Encouragement - Holy Spirit gives us Courage flowing from Love - so do his Friends

Most of the time we are not aware of how we effect other people. We do not know how much a word, a smile, a friendly, "You can do it!" means until someone does it for us when we need it, and it seems that encouragement comes to us just at the very moment when we need it the most.

When we pray for others, it is a way of exercising fraternal charity. Cloistered nuns and monks, who have consecrated their lives for the service of praying for their neighbor, reveal that the highest service of charity is actually intercession. St Catherine of Sienna said that the prayers we offer here on earth for one another will appear in heaven as bonds that resemble the eternal bond of love of the Most Holy Trinity. We ought to take very seriously the charge to love one another by praying for one another.

We simply cannot know the supreme benefit that prayer for each other has. Could it be a matter of eternal salvation of souls? Of course! The most perfect prayer we can offer for each other is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and those prayers that are a kind of living extension of the Mass where we offer the blood of Jesus on another's behalf - the Liturgy of the Hours, the holy Rosary, the divine Mercy chaplet, and others.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary is a never ending storehouse of this charity, encouragement and intercession for all. Please turn with me to her in praying a hail mary for all those who are most in need of God's mercy. Hail Mary...