Fr Marcus: "The coming of Christ casts a different light upon this duty of fraternal correction. It doesn't take it away but it reframes it. .. Everything must be done through love and for love. We don't correct others from duty but because we care. The judgement in the end will be about how we have loved. Remember that wonderful saying of St John of the Cross: 'It will soon be night and we will be questioned about love.' If we don't have this love then fraternal correction is meaningless. Furthermore Jesus does not allow us to deal with this problem except by being radically personal and discreet." Music by Edwin Fawcett. For much more, visit Totus2us.com - dedicated to Our Lady, it is inspired by our holy fathers St John Paul II, Papa Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was JPII's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus2us.

Fr Andrew: "In today’s Gospel we have one of the most famous, perhaps the most famous, of all the accounts of the resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ. Thomas does not believe the resurrection and he sets a test for believing that Jesus has risen, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” A few days later, Jesus himself appears and invites Thomas to conduct his test, to which Thomas responds, “My Lord and my God!” Now this appearance of Jesus, with a body and wounds, emphasizes that the Resurrection is physical: the risen Christ is not a ghost or disembodied soul or mere symbol of the continuation of the Christian message. There is, nevertheless, something of a mystery about Christ's risen body. If Jesus has the power to rise from the dead, why does he still bear the wounds of the cross? Furthermore, what do the wounds of the risen Christ imply for our own vocation as followers of Christ?" Music by Edwin Fawcett. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was the motto of Blessed Pope John Paul II to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus2us.

Fr Andrew: "So it is Jesus who has made Baptism effective and life-giving for us, and by submitting to Baptism, He leads the way for us to follows. He teaches us the humility to make use of the Sacraments in the way they have been given to us. He teaches us that Baptism washes away sin, opens heaven and enables us to know and to love the Most Holy Trinity. Let us thank the Lord for opening the way to our salvation through Baptism. May Baptism bear its proper fruit in all of us, so that one day we may see the face of God in Heaven." Music by Edwin Fawcett. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was the motto of Blessed John Paul II to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Fr Andrew: "So why does God give us the Eucharist as a sacrifice as well as a sacrament? One way of answering this question is to recall that God ultimately wants us to bring us to heaven, where, as St John tells us, “We shall be like Him.” Now the attribute that we most naturally associate with God is power, but the attribute that is most central to God's knowledge of Himself is love. “God is love,” as St John tells us. So becoming 'like God' does not simply mean sharing in the power of God, but most essentially sharing in the love of God, of loving as God loves. Now love is intimately connected with sacrifice, the notion of a sacrifice being associated with an outpouring of something that is precious to oneself for the sake of another person. So in the Mass, God gives us not only the opportunity to participate in the strength of God by means of a sacrament, but also in the love of God by means of a sacrifice. More specifically, in the Mass we participate in the perfect sacrifice, that of Christ on the cross in which the Son of God gave His life to save us. We can see some of the fruits of the Sacrifice of the Mass in various sacrificial ways of life in the Catholic tradition: a sacrificial priesthood, religious life (the life, for example, of monks and nuns) and the notion of marriage as a sacrament and not only as a contract." Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was the motto of Blessed John Paul II to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Fr Marcus: "The Christian Catholic faith does shed a new light on that created reality, like a bright torch. We come to realise that the family is a natural icon for God. Through Jesus, we have come to know that God is not just a singular person but a communion of persons and that the eternal Father and his Word have so much love between them that this constitutes a third eternal person, the Spirit or Wisdom. This is the Trinity. As we celebrate Trinity Sunday also today it is time to remind ourselves that creation comes forth from God who is eternally a family. The family is an expression of our dignity as beings made in God's image, made with a body and a soul." Music by Edwin Fawcett. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was the motto of Blessed John Paul II to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Fr Andrew: "While the human mind can range over space and time, the present human body is bound to an essentially two-dimensional existence. What the Ascension of Jesus shows us, first, is that the Resurrected human body does not suffer from this limitation: the Resurrected body can go wherever the beatified soul desires. Indeed, a distant echo of this yearning can be seen in the way that the superheroes of popular culture, in particular the superman, a distant derivative of the work of Nietzsche, are almost always portrayed as being capable of flight. What is most significant about the Ascension, however, is that Jesus' human nature is alos described as sitting at the right hand of God. In an image given to us by St Catherine of Siena, it is as if the human nature of Jesus Christ has become like a great bridge, stretching from our present earthly life into the presence of God in heaven. This bridge completes the process of opening a way for human beings to attain eternal happiness: the soul being saved by the sacrifice of Chrst's death, the body being saved and glorified by Christ's Resurrection, and the offer of being raised into a new world being made by Christ's Ascension." Music by Edwin Fawcett. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was the motto of Blessed John Paul II to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Fr Marcus: "All the messages of the readings today are about love. There's an ancient story about St John the Apostle who, throughout his writings, had only one theme: the love of God and the love of neighbour. Someone once asked him, 'Why do you not write about other things' and his response was 'There is only love, there is nothing more.' You see, love is at the centre of everything, like the hub at the centre of the wheel; the spokes are like the doctrines, the commandments, the good works, but they all come from the centre which is love. .... So what kind of love are we talking about when Jesus says 'Abide in my love' and 'Love one another as I have loved you'? It's his love but what kind of love is this? Well, it's the love of loves. It has a unique name in Greek called agape, This goes beyond the basic commandment to love God and neighbour in any conventional sense. It's a love that is godly, giving and gratuitous." Music by Edwin Fawcett. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was the motto of Blessed John Paul II to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Fr Andrew: "The grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” These words show how a reference to ‘grace’ begins the Mass, after the invocation of the Trinity. A reference to grace appears also in the Hail Mary, in which Mary is described as being ‘full of grace’ and Catholics of an older generation may be familiar with the phrase ‘state of grace’. The principle of grace underpins today’s Readings and the idea of Christian vocation, especially pertinent to today’s World Day of Prayer for Vocations. But what is grace and why is it important?" Music by Edwin Fawcett. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was the motto of Blessed John Paul II to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Fr Marcus: "There’s no cheap grace in this world, there’s no easy Christianity, no pain – no gain, no cross – no crown, no mortification – no sanctification, no-sacrifice – no resurrection. There is indeed joy and it is a deeper joy than anything else in this world can give, there is glory greatly than all the kingdoms of the world, there is love more profound than any human relationship, there is life and without end – but it all comes through the cross, through trustful and obedient acceptance. The Greeks could get what they really wanted, that real beauty and lasting goodness, but it required the acceptance of the cross. That is the challenge for every Christian, that is our challenge of the next 12 days as we prepare for Good Friday itself." Music by Edwin Fawcett. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was the motto of Blessed John Paul II to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.

Fr Andrew: "The reason why treating our relationship to God as a contract is so abhorrent is that what God wants is for us to enjoy a relationship with him that is second-personal, not third-personal, of an 'I' to 'Thou', not an individual to a remote benefactor. In other words, God wants us to love with him what he loves, and sacrifice with him what he sacrifices, as happens at every Mass. In today's First Reading, this relationship is spoken of as a covenant not a contract, a union of soul as in the Christian sacrament of marriage and not just an exchange of goods, and this is also the context in which, I think, we should understnad how we are meant to use this opportunity of Lent. Our goals in Lent should not be to increase our credit balance with God, which is abhorrent and impossible anyway, but to repent of what you might call our adulterous spiritual liaisons, those times in which we give our souls, in effect, over to what is not of God, especially the false gods of pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony and lust." Music by Edwin Fawcett. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Totus Tuus (All Yours) was the motto of Blessed John Paul II to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus 2us.