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January 28, 2008 - Feast of St. Thomas of Aquinas

January 29th Holy Spirit Novena
Scripture selection is Day 3 Period I.

The Novena Rosary Mysteries  
for January 29th are Joyful.

  

Sidney Rosary from Florida

Tomorrow January 29, 2008 6:20pm

There will be great healing grace!

  

Retreat in Florida

February 2nd - 5th

Please come or tune in!

  

China Retreat

February 10th - 13th

   

 

January 28, 2008 - Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas

                    How do we live?
                    Life is not life if it
                        is not rooted in God —

                In baptism we receive a sharing
                    in His life

                Fr. Carter says

  

Excerpt from the Spirituality Handbook

We, through our incorporation into Christ which occurs at Baptism, are meant to relive the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In doing so, we are not only accomplishing our own salvation, but we are assisting in the salvation of others also. The Incarnation continues all the time. Christ, of course, is the one Who fundamentally continues the Incarnation. But He enlists our help. The world no longer sees Jesus, no longer is able to reach out and touch Him. We are the ones who now, in some way, make Christ visible and tangible. In union with the invisible, glorified Christ, and depending on Him as our source of life, we continue the Incarnation in its visible and temporal dimensions. This is our great privilege. This is our great responsibility.

The Christian is initiated into the mystery of Christ, into his or her role in prolonging the Incarnation, through Baptism. In the words of St. Paul: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by Baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." (Rom. 6: 3-4).

It is not sufficient, however, that we be incorporated into Christ through Baptism. All forms of life require nourishment. So, too, our life in Christ must be continually nourished. How can we continually keep in contact with Christ? There are various ways. We contact Christ in a most special way through the liturgy, above all in the Eucharistic liturgy. Here the entire course of salvation history, as centered in Jesus, is sacramentally renewed and continued. Through our most special and most personal meeting with Jesus in the Mass, we are more deeply incorporated into Christ. Also, we should remember that all the sacraments make up part of the Church's liturgy.

The reading of Scripture provides another special opportunity for meeting Jesus. This is true for both Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament prefigures the New Testament and leads to it. It is obvious, however, that we meet Christ especially in the pages of the New Testament. How true it is to say that not to be familiar with Scripture is not to know Jesus properly. We should resolve to read from Scripture daily.

We also meet Jesus in our interaction with others. Everyone we meet, everyone we serve, is in the image of Jesus. We have to take the means to grow in this awareness. If I truly believe that everyone has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, how should I treat everyone?

These, then, are some of the ways we keep in contact with Jesus. Common to the various ways of meeting Jesus is a certain degree of prayerful reflection. Our contact with Jesus in the liturgy, in Scripture, and in our interaction with others, and so forth, will not be all that it should be unless we are persons of prayer. The light and strength of prayer enables us to keep in contact with Jesus as we should.

We live out our Christ-life in an atmosphere of love. Indeed, the life Jesus has given us is centered in love. It has its origins in the mysterious love of God: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life" (Jn 3: 16).

Our new life in Jesus has arisen out of God's fathomless love. Christ, in His descent into human flesh, has established a milieu of love. The life He came to give can flourish only in the framework of love. Indeed, we can summarize the meaning of the Christian life by stating that it is our loving response to God's love. The pierced Heart of Jesus, this Heart which shed its last drop of blood in the greatest love for each one of us, is the symbol of God's tremendous love for us. Christ's Heart also calls us to respond by giving ourselves in love to God and neighbor. Yes, Jesus invites us to respond to God's love by giving ourselves in love to Him in an ever closer union. The more closely we are united to Him, the greater is our capacity to love God and neighbor. The more closely we are united with Jesus, the more closely He unites us to the Father in the Holy Spirit, with Mary our Mother at our side.

end of excerpt

  

  

Excerpt from Tell My People

 

Jesus Has Come to Give Us Life

Jesus: "This is the day celebrating My Resurrection (Easter). The day of newness of life. I am Lord and Master. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Tell My people to come to Me if they wish to experience life in abundance. I want to give all an ever greater share in the life of My Resurrection. Without Me you cannot be happy, nor have peace, nor have real joy. Tell My people to surrender to Me more and more. The more they do so, the more they will experience My love, wisdom, power, peace, joy, happiness, mercy, and goodness. Within My Heart My people will find these riches. I am Lord and Master! Please listen to My words."

Reflection: Through His life, death, and resurrection, Jesus has come to give us life, and to give us this life in abundance.

When we were baptized, we were incorporated into Christ and His Church. When we were baptized, we received the life of sanctifying grace. This life is a created sharing in the life of the Trinity. Truly, we are called to live a God-like existence according to the teaching and example of Jesus! It is our duty and our privilege to develop our life of grace—our Christ-life—through our participation in the Mass, through the reception of the sacraments, through prayer, and through all other good works. Indeed, we are called to love God and neighbor more and more.

What a glorious life has been given to us! In a spirit of thanksgiving, and together with Mary our Mother, let us always strive to know Christ more intimately, to love Him more ardently, and to follow Him more closely, so that He will always bring us to a closer union with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

 

Proverbs 16: 2

A person's own acts seem right to the doer, but Yahweh is the weigher of souls.
 

 

                What we see we see with tainted vision —
                We see God with tainted vision
                    because of our wounded human
                    nature

                We see others with tainted vision
                    because of our wounded human
                    nature

                We see ourselves with tainted vision
                    because of our wounded human
                    nature

                We seek the mind of Christ
                    Reality is in God
                To be embraced by God one day
                    in the beatific vision

                Our minds are tainted
                We seek the truth of Jesus —
                We strive for greater perfection
                    in Him.

 

 

 

                We seek holiness in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

   

Excerpt from Spirituality Handbook

 

Consecration to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

We have already spoken of how we are incorporated into Christ at Baptism. Now we shall speak of the life which comes to us in Baptism in terms of consecration:

"To consecrate means to make sacred, to make holy. Only God can make a being holy. So to speak of our consecration is to speak of God's activity in making us holy, His activity of giving us a share in His own holiness. At Baptism we receive a share in God's life, a share in His holiness. Christ is the Mediator of this grace life. We are baptized into Christ, into His death and resurrection. In Baptism we become holy by sharing in the holiness of Christ. We become consecrated, sealed with the divine holiness. We belong to the Father, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit.

"On our part, we must respond to God's consecration of us. We must live out the consecration of Baptism. We must realize what God has done for us in Christ and live according to this awareness. We need to live the life of holiness and grow in it. In other words, we must develop the life of grace, the Christ-life.

"What God has done for us in Christ involves Mary. God has given us a Christ-life, our life of grace, and Mary is the Mother of this Christ-life. Consequently, living out our life of consecration to God—living out the Christ-life—includes allowing Mary to increasingly be the Mother of our Christ-life.

"Consecration to Mary, therefore, is an aspect of our consecration to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is entrusting ourselves entirely to her maternal love so that she can bring us ever closer to Jesus, so that we can increasingly live out our consecration to God in Christ.

"At Fatima, Our Lady asked that we consecrate ourselves to her Immaculate Heart. Mary shows us her heart as a symbol of her love for God and us. She asks us to make a return of love to her, to consecrate ourselves to her, to give ourselves to her completely. She wants us to entrust ourselves to her completely so that she may help us love God and neighbor.

"As stated above, consecration to Mary is an aspect of our consecration to God in Christ and she has asked for consecration to her Heart so that she may assist us. Christ, in turn, invites us to live out this consecration to Him through consecration to His Sacred Heart. We see the divine symmetry: consecration to the Immaculate Heart helps us to live out consecration to Christ Who reveals His Heart as symbol of His life of love in all its aspects, including His tremendous love for each of us individually. His Heart also asks for our love in return, a return which ideally is summed up in consecration to Jesus' Heart. Through this consecration we give ourselves completely to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart. In this consecration to Jesus, we promise to strive to live according to His Father's will in all things." (2)

2. Edward Carter, S.J., Mother at Our Side, Faith Publishing, Milford, Ohio, 1993, pp. 15-17.

 

                Sing Song: Holy - Holy is His Name

          

 

 

 

Excerpt from Tell My People

Call of the Sacred Heart

Jesus: "Tell My People that I wish them to come to My Sacred Heart. I show My Heart as symbol of My great love for My people. So many, however, are cold and indifferent concerning My love for them. Consider all I have done for My people! I suffered a brutal passion and death for them. My Body was unmercifully scourged, My head cruelly crowned with thorns, My hands and feet mercilessly pierced with nails. Oh, how much I suffered in all this—out of love for My Father and the whole human race! Finally, My Heart was pierced with the soldier's lance. From My pierced Heart flowed forth blood and water, symbols of the Eucharist and Baptism. How much My pierced Heart still loves My people! How I long for each to come to My Heart in a return of love! All who do will experience My love in a special way. All who take up their refuge within My Heart will experience love, security, peace, joy. The world cannot give My people these gifts. I, Who am Lord and Master, am the One Who gives these gifts."

Reflection: Jesus tells us how much He loves us and to what lengths He went in His passion and death to show us this great love, this love symbolized by His Heart.

To meditate often upon the passion and death of Christ is to allow His love to more and more take hold of us. The more we allow Jesus to embrace us with His tremendous love for us, the more He draws us within His pierced Heart. Within this Heart is our refuge. Here is our source of enlightenment, of strength, of peace, joy, and happiness.

        

  

 

Trust In Jesus

Jesus: "My beloved priest-companion, tell My people to trust Me unreservedly. I am Lord and Master. I am their God. So many fail to trust Me as they should. I love all My people much, much more than they love themselves. This great love of Mine should encourage the greatest trust. The more you realize how much a friend loves you, the more you place your trust in the friend. I am your perfect Friend! I love you infinitely more than your best earthly friend. Tell My people to give Me their trust. Tell them to say often, 'Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place my trust in You.' I am Lord and Master. Please do as I request."

Reflection: How can we fail to trust Jesus, this Jesus Who has given His life for each of us? During His passion, He knew each of us by name. Today, He calls each of us, by name, to the refuge of His Sacred Heart. Today, He calls each of us, by name, to a greater trust in His Heart.

Prayer: Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place my trust in you.

 

 

Mary Our Mother

Jesus: "My beloved friend, tell My people to come to My Mother. From the cross, as I was suffering indescribable agony, I gave Mary as spiritual Mother to the world. My great love for My people prompted Me to do this. I am Lord and Master, and I want My people to come to My Mother and their Mother. If you wish to be close to Me, come to Mary. Consecrate yourselves to her. In this way you will grow into the closest union with Me. Through her Immaculate Heart, you will be drawn more and more into My own Heart. It is My desire that you allow My Mother to place you within My Heart which loves you with an unfathomable love! This is My wish—that you come to Me enfolded by Mary's mantle, cradled in her arms, pressed against her Heart."

Reflection: It is God's will that we approach Jesus in union with Mary. Enough said!

     

  

Being Loved By Jesus

Jesus: "My beloved priest-companion, I have given you a special experience of what it means to be loved by Me. I have drawn you, through Mary, deeply within My Heart. There you experience a deep peace, joy, and security—all this results from your realizing how much I love you! Tell My people about My great love! Tell them I desire that they come to My Heart. There they will experience the wonders that only My Heart can give. I am Lord and Master. I desire that all listen to My words."

Reflection: We know what a glowing feeling it is to realize that we are loved by a human person—by a friend or by a spouse, for example. Jesus loves us much, much more than any such person can possibly love us! Why don't we, then, allow ourselves constantly to be immersed in the joy which results from realizing how much Jesus loves us?

end of Tell My People

 

 

  

     

        

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