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Given January 20, 2002

Messenger: Dear Father,

                            I offer You this day my life. I want my

                        offering to help save souls. I ask You to help

                        me to be holy, not to be indulgent, to be loving.

                        Help me to help promote Your kingdom.

                        Thank You for the sky

January 20, 2002 message continues

Messenger: and the beautiful water of this earth,

January 20, 2002 message continues

Messenger: thank You for all the

flowers and the plants and the trees.

January 20, 2002 message continues

Messenger: Thank You for all the animals.

January 20, 2002 message continues

Messenger: God thank You for my friends and all those

You have given me to love.

January 20, 2002 message continues

Messenger:    Thank You for allowing me to share

                        in Your life through baptism and to be

                        nurtured by the Eucharist. Thank You

                        for Your Word and thank You for all

                        the gifts You have given.

January 20, 2002 message continues

Messenger: Please outpour Your grace to me today to be holy.

Please give me wisdom to know You

more and love You ever deeper. Oh Father,

I long for an outpouring of Your life.

Oh Father, I long for Thee. I desire

to be possessed by God. Oh God

thank You for Your Son Jesus, thank

You for the Holy Spirit, God thank You

for making me Your little child.

January 20, 2002 message continues

Messenger: I love You so, so much. I give myself

to Thee. Help me to discipline myself to

act according to Your will. I want

to serve You and to serve my fellow

men with my life given to You.

I adore, I worship You and I

love You—Come and possess my

soul.

Prayer for Union with Jesus

    Come to me, Lord, and possess my soul. Come into my heart and permeate my soul. Help me to sit in silence with You and let You work in my heart.

    I am Yours to possess. I am Yours to use. I want to be selfless and only exist in You. Help me to spoon out all that is me and be an empty vessel ready to be filled by You. Help me to die to myself and live only for You. Use me as You will. Let me never draw my attention back to myself. I only want to operate as You do, dwelling within me.

    I am Yours, Lord. I want to have my life in You. I want to do the will of the Father. Give me the strength to put aside the world and let You operate my very being. Help me to act as You desire. Strengthen me against the distractions of the devil to take me from Your work.

    When I worry, I have taken my focus off of You and placed it on myself. Help me not to give in to the promptings of others to change what in my heart You are making very clear to me. I worship You, I adore You and I love You. Come and dwell in me now.

-God's Blue Book, January 17, 1994

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

Oh Lamb of God, Who takes 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.

Excerpt from Response in Christ,
by Father Edward J. Carter, S.J.

^SEVEN The Cross and Christian Life

          b) Penance

Christian self-discipline or mortification, then, looks to a proper control of one's total being. This control is necessary for the avoidance of sin and the proper functioning of the life of grace. There is another form of the cross which some people confuse with the self-discipline we have just discussed. The form of the cross we speak of is that of penance.

    Christian penance does not have the same basic purpose as self-discipline. Christian self-discipline looks rather to the proper living of the Christian life in the present and future, whereas penance looks to the sinful past. Penance, therefore, is a virtue which includes a sorrow for sin, a purpose of amendment, and a desire to make atonement or satisfaction for sin. As with the entire Christian life, penance is primarily, although not exclusively, an interior attitude.⁶

    Penance, or satisfaction for sin, is an essential part of the life of the Church and the individual Christian because both are called upon to continue Christ's redemptive Incarnation. One aspect of Christ's redemptive work consisted in making satisfaction for sin. This aspect of Christ's life should always be part of the Church's existence and that of the individual Christian. Furthermore, certain members of the Church are called to give special attention to the prolongation of Christ making satisfaction for sin. In this category are those who are called to a form of religious life primarily dedicated to making reparation for sin.

    The Christian in a special manner makes satisfaction for sin in the accomplishment of the sacramental penance imposed in confession. But he is also expected to do more than this, and the opportunities are readily available, for the inevitable hardships and difficulties of life can take on the value of penance. It all depends on my attitude. I can go about my day in a spirit of love, and this is all important. But other attitudes can be present, and should be to some extent at least. One of these attitudes or dimensions of my Christian perspective should be that of penance, or of making satisfaction for my own sins and those of others.

    We should first of all seize the more obvious opportunities of doing penance. To accept properly the inevitable crosses which God permits can be an excellent form of penance. Another excellent form of penance is to bear with the pain, effort and difficulty which we all experience to some extent in fulfilling our life's work.

    It is evident that there can be a considerable degree of penance in my life simply through the proper living of the human situation. But to be aware fully of the fact that I am in part a sinner, and that I should be aware of my responsibility to make satisfaction for sin, it seems that from time to time I have to perform additional acts of penance. The performance of such acts of supererogation have found a constant place in the history of Christian spirituality. As long as this manner of penance is performed with Christian prudence, there is no reason for saying that such a practice is no longer relevant.

          c) Renunciation

The Christian life contains a manifest element of renunciation. This is evident from a reading of the New Testament. Among other places, this can be observed in the gospel of the gentle evangelist, St. Luke. He puts forth with a peculiar intransigence Christ's message of renunciation.⁷ This was a message which Christ Himself lived. Renunciation was by no means the only aspect of Christ's life, but it was an undeniable one. The Christian, the follower of Christ, must also include renunciation in his life regardless of his vocation. We remind ourselves that the cross is always intended to be connected with life and love. Paradoxically, then, renunciation is embraced for the sake of life. This was its purpose in Christ's life. This must be its purpose in the Christian's existence also. We will now consider various ways in which the principle of Christian renunciation applies.

    The first two forms of the cross which we have discussed, self-discipline and penance, do not necessarily always include the aspect of renunciation. For instance, I can exercise Christian self-discipline in the positive use of created goods. There is no renunciation here. I rather relate properly to a created good according to God's will. However, renunciation is sometimes connected with the question of self-discipline or mortification. I cannot always properly relate my total being to God's creation unless from time to time I am willing to renounce particular goods and values. Consider this example. I will not always properly employ my external senses in using God's creation unless at times I deny the senses what they naturally desire. If we are not willing to admit this, it seems that we are falsely optimistic concerning human nature. Human nature has been redeemed, but not yet completely; it still has its sinful element which inclines us to a misuse of creation. To control this tendency towards misuse, there must be some renunciation of those goods towards which my various spiritual and sense faculties are orientated. Christian self-discipline, then, although not equated with renunciation, does utilize it at times.

    The same is true concerning the practice of penance. As indicated above, there are various opportunities for penance which do not involve renunciation. But I can also perform an act of penance by the renunciation of some good. Neither can the practice of penance, therefore, always be equated with renunciation, although the latter is one of penance's possible forms.

    Christian renunciation can be employed in the exercise of self-discipline and penance. But it has other applications also. The choice of a particular vocation and life's work demands a renunciation of various other created goods and values. The Christian who chooses to be a doctor has to be willing to sacrifice numerous positive values if he is to serve mankind properly in the medical profession. The Christian scholar, called by God to make a significant contribution to the life of the Church in the academic sphere, must also learn the lesson of renunciation; for he cannot be true to his demanding work unless various human values, good in themselves, are sacrificed.

    There are still other possibilities for the use of Christian renunciation. One of these is the fact that its exercise gives an unique expression to the transcendent aspect of the Christian life. One element of the transcendent perspective is that our life of grace is a participation in the transcendent life of God Himself. This life of grace has a radical thrust of desiring God as He is in Himself. This particular dimension of our grace-life will not be completely satisfied until we achieve the beatific vision. In this vision we will possess God as He is in Himself, without the mediation of the world. Here below we can, to a certain extent, go out to God as He is in Himself. One way we can do this is through renunciation. Speaking of this type of renunciation which is expressive of transcendent love of God, Rahner observes: "For such renunciation is either senseless or it is the realized and combined expression of faith, hope and charity which reaches out towards God precisely in so far as he is in himself, and without any mediation of the world, the goal of man in the supernatural order."⁸ God, then, not only wants us to seek Him as He is immanent in creation and redemption, but also as He is transcendent in Himself. One way we can achieve this transcendent union with God is through the prudent, periodic renunciation of created goods and values.

    There is one final perspective of Christian renunciation we would like to discuss. It is a dimension which has been included in what we have already said, but which we would now like to emphasize. The dimension we speak of is the peculiar redemptive force which authentic renunciation possesses. We see this to be true by a consideration of Christ's life. Everything in the life of Christ contributed to our redemption. He redeemed us by His teaching, by His hidden life, by His miracles, by His correct use of His Father's creation. In a very special manner He also redeemed us through the renunciatory element of His existence, a renunciation which culminated in His giving up what is dearest to any man, life itself. Central to Christ's redemptive work was an act of radical renunciation of the highest natural good.

    The role of renunciation in the redemptive process has been established by Christ Himself. The People of God must respect this truth as they help Christ to carry on the work of the subjective redemption. In so many ways we must work with Christ. One manner is through a positive involvement with the world. We relate to its various created goods and values in order to assimilate these into the mystery of Christ more and more. But amidst all the ways by which we help further the redemptive process, let us give a due place to renunciation. If we do not, we are being disloyal to the plan of redemption as structured by Christ Himself. Perhaps we present-day Christians need to be reminded of this in a special manner. We say this because contemporary spirituality, so wonderfully incarnational, is open to the danger of becoming falsely incarnational. Among other possibilities, it would become falsely incarnational if, in its positive affirmation of this world, it neglected to continue the renunciatory perspective of Christ's life. We have to guard against the temptation of becoming erroneously practical about Christianity. On the one hand, we must be authentically practical to the greatest extent possible in our work for Christ. This in part means an assimilation of the cross so that it meets today's apostolic needs. On the other hand, we cannot become so pragmatic that we substitute a worldly wisdom for the folly of the cross. There is a danger today of making asceticism so functional that we are tempted to omit those forms of the cross which are not seen to have an immediately practical result. Such an attitude towards the cross is one which strives to confine the doctrine of the cross to the narrow limits of our reason. Such an attitude wants to remove all mystery of the cross. In summary, we must be sure to assimilate Christ's death, or His cross, according to the forms established by Him, and one of these forms is renunciation.

end of excerpt from Response in Christ

Messenger: Fr. Carter wrote about our involvement
with the world.

Excerpt from Response to God's Love, p. 98-102,
by Fr. Edward J. Carter, S.J.

Chapter 8

The Christian Encounters Others and the World

...Our dealings with others take place within the overall context of the world order of things. We and they are members of the secular city, the temporal order. If we love others, we must be concerned about the type of world they live in. We arrive, consequently, at another dimension of our discussion about our encounter with others—each of us has a responsibility toward the world order.

The following Scripture passage strikingly tells us how much God loves his creation:

                For you love all things that are
                    and loathe nothing that you have
                        made;
                    for what you hated, you would not
                        have fashioned.
                And how could a thing remain, unless
                    you willed it;
                    or be preserved, had it not been
                    called forth by you?

—Wis 11:24-25

God calls us to share in his love for his creation. The Christian should have a deeper love for the world than the nonbeliever. All that is good and true and beautiful, all that we humans reach out for in authentic hope, all the possibilities for our earthly progress, all the worthwhile and enthusiastic dreams of the human heart for a better world—yes, the Christian should yearn more deeply for all this than the nonbeliever. Why? Because the Christian knows that mankind and this world belong to Christ. The Christian knows that mankind's pursuit of the true, the good, and the beautiful is ultimately a pursuit of Christ. The Christian knows that any authentic step forward that mankind takes marks a deepening of the Christic evolutionary process whereby mankind and this world are more fully united to the center and crown of the universe—Christ himself.

Because the world belongs to Christ, the Christian should feel at home in his or her secular involvement. Obviously, there is a sinful dimension to the world—there are murders, rapes, and thievery; there are hatreds, gross injustices, lies and calumnies, blatant sexual promiscuity, and selfish lust for power; there is serious neglect of duty, and a hedonistic pursuit of pleasure. The sinful element of the world, however, should not make us blind regarding its basic goodness and beauty.

Obviously, we do not love and embrace the world's sinful dimension. A "holy sadness" should touch us when we reflect upon the moral depravity that defiles the world's Christic image. We do not refuse secular involvement, however, because the world's sinfulness makes life unpleasant at times. We must often behave in a way that is different from the way much of the world thinks and acts, yet we must be different in a way that does not make us shirk our responsibility toward the secular.

The contribution that the Christian makes toward the Christic development of the secular city is important in any age. Because of the special times in which we live, however, the importance of the contemporary Christian's efforts is heightened. We live in an age of great and numerous and complex problems, but an age that is also great in many kinds of achievements, an age that is on the threshold of even greater accomplishments.

We live in a world of many contradictions. We are currently witnessing material growth at a rate that past ages would have thought completely impossible. Modern human beings have given evidence of their control over their material environment in countless ways. Humans have landed on the moon and will also land on other planets. Modern science and technology have afforded contemporary humans numerous comforts, conveniences, and opportunities for progress in various dimensions of their existence. Despite all this material progress, however, despite all the great scientific and technological advances, there are still millions of men, women, and children the world over who are plagued by hunger, poverty, and disease.

Modern humans are achieving an ever greater control over life, marvelously increasing life expectancy, but they are also developing weapons that can quickly destroy the entire human race.

Moreover, as a result of recent technological advances, modern humans can have many of their desires fulfilled. In the depths of the human heart, however, there is often a restless stirring, a restless desire, a desire that cannot always be articulated, but of which contemporary men and women are aware.

People of today live in an age that affords wonderful opportunities for deepening the bonds of world brotherhood, of world community. International systems of communication, travel, and commerce are promoting a growing sense of mutual interdependence among nations. At the same time, however, there are signs of division—there are wars between nations and internal forces of division within the same nation, that is, division between the rich and the poor, the young and the old, and division between the races.

There is a cry for personal freedom the world over—a cry the likes of which has never been heard before—and this is good. Often, however, freedom is being misused, and this abuse of freedom by some has resulted in the violation of the freedom of others.

There are many indications of the love of mankind for fellow humans. Our present times are replete with examples of persons extending themselves in aiding others. There are, however, numerous examples of how contemporary men and women have hardened their hearts regarding the needs of their fellow humans.

This brief glance at modern men and women and their world allows us to quickly view the complexities of our contemporary society. We see bright rays of brilliant accomplishments accompanied by unmistakeable signs of serious failure. We see that there are wonderful possibilities for growth and progress, possibilities that modern men and women can transform into actual accomplishments. We also see, however, the very real and stark possibility that all this could end in a cosmic heap of ashes—if there should occur that deadly combination of the following: lust for power and domination, hatred, misuse of freedom, irresponsibility, and disregard for human life and dignity.

This is the world in which we contemporary Christians live—a world that is an amazing mixture of that which is good and beautiful and brilliant, and that which is sinful and ugly and dreadful. We have the privilege and responsibility of shaping this contemporary world according to its Christological imprint. Jesus put this image of himself upon the cosmic order by the way he lived his life among us. We have to aid in directing our fellow humans and their values along the path that has been made by the footprints of Jesus of Nazareth—a task that is not always easy. There are so many forces in today's world that work against Christ, his message, and the order he came to establish. But are we going to shirk the challenge? Are we going to allow present possibilities for a further pursuit of the true, the good, and the beautiful to be thwarted by the forces of evil, diverted along paths that are not worthy of men and women?

As we labor with Christ in helping him bring the work of creation and redemption to completion, we should not become discouraged by the fact that mankind and the temporal order seem to be less Christian than they were previously. We should not be disheartened at the signs that Christianity seems increasingly to be a diaspora religion. We should not become fainthearted in our efforts for Christ because of the possibility that official Christianity might become less influential in today's world.

Although we see these and other signs that seem to portend difficult times for Christianity, let us not become discouraged. We must realize that there is an external and obvious manifestation of Christianity in the world, and there is a hidden or anonymous dimension. Men and women who are not publicly professed Christians can be coming closer to Christ without actually realizing it. In fact, the entire temporal order can mature in its Christianization process in a very quiet and hidden way—so quiet and so hidden that even we Christians can hardly recognize what is actually happening. There is, then, what can be called an anonymous Christianity.

There is only one world order, and it has been established in Christ. Every person is offered salvation, but this is Christic grace, Christic salvation. The temporal order of mankind also comes under this Christic influence. If there is to be the authentic progress of this order, it must be a progress in Christ. The Christic influence, then, reaches out and touches every human person, every authentic human value. Regardless of how many persons realize what is happening in Christ to themselves and to the entire world order, it is definitely happening. Consequently, our Christ-oriented efforts for mankind and this world are really effective, even though they are so hidden and mysterious at times.

We each contribute to the shaping of a better world according to a variety of circumstances: the young, for example, contribute their enthusiasm; the elderly contribute their mellowed wisdom; the conservative contribute their concern for timeless values; and the progressive contribute their penchant for change and adaptation to contemporary exigencies. Some work within the confines of a clean and quiet office; others work amid circumstances charged with potential explosiveness. Some perform, claiming the attention of the public eye; others labor in hidden ordinariness. Some must fight the boredom that routine work tends to generate; others must maintain high-level awareness amid the dangers of high-risk occupations. Whatever the task and its circumstances in the secular city might be, however, the imperative is the same for all of us—namely, to be where God wants us. Only in this way will our encounter with others and the world truly produce growth for all concerned.

end of excerpt from Response to God's Love

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Prayer for Union with Jesus

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

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