Prayer for Grace for our Country

Dear Father united to Jesus in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacrifice of Calvary sacramentally made present, celebrated around the world, in the Holy Spirit. We offer up all we do united to the Mass. We unite in one mind and one heart as members of the mystical body of Christ, with Christ our head in the pure and holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary, through the powerful intercession of Mary with all the angels and saints and souls in purgatory, and we beg for the saving grace, for our country, the United States. Please help us. We further pray for unity to always do the will of God in love. We spread the Blood of Jesus on the leaders and people of the United States and cast the devil into hell. We consecrate our country to the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart and all our dioceses, and beg for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. God help us. We pray for our families, the priests, the Church and the world. In the Name of Jesus please hear us, we pray. We pray for our new president as he takes office. We pray that we are united as one nation under God to work together in love as God wants.

                April 9, 2017 - Passion Sunday

                R. We see in the Passion how Jesus was
                so faithful to His Father's will –

                    Jesus drank the cup of suffering –
                We know that the Christian is to
                live by God's will and be obedient –
                Jesus died for our sins of disobedience
                to God's will – rejection of God –
                disobedience to the commandments –
                godlessness and lawlessness –

                    Jesus came and lived and died and
                rose – to teach us about obedience
                to the Father's will by His life!!
                He drank the cup of suffering –
                "God is with us"

John 6: 60-71

John 18: 1-14

The cohort and its tribune and the Jewish guards seized Jesus and bound him. They took him first to Annas, because Annas was the father–in–law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. It was Caiaphas who had counselled the Jews, ‘It is better for one man to die for the people.’

 

                R. The Church teaches with the authority of Jesus.
                We see order and authority with the Church
                Christ established.

                    The devil attacks authority and is disorder.
                The devil presses on people they that give
                into satan don't want anyone telling
                them what to do.

                    Christ established the Church. Christ
                is teacher. We are called by Jesus to
                obey the commandments and to live by
                the Word. To live in absolute truth. We
                are given a sharing in Divine life in
                baptism and fed at the table of the Lord
                with the Eucharist.

                    God calls us to live the Christian
                existence, the spiritual life, within the
                framework of the Church that Jesus
                established.

                    The Church is the Body of Christ.
                This emphasizes community. It is
                communion that binds the members of
                the Church together. The members of
                the body of Christ as one are to pray
                and contribute by their lives to
                the larger community of the world –
                to go out and spread the Good News –
                to be a leaven in the world that helps
                the world to grow as God wants it
                to be.

                    The devil is division – the devil wants
                to rule. The devil wants men in disobedience
                to the commandments, not living the Word –
                shrinking and being selfish.

                    The Mass is the Sacrifice of Calvary,
                Sacramentally made present. We come
                to Mass and we see that power,
                that grace being poured out on the
                whole world.

                    Men who are members of the mystical
                body of Christ are to be His body loving
                and being in the world. Men in the
                mystical body – united as one – are to
                bring this unity to the whole world –
                unity in Christ as they live in obedience
                to God and grow in their image and
                likeness of God in the Church
                Christ established.

                    Fr. Carter says "We are not intended
                to cut an isolated path through life.
                We are meant to walk hand-in-hand
                with each other, to live within a
                social structure, to help others
                in many different ways. We must
                also realize that, in achieving our
                destiny, we receive much aid, support
                and love from others."

                    We are to live community, most powerfully
                as members of the mystical body of Christ.
                We are to be the Heart of Jesus beating
                in love in the world.

                    God has established the Church as
                a leaven for the development of a
                graced society of human being.

                    The Shepherds of Christ was a Movement given
                to Fr. Carter as founder and myself as
                co-founder to help renew the Church
                and the world.

                    To help men to know their role as
                members of the mystical body of Christ
                in living in that unity – united to
                the Mass, the sacrifice of Calvary
                sacramentally made present.

                    The power is in the Eucharist –
                Jesus wanted us to teach people in the
                Blue Books about praying united
                before the Blessed Sacrament, about
                Adoration and the Mass and Jesus
                called men to China to come and
                pray before the Blessed Sacrament
                in retreats 4 days a month ending
                on the 13th of each month – Jesus
                called us daily to pray every day
                from our centers united at 6:20
                praying for the priests, the Church
                and the world.
 

                R. Jesus called us to come and pray
                in community 4 days a month
                in Florida – pray in this strong
                unity as He taught us and the
                Blessed Mother appears often to
                me showing me how she prays with
                us. Mary is interceding as we pray.
                Jesus has called especially this
                prayer to end in a big prayer
                service on the 5th of each month
                at 6:20 with the Shepherds of Christ Prayers.

                    Fr. Carter says "The bonds of union
                that hold the human race together
                has been strengthened by the
                redemptive work of Christ . . .
                The Christic community is, in turn,
                a great channel of grace that
                deepens this Christic image of the
                world."

                Excerpt from the Priestly Newsletter Book III

• The death-resurrection of Jesus, which is encountered in a special way through the sacraments, is most especially renewed in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Consequently, we can see the logical connection between the sacraments and the Mass. Indeed, all of the sacraments point to the Eucharistic Sacrifice.

• At the Last Supper, on the night He was betrayed, our Saviour instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the centuries until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us (Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, No. 17)26

• The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ’s faithful, when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators. On the contrary, through a proper appreciation of the rites and prayers they should participate knowingly, devoutly, and actively. They should be instructed by God’s word and be refreshed at the table of the Lord’s body; they should give thanks to God; by offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him, they should learn to offer themselves too. Through Christ the Mediator, they should be drawn day by day into ever closer union with God and with each other, so that finally God may be all in all. (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, No. 48) 27

• Through the Eucharistic Sacrifice Christ the Lord desired to set before us in a very special way this remarkable union whereby we are united one with another and with our divine Head, a union that no word of praise can ever sufficiently express. For in this sacrifice the sacred ministers act not only as the representative of our Saviour, but as the representative of the whole Mystical Body and of each one of the faithful. Again, in this act of sacrifice, the faithful of Christ, united by the common bond of devotion and prayer, offer to the eternal Father through the hands of the priest, whose prayer alone has made it present on the altar, the Immaculate Lamb, the most acceptable victim of praise and propitiation for the Church’s universal need. Moreover, just as the divine Redeemer, while dying on the Cross, offered Himself to the eternal Father as Head of the whole human race, so now, ‘in this clean oblation’ He not only offers Himself as Head of the Church to His heavenly Father but in Himself His mystical members as well. He embraces them all, yes, even the weaker and more ailing members, with the deepest love of His Heart. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis AAS, XXXV, 232-233)28

                R. Fr. Carter says
                    "If the Church is to be a proper leaven
                for formation of a better world community,
                she herself has to progress in
                a sense of community. There must
                be a growing understanding of truths
                and principles that pertain to Christian
                community, and a growing desire to explore
                practical ways to implement these principles."

Excerpt from Response to God's Love by Fr. Edward J. Carter, S.J.

Chapter 6 - The Christian and Church

       Throughout the course of salvation history, God has always communicated himself within the framework of community. In saying this, we are not maintaining that God does not communicate himself to individuals in a very intimate and personal manner that respects their uniqueness, their individuality. We are saying, however, that God communicates himself to a person according to his or her totality, and one dimension of this totality is the social aspect. God has respected this social dimension; in his self-communication he has called us together in religious community, or covenant. It seems that in our present age God is beckoning us to a deeper realization of these truths.

       The Christian community is a terrestrial reflection of the ultimate and absolute community—namely, the Trinity. In a special way, we are privileged to give witness to Trinitarian life, a life of divine intimacy and loving. From all eternity, the persons of the Trinity are united in the most intimate bonds of knowledge and love; these have also brought about creation and redemption.

       Grace, or the Christ-life, is a created participation in Trinitarian life. This Christ-life, consequently, calls us to a special existence of knowing and loving. Christian faith and love, which are created participations in the Trinity's knowing and loving, allow us to know and love God in a special manner. Faith and love also give us a new capacity to relate to both our fellow Christians and to all others as well.

       Because the life of the Trinity is person-centered, so must the life of the Christian community be person-centered. For many years, it seems, we were not sufficiently person-conscious; however, the theology that has emanated from Vatican II is helping to rectify this situation. In the pre-Vatican II Church, structures in the Church were occasionally treated as ends in themselves rather than as the means of serving the persons in the Church. Slowly but surely, structures in the Church are being renewed so that they might better serve their true purpose, which is to aid in the ongoing development of her members.

       The Christian community, in turn, develops when those who make up that community develop as authentic Christians. Just as each divine person contributes perfectly to the community life of the Trinity according to the perfect fullness of his personhood, so each Christian contributes to community life in proportion to the degree of his or her personal development.

       Authentic interpersonal relationships help to develop community. The Trinitarian community is a community of profound relationships. Because we reflect Trinitarian community, we are intended to have relationships not only with the persons of the Trinity, but likewise with one another. Authentic interpersonal relationships not only unite in a deeper knowledge and love the persons directly involved, they also make a person more capable of loving others more deeply and, therefore, more capable of deepening the bonds of total community. If a person is growing in the capacity to love his or her friends, for example, that person is concurrently growing in the capacity to also love others—both those who are members of the Church and those who are not.

       The concept of the Church as Body of Christ certainly emphasizes the sense of corporateness that should permeate the consciousness of the Church's members. We must think in terms of both what is good for the entire Church and, through this Church, what is good for the total human community. Even when we disagree among ourselves, we do so not because we want to glory in having the upper hand, but because we believe that to disagree here and now is necessary so that the truth might better emerge for the good of the community. St. Paul speaks to us about this sense of corporateness: "In the name of the encouragement you owe me in Christ, in the name of the solace that love can give, of fellowship in spirit, compassion, and pity, I beg you: make my joy complete by your unanimity, possessing the one love, united in spirit and ideals. Never act out of rivalry or conceit; rather, let all parties think humbly of others as superior to themselves, each of you looking to others' interests rather than his own" (Phil 2:1-4).

       In our sense of corporateness, that is, motivated by a common purpose and a common good, we should learn to rejoice in the gifts and the achievements of others. These are not isolated gifts and achievements; rather, they redound to the good of the whole body. We all probably know of numerous instances of jealousy and a false sense of competition that have hindered the work of Christ. In the long run, however, if the work of Christ is being accomplished, and if I am making an effort to do my part, does it really matter whether I or someone else is responsible for this or that particular accomplishment? Does it matter whether this or that group or organization receives credit? St. Paul again has words for us: "After all, who is Apollos? And who is Paul? Simply ministers through whom you became believers, each of them doing only what the Lord assigned him. I planted the seed and Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. This means that neither he who plants nor he who waters is of any special account, only God, who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters work to the same end" (1 Cor 3:5-8).

       Apparently, a growing number of persons today are tempted to think that they do not need the Church and its bonds of communion in order to be Christian. In fact, some say the Church is a hindrance to them in their attempts to live the Gospel message. Their uniqueness—their individuality—is being thwarted, they claim. This is a temptation that must be firmly resisted. There is, of course, an errant philosophy of individualism rampant in today's world that can certainly influence the contemporary Christian. This philosophy is patently false. It promotes a type of individualism that is inimical to community because it teaches that one must look out for Number One regardless of the consequences to others. Do your own thing, in other words, whenever and wherever you please, and let the chips fall where they may. This type of individualism is obviously wrong and pernicious.

       There is, on the other hand, a kind of individualism that is positive and in perfect harmony with the tenets of community. This theory states that the authentic expression and development of individuality, of uniqueness, actually contributes to community, and, conversely, life within the community enhances one's true individuality. Rahner puts it this way: "An absolutely individual Christianity in the most personal experience of grace and ecclesial Christianity are no more radically opposed than are body and soul, than are man's transcendental essence and his historical constitution, or than are individuality and intercommunication. The two condition each other mutually. The very thing which we are from God is mediated in the concreteness of history by what we call church. And it is only in and through this mediation that it becomes our own reality and our salvation in full measure. For this reason church exists and has to exist" (Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 389).

       Closely connected with the concept of the Church as Body of Christ is that dimension which is sacramentality. Both aspects—the Church as Body of Christ and as sacrament—emphasize the fact that the Church exists in, with, and through Christ, and that the Church is the tangible, visible, terrestrial continuation of the Incarnation. As would be expected, then, both concepts emphasize some of the same truths. What can be said about the Church as sacrament could also be said about the Church as Body of Christ. To put it another way, a dimension of the Church being Body of Christ is her sacramentality. We will examine this sacramentality in a general way, momentarily postponing the treatment of liturgical sacramentality until the next chapter.

       In a general sense, then, a sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible, divine reality. Christ, therefore, is the primordial sacrament given to us by God. In his historical existence, Jesus was the visible, tangible manifestation that God has irrevocably entered our world with merciful, salvific grace. At the same time, Christ contained within himself this divine reality that he externally manifested. Thus, we quickly arrive at a fuller definition of sacrament in general—namely, a sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible, divine reality, that contains and confers what is signified.

       The Church continues the work of the Incarnation. With Christ as head of the body, the Church continues the life and the work of Jesus according to the pattern and characteristics of Christ himself. Because Christ's existence was centered in death-resurrection, for example, so also is the Church's existence centered in death-resurrection. Similarly, in our present context, because Christ was sacrament, so also is the Church sacrament. Avery Dulles says: "The Church therefore is in the first instance a sign. It must signify in a historically tangible form the redeeming grace of Christ. It signifies that grace as relevantly given to men of every age, race, kind, and condition. Hence the Church must incarnate itself in every human culture" (Models of the Church, p. 63).

       The individual Christian participates in the sacramentality of Jesus and the Church. In some ways, this participation differs according to one's vocation; a lay person, for example, does not participate in all ways the same as does the priest. There are, however, some ways we all share in common, one of which is our privilege and responsibility of signifying God's love. Because God in his love was the principal reality signified by Jesus in his incarnate existence, we, who help continue the Incarnation, must make the manifestation of love our principal concern. We must make sure that it is the controlling force of our Christian existence. We all know countless examples of Christians who have given outstanding witness to God's love, and the achievements to which that love can inspire others. History shows how Christians of all vocations have marvelously and, at times, brilliantly, spent themselves for one another and for mankind in general. In all honesty, however, we know that there is also a darker, unattractive side to our history. There are numerous and painful examples of how Christians have failed to give witness to the love that Jesus came to preach. We cannot undo these failures, but remembering them can help motivate us to repair the damage by loving—here and now—as we should.

       Another dimension of the Church is the fact that she is a pilgrim Church, a fact that we have alluded to in an earlier chapter. This concept has various ramifications: A pilgrim Church, for example, has not yet arrived at her final destiny, has not yet achieved that fullness, that perfection, that complete maturity that will be hers only when she joins the heavenly Church—that portion that has already achieved eternal life. To be a mature member of a pilgrim Church, then, is to realize that there will always be many imperfections that will mar the beauty of the Church. Although these failings dim the Christ-like image of the Church and thus prevent her from projecting Christ to the world as well as she otherwise could, we have to realize that, to a certain degree, the Church will always be burdened with such failings.

       Liberals are correct, however, when they call for a renewal of the Church that would better enable her to be what she should be. They are correct in pointing out that a pilgrim Church is one that should be evolving, progressing, searching for the path that has been marked out by the Lord, and always pressing on toward that which has not yet been achieved. But if liberals are eager to view the Church according to such an imperative, they also must be willing to accept the fact that the concept of a pilgrim Church is a two-edged sword. If such a concept points out the truth that the Church must, to a certain extent, always be progressing, changing, renewing herself, it also points out the truth that a pilgrim Church will always be burdened with failures and sinfulness. If she were all she should be, in other words, there would be no need for change or renewal or evolution.

       Conservatives, on the other hand, must realize that a pilgrim Church must be on the move, adapting, reaching out for that aspect of the Gospel ideal that has not yet achieved. To opt for the status quo, to have a triumphalistic attitude regarding the Church, is to reject the idea of a pilgrim Church—it is, in short, to reject reality. Conservatives are correct, however, in pointing out that change and progress can never mean compromising the timeless essentials that are irrevocable constituents of the Church's existence.

English

Español

Français

Português

Italiano

Polska

           From Tell My People by Fr. Edward J. Carter, S.J.