Talk given February 13, 1997 National Conference of Shepherds of Christ,
held at Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center, Norwood, Ohio.
Before we begin the rosary, I’d like
to say a few words about the great importance of these days on the 13th of
each month. Before Our Lord asked me to begin the Shepherds of Christ
Ministries, the 1st dimension of that ministries was given to me on May the 31st,
1994. But before Our Lord asked me to start the ministries, I had been given a
great devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. And I knew that everything concerning
recent Marian apparitions centered around the Fatima message. The Fatima
message is key to the peace of the world, as Our Lady of Fatima has told us.
So because I had been given a great devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, it was no
surprise to me when Our Lord told me, and through me the whole Movement, the
great connection that there would be between Shepherds of Christ Ministries
and helping to bring the Fatima message to conclusion. I’ll expand more upon
that in my talk this afternoon. But here and now I’d like to read just a
part of the message I received on October the 13th,
1994, when Our Lord called the full Ministries into existence. It had begun
May 31st , some five or six months previous
to that. But really October the 13th, 1994,
marks the real birth, the complete birth of Shepherds of Christ Ministries.
And part of the message I received on that day reads as follows:
"I am giving you this message on this day, the 77th
anniversary of the great apparition at Fatima, because of the close
connection between the Shepherds of Christ Movement and the Fatima message.
The Fatima message is centered in devotion to My Heart and My Mother’s
Heart, especially in consecration to Our Hearts. Shepherds of Christ
Ministries is also centered in devotion to Our Hearts. I will use Shepherds
of Christ Ministries as a great instrument in helping to bring about the
triumph of the Immaculate Heart and the Reign of My Sacred Heart. Today
then, October the 13th, 1994, the 77th
anniversary of the great apparition at Fatima, marks the birth of Shepherds
of Christ Ministries. I pour forth the great love of My Sacred Heart to all.
I am Jesus, the Chief Shepherd of the Flock."
The calling of Our Lord to Shepherds of
Christ to be present if possible at these meetings on the 13th
of each month, and if they cannot be present physically, to be present in
spirit with us then comes as no surprise. It’s merely another unfolding in
the history of the Shepherds of Christ Movement and in the Fatima message.
These 13th
of the months meetings are extremely important. They are great instruments
which Our Lord and Our Lady are using to help bring to completion the Fatima
message, which will result in that great era of peace, which Our Lady of
Fatima promised eventually would come to the world.
So I ask you to take these meetings on
the 13th of the month with the utmost
seriousness, gratitude, thanksgiving, joy that Our Lord, for His own reasons
has chosen Shepherds of Christ, the members thereof, the whole Ministries to
play such a great part in the completion of the Fatima message. It comes as no
surprise either that Our Lord gives special messages during the rosary on the
meeting of the 13th, just as Our Lady of
Fatima gave messages to the three visionaries at Fatima in 1917, from May
through October. So at this stage of the Fatima message’s unfolding, it is
no surprise that they continue, and in a new way and a new phase of the Fatima
plan, give us these very special messages on the 13th.
They are meant not only for us here present, they are meant for all members of
the Movement, and eventually for the whole world. All these messages, all
these rosaries on the 13th, eventually go onto our Internet with
its world-wide audience.
So please, be very grateful to God for
the messages He gives us during the rosary. Not everything which Rita says is
a message. I think you’ll be able to distinguish when she’s receiving a
message from Our Lord or from Our Lady, and when she is speaking from her own
heart. Sometimes the transition is very quick and you may miss it, but there
are both ways in which meditations are given on the decades: in strict
locutions or messages, and then from Rita’s meditations or reflections
herself.
(After the Rosary)
I wish to thank everybody who made the
effort to be here with us, especially those people who had to travel from out
of town. I’m sure the Lord has blessed you already and will continue to do
so for your effort to be here. These are extremely important meetings on the
13th of the month. Our Lord has, Himself,
instructed us in His great love and mercy for us and the whole world to have
them. From these meetings, the messages of Our Lord, the previous message
given at Fatima, go out to the whole world...
I sort of left off when I introduced the
rosary by reading the rest, or at least a good part of the rest, of that
message which I, myself, received on October the 13th,
1994, when Our Lord called the full Shepherds of Christ Ministries into
existence.
"My beloved priest-companion, today I come to you
with another mission."
He had already asked me on May the 31st
of 1994 to start the priestly newsletter and then shortly after
that to start the prayer chapters.
"I’m asking you to establish Shepherds of Christ
Ministries. At My request you have already begun the priestly newsletter, Shepherds
of Christ, and the prayer chapters, Shepherds of Christ
Associates...
"I am giving you this message on this day, the 77th
Anniversary of the Great Apparition at Fatima, because of the
close connection between the Shepherds of Christ movement and the Fatima
message. The Fatima message is centered in devotion to My Heart and My
Mother’s Heart, especially in consecration to Our Hearts. Shepherds of
Christ Ministries is also centered in devotion to Our Hearts. I will use
Shepherds of Christ Ministries as a great instrument in helping to bring
about the triumph of the Immaculate Heart and the reign of My Sacred Heart.
When this occurs, My Church and the world will be experiencing the great era
of peace promised by My Mother at Fatima.
"Today, then, October 13, 1994, the 77th
Anniversary of the Great Apparition at Fatima, marks the birth of Shepherds
of Christ Ministries. I pour forth the great love of My Sacred Heart to all.
I am Jesus, Chief Shepherd of the flock."
So (this is) one of the most important
messages given in the whole history of our Movement, and I think you can see
why. Not only was Our Lord calling the Ministries into full bloom with this
message, but He was making that great connection between Shepherds of Christ
and the Fatima message.
You see how He says that both the Fatima
message and Shepherds of Christ is centered in devotion, and especially in
consecration, to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
So in my moments here before you this afternoon, I wish
to speak a bit about this consecration.
I’ll start off by reading a message of
Our Lord and from "Tell My People" which deals with this
consecration to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
"My beloved friend, tell My people that I desire all
to consecrate themselves to My Sacred Heart and to Mary’s Immaculate
Heart. Tell them not to just recite words in making the Act of Consecration,
but to realize what they are saying. Consecration to Our Hearts means a
total gift of self. That means handing over everything to Me and My Mother.
Consecration means a willingness to surrender completely to Me. In Baptism,
one is consecrated to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But how many fail to live
out their consecration? I extend to all the invitation to renew this
Baptismal consecration through consecration to My Heart and to My Mother’s
Heart.
"My beloved companion, I have taught you what this
consecration means. I have given you great peace, joy and happiness because
you have made this consecration. I have taught you that you are to renew
this act of consecration each day. I constantly remind you that you are to
pray each day for the grace to more and more live the consecration. I have
taught you that your consecration to Me and My Mother means that you
constantly surrender yourself to Us and to Our care. I have taught you that
the more you surrender yourself to Me, the more I live in you, and through
you and for you. I have taught you that My great love for you longs to draw
you more deeply into My Heart. I have shown you that I wish your Mother Mary
to place you there within My Heart, and that the more you dwell within her
Heart, the more deeply she places you within My Heart. Dwelling within Our
Hearts, the Holy Spirit fashions you more and more in My likeness. The
Father thus looks upon you with greater favor and takes you more closely to
Himself.
"Tell My people all these wondrous truths. I am Lord
and Master and I desire all to listen to My words. (end of message)"
And what beautiful words those are,
which Christ gives all, to us all regarding the consecration to His Heart and
Mary’s Heart.
I want to - after that message of Jesus
telling us what consecration involves, I wish to single out a few aspects of
the consecration, what it includes. One aspect of our consecration and
especially the consecration which Our Lord has given us for Shepherds of
Christ, one aspect of our consecration to Their Hearts is to realize that we
are apostles and that we are called to go out into the world as we have heard
in the rosary today, and other times to be the apostles of His love, of His
love and His Mother’s love, and thus to help bring about that great era of
peace promised by Our Lord, Our Lady of Fatima in which love will just
dominate. That’s what it means when Our Lady says, "In the end,"
she says, "my Immaculate Heart will triumph." And along with that
triumph of her Immaculate Heart will occur the Reign of the Sacred Heart. The
Reign of the Sacred Heart and the triumph of the Immaculate Heart simply is a
reign of love, a triumph of love and in that era there will be a type of love
existent in the hearts of the members of the human family never known before.
We will all be so united in love to the Father and the Holy Spirit through the
Hearts of Jesus and Mary. And not only with Them, but with each other. What a
glorious era we have to look forward to.
We are apostles. More and more as the
Movement has gone on, Jesus is letting us know that, yes, we are supposed to
pray. This is one of our primary duties in the chapters and elsewhere, to pray
for priests and all others. But more and more He is telling us that now is the
time to start to more and more move out from our chapters and to be apostles
of His love, to help spread the Movement, to help spread the consecrations in
the schools through the consecration cards, the Rosary Aves, both of which
have the Imprimatur of the Cincinnati Archdiocese, to help spread all our
materials, all our books and all the various rosaries, the rosary tapes. And
you are called to do that.
In the beginning of the Movement, it was
a relatively few people who were carrying the burden and carrying the Ministry
on. We have entered a great new episode of the Movement, principally in that
episode, principally centers itself around these meetings of the 13th.
More and more people are realizing as they hear more and more the messages,
more and more people in the Movement are hearing that Jesus is calling each
one of us to be apostles of the Movement, to spread the Movement, to help
implement the various ministries in all ways possible, to help spread the
movement by starting new prayer chapters. Just think if we have something
like, I guess, 2500-3000 members in the chapters and the Apostles of the
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus Movement here in this country and throughout the
world-most of those, thus far, in this country.
But just think if each person would take
it upon himself or herself to go all out to get one more new chapter formed.
That’s not impossible, I don’t think that’s asking something heroic.
That would double our chapters; that would double our prayer power. And so
much of the Movement, the success of it, depends upon the prayer power coming
out of the chapters and the Apostles of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus
Movement. So He’s calling all of us; and how admirably so many in the
Movement are answering. I wish to single out-just because all of you know
about the Florida apparition-four or five, six, I don’t know how many now of
our members from Rita’s core group have gone down to the apparition site.
One of our main members, Tom A., has a home there at St. Petersburg, and
Clearwater is just a short distance from there. And they’ve been going down
and staying in his house, and each day going over to the apparition site and
handing out our materials, especially the rosary message tape, but other
materials also. This is what Our Lord, Our Lady has asked us to do. And
they’ve had phenomenal success. We can’t keep enough materials down there.
They just, the people are just so eager for it. But this is what...and they do
it on their own time, they drive down, some of them spend three or four days,
some a week and they come back. But what a marvelous example of their
answering the call to the apostleship to which Jesus calls them in the
Movement. And they’re doing just a tremendous amount of good.
And by the way when I’m talking and as
long as I’m talking about Florida I might read you part of that message of
Our Lady. You have read it, no doubt if you’d gotten a copy of the picture
with the message on the back. But for my own purposes I want to read that here
and now. So Mary tells us, this is the message which Rita received on December
the 19th:
Mary speaks: My dear children, I give to you, my
Son, Jesus, born in a stable in Bethlehem on Christmas morn’. He is the
Almighty God the Light of the world.
I appear to you, my children on a bank
in Florida. You have made money your god! Do you know how cold are your
hearts? You turn away from my Son, Jesus for your money. Your money is your
god.
I am Mary, your Mother. I do not
appear as I once appeared to you.
When Rita got that message and when she
gave it to me, both of us for a number of days thought that her number of
apparitions was simply decreasing, but we both came to the conclusion; well
Rita came to the conclusion and I followed after her, in agreement with her
conclusion, Mary says, "I do not appear as I once appeared to you."
She was saying apparently that, "I’m appearing to you in this new way,
where the whole world can see me."
So many others’ apparition sites have
had their believers of course, but many, many people throughout the world have
doubted all this talk about the various apparition sites of Mary. She says,
"I do not appear as I once appeared to you." She is appearing on a
bank for the whole world to see.
Mary continues:
"I am asking you today to circulate my message given
on a tape on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12, 1996. Please
circulate this tape now."
That’s one of the main things our
apostles down in Florida are doing, handing out the tapes with this message.
Mary continues:
"Please circulate this tape now. Give it to as many
people as you can. I am Mary, your Mother. Please circulate my Rosary
Book."
She’s referring to a book which
Shepherds of Christ Publications came out right around Christmas time.
Hopefully all of you have received it in the mail, Rosaries from the Hearts of
Jesus and Mary, as given to Rita. Now here’s the point I want to make here
and now. Notice how she links up the apparition site with the circulation of
her Rosary Book, and we are circulating the book there. But to me, there’s a
very great phenomenon connected with the colors on the window, bank windows
and the Rosary Book. And Rita herself pointed this out to me. Now this cover
on this book-it was designed by Hal K. weeks and even months before the
apparition of Our Lady on the bank in Florida. When did you start to design
that Hal? (question asked to Harold K.) Almost, two years ago
. And the colors
were already selected months ago, right? Well if you’ll take the picture of
the bank of the apparition of the bank on Florida, and this Rosary Book, you
will notice that the colors are the same. To me, that’s a miraculous
confirmation of the fact that Our Lady is connecting the apparition site on
the bank in Florida with the Shepherds of Christ Ministries in a special way
with the rosaries. It’s just phenomenal. You can check the colors out one by
one. They’re a little bit brighter on the book, but because of the
photography involved I think you can see how they wouldn’t be quite as
bright on this. But check out the colors. They’re the same on the Rosary
Book and on this. And these colors, as I say, were picked by Hal months and
months before the apparition. You can take it for what you want, but for me
it’s a miraculous confirmation of this message, that Our Lady chose those
same colors which are on the front of her Rosary Book, to show the same colors
relative to her apparition there on the bank in Florida.
Therefore, our Florida apostles are one
of the many examples I could point out to you of how people in the Movement
are more and more taking up the challenge, the invitation of Jesus and Mary to
spread this Movement throughout the world. They have chosen the Shepherds of
Christ Movement as a great instrument to help bring about the Fatima message.
How privileged we are to be part of it, to be called to it. I believe, I’ve
told you this before, at least some of you have heard me, I think this
Movement is one of the greatest in the history of the Church. And I think
history itself will bear that out. So how precious a gift each of us has been
given by Our Lord in calling us to be members of this Movement.
Therefore, a very important aspect of
our consecration to Their Hearts is to be apostles, to help spread all the
ministries. Another aspect of our consecration is the idea of union. I think
we’re all very well aware how the consecration unites us to the Hearts of
Jesus and Mary, and through Them to the Father and the Holy Spirit. But
perhaps we don’t think often enough of that how it unites us with one
another, in the Movement, in the Church, throughout the whole world. You
cannot grow in union with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and Mary, without
growing in union with all your neighbors. And this is the tough part. It’s
relatively easy to love Father, Son and Holy Spirit and Mary, isn’t it?
Three Persons in One God infinitely perfect and Mary a human person, perfect,
free from all sin. It’s easy to love the Triune Persons and Mary, relatively
speaking. But it’s not all that easy to love each other all the time,
isn’t it? And yet that’s what Jesus calls us to. Jesus literally died for
each and every person. And no matter how unattractive a person is in their
behavior, Jesus still died for that person. If He loved that person enough to
die for that person, then certainly we have to love them, him or her, and
especially within the Movement. Satan is violently attacking us, he will
always try to cause division in the Movement. But if we are going to be
examples - and we are called to that, to be examples to the whole Church and
the whole world of what it’s going to be like in the new era, when we all
exist in such great loving union with each other in Christ. We are the
forerunners of that. We’re helping to prepare the way for that for the whole
Church, for the whole world. Not only us, but we have been given a special
mission for that. So we have to be united in love with each other, if we have
differences, we work them out in love and in peace. We work them out in love
and in peace. In one of the Blue Books, Jesus says, "The glass is either
half-empty or it’s half-full." I look at my neighbor, whether he or she
is in the Movement or outside of it. I can either look at the half-empty part
of the glass or the half-full part. I can either look at that person’s
faults and concentrate on them, or I can concentrate on the great goodness
which is inherently theirs. If they are in the state of sanctifying grace,
their soul is magnificently beautiful, despite the blemishes of their failings
of their sins. When I look at a person, do I look at the half-empty part or
the half-full part?
Everyday I ask you to pray for a growing
unity in the Movement. What Our Lord has allowed us to accomplish so far in
less than three years is just miraculous, I think it’s just miraculous. The
sign becomes ever and ever greater that He started this Movement, not me. I
was just the instrument which He chose to head it up. He has given me so many
beautiful people to help me do the Movement and that includes all of you. He
has given you so many beautiful companions in the Movement. Let us concentrate
on that part of it. This is the only way we’re going to be models to the
rest of the Church and the world, of the profound union that Our Lord calls us
to, not only with Himself, but with each other.
Strength for all this, day after day,
it’s not easy to live this way, is it? But as I said in my homily, the great
strength we have for that is the Eucharist. The power of the Eucharist is much
greater than your faults or my faults or the faults of others in the Movement
that surround you, or the faults of others in your parish, or the rest of the
Church and the world. He can give you the strength to arise above your own
faults and the faults of others around you, and march forward in the most
positive way towards this great new era. Oh what a gift the Eucharist is.
St. Julian Eymard, the founder of the
Blessed Sacrament Fathers, who gave us such beautiful writings on the
Eucharist, in one of his writings on the Eucharist he says:
"It is true also that the world does all in its
power to prevent us from loving Jesus in the most Blessed Sacrament with a
real and practical love, to prevent us from visiting Him and cripple the
effects of His love. This world engrosses the attention of souls; it finds
and enslaves them with external occupations in order to deter them from
dwelling too long on the love of Jesus. It even fights directly against this
practical love and represents it as optional, as practicable at most only in
a convent. And the devil wages incessant warfare on our love for Jesus in
the most Blessed Sacrament. He knows that Jesus is there, living and
substantially present; that by Himself He is drawing souls and taking direct
possession of them. The devil tries to efface the thought of the Eucharist
in us, and the good impression made by it; for in his mind, that should
decide the issue of the struggle." (That is if we give in to Jesus’
desire to possess us in the Eucharist.) "And yet God is all love. This
gentle Savior pleads with us from the Host: "Love Me as I have loved
you; abide in My love! I came to cast the fire of love on the earth, and My
most ardent desire is that it should set your hearts on fire."1
1St. Peter
Eymard, "The Most Blessed Sacrament Is Not Loved!," as in The
Treasury of Catholic Wisdom, Fr. John Hardon, S.J., ed.; Ignatius Press,
p. 384.
Union amongst ourselves through our
union with Jesus and Mary and Father and Holy Spirit. Each of you is so
precious to Jesus. He has given each of you a very, very, very special gift,
precious gift, in calling you to be involved in this Movement. Very early on
in the Movement, it was July 31st of 1994, on the Feast of St. Ignatius, He
often gives me very important messages on key feasts, and the Feast of St.
Ignatius is a feast for Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits.
And He told me in that message that He would give great, great, great graces
to those who join the Movement, and hope I’m sure, all of you who have been
in the Movement have experienced those great graces. In appreciation for the
great graces Jesus has given you in the Movement, I ask you, with great joy
and a great sense of responsibility and a great sense of privilege, to do what
you can to implement the ministries of the Movement. No one else can do your
role, can carry out your part. You are preciously unique, no one exists like
you now, no one ever has, no one ever will. It’s you alone who can give
Jesus the opportunity to do what He wants through your humanity to help spread
the Movement. To the extent that you answer Jesus and give yourselves to Him,
and work as time and energy permits, as your other duties permit to help
spread the ministries, to that extent you give Him an opportunity which no one
else can give Him, and to the extent that you hold back, to this extent He
loses this opportunity which no one else can give Him.
A precious Savior who has done so much
to each of us. Certainly He deserves our full loving response. As I kneel
before the crucifix each day, either before a actual crucifix or one in my
mind, let us ask ourselves those questions posed to us by Ignatius Loyola,
"What have I done for Christ?" "What am I now doing for
Christ?" "What ought I to do for Christ?"
Copyright © 2001 Shepherds of
Christ.