Please pray for a special intention.

                    The spiritual life is centered in the pattern
                of death-resurrection variously expresses
                itself through the Christian virtues.

                    Faith and love are the most important
                of the Christian virtues because they assimilate
                us most intimately to God's life —

                    God's life is a life of Divine knowing
                and loving and through Christian faith and love
                we participate in these Trinitarian operations —
                hope gives a very special support to faith and
                love —

                    Modern Christians do not live in an
                atmosphere that is conducive to faith —
                Today we see ourselves at a time when there
                is great disbelief — this occurs in the world
                and also in our families —

                    The world was not always like this —
                Most people at the time of St. Thomas
                believed — today the situation is quite
                different — Christianity is no longer supported
                as it once was without being questioned
                by society. Today's faith is being put
                to the test, but God is also granting
                special graces in these trying times —

                    Mature faith is the complete dedication
                of oneself and all of one's powers and
                capacities to Jesus and to His cause —

                    Because faith is the commitment
                of one's entire being to the truth of Jesus,
                we must live the truth of Jesus, not
                merely intellectually assent to it, if we
                are to assimilate Christ's revelation
                properly — Religious truth is comprehended
                as it should be only when we live it,
                savor it, experience it, to the depths of our
                being.

                    How much more we have understood
                the truth of Christ and its power and
                wisdom and beauty when we were not only
                assenting to this truth with our intellects,
                but were also living it, allowing it to
                permeate and transform our entire existence.

                    If we grow in faith by ourselves living
                its truth, we also progress faith - wise
                by witnessing the truth of Christ in
                the lives of others —

                    The incarnation goes on in us — through
                the Holy Spirit we are formed more and more
                in the image of Jesus as we dwell in
                the Immaculate Heart — the spiritual womb
                of our Blessed Lady.

                    When we live according to faith we are
                living according to a certain vision of God,
                of man, and material creation — Faith tells
                us things about God and creation that we
                could not otherwise know, or know only
                with greater difficulty and with less
                certainty —

                    Jesus is the way, the truth and the life —
                We seek God who is perfect truth —
                A person who is a liar moves away from God
                and is untrustworthy —

                    Fr. Carter says

                    "A good example of the former is the
                doctrine of the Trinity. Unaided reason
                could never arrive at this sublime truth.
                It is only the intellect which has
                been elevated with the grace of faith
                that can encounter the Triune God —

                    "If we are to progress properly in the
                Christian life we must allow the vision
                of faith to penetrate our activity more and more.
                We should become increasingly contemplatives
                in action. We should see everything as God
                sees it. And everything we see should
                increasingly remind us of God, for
                everything which is good and
                true and beautiful does really reflect
                God. The raging storm at sea reflects
                the power of God, and the beauties of nature
                manifest His beauty. The stillness of the
                forest reminds us of the holy silence of God.

                    The goodness, the kindness, and the love
                we see in human persons tell us that God
                is infinitely good and kind and loving.

                    The vision of faith allows us to see man
                and his world in a manner far different
                from that of the man - believes — As contemplatives
                in action we should act upon this vision."

                    Every man, woman and child is marked with
                the blood of Christ. If Jesus loved them so
                much, if He now loves them so much, can
                we be indifferent to their needs, both
                spiritual and material?

                    Can we be indifferent to all the
                contemporary problems which weigh
                modern man? If we are Christians of living
                faith we know that we cannot be indifferent.
                The vision of faith should inspire us to
                action according to our vocation, talents,
                opportunity, time and energy. We should
                be laboring to make man and his world more
                Christic — To the extent that we do not,
                we are betraying, the vision of faith —

Apostles of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus

My dear fellow Associate Members,

Jesus is calling special apostles to join a new division of the Shepherds of Christ Movement. Here is a message from Jesus given to Father Carter:

    My beloved priest-companion, I am requesting that a new prayer movement be started under the direction of Shepherds of Christ Ministries. I am asking for volunteers who are willing to pray before the Blessed Sacrament for one hour, twice-weekly. Members of the Shepherds of Christ prayer chapters, as well as others, are to be invited to join this movement.

    These apostles are to pray for the intentions I am giving you. For part of the hour they are to use the prayers of the Shepherds of Christ Associates Handbook. They may spend the rest of the hour as they so choose.

    I will use this new prayer movement within My Shepherds of Christ Ministries in a powerful way to help in the renewal of My Church and the world. I will give great graces to those who join this movement. The name, Apostles of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, is to be given to this movement.

    I am inviting My beloved Rita Ring to be coordinator for this activity.

    I pour out the great love of My Sacred Heart to all. I am Jesus, Chief Shepherd of the flock.

    This is indeed a special calling for us to unite in one heart with His Eucharistic Heart and pray for the following intentions:

    1. For the spread of the devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary culminating in the reign of the Sacred Heart and the triumph of the Immaculate Heart.
    2. For the Pope.
    3. For all bishops of the world.
    4. For all priests.
    5. For all sisters and brothers in the religious life.
    6. For all members of the Shepherds of Christ Movement, and for the spread of this movement to the world.
    7. For all members of the Catholic Church.
    8. For all members of the human family.
    9. For all souls in purgatory.

end of Apostles of the Eucharistic Heart message

Prayer for all members of the human family

Heavenly Father, we ask Your blessings on all Your children the world over. Attend to all their needs. We ask Your special assistance for all those marginalized people, all those who are so neglected and forgotten. United with our Mother Mary, we make this petition to You through Jesus and in the Holy Spirit.

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DAILY NOVENA PRAYERS

Opening Prayer

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dear Father, we come to You in the name of Jesus, in union with Him in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in the Holy Spirit. We come to You united to the Child Jesus of Good Health and the Infant of Prague. We come to You in the perfect, sinless heart of Our Mother Mary, asking her powerful intercession, uniting ourselves to her holy tears. We come to You united to all the angels and saints, and the souls in purgatory.

Prayer for Holy Spirit

We pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on us, to be baptized by the Holy Spirit, that He will descend mightily on us as He did on the Apostles at Pentecost. That the Holy Spirit will transform us from fear to fearlessness and that He will give us courage to do all the Father is asking of us to help bring about the Reign of the Sacred Heart and the triumph of Mary's Immaculate Heart. We pray for the Holy Spirit to descend mightily on the Jesuits and the Poor Clares on the Shepherds of Christ leaders and members and on the whole Body of Christ and the world.

Protection by the Blood of Jesus

We pray that the Blood of Jesus will be spread on us, everyone in our families, and the Shepherds of Christ Movement, that we will be able to move steadfastly ahead and be protected from the evil one.

Healing

We pray for healing in body, mind, and soul and generational healing in ourselves, in all members in our families, and in all members of the Shepherds of Christ Movement, the Jesuit Community, the Poor Clares, the Body of Christ, and the world.

Prayer for Strength and Light

We adore You, oh Holy Spirit. Give us strength, give us light, console us. We give ourselves entirely to You. Oh Spirit of light and grace, we want to only do the will of the Father. Enlighten us that we may live always in the Father's will.

Eternal Spirit fill us with Your Divine Wisdom that we may comprehend more fully insight into Your Divine Mysteries.

Give us lights, Oh Holy Spirit that we may know God. Work within the heart, the spiritual womb of the Virgin Mary, to form us more and more into the image of Jesus.

Prayer to Be One with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit

We long for You, Oh Spirit of Light, we long to know God, we want to be one with Him, our Divine God. We want to be one with the Father, know Him as a Person most intimately. We want to know the beloved One, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and live and dwell in Him at all times, every moment of our lives. We want to be one with You, Oh Spirit of Light, that You move in us in our every breath.

Prayer to Be One in Jesus

Let us experience life in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so we can say as Saint Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is no longer I, but Christ living in me...." Let us live, united to the Mass, all through the day being one in Him. Let us be able to love and know in this elevated state of oneness with our God. We long for Thee, oh beauteous God, we love You, we love You, we love You. We praise You, worship You, honor You, adore You, and thank You, our beloved God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Prayer to Dwell in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

We seek to be one in God, to live and dwell in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, our little heaven on earth, to experience life in the all perfect, pure, sinless heart of our Mother. We want the Holy Spirit to move in us and to be united to Jesus as the Bridegroom of our souls and be a most perfect sacrifice offered to the Father at every moment as we unite in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass around the world to help in the salvation of souls.

Prayer for the Holy Spirit and His Gifts

Come Holy Spirit, come, come into our hearts, inflame all people with the fire of Your love.

Leader: Send forth Your Spirit and all will be reborn.
All:  And You will renew the face of the earth.

We pray for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, we ask for perfection in our souls to make us holy, holy souls likened to God.

Dear Holy Spirit, we give ourselves to You soul and body. We ask You to give us the Spirit of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.

Prayer for the Word Alive in Our Hearts

We know, dear Holy Spirit, the Word in His human nature was brought forth within the womb of the woman. We pray that His word will be brought forth in our hearts as He lives and dwells in us. We want the incarnation to go on in our lives. Dear Holy Spirit, work in us.

Little Prayers to the Holy Spirit

Dear Holy Spirit, help us not to be ignorant or indifferent or weak, help us to be strong with the love of God.

Dear Holy Spirit, please pray for our needs for us.

Dear Holy Spirit, help us to respect God and to avoid sin. Help us to live in the Father's will.

Dear Holy Spirit, help us to keep Your commandments and to respect authority. Help us to love all things as You will us to love them. Help us to want to pray and always serve God with the greatest love. Help us to know the truth. Help us to have the gift of faith, hope, and love. Help us to know what is right and what is wrong.

A Prayer for Intimacy with the Lamb, the Bridegroom of the Soul

Oh Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of the world, come and act on my soul most intimately. I surrender myself, as I ask for the grace to let go, to just be as I exist in You and You act most intimately on my soul. You are the Initiator. I am the soul waiting Your favors as You act in me. I love You. I adore You. I worship You. Come and possess my soul with Your Divine Grace, as I experience You most intimately.

 

   Romans 8: 5-9

1. Those who are living by their natural inclinations have their minds on the things human nature desires; those who live in the Spirit have their minds on spiritual things. And human nature has nothing to look forward to but death, while the Spirit looks forward to life and peace, because the outlook of disordered human nature is opposed to God, since it does not submit to God's Law, and indeed it cannot, and those who live by their natural inclinations can never be pleasing to God. You, however, live not by your natural inclinations, but by the Spirit, since the Spirit of God has made a home in you. Indeed, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

                God calls us to intimacy with Him.

                Jesus is truly present in His Divinity and humanity
                    in the Eucharist.

                God is with us.

                We are to bring others into His fold.
                We are to be open to His Word.

                God is constantly calling us to witness
                    to the Gospel — to help others to get
                    to heaven —
                    to serve God

                We are to seek to do the will of God in love.
                We see in yesterday's Gospel Elizabeth
                    was considered barren —

Luke 1: 39-45

The visitation

Mary set out at that time and went as quickly as she could into the hill country to a town in Judah. She went into Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. Now it happened that as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She gave a loud cry and said, ‘Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord? Look, the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy. Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.’

                    Mary made haste to go to Elizabeth —
   

Luke 1: 37

'for nothing is impossible to God.'

                Sara, Abraham's wife was thought barren
                    God gave her Isaac
                    then God tested Abraham's faith —

                There are women thought barren in the scripture
                    through which God gave great
                    blessings later

                There was Hannah —

                We see Elizabeth's greeting to Mary
                    ‘Of all women you are the most blessed,
                        and blessed is the fruit of your womb...'

                The Angel Gabriel said
                    "Hail Mary"

                From these two phases we get the first
                    part of Hail Mary

Hail Mary

From the Prayer Manual

Holy Spirit Prayer

Come, Holy Spirit, almighty Sanctifier, God of love, who filled the Virgin Mary with grace, who wonderfully changed the hearts of the apostles, who endowed all Your martyrs with miraculous courage, come and sanctify us. Enlighten our minds, strengthen our wills, purify our consciences, rectify our judgment, set our hearts on fire, and preserve us from the misfortunes of resisting Your inspirations. Amen.

Veni Sancte Spiritus

                    Ve-ni San-cte Spi-ri-tus;
                    Ve-ni San-cte Spi-ri-tus;
                    Ve-ni, veni  San-cte Spi-ri-tus;
                    Ve-ni San-cte Spi-ri-tus.

                     

From the Lectionary

                        Pentecost Sequence

Come, Holy Spirit, come!
And from your celestial home
    Shed a ray of light divine!

Come, Father of the poor!
Come, source of all our store!
    Come, within our bosoms shine!

You, of comforters the best;
You, the soul's most welcome guest;
    Sweet refreshment here below;

In our Labor, rest most sweet;
Grateful coolness in the heat;
    Solace in the midst of woe.

O most blessed Light divine,
Shine within these hearts of yours,
    And our inmost being fill!

Where you are not, man has naught,
Nothing good in deed or thought,
    Nothing free from taint of ill!

Heal our wounds, our strength renew;
On our dryness pour your dew;
    Wash the stains of guilt away;

Bend the stubborn heart and will;
Melt the frozen, warm the chill;
    Guide the steps that go astray.

On the faithful, who adore
And confess you, evermore
    In your sev'nfold gift descend;

Give them virtue's sure reward;
Give them your salvation, Lord;
    Give them joys that never end. Amen.
Alleluia.

Fr. Carter had a dream.

May 26, 2007 

If you happen to look for today’s readings anywhere, you would be very confused.  Between the Vigil Mass this afternoon and today’s feast, thirteen different readings are offered for our use.  And these thirteen readings hardly touch all the references to the Spirit in the Scriptures.  All these optional readings, some for the Vigil and some for today, tell us this is not an ordinary Sunday.  And we have a sequence, a poem about the Spirit, before the Gospel.  The only other feast that has a required sequence that I can think of is Easter.  Corpus Christi has an optional one.  The fact that there are a lot of people in church wearing red also tells us there is something special about today.  Special indeed!  It’s the third most important feast of the entire year.  Without the Holy Spirit nothing would have happened.  The apostles would have remained a frightened bunch of guys who would have been afraid of their own shadow.  They certainly wouldn’t have risked their lives to preach about the Risen Christ.  Without the Holy Spirit the gospels would not have been written.  We would probably still be worshipping plants or animals or inanimate objects as our gods if we were worshiping anything at all.   

I came across an interesting illustration that might help us understand the Holy Spirit and thus the place of Pentecost in our lives.  The Flemish artist, Rubens, like other artists of his time, had a group of aspiring artists working with him.  As he watched them at work, he would sometimes pause for a moment as he looked over their shoulders, then he would take the paint brush from the hands of his pupil and would add the finishing touches. It was those touches which brought the painting to life. After referring to this practice of Rubens, a modern scripture scholar noted that until the day of Pentecost the disciples, our Lord's pupils, (for disciple means learner) had been clumsily trying to be like their Master, "but on that day the Spirit finished the painting."  

It is a neat way of summarizing the effects of the first Pentecost.  It explains why Pentecost is spoken of as the Church's birthday, the day when the Church truly sprang to life; the day when it was made ready for its mission of taking the Good News to the ends of the earth.  Although the mighty wind, which shook the house where the disciples had gathered, soon grew still; the flames of fire which hovered over their heads, soon disappeared.  But the Holy Spirit, whose coming had been announced by wind and fire, came to stay and came to be with the Church until the end of time: to be its very soul, its life principle.   

Our first reading today is one of my favorites.  At the time of Ezekiel there was no understand of the Trinity nor was there any idea of individual resurrection.  Ezekiel here is referring to the nation of Israel that was at that time in Exile in Babylon.  They had given up hope of ever returning home or of ever being a nation again.  Ezekiel is telling them God would bring them back from exile and raise them up.  But here the function of God’s Spirit as a life giving Spirit is already apparent.   

Paul in the second reading tells us the Spirit has come to us, but the fullness of life the Spirit brings is still in the process of formation within us.  And the Spirit is there to help it come to be.   

Jesus in today’s gospel compares the Spirit to water.  Why water?  Because water brings life.  Without it life cannot exist.   

When most people think of the Spirit, they think of the personal gifts the Spirit brings them.  Before I studied Scripture in the Seminary, the only time I ever thought of the Spirit was when I had to pass an exam.  But that’s only one of the functions of the Spirit, the Spirit of truth, a term for the Spirit that Jesus uses.  But there are many other gifts the Spirit brings.  The Spirit helps us in our prayers, St. Paul tells us.  (Rom 8, 26)  In the letter to the Galatians St. Paul names a variety of blessings the  Spirit brings to each of us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5,22).  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have all those qualities? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all the people we associate with, if all people in the world, had all these qualities.  The Spirit has a lot of work to do.   

But the Spirit is interested in more than blessing each of us personally.  The Spirit is also a source of life for the Church.  Paul tells us the Spirit gives many special gifts to the faith community so it might be well served.  Among these gifts are wisdom, faith, healing, the gift of speaking God’s word, the gift of discernment, the gift of helping others, the gift of administration and the gift of being able to council others.  (I Cor 12).  What gifts has the Spirit given us and how do we use them to serve others.  The Spirit helps people do more than pass exams.  The Spirit is the “Lord and giver of life” as we profess each week in the Creed.  The Spirit is the giver of our spiritual life which will endure forever as well as the giver of life to the Church.  There would be no Church without the Spirit.   

On this Pentecost, I pray may the Holy Spirit put the finishing touches to our small efforts, to follow Christ faithfully and to bring about a miniature Pentecost in our midst and so renew the face of the earth.

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