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 11 p.m. Eastern time, U.S.A.We acknowledge that the final authority regarding these messages rests with the Holy See of Rome. |
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A Prayer for Intimacy with the Lamb, the Bridegroom of the Soul
Oh Lamb of God, Who take 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.
Messenger: Include Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center in 6:20 prayers.
Messenger: Dear apostles,
Today is All Souls Day. I give my heart to Jesus and Mary with you in love. Today we must surrender and let Him use us as His instruments. Today we must have faith, today we must be filled with hope, today we must choose love. Love is a choice, it doesn't happen automatically, it is an act of our will, it is asking God to fill us and use us and we are open to His healing, loving grace working in our souls. He died for each and every soul, we must have this desire to help save souls, He gave His Blood for each and every soul, to have a heart like Jesus is to have hope for every soul, to love them so much, to pray for all of them. With the election coming, we must join together and pray and have faith that God will help us because we are a strong body of people interceding to Him. All day today we must be so aware of souls receiving special graces from God and really intercede to God to let souls out of purgatory. We love the souls so much, they are our friends, if they are released today they will help us especially for our efforts and prayers. We are all brothers and all need each other to be united in Him and helping each other. We help in the act of redemption. What an awesome thought. What a wonderful thought that a soul could be released from purgatory today and I could help them. I do love His souls. Jesus, help us to have a most fruitful day and stay united and help save souls. I love you all—Thanks for your love of souls.
November 2, 2000 - Second Message
Messenger: Please pray for 3 urgent intentions!
Messenger: Please pray for the healing of Father Carter through the intercession of Our Lady of Clearwater.
A Rosary for Healing or for Someone with Cancer.
On one Hail Mary bead or as many as you desire, say: (this is given for Fr. Carter, you can replace your loved one's name).
May God heal Fr. Carter through the intercession of Our Lady of Clearwater in union with the Mass and all the Masses being celebrated around the world.
Pray the Hail Mary or Hail Mary's then pray this after the Hail Mary.
May the cancer be uprooted and thrown into the sea.
We believe with all our hearts.
After the Glory Be— pray the following petition.
May Fr. Carter be healed through the intercession of Our Lady of Clearwater if it be the holy will of God.
Note: You can look at Mary on the image rosary while you pray this rosary.
Messenger: CAN YOU HELP US BY GIVING US ROSARIES FOR THE SCHOOLS REQUESTING THEM?
Mary speaks: PLEASE MAKE WALTER'S ROSARIES. THE SCHOOLS WANT ROSARIES AND THERE ARE NOT ANY ROSARIES LEFT.
Prayer List for apostles for interior use in the Movement. Pray hourly.
Spread the Blood of Jesus on everyone, consecrate their hearts, cast the devil out, pray for coming of the Holy Spirit in a special way for all people involved on this list.
Pray Father Carter is healed through Our Lady of Clearwater.
Pray for Father Carter's doctors.
Please pray for one new very important intention.
Pray for all involved in buying the building.
Pray for designated priests, Fr. Mike, Fr. Smith, Fr. Ken, all priests involved in the Imprimaturs translations including all bishops. Pray for Fr. Joe, Bishop Ed, Fr. Don, Father at Tuesday Masses, Fr. Tom, Fr. Bill, all priests involved with Walter, Fr. Hagee and special priests.
Pray for Father's sister Merle, for all of us servants, handmaids, apostles and vocations to all 7 categories.
Pray for the elections.
Pray for an audience with the Pope.
Pray for all Jesuits involved, all those over us. Pray for the 4 urgent intentions.
Pray for the rights to the books.
Pray for the process of getting Father's books on the Internet.
Pray for money to reprint the books.
Pray for the Imprimatur on the Priestly Newsletter Book II.
Pray we can send it to all bishops and Jesuits.
Pray for Perry and family and discernment.
Pray for all sub-centers and all out-of-state rosaries.
Pray for the sisters' mailing, nursing home mailing, bus mailing.
Pray for Rosary Factory.
Pray for Genevieve's daughter and Sheila's mom and Jerry's dad, Bernice's daughter.
Pray for Paul and Joan discernment.
Pray for all book covers.
Pray for B & M and Tina and Terry, all printing jobs, companies involved.
Pray for 5th, the 13th, the 17th.
Pray for the Internet team and the daily messages.
Pray for building up of Morrow, Ohio, Dale, Indiana, other sub-centers.
Pray for the Holy Spirit Center and all involved.
Pray for all our families, children in school, college mailing.
Pray for lots of rosary makers and rosaries for the schools.
Pray for funds and grace.
Pray for Paul C., Margaret Mary, Steve and Sheila, Monica, Angie, Marian, Cathy, Joe, Nick, Mary, Emily, Joe, Doris, Glaci, Dunkers, Joan R., Morgan, Mark, Walter, Janice, Mike A., Margaret, Ron, and Harold.
Pray for Fred doing the paper and all involved in priestly "start-up".
Please pray for all Shepherds of Christ children.
November 2, 2000 - Third Message
Mass Book II Entry
Through Him, With Him and In Him
Excerpt from Response in Christ (by Fr. Edward J. Carter, S.J.)
EIGHT
Christian Faith
Our first seven chapters have described various aspects of the Christian life under this book's unifying theme, Christ in His paschal mystery of death-resurrection. All these various dimensions of the Christian life involve the exercise of the most important of the infused virtues, faith, hope and love. We have therefore already said much concerning these virtues, either explicitly or implicitly. However, in this present chapter, and extending through the next four, we will consider in a more detailed manner faith, hope and love, as well as certain other Christian virtues. The infused virtues, let us recall, are the supernatural faculties through which we express the paschal mystery in our lives.
1. Faith as Participation in God's Knowledge
Much of the current writing on faith stresses that this virtue constitutes a personal encounter.1 This is the emphasis we will also adopt. However, since this encounter of faith is initiated through the realm of knowledge, we will first discuss faith as participation in God's knowing. Then we will complete our treatment by considering faith as full personal encounter with God and man in Christ.
Faith gives the Christian a new capacity for knowing. It enables him to attain truths about God and His creation which would be otherwise unknowable. Faith also enables us to know certain truths which are within the grasp of natural reason, but which are attained by many only with difficulty.
Faith, as St. Thomas states, assimilates us to the divine knowing.2 Through faith we share in God's vision of reality, and we view God and creation in some way as does God Himself. This vision exists on a level of knowing which surpasses the intellect's natural capacity to grasp reality. Although faith gives only a faint share in God's vision compared to the divine knowledge itself, it is still the greatest vision of reality which is possible for man in his temporal existence.
What are some of the characteristics of Christian faith? First of all, it is at the same time both certain and obscure. Faith is certain because it is a special sharing in the knowledge of God, God who is the highest truth. The strength of my faith, then, depends not on arguments and proofs from reason. These give a rational foundation to my faith, but they are not faith itself. Rather, the strength of faith depends upon the degree to which God takes possession of the Christian in grace. As the Christian grows in grace, the various infused virtues take deeper root, and the Christian lives more and more the life of God. In regard to faith this means that the Christian is being more vitally assimilated into the divine knowing. His faith becomes more firm. This does not mean that we always correctly estimate the strength of our faith. For various reasons we can at times think that our faith is growing weaker when it is actually becoming stronger. Such an impression can be present as faith is being purified. This process of purification will be touched upon in the present chapter, but also later in the chapter on prayer and the one on the mystical life.
If faith is certain, it also has an obscurity about it, despite the fact that faith is also light. Faith is obscure because its realities are unseen. These truths of faith will be surrounded with a full brightness only in the beatific vision. Then faith will no longer be necessary. God and His truth will then be immediately present to us. "Now we are seeing a dim reflection in a mirror; but then we shall be seeing face to face. The knowledge that I have now is imperfect; but then I shall know as fully as I am known." (1 Co 13:12).
Because the truths of faith are not possessed here below with the complete light of the beatific vision, temptations against faith are possible. If these do occur, we should not be unduly disturbed. Great saints, such as St. Jane Frances de Chantal and St. Teresa of Lisieux, have experienced this trial. If temptations against faith occur, how should we handle them? We should not confront the temptation directly, for this only deepens its impression. We should let the temptation pass by as calmly as possible, taking reasonable means to occupy our attention with something positive. If we react correctly to the temptation, our faith will be strengthened and purified. Faith certainly can be purified in other ways. Consequently, we should not think it necessary to experience these temptations to achieve faith's purification. It is merely a question of properly benefiting from such an experience if it does arise.
Some seem to speak of temptations against faith in the same way as they do concerning difficulties about the truths of faith. We prefer to make a distinction. Although difficulties concerning faith can certainly lead to temptations to disbelief, it seems that such difficulties can be present without actual temptation against faith. This kind of difficulty or questioning can actually be a desire to understand more perfectly the mysteries of faith. Such questioning, as opposed to temptation to disbelief, can be handled directly through study, reflection and dialogue with persons competent in theology.
We are presently discussing some of the characteristics of faith. We have said that it is both certain and obscure. It is also evolving.3 By this we mean that the Church, as she progresses through the ages, is meant to strive constantly for a more perfect understanding of the truths of revelation. This is one sense in which the Church's faith evolves. It evolves also in the sense that the Church, reading the signs of the times, must constantly endeavor to present Christ's revelation in categories which are relevant to each succeeding age.4 The Church must so act because of the very nature of revelation. God has revealed Himself in Christ in order to exact a response from man. The Church also has to be concerned about the response which any age makes to her continual presentation of God's revelation. Since one of the factors which will determine man's response to God's word is its discernible relevance to his here-and-now existence, the Church is obligated to make her teaching of the faith as meaningful as possible according to all the various exigencies of each and every age.
The faith of the individual Christian likewise has an evolving dimension because his faith participates in the evolutionary growth of the Church's faith. But the Christian's faith evolves also precisely because it is the faith of an individual. One's understanding of the mysteries of faith can grow indefinitely. This growth will take place not only through the objective means commonly available to all within the Church, but also through the more subjective means which are peculiar to individuals as individuals. Consider the fact that one's faith evolves as his experience of life evolves. Faith is part of our total existence, and God often causes us to understand more perfectly the mysteries of faith by our actual experience of them in the concrete circumstances of our individual lives.
Christian faith is certain, obscure to some extent, and evolving. There is a final set of characteristics we would like to mention. As with all aspects of our grace-life, faith is both incarnational and transcendent.5 At the basis of faith's incarnational dimension is the fact that faith is received within this world's material framework. Faith partly depends upon the tangible and concrete for its proper nourishment, growth and expression. One example of this is faith's relationship to the liturgy with its very obvious incarnational dimension. Another example is that faith must be exercised within the ordinary framework of the Christian's everyday experience of work, relaxation, pain and joy. Again, such a framework of daily life has a very obvious material or incarnational aspect.
If faith is incarnational, it is more ultimately transcendent. The truths of faith, although having a relationship to man's material world, are themselves above it. This fact constitutes one aspect of faith's transcendency. Another aspect is the fact that our conceptual formulation and expression of the mysteries of faith do not completely exhaust their reality. This holds even for the Church's official teaching of these mysteries. It also holds true for theology's expression of the Christian mystery, and for the individual Christian's personal conceptualization of faith's realities, a conceptualization which must be, of course, in proper harmony with the Church's official teaching. Summarily, the mysteries of faith cannot be totally confined to our human categories of thought and speech. These are meant as means to lead us closer to faith's transcendent realities as they are in themselves, especially to the ultimate transcendent reality, our Trinitarian God.
In light of the above mention of theology, it might be well to consider here a few points concerning its relationship to faith. Theology is the science of faith, and its proper study can be a definite means in developing one's faith. But theology cannot be completely equated with faith. It obviously embraces much of faith's content, but it also contains and makes use of other realities. An example of this is the fact that theology utilizes philosophical categories in expressing revelation. Theology also is not obviously the same as faith in the instances when certain advanced speculations of various theologians are eventually seen to be erroneous. The Christian, while highly valuing theology, must realize in what manner it differs from faith itself.
This is especially necessary in our present age which is witnessing a ferment, renewal and vital growth in theology. It is always one of the tasks of theology to be in advance of the current official Church teaching.6 This necessary gap is especially evident today because of this very special age of the Church in which we live. This distance between the Church's official teaching and present theological effort seems to disturb many of today's faithful. If we hold fast to the above distinctions between faith and theology, we should be able to maintain our peace of soul and welcome the renewed vigor of today's theology. This vigor is making its own contribution to the growth of the Church's faith.
2. Faith as Personal Encounter with God and Man in Christ
Contemporary theology emphasizes that faith is not merely an intellectual assent to a body of doctrine, but primarily a personal commitment to God who reveals these truths. For too long theology seemed to invert this order, but it is interesting to note that St. Thomas was not one of those theologians who gave the wrong emphasis. His words are in the mainstream of current thought on faith: "Now, whoever believes, assents to someone's words; so that, in every form of belief, the person to whose words assent is given seems to hold the chief place and to be the end as it were; while the things by holding which one assents to that person hold a secondary place."7
By faith, through the order of knowledge, we enter into an intimate personal relationship with the Trinity. Because faith is thus fundamentally a personal dialogue between God and the Christian, it has a deep, personalizing efficacy.8 If I respond properly to God revealing, I achieve in graced freedom my greatest potential as a person. I become the person I should become.
Our faith-encounter with God centers in Christ. It is obvious why this is so, since it is through His Incarnate Son that the Father has spoken and continues to speak to us. Christ contains all revelation in His Incarnate person. Christ revealed, not only by His words, but also by everything that He was and did. Christ has spoken to us not merely through verbalized intellectual truths, but through His total Incarnate person. He revealed by giving His complete self, not only His words. This fact has deep significance concerning our response to Christ's revelation. For just as Christ has given us the Father's truth in a personal way through the loving gift of His complete Incarnate person, so I must respond in the same manner. I must assent to the truth of Christ, not only with my intellect, but in love with my total being.
Christ's message cannot be separated from His person. If I am authentically to respond to His truth I must accept everything about Christ. Full Christian faith is commitment of my total person to Christ and to the total mystery of Christ. This, of course, does not mean that this commitment is initially as perfect as it can become. My entire Christian life is a growth in this response. However, the initial response is complete in the sense that I open my complete being to Christ with the determination that I will allow myself to be assimilated to Him as He wishes.
As the Christian responds in loving faith to Christ, he discovers his true existence. He has discovered a meaning outside of himself. And, paradoxically, the more he goes out of himself into this true meaning of life who is Christ, the more the Christian becomes himself. Now in living faith he views all reality with Christ, through the vision of Christ. The Christian sees that with Christ, and in the Spirit, he must spend himself in love for the Father, man and man's world. We see, then, that faith is not only encounter with God, but also with man.
Because he is caught up in the vision of this Christ whom he loves with his entire being, the Christian will not count the cost. As Christ was willing to pay any price to achieve the vision which the Father showed Him concerning man's redemption, so also the committed Christian, in order to achieve faith's vision, is willing to pay the price Christ asks of him.
Part of this vision which the man of faith has is the deep realization that living faith in Christ can transform a man's life. Consequently, the man of faith has a deep desire to help develop this faith in those already possessing it, and to aid in giving it to those not yet blessed with faith in Christ. He realizes from personal experience the importance of making such a contribution, for he knows that he himself has received this faith partly through the efforts of others, and that he is helped by them in so many ways in achieving faith's maturity. Finally, the man of faith is convinced that he promotes faith in others to a great extent by the way he himself lives it out: "The written and preached word, however, is intended to be incarnated in human beings. The word will have its most powerful effect only when it appears in another person who embodies the gospel in his life."9
In conclusion, let us be convinced of the following. What faith in Christ means for ourselves and others must engrave itself deeply within our souls. For only then will we have a desire to open ourselves up fully to this life of faith in Christ, and only then will we become the desired instruments in communicating this faith to others. Each of us in his own way must be caught up into the vision, the fire, the enthusiasm of St. Paul: ". . . I believe nothing can happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him . . . I want only the perfection that comes through faith in Christ, and is from God and based on faith." (Ph 3:8-9).
_________
1. For an extended, current treatment on faith, cf. L. Monden, Faith: Can Man Still Believe? (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1970).
2. Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, In Boeth. de Trinitate, q. 3, a. 1.
3. Cf. Karl Rahner, Belief Today (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1967), p. 49.
4. Cf. Edward Schillebeeckx, Revelation and Theology, Vol. 1 (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1967), p. 150.
5. For the transcendent dimension, cf. Rahner, Op. cit., pp. 80-89.
6. Cf. Schillebeeckx, Op. cit., p. 148.
7. St. Thomas Aquinas, S.T., II,II, q. 11, a. 1 (New York: Benziger, 1947).
8. Cf. Jean Mouroux, I Believe (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1959), pp. 60-65.
9. Gabriel Moran, Theology of Revelation (New York: Herder & Herder, 1966), p. 151.
(End of Excerpt from Response in Christ)
Messenger: Rosary in Clearwater, Florida - November 5, 2000.
Messenger: Mary wants the Red Rosary Book printed. It will cost $12,000 - $14,000 to get them reprinted.
Messenger: Pray for Perry.
(Please copy and pass out to family and friends.)
Mary's
Message from the Rosary of August 27, 1996Mary speaks: I stood beneath the cross of my Son, and my Heart was in such pain for I saw Him before my eyes. I saw Him covered with blood. I saw Him die. My Heart, my children, my Heart to watch my Son, but my Heart, my Heart, how I suffered for my little children of the world that give in to this world and give up the love of my Son. O my little children of light, I give you this message. Carry this light into the darkness for your Mother Mary, for I stood beneath the cross and I cried. I cried for the little ones. I cried for the young ones, the ones that do not care and will lose their souls. How do I make you see for you will not listen to me? What can I do? I come. I appear. I beg. I plead. I give you these gifts from my Son, and you reject me. I do not deliver messages very often anymore for I have been ignored. The message is the same. You do not read the messages I have given to you. Please help me. Help the little children. I appear. I appear. I appear, and I am ignored. I stood beneath the cross, and I cried. I cried, and my Heart was in such anguish for my little children, for I am searching for them this day as I searched for the Child Jesus. Please, please help me. I cannot hold back the hand of my Son any longer. I am Mary, your Mother. I ask you to help my children. You are my children of light.
Song: O Lady of Light, shining so bright, be with us this day, guiding our way, O Lady, O Lady of Light.
Mary speaks: I appear to you as Our Mother of Sorrows.
(End of Mary's Message)
MY VALENTINE FOR JESUS AND MARY
AND THE WORLDI _________________ give my heart to
You Jesus and Mary on this day
_________________
I promise to help spread the devotion to
the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Q: How do I feel when I am tired and weary and you comfort me and smile at me?
Copyright
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