask our Mother Mary to pray for us, she prays with us asking her son to grant our requests. Jesus listens to His mother! In the story, even though Jesus said at first that His time had not yet come to perform a miracle, He simply could not ignore what His mother was asking Him to do. As well as being the mother of Jesus, Mary is also our mother. Jesus Himself gave His mother to us while he was on the cross, by saying to His beloved disciple John: “Behold, your mother.” (John 19:27) When Jesus said this, He was not only addressing John, but every one of us. By acknowledging that Mary is our own mother, we know that if we ask her to intercede for us, she will definitely take our prayers to her Son, Jesus. Also, she will be with us to love and comfort us while we wait for our prayers to be answered. This is because Mother Mary regards us all as her precious children, and she wants to hold us all close to her heart. We should allow her to nurture and care for us by asking her to always pray for our needs. The best way to ask for her intercession is by praying the Holy Rosary. Our Lady told Blessed Alan de la Roche, “You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.”

Written by Rosemary Joy

Christian Living 

Love is all we need

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” 1 John 3:16

 

WHAT IS LOVE?

Love is one of the Christian virtues. God is love and when we love, we are close to God and that makes us happy and satisfied. When we do not love others it drives us away from God and makes us unhappy. Love is a grace, a gift from God and without it we cannot be the people that God wants us to be.

PRIDE

As Christians we are called to love one another. Only love can bring peace to the world but our pride often stops us from being loving. Pride is a sin and it means having too great a sense of our own importance, in our thoughts and in the way that we act. We can be proud when we take too much pleasure in something that we have done or something that we own. Pride is giving ourselves the glory and the credit for something rather than giving it to God. When we are proud we compete against everyone else to be the best and we judge others so we are not being loving. The opposite of pride is humility and when we are humble we treat everyone equally and this draws us closer to God. Humility is difficult but it is the only way that we can love others as Our Heavenly Father loves us.

UNCONDITIONAL

God’s love is unconditional, that means that there are no limits to His forgiveness and love. Our love and forgiveness should similarly be without limits. We all sin and turn away from God at times but that doesn’t mean God hates us. He loves us and is always willing to forgive us if we turn back to Him. In the same way we should be forgiving. In the story of the prodigal son, Jesus said that when the father saw his son coming back to him, he ran towards him and welcomed him. When the young son said that he had spent all his father’s money and expected to be treated like a slave, the father forgave him completely. This is an example of unconditional love. Jesus told this parable to show us how to forgive because when we forgive others then God will forgive us as Jesus taught us in the Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

ONE FAMILY

When we are selfish and we don’t care about other people then we can make them unhappy and sad. Our careless words or actions can have a devastating impact on others. We should be careful to look after and care for each other. We are all brothers and sisters, one family, that is united in God and the Church and we should try to never hurt or offend anyone in our family. God is our father and Mary is our mother and we should love them both. Jesus died for us because he loved us so much and we should return His love. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16) If he hadn’t loved us enough to die for us then we would have to suffer ourselves for our sins in eternal damnation so we should accept his invitation to go to heaven and to be holy and be on fire with His love.

Written by Joel Vincent

The holy Spirit 

THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

God is a giver of gifts. He delights in lavishing gifts on us in abundance, but do we know what these gifts are that God gives us and are we using them as we should?

 

When we are baptised, we receive the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in Isaiah 11 and these are strengthened in Confirmation. These gifts are given to help us grow in friendship with Jesus and to live a moral life. They enable us to make right decisions and give us the strength to be courageous witnesses of the Gospel. We need to use these gifts regularly to grow strong in our faith, but we first need to know what they are.

Wisdom: This gift helps us to know the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. It helps us make the right choices when faced with decisions. It helps us see the world from God’s perspective. As we grow in wisdom, our behaviour and actions become more mature. Wisdom helps us grow in holiness.

Understanding: This gift helps us to recognise the emptiness and dryness of many of the ideas in contemporary society. It helps us to see the lasting truths of the Gospel and to understand how God is working his purpose out in our own lives.

Counsel: This is sometimes called ‘Right Judgement.’ This gift helps us to see what is right and wrong in the events happening around us and it gives us the wisdom to act according to our conscience.

Fortitude: This gift gives us the strength of will and the courage to do what we know to be the will of God for us, even when this may cause us to experience loss or suffering.

Knowledge: This gift helps us to see events and things happening in our life from a supernatural point of view. It helps us understand and know what God is asking of us.

Piety: This gift brings loyalty to God. It causes us to be obedient to Him; wanting to do only what God wants us to do. It makes us want to love God as he deserves to be loved and worship Him above everything else in our lives.

Fear of the Lord: This gift helps us to reverence and understand God’s greatness and our dependence on him. It fills us with enormous respect for God and gives us a dread of offending him, or being separated from him in any way. It is not a fear in the sense of being frightened, but a fear of losing our relationship with God. All these gifts are essential in helping us to become mature and holy Christians. They help us to become the best person we can possibly be, the person God created us to be. God gives them to us because he knows we need them. So, use them regularly as you go about your daily life and you will grow stronger spiritually, in your friendship with Christ and in your service to those around you.

“Let your good spirit guide me in ways that are level and smooth.” Psalm 143:10

Life 

The God who does the Impossible

Hi, I’m Brijil, following my dad’s advice, each day before revising for my AS exams I watched an episode of Sehion Abhishekagni which is a Bible teaching in Malayalam (the language of Kerala, India) given by Fr. Xavier Khan Vattayil, that is available online. Each program also included Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and praise and w o r s h i p .

I would place my hands on the books that I was going to revise from whilst watching the program and pray that God would help me to revise.

A NIGHTMARE EXAM

Everything seemed to be going fine until the middle of my exams, I was taking my maths C2 paper, and the questions were horrendous. I had no idea what I was doing. I can still remember clearly that there were about eight questions on the paper and I could only fully answer the first three questions. I knew that these were only worth between two and six marks each. As I started the fourth question, I began to get worried because I wasn’t sure what to do. So I moved on to the next question, and then to the next but the questions just seemed to get worse and worse. I managed to do parts of the next few questions but the bits that I did were only worth about four marks each compared to the possible twelve marks that I could get if I finished the question. The exam did not go well at all.

MY DAD’S ADVICE

As soon as I got home, my dad asked me how it had gone and I burst into tears, because I knew that I had failed that exam. I couldn’t even answer half of the paper. He started to tell me Bible verses of encouragement such as, “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6: 33) “I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, “Be lifted up and thrown into the sea”, it will be done.” (Matthew 21:21-22) “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” (Luke 18:27) He then told me to go to the prayer room in our house get down on my knees and thank God for all that had gone wrong in the exam. So I went and did as he said, I knelt down and thanked God. I thanked God, for all the questions that I had not managed to complete. For all the questions that I couldn’t finish because I ran out of time. I thanked God for all the questions that I didn’t know how to approach or what techniques to use. In short I thanked God for everything that had gone wrong. I walked into the prayer room crying, but after thanking God I walked out of the room with so much happiness and peace that I had never felt before. My tears had been changed to a big smile, because I knew that Jesus had a plan for me!

ANOTHER CONFUSING EXAM

A few days later I remember doing my Biology exams. I was worried afterwards because all my friends seemed to have answered the questions differently to me and they had drawn different graphs. The second Biology paper was even worse. We were expecting only two questions to be about applying our knowledge but every question in the exam paper was an application question that included many calculations and I found it very confusing. I had never had such a hard exam paper, where I was so unsure of what the examiners actually wanted.

 

“I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” Jeremiah 32:27

 

I tried my best to answer all the questions, but I remember just trying to write down anything and everything that might have a link to the question. Afterwards, everyone was discussing the exam and I compared my answers with two of my friends. These were smart girls who always got top marks and I remember they had similar answers to each other but my answers were quite different to theirs. I felt the familiar sadness and worry, knowing I had gone and messed up another exam.

KEEPING FAITH

After that exam, at home, I just told Jesus, “You’re going to have to mark the paper, because if the examiners see my answers they won’t even pass me. Jesus you have to fill those examiners with the Holy Spirit.” I just kept praying in faith. Before the results were announced, I was very worried, as I knew that my exams had not gone well. However, by God’s grace and mercy, He awarded me a B in maths and A’s in my other three subjects. I knew God had done the impossible. Because I trusted in Him, He worked for me. When I put God first in my life, He provided the miracle that I needed. All Glory be to Jesus!

Written by Brijil shares

Editorial 

April 2015 – Editorial

Welcome to latest issue of Kingdom Revelator. In this Easter season we look forward to Pentecost, when the Church celebrates her birthday and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles in the Upper Room. We find out about the Holy Spirit, the Gifts that the Spirit brings and publish some thoughts by Pope Francis on what Pentecost means today. There is an interview with Mary Beth Bonacci from Life Teens Incorporated who discusses her work in talking to young people about sexuality, chastity, and marriage. This is a challenging area for young Catholics who are trying to live by the Gospel values, which are very different to the messages that they receive through popular culture.

As the exam season is approaching, one of our readers shares how God helped her to revise and gave her good exam results, when she thought that she had failed. This encourages us all to pray and trust in God when times get difficult. Our situation may seem hopeless to us but God can turn any situation around and bring something positive from the worst situations, if we only trust Him. Dr John Das, a Catholic evangelist, echoes this in his article showing us why we should not be afraid. This is a common message in the Bible. Our human nature is to worry and panic when unexpected things happen but when we trust in God He will send us the help that we need.

St Dominic Savio, who died before his fifteenth birthday, is an inspirational figure for young people because his holiness was recognised from an early age. He once said, “I am not capable of doing big things, but I want to do everything, even the smallest things, for the greater glory of God.” That is a great motto for our lives. Let us make sure that everything we do is pleasing to God then we too will be on the road to sainthood!