Mary has requested that the daily message be given each day to the world. It is read nightly at the prayer service from her Image Building in Clearwater, Florida, U.S.A. This is according to her request. All attempts will be made to publish this daily message to the world at 11p.m. Eastern time, U.S.A.

We acknowledge that the final authority regarding these messages rests with the Holy See of Rome.

I appear my children on this former bank building in Florida, Our Lady Clothed with the Sun.

January 9, 2002

January 10th Holy Spirit Novena
Scripture selection is Day 7 Period I.

The Novena Rosary Mystery
for January 10th is Joyful.

Please come to Clearwater, Florida
    on February 5, 2002.

During the day we will celebrate
    the anniversary of the Rosary Factory.

January 9, 2002

Jesus speaks: My dear ones,

                                    I ask you to begin praying fervently
                                all through the day. Begin today!! Pray
                                every day through January.

                                Please unite in your prayers,
                                    praying for the special urgent
                                    intentions.

                                Pray for priests receiving the Newsletter.
                                Pray for funds!!!!
                                Pray for anyone who touches the Movement,
                                    for all in the Movement and all the
                                    families involved.

I LOVE YOU

Jesus

See yourselves united as a body praying
for the Shepherds of Christ intentions.

Jesus speaks: Please go to my Image building

February 5, 2002

January 9, 2002 message continues

Jesus speaks: There will be a special recognition

of the 2 year anniversary

of the Rosary Factory in the

afternoon.

February 5, 2001

January 9, 2002 message continues

Jesus speaks:    Please pray for the events of
                                         January 13, 2002 in China
                                         February 5, 2002 in Florida.

There will be a special healing
rosary on January 22, 2002.

Pray for Texas members.

The story of the Crucifix video will
soon be available.

Pray for this.

Oh I love you so very much.

January 9, 2002 message continues

Jesus speaks: My dear ones,

January 9, 2002 message continues

Jesus speaks:        I wish the Mass video to be on a disc. Also
                                 you should try as soon as possible to put the
                                 other videos on discs.

Nursing Home and
Homebound Mass

This Mass was specially said for nursing home and homebound people, but is also for small children and all others. It is 33 minutes in length. We tried to keep it as short as possible.

Shepherds of Christ Ministries
P.O. Box 193, Morrow, OH 45152
www.sofc.org (toll free) 1-888-211-3041

January 9, 2002 message continues

Jesus speaks:        I ask you to circulate the Mass video to all, also
                                 proceed ahead with the coloring book on the Mass
                                 and the Little Book of Pictures on the Mass.
                                 I ask all to pray for this circulation.

Messenger: The Little Coloring Book on the Mass is
so very beautiful. Please pray for this.

Jesus speaks:        The Little Coloring Book of pictures of the
                                 Mass will help the children to love the Mass.
                                 Oh how I love the children. How I want
                                 them to go to Mass and love the Mass.

                                     Please give these books to children for
                                 First Communion presents. Please give them
                                 to children in schools.

My dear ones,

                                     You take the gifts I give you for granted.
                                     I give you the Mass, I give you the
                                 priest, you must pray for the priests,
                                 they are so important to you.

                                     Oh please pray in these special days of
                                 prayer for the Priestly Newsletter Book II
                                 and prayer manual to reach the priests.

                                     Oh the great gift I give you in the
                                 Mass! My beautiful ones the gift I give
                                 you in your priests! Oh My beloved I
                                 give you Myself in the Eucharist. Oh My
                                 chosen ones I give you the Sacraments. Oh
                                 My beloved I give you your Church.

Messenger: I long for the Mass. I long to receive
Jesus in the Eucharist.

God gives us the gift of the Sacraments!

Jesus speaks:         How many do not even take advantage
                                 of the gift of confession. I love you so
                                 very much, I love you, I give you the
                                 priest.

Oh please support My Priestly Newsletter
Book II.

Please pray for the mailing and for
grace for all the priests.

I love you so very much, I love you,
I give you Myself in the Mass.

Please help Me.

Messenger:           Please pray for six urgent intentions
                                 and for the mailing of the Priestly Newsletter
                                 Book II and the Printing.

Pray for Ron and Ron and family.

Pray for Fr. Mike.

Excerpt from Newsletter 1999 #3

Personal Uniqueness

    I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd is one who lays down his life for his sheep. The hired man, since he is not the shepherd and the sheep do not belong to him, abandons the sheep and runs away as soon as he sees a wolf coming, and then the wolf attacks and scatters the sheep; this is because he is only a hired man and has no concern for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep. (Jn 10:11-15¹)

    Yes, the Good Shepherd has laid down His life for us. And He did so being aware of each of us in a most special way. Joseph Chorpenning, O.S.F., in commenting on the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, doctor of the Church, says in one of his observations, "In human relationships one seeks to awaken in others an awareness of their divine dignity by the respect and reverence one demonstrates for their person, individuality, and liberty. In Salesian thought each person is unique and unrepeatable. For example, Francis says that when Jesus accomplished our redemption on the day of His passion and death, he 'knew all of us by name and by surname' (Treatise on the Love of God, 2 vols., Tan Books. Vol. 2, p. 280)²"

    This realization of how precious each of us is to Jesus as this special unique person should be deeply imbedded in our consciousness. Much of our growth in the spiritual life depends on this awareness.

    St. Francis de Sales is not the only spiritual master who greatly stresses the uniqueness of each person. There are others, including John Henry Cardinal Newman: "...Newman saw the need for a theology and philosophy of the individual person. We have seen individuals trampled on by totalitarian governments, and we have known educationalists who would lead us away from the field of personal responsibility into the realm of mass-psychology. Materialism, behaviorism, totalitarianism, Marxism -- these are a few of the 'isms' that have been attacking human personality in our time. No wonder there has been a crop of personalist and existentialist philosophies and theologies; and no wonder these aspects in Newman have become so deeply appreciated and studied...

    "Put into the kind of definition we enjoy, Newman's contribution to thought could be called a theology and philosophy of human individuality. Most of the aspects of his message could probably be included under these terms. Sometimes he was content to underline the divine and human importance of the individual, and the personal significance of the concrete circumstances in which his life was passed. The fact that each individual is so bound up with particular parents and belongs to a particular town or village, in a particular country, is part of the loving design of a Providence that orders each one's life specially for His own special purpose and our special good..."³

    Given Newman's concern for the individual, it is not surprising that he was attracted to the person of St. John Chrysostom. Newman says, "I consider St. Chrysostom's charm to be in his intimate sympathy and compassionateness for the whole world, not only in its strength, but in its weakness; in the lively regard with which he views everything that comes before him, taken in the concrete, whether as made after its own kind or as gifted with a nature higher than its own...{It is} the interest which he takes in all things, not so far as God has made them alike, but as He has made them different from each other. I speak of the discriminating affectionateness with which he accepts everyone for what is personal in him and unlike others. I speak of his versatile recognition of men, one by one, for the sake of that portion of good, be it more or less, of a lower order or a higher, which has severally been lodged in them."⁴

    Given Newman's great interest in the individual person, it is no wonder that he has left us the following words: "Everyone who breathes, high and low, educated and ignorant, young and old, man and woman, has a mission, has a work. We are not born at random... God sees every one of us; He creates every soul, He lodges it in a body, one by one, for a purpose. He needs, He deigns to need, every one of us."⁵

    Because of the uniqueness of each Christian's existence, he or she presents Christ with a unique opportunity. Each Christian has the vocation to offer Christ his or her humanity so that Jesus can live in that individual in a special way. To the extent that an individual Christian offers his or her humanity to Jesus, that person has an unique opportunity to help to continue the work of the redemption--an opportunity that no one else can fulfill. Likewise, to the extent that an individual fails to offer his or her humanity to Christ, Jesus loses the opportunity to continue His redemptive work according to that person's uniqueness.

    Each one of us, consequently, has both the great privilege and the great responsibility to properly utilize his or her life according to God's Christ-like design. No one else can fulfill your unique mission, and, in turn, you cannot accomplish the unique mission of another. At times we can become fearful and anxious concerning the task that God has entrusted to us as we more deeply realize what it demands. We can feel the same reluctance that Jeremiah the prophet voiced when Yahweh called him: The word of Yahweh came to me, saying: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you came to birth I consecrated you; I appointed you as prophet to the nations.'

    I then said, 'Ah, ah, ah, Lord Yahweh; you see, I do not know how to speak: I am only a child!’

    But Yahweh replied, 'Do not say, "I am only a child," for you must go to all to whom I send you and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of confronting them, for I am with you to rescue you, Yahweh declares.' {Jr 1:4-8}

    Jeremiah initially shrank back from the mission that God was giving him. He complained that he was not capable of accomplishing it. God answered him, however, and told Jeremiah that he was perfectly capable of fulfilling his appointed role, for He, Yahweh, would be with Jeremiah. God would work through Jeremiah, and Jeremiah, for his part, was to be open to God, allowing Yahweh to work through him according to the divine will.

    We, too, can be guilty of reacting to God's call in the way that Jeremiah originally reacted. This can happen as God calls one to a basic state of life. Once a person is within a fundamental vocation, one can be tempted to resist God's call to higher things, to a greater accomplishment of one's mission, to a greater spiritual maturity.

    When so tempted, we must control our fears and trustingly give ourselves to God's will. Only then will we become fully convinced that God never requests anything without granting abundant grace to accomplish His design, and that to answer God's call as consistently as possible is the only true path to peace, happiness, and fulfillment, despite the pain that is necessarily involved.

    The realization of the greatness of our missions must be balanced with a realization of the limitations attached to that greatness. We are finite creatures who have various limitations which emanate from our finitude. A sense of limitations, then, should accompany the fulfillment of our missions in life.

    What are some of these limitations? First, it is important to realize there are false limitations--limitations that need not be--as opposed to limitations that are inevitable, limitations that spring forth from the fact that we are finite creatures who are immersed in the human condition. An example of a false limitation is demonstrated by the person who succumbs to the temptation of wanting to be someone else. This person looks at the physical and intellectual gifts of one person, the pleasing personality of another, and so forth and so on, and tells oneself that, if only he or she were endowed with such qualities, well, yes, then it would be possible to really accomplish something with one's life. In other words, such a person fails to accept the self which God has created. The person fails to accept his or her God-given uniqueness and wastes precious time looking at what one does not have, rather than appreciating that which God has given. Such a person must strive to accept the self in his or her fundamental uniqueness. Moreover, the person must develop the gifts, strengths, and capacities of one's uniqueness and strive to control as much as possible the weaknesses which hinder the development of this uniqueness. The person should realize that only by accepting one's uniqueness as coming forth from God's creative love and constantly striving to allow that same love to bring one's uniqueness to fulfillment, will one achieve real peace and happiness.

    If there are limitations which should not be, there are also limitations which are inevitable as a person strives to fulfill one's unique mission in life. We possess certain special talents, for example, but present circumstances do not allow us to exercise these talents here and now. Even at those times when we can exercise our special talents, we often feel limited because we realize that there are only a certain number of concrete opportunities and a certain amount of time for us to use our special talents. At other times we feel limited because the very persons we are trying to serve are hostile to our efforts and shut themselves off from what we desire to so generously offer.

    These, then, are some examples of limitations we can experience in our efforts to fulfill our unique missions. To balance the realization of the greatness of our call with the realization that we will be variously limited-- sometimes painfully so--in our striving to carry out our mission in life is as necessary as it is challenging.

    A Christian accomplishes his or her unique mission in proportion to one's realization of Christ's tremendous, unique love for him or her, and in proportion to the person's surrender in love to Jesus. The more the person surrenders to Jesus, the more Jesus lives through that person's uniqueness. Let us always strive to live according to the words of St. Paul: I have been crucified with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is no longer I, but Christ living in me. The life that I am now living, subject to the limitation of human nature, I am living in faith, faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. {Ga 2:19-20}

NOTES:

Scripture quotations are taken from The New Jerusalem Bible, Doubleday.

Joseph Chorpenning, O.S.F.S., as in The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, Michael Donney, editor, The Liturgical Press, p. 853.

The Heart of Newman, A Synthesis arranged by Erich Przwara, S.J., Ignatius Press. pp. 11-14.

Ibid, pp. 276-277

John Henry Cardinal Newman, Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations, Longmans, Green and Co., pp. 111-112.