Shepherds of Christ Daily Writing          

December 11, 2014

December 12th Holy Spirit Novena
Scripture selection is Day 9 Period I.

The Novena Rosary Mysteries 
for December 12th
are Luminous.

 

We are trying to publish
Blue Book 14 -
Can anyone help us with donations?

Title of the book
"God the Father Speaks After Clearwater"

January 1, 1997 to March 31, 1997

 

We need postage to mail
Fr. Joe's new homily book
to priests in New York. 

Can you help us?
1-888-211-3041

 

Pray for Dan, Jimmy, Blue Book 14,
Fr. Joe's homily book, &
for special intentions.

Please pray for funds & grace.

     

 

New Cycle B - Guiding Light Homily Book

Available $10 plus postage
Please call 1-888-211-3014

 

 

Come to the celebration of the 18 anniversary of Mary's apparition at Clearwater on December 17, 2014.
 
Call Doris for details 888-211-3041.
 
 

 
Mary has asked us to come to the anniversary December 17, 2014 and to tell our friends to come and pray.
 
Mary has asked for a procession with songs around the building.
Please come to Clearwater.

 

 

 

                December 11, 2014

 

                R. Faith Hope and Love

                We have our chance now, when we are on earth
                    to believe in God –
                    A person who is an athlete believes he
                        can excel at the sport and therefore runs
                        the race, plays football, plays basketball
                        etc.

                    He believes he can do it –

                    A golfer must see that he can play –
                        if he wants to continue to reach
                        his goal –

                In the mind of a very good golfer is a hole-in-one.

                He sees the goal, he believes he can do it.

                I want my goal to be achieved in everlasting life
                    in heaven.

                    God is real –

                    Jesus came to earth and He taught us about
                        God –

                    Jesus gave us the living Word of God –

                    Jesus taught us about healing and miracles –

                We know we have a wounded human nature –

                We are in need of healing –

                We have tendencies toward the deadly sins –

                If we give into them we have bad habits of
                    pride (seeking dominance for dominance sake)
                    anger, jealousy, envy, slothfulness,
                    greed, lust, gluttony –

                These are bad habits we can develop –

                If I am sick, I can seek healing –

                I can go to a doctor and he can find the
                    wound, the problem, the disorder –
                    he knows what is right and what is ill
                    needs to be healed if possible, our eyes
                    are for seeing, our ears for hearing, our
                    certain things for balance, our mouth for
                    speaking, eating, singing etc.

                We have muscles that need to be developed. God
                    made us this way. I found I had to do singing
                    exercises for singing to help me because
                    we need certain things to work right –

                The true goal of man is the vision of God.

                Happiness depends on God – we must
                    seek God –

                The things of the world that we use,
                    are to be used to take us to God.

                God wants us with Him for all eternity –
                    God created us to know, love and serve
                        Him and He gave us a free will
                        to chose Him.
                        We can chose to reject God our whole life,
                            which can end in everlasting damnation.

                God wants us to obey Him and love Him,
                    and put Him first in our life –

                The man who gives into pride – makes himself
                    first in his life – he develops habits
                    in which he thinks of himself as the
                    goal – his glory – his honor – his pleasure –
                    his plan –
                    even in conversation he is ready to tell
                        why he is first above others –
                        he does not see others in love, but
                        sees them for his selfish goal –

                We see in the garden how Eve who was
                    given all these gifts – listened to the
                    devil and wanted to be equal to God –

                God is Supreme
                God is Divine

                Man has a human nature
                And in baptism his human nature is
                    elevated in his knowing and loving
                    capacity –

                God gives man a sharing in His life in
                    baptism –

                This knowing and loving capacity that is
                    elevated in baptism is such a gift –
                    We can understand insight more and more
                        into the Divine Mysteries because
                        of this gift given in baptism –

                God wants us to reach full Christian maturity –
                God wants us united in the deepest intimacy
                    in love –

                God created us to know, love and serve Him and
                    this is our quest for happiness to
                    have God as a goal –
                    to seek the will of God, the Plan of God
                        in love

                God is love –

                Jesus came and taught us about God's love
                    for us –

                When we love God – we seek God – God is
                    our treasure – that is where our
                    heart is –
                    God must be first in our heart –

                The goal of the heart in love with God is God –

                Any person, place or thing can mean more
                    to us than our love of God –
                    We can be distracted by inordinate
                        attachments (St. Ignatius says) that
                        we put before God –

                    Other affections, or power, or wealth
                        we can put before God – St. Ignatius says –

                In the St. Ignatius Spiritual Exercises –
                    St. Ignatius talks about the purpose of these
                    spiritual exercises –

                The purpose is:

From The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius
    by Louis J. Puhl, S.J.
 p.11

21.                     SPIRITUAL EXERCISES

    Which have as their purpose the conquest of self
    and the regulation of one's life in such a way that
    no decision is made under the influence of any
    inordinate attachment

 

                The First Principle and Foundation is:

From The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius
    by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. p. 12

                        23. FIRST PRINCIPLE AND FOUNDATION

                            Man is created to praise, reverence and serve God 
                        our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.

 

                R. We must empty our heart of these inordinate attachments.

                We must want God's will first above all else in our lives.

                We empty ourselves of our desires opposed to
                    God's will –

                In the prayer Jesus gave to us He said to say

                "Come to me Lord and possess my soul"

                "Come into my heart and permeate my soul"

                It is union we seek with the Divine will.

                What we call love with others, or things
                    cannot be opposed to the Plan of the
                    Heavenly Father –
                    It is not love if it is out of order
                        with God's Plan –
                    It is not love if we oppose the natural law –

                Faith, hope and love are theological virtues –
                    so we must, having been baptized,
                    go to God for an increase in these virtues

                We beg God to increase in us the virtues
                    of faith, hope and love –

                We need God's grace to be a great
                    lover – we reach out to Him and
                    we empty ourselves of inordinate
                    attachments that we can love before Him –

                 

“Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in a love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”
                                                                                                                             Pedro Arrupe

  

                R. We seek an increase in these theological virtues
                    from God to be able to grow in the
                    interior life.

                When the angel appeared before the apparitions
                    of Fatima, here is what the angel
                    said.
   

        Lucia (now Sr. Lucia) describes the springtime apparition of the angel:

"My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love You! I ask pardon of You for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love You."

Then, rising he said: "Pray thus. The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are attentive to the voice of your supplications."

                                        3. Louis Kondar, SVD, editor, Fatima in Lucia's Own Words (Fatima: Postulation Center, 1976), p.62. Distributed in the U.S.A. by the Ravengate Press, Cambridge, MA.
 

                R. We seek intimacy with God!

                We pray for this increase of these theological
                    virtues in our graced, baptized soul.

                Here are 3 prayers God gave to me –
 

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 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.

 
   

A Prayer before the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

    Let me be a holy sacrifice and unite with God in the sacrament of His greatest love.

    I want to be one in Him in this act of love, where He gives Himself to me and I give myself as a sacrifice to Him. Let me be a holy sacrifice as I become one with Him in this my act of greatest love to Him.

    Let me unite with Him more, that I may more deeply love Him. May I help make reparation to His adorable Heart and the heart of His Mother, Mary. With greatest love, I offer myself to You and pray that You will accept my sacrifice of greatest love. I give myself to You and unite in Your gift of Yourself to me. Come and possess my soul.

    Cleanse me, strengthen me, heal me. Dear Holy Spirit act in the heart of Mary to make me more and more like Jesus.

    Father, I offer this my sacrifice, myself united to Jesus in the Holy Spirit to You. Help me to love God more deeply in this act of my greatest love.

    Give me the grace to grow in my knowledge, love and service of You and for this to be my greatest participation in the Mass. Give me the greatest graces to love You so deeply in this Mass, You who are so worthy of my love.

                                               -Mass Book, December 27, 1995

   

                R. Faith helps us to see the vision of God –

                Hope helps us to seek the goal of eternity –

                Love helps us to love God above all else and
                    to love our neighbor as ourselves –
                    to live as God intends us to live –
                    more and more in the image and likeness
                    of God and
                    God is love.
   

Genesis 1: 26-27

God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild animals and all the creatures that creep along the ground.’

God created man in the image of himself,
    in the image of God he created him,
    male and female he created them.

 

        From the Priestly Newsletter Book III by Fr. Edward Carter, S.J.

The Holy Spirit And Mary

The late Archbishop Luis M. Martinez of Mexico strikingly speaks of the ongoing cooperation of Mary with the Holy Spirit regarding the reproduction of Jesus within us: "Christian life is the reproduction of Jesus in souls…

"Now, how will this mystical reproduction be brought about in souls? In the same way in which Jesus was brought into the world, for God gives a wonderful mark of unity to all His works. Divine acts have a wealth of variety because they are the work of omnipotence; nevertheless, a most perfect unity always shines forth from them because they are the fruit of wisdom; and this divine contrast of unity and variety stamps the works of God with sublime and unutterable beauty.

"In His miraculous birth, Jesus was the fruit of heaven and earth…The Holy Spirit conveyed the divine fruitfulness of the Father to Mary, and the virginal soil brought forth in an ineffable manner our most loving Savior, the divine Seed, as the prophets called Him…

"That is the way He is reproduced in souls. He is always the fruit of heaven and earth.

"Two artisans must concur in the work that is at once God’s masterpiece and humanity’s supreme product: the Holy Spirit and the most holy Virgin Mary. Two sanctifiers are necessary to souls, the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, for they are the only ones who can reproduce Christ.

"Undoubtedly, the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary sanctify us in different ways. The first is the Sanctifier by essence; because He is God, who is infinite sanctity; because He is the personal Love that completes, so to speak, the sanctity of God, consummating His life and His unity, and it belongs to Him to communicate to souls the mystery of that sanctity. The Virgin Mary, for her part, is the co-operator, the indispensable instrument in and by God’s design. From Mary’s maternal relation to the human body of Christ is derived her relation to His Mystical Body which is being formed through all the centuries until the end of time, when it will be lifted up to the heavens, beautiful, splendid, complete, and glorious.

"These two, then, the Holy Spirit and Mary, are the indispensable artificers of Jesus, the indispensable sanctifiers of souls. Any saint in heaven can co-operate in the sanctification of a soul, but his co-operation is not necessary, not profound, not constant: while the co-operation of these two artisans of Jesus of whom we have just been speaking is so necessary that without it souls are not sanctified (and this by the actual design of Providence), and so intimate that it reaches to the very depths of our soul. For the Holy Spirit pours charity into our heart, makes a habitation of our soul, and directs our spiritual life by means of His gifts. The Virgin Mary has the efficacious influence of Mediatrix in the most profound and delicate operations of grace in our souls. And, finally, the action of the Holy Spirit and the co-operation of the most holy Virgin Mary are constant; without them, not one single character of Jesus would be traced on our souls, no virtue grow, no gift be developed, no grace increased, no bond of union with God be strengthened in the rich flowering of the spiritual life.

"Such is the place that the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary have in the order of sanctification. Therefore, Christian piety should put these two artisans of Christ in their true place, making devotion to them something necessary, profound, and constant." 18

18. Archbishop Luis M. Martinez, The Sanctifier, op. cit. pp. 5-7.

   

                R. From the last Newsletter Fr. Carter ever
                    wrote he said:
 

                        From the Priestly Newsletter 2000 - Issue 4

Devotion to the Holy Spirit

Archbishop Luis M. Martinez instructs us: "Consecration to the Holy Spirit must be total: nothing must draw us away from His loving possession. Undoubtedly vacillations and deficiencies are part of our imperfection, but even so, our love must not be extinguished. Rather, it must lift its divine flame toward infinite love in the midst of all human vicissitudes.

"True devotion to the Holy Spirit, therefore, is not something superficial and intermittent, but something profound and constant, like Christian life itself; it is the love of the soul that corresponds to the love of God, the gift of the creature who tries to be grateful for the divine Gift, the human cooperation that receives the loving and efficacious action of God. As divine love is eternal, its gift without repentance and its action constant, it is our part to have our heart always open to love, ready to receive the unspeakable gift, and to keep all our powers docile to the divine movement."11

 

                R. Also from this last Priestly Newsletter
                    Fr. Carter quotes:
 

                        From the Priestly Newsletter 2000 - Issue 4

Mary

Here are inspiring words concerning Mary from Fr. Joseph Dean, SCJ:

Blessed Virgin Mary,
by faith and the power of the Spirit,
you bore God for our salvation.
In your days on earth,
you pointed to Jesus, your Son, and said:
"Do whatever he tells you."
With your Son’s beloved disciple,
you stood at the foot of the cross.
You believed in the midst of the night.
You loved with a pierced soul.

Mary, my mother,
pray for me today.
May I follow Jesus as you did,
welcoming the Holy Spirit,
responding to your Son’s love,
living in communion with his love for the Father,
     cooperating with his work of redemption in the
     midst of the world.
In this way, may my heart be joined with yours.
May I follow your example of faith and love
bringing the Heart of your Son to the
heart of the world.

Amen.

 

                R. Also from the section on the Eucharist
                    and Fr. Carter quotes my writings –
 

                    From the Priestly Newsletter 2000 - Issue 4
 

The Eucharist

            From Rosary Meditations for Parents and Children by Rita Ring

When we pray the Morning Offering Prayer we offer our lives to the Father, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit, with the prayerful assistance of Mary, our Mother. Let us pray together united in our hearts in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There follows a Morning Offering Prayer.

"My dear Father, I offer You this day all my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings in union with Jesus in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in the Holy Spirit.

"I unite with our Mother, Mary, all the angels and saints, and all the souls in purgatory to pray to the Father for myself, for each member of my family, for my friends, for all the people throughout the world, for all the souls in purgatory, and for all other intentions of the Sacred Heart.

"I love You, Jesus, and I give You my heart. I love you, Mary, and I give you my heart. Amen."

From The Mass Book by Rita Ring

"At the Mass we unite in offering sacrifice to the Father. We all unite as one and give ourselves in such oneness with Jesus, in such love to the Father, in the Holy Spirit. We desire to die to all the things that are not of God and join in the great miracle taking place. The Father looks down and He sees the sacrifice of His Son being offered through His priest. Heaven unites to earth. Earth cries out in such jubilation at the great gift of the Almighty God, and we unite as creatures giving ourselves as a sacrifice to our beloved Creator. Do we experience the presence of God as His power flows through His priest, who takes bread and wine, and changes them into the Body and Blood of our Lord? Do we hear Jesus speak, as He did at the Last Supper, with the intensity in His voice reflecting the knowledge of the upcoming events of His passion and death?

"Do we hear the priest say the words of consecration with the emotion of Jesus about to give His life for His beloved ones? And the earth stands still. There is, at that moment, the sacrifice of Calvary sacramentally made present through the words of the priest. Oh, that God so loved the world to give His only Son as a sacrifice, and that God wants us in this deep oneness with Him! I give You myself, my Savior, my beloved Jesus, as You so willingly gave Yourself to me on Calvary. I want to die and rise more and more with You in the deepest possible love for You and for those for whom You died a brutal, bloody death on the cross, and for whom You rose gloriously from the dead!"

 

                    From the Priestly Newsletter 1998 - Issue 5

The Action of the Holy Spirit

Archbishop Luis Martinez speaks to us of the action of the Holy Spirit upon us: "Love for the Holy Spirit also has its special character, which we should study in order completely to understand devotion to Him. We have explained how the Holy Spirit loves us, how He moves us like a divine breath that draws us to the bosom of God, like a sacred fire that transforms us into fire, like a divine artist who forms Jesus in us. Surely, then, our love for the Holy Spirit should be marked by loving docility, by full surrender, and by a constant fidelity that permits us to be moved, directed, and transformed by His sanctifying action.

"Our love for the Father tends to glorify Him; our love for the Son, to transform ourselves into Him, our love for the Holy Spirit, to let ourselves be possessed and moved by Him." 11

                                11. Archbishop Luis Martinez, The Sanctifier, Pauline Books and Media, p. 68.

               

                    From the Priestly Newsletter 1998 - Issue 3 

The Holy Spirit in Our Lives

Archbishop Luis M. Martinez tells us: The true Director of souls, the intimate Master, the soul of the spiritual life, is the Holy Spirit. Without Him, as we have already said, there is no sanctity. The perfection of a soul is measured by its docility to the movement of the Spirit, by the promptitude and fidelity with which its strings produce the divine notes of the song of love. A soul is perfectly holy when the Spirit of love has taken full possession of it, when the divine Artist finds no resistance or dissonance in the strings of that living lyre, but only celestial strains coming forth from it, limpid, ardent, and delightfully harmonized."10

                            10. Archbishop Lius M. Martinez, The Sanctifier, Pauline Books and media, p. 18.
 

                R. Here is the Novena to the Holy Spirit Jesus told me
                    to pray.



  English

Spanish

French

Portuguese

Polska

               
 

Holy Spirit Novena

Daily Novena Prayers

Opening Prayer

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dear Father, we come to You in the name of Jesus, in union with Him in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in the Holy Spirit. We come to You united to the Child Jesus of Good Health and the Infant of Prague. We come to You in the perfect, sinless heart of Our Mother Mary, asking her powerful intercession, uniting ourselves to her holy tears. We come to You united to all the angels and saints, and the souls in purgatory.

Prayer for Holy Spirit

We pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on us, to be baptized by the Holy Spirit, that He will descend mightily on us as He did on the Apostles at Pentecost. That the Holy Spirit will transform us from fear to fearlessness and that He will give us courage to do all the Father is asking of us to help bring about the Reign of the Sacred Heart and the triumph of Mary's Immaculate Heart. We pray for the Holy Spirit to descend mightily on the Jesuits and the Poor Clares on the Shepherds of Christ leaders and members and on the whole Body of Christ and the world.

Protection by the Blood of Jesus

We pray that the Blood of Jesus will be spread on us, everyone in our families, and the Shepherds of Christ Movement, that we will be able to move steadfastly ahead and be protected from the evil one.

Healing

We pray for healing in body, mind, and soul and generational healing in ourselves, in all members in our families, and in all members of the Shepherds of Christ Movement, the Jesuit Community, the Poor Clares, the Body of Christ, and the world.

Prayer for Strength and Light

We adore You, oh Holy Spirit. Give us strength, give us light, console us. We give ourselves entirely to You. Oh Spirit of light and grace, we want to only do the will of the Father. Enlighten us that we may live always in the Father's will.

Eternal Spirit fill us with Your Divine Wisdom that we may comprehend more fully insight into Your Divine Mysteries.

Give us lights, Oh Holy Spirit that we may know God. Work within the heart, the spiritual womb of the Virgin Mary, to form us more and more into the image of Jesus.

Prayer to Be One with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit

We long for You, Oh Spirit of Light, we long to know God, we want to be one with Him, our Divine God. We want to be one with the Father, know Him as a Person most intimately. We want to know the beloved One, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and live and dwell in Him at all times, every moment of our lives. We want to be one with You, Oh Spirit of Light, that You move in us in our every breath.

Prayer to Be One in Jesus

Let us experience life in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so we can say as Saint Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is no longer I, but Christ living in me...." Let us live, united to the Mass, all through the day being one in Him. Let us be able to love and know in this elevated state of oneness with our God. We long for Thee, oh beauteous God, we love You, we love You, we love You. We praise You, worship You, honor You, adore You, and thank You, our beloved God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Prayer to Dwell in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

We seek to be one in God, to live and dwell in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, our little heaven on earth, to experience life in the all perfect, pure, sinless heart of our Mother. We want the Holy Spirit to move in us and to be united to Jesus as the Bridegroom of our souls and be a most perfect sacrifice offered to the Father at every moment as we unite in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass around the world to help in the salvation of souls.

Prayer for the Holy Spirit and His Gifts

Come Holy Spirit, come, come into our hearts, inflame all people with the fire of Your love.

Leader: Send forth Your Spirit and all will be reborn.
All:  And You will renew the face of the earth.

We pray for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, we ask for perfection in our souls to make us holy, holy souls likened to God.

Dear Holy Spirit, we give ourselves to You soul and body. We ask You to give us the Spirit of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.

Prayer for the Word Alive in Our Hearts

We know, dear Holy Spirit, the Word in His human nature was brought forth within the womb of the woman. We pray that His word will be brought forth in our hearts as He lives and dwells in us. We want the incarnation to go on in our lives. Dear Holy Spirit, work in us.

Little Prayers to the Holy Spirit

Dear Holy Spirit, help us not to be ignorant or indifferent or weak, help us to be strong with the love of God.

Dear Holy Spirit, please pray for our needs for us.

Dear Holy Spirit, help us to respect God and to avoid sin. Help us to live in the Father's will.

Dear Holy Spirit, help us to keep Your commandments and to respect authority. Help us to love all things as You will us to love them. Help us to want to pray and always serve God with the greatest love. Help us to know the truth. Help us to have the gift of faith, hope, and love. Help us to know what is right and what is wrong.

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.


First Period
Meditations Nine Days

  1. Romans 8:14-17

    All who are guided by the Spirit of God are sons of God; for what you received was not the spirit of slavery to bring you back into fear; you received the Spirit of adoption, enabling us to cry out, 'Abba, Father!' The Spirit himself joins with our spirit to bear witness that we are children of God. And if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, provided that we share his suffering, so as to share his glory.
  2. Romans 8:5-9

    Those who are living by their natural inclinations have their minds on the things human nature desires; those who live in the Spirit have their minds on spiritual things. And human nature has nothing to look forward to but death, while the Spirit looks forward to life and peace, because the outlook of disordered human nature is opposed to God, since it does not submit to God's Law, and indeed it cannot, and those who live by their natural inclinations can never be pleasing to God. You, however, live not by your natural inclinations, but by the Spirit, since the Spirit of God has made a home in you. Indeed, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
  3. 1 John 4:12-16

    No one has ever seen God, but as long as we love one another God remains in us and his love comes to its perfection in us. This is the proof that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us a share in his Spirit. We ourselves have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as Saviour of the world. Anyone who acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. We have recognised for ourselves, and put our faith in, the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.
  4. 1 John 4:17-21

    Love comes to its perfection in us when we can face the Day of Judgement fearlessly, because even in this world we have become as he is. In love there is no room for fear, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear implies punishment and no one who is afraid has come to perfection in love. Let us love, then, because he first loved us. Anyone who says 'I love God' and hates his brother, is a liar, since whoever does not love the brother whom he can see cannot love God whom he has not seen. Indeed this is the commandment we have received from him, that whoever loves God, must also love his brother.
  5. 1 John 4:7-11

    My dear friends, let us love one another, since love is from God and everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever fails to love does not know God, because God is love. This is the revelation of God's love for us, that God sent his only Son into the world that we might have life through him. Love consists in this: it is not we who loved God, but God loved us and sent his Son to expiate our sins. My dear friends, if God loved us so much, we too should love one another.
  6. Acts of the Apostles 1:1-5

    In my earlier work, Theophilus, I dealt with everything Jesus had done and taught from the beginning until the day he gave his instructions to the apostles he had chosen through the Holy Spirit, and was taken up to heaven. He had shown himself alive to them after his Passion by many demonstrations: for forty days he had continued to appear to them and tell them about the kingdom of God. While at table with them, he had told them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for what the Father had promised. 'It is', he had said, 'what you have heard me speak about: John baptised with water but, not many days from now, you are going to be baptised with the Holy Spirit.'
  7. Acts of the Apostles 1:6-9

    Now having met together, they asked him, 'Lord, has the time come for you to restore the kingdom to Israel?' He replied, 'It is not for you to know times or dates that the Father has decided by his own authority, but you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit which will come on you, and then you will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judaea and Samaria, and indeed to earth's remotest end.'

    As he said this he was lifted up while they looked on, and a cloud took him from their sight.
  8. Acts of the Apostles 1:12-14

    So from the Mount of Olives, as it is called, they went back to Jerusalem, a short distance away, no more than a Sabbath walk; and when they reached the city they went to the upper room where they were staying; there were Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Jude son of James. With one heart all these joined constantly in prayer, together with some women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
  9. Acts of the Apostles 2:1-4

    When Pentecost day came round, they had all met together, when suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of a violent wind which filled the entire house in which they were sitting; and there appeared to them tongues as of fire; these separated and came to rest on the head of each of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak different languages as the Spirit gave them power to express themselves.

Second Period
Meditations Nine Days

  1. John 14:21-31

    Whoever holds to my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me; and whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love him and reveal myself to him.'

    Judas-not Judas Iscariot-said to him, 'Lord, what has happened, that you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?' Jesus replied:

    Anyone who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make a home in him. Anyone who does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not my own: it is the word of the Father who sent me. I have said these things to you while still with you; but the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you. Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you, a peace which the world cannot give, this is my gift to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. You heard me say: I am going away and shall return. If you loved me you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. I have told you this now, before it happens, so that when it does happen you may believe. I shall not talk to you much longer, because the prince of this world is on his way. He has no power over me, but the world must recognise that I love the Father and that I act just as the Father commanded. Come now, let us go.
  2. John 17:11-26

    I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us. While I was with them, I kept those you had given me true to your name. I have watched over them and not one is lost except one who was destined to be lost, and this was to fulfil the scriptures. But now I am coming to you and I say these things in the world to share my joy with them to the full. I passed your word on to them, and the world hated them, because they belong to the world no more than I belong to the world. I am not asking you to remove them from the world, but to protect them from the Evil One. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world, and for their sake I consecrate myself so that they too may be consecrated in truth. I pray not only for these but also for those who through their teaching will come to believe in me. May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me. I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, may they be so perfected in unity that the world will recognise that it was you who sent me and that you have loved them as you have loved me.

    Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they may always see my glory which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Father, Upright One, the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you have sent me. I have made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be in them.
  3. I Corinthians 15:20-28

    In fact, however, Christ has been raised from the dead, as the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep. As it was by one man that death came, so through one man has come the resurrection of the dead. Just as all die in Adam, so in Christ all will be brought to life; but all of them in their proper order: Christ the first-fruits, and next, at his coming, those who belong to him. After that will come the end, when he will hand over the kingdom to God the Father, having abolished every principality, every ruling force and power. For he is to be king until he has made his enemies his footstool, and the last of the enemies to be done away with is death, for he has put all things under his feet. But when it is said everything is subjected, this obviously cannot include the One who subjected everything to him. When everything has been subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to the One who has subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all.
  4. Revelation 3:1-3,12,16-19

    'Write to the angel of the church in Sardis and say, "Here is the message of the one who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars: I know about your behaviour: how you are reputed to be alive and yet are dead. Wake up; put some resolve into what little vigour you have left: it is dying fast. So far I have failed to notice anything in your behaviour that my God could possibly call perfect; remember how you first heard the message. Hold on to that. Repent! If you do not wake up, I shall come to you like a thief, and you will have no idea at what hour I shall come upon you.

    Anyone who proves victorious I will make into a pillar in the sanctuary of my God, and it will stay there for ever; I will inscribe on it the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which is coming down from my God in heaven, and my own new name as well.

    '...but since you are neither hot nor cold, but only lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth. You say to yourself: I am rich, I have made a fortune and have everything I want, never realising that you are wretchedly and pitiably poor, and blind and naked too. I warn you, buy from me the gold that has been tested in the fire to make you truly rich, and white robes to clothe you and hide your shameful nakedness, and ointment to put on your eyes to enable you to see. I reprove and train those whom I love: so repent in real earnest.'
  5. Revelation 5:9-14

    They sang a new hymn: You are worthy to take the scroll and to break its seals, because you were sacrificed, and with your blood you bought people for God of every race, language, people and nation and made them a line of kings and priests for God, to rule the world.

    In my vision, I heard the sound of an immense number of angels gathered round the throne and the living creatures and the elders; there were ten thousand times ten thousand of them and thousands upon thousands, loudly chanting:

Worthy is the Lamb that was sacrificed to receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honour, glory and blessing.

Then I heard all the living things in creation-everything that lives in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and in the sea, crying:

To the One seated on the throne and to the Lamb, be all praise, honour, glory and power, for ever and ever.

And the four living creatures said, 'Amen'; and the elders prostrated themselves to worship.

  1. Revelation 7:14-17

    I answered him, 'You can tell me, sir.' Then he said, 'These are the people who have been through the great trial; they have washed their robes white again in the blood of the Lamb. That is why they are standing in front of God's throne and serving him day and night in his sanctuary; and the One who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. They will never hunger or thirst again; sun and scorching wind will never plague them, because the Lamb who is at the heart of the throne will be their shepherd and will guide them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away all tears from their eyes.'
  2. Revelation 12:1-8

    Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman, robed with the sun, standing on the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant, and in labour, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth. Then a second sign appeared in the sky: there was a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and each of the seven heads crowned with a coronet. Its tail swept a third of the stars from the sky and hurled them to the ground, and the dragon stopped in front of the woman as she was at the point of giving birth, so that it could eat the child as soon as it was born. The woman was delivered of a boy, the son who was to rule all the nations with an iron sceptre, and the child was taken straight up to God and to his throne, while the woman escaped into the desert, where God had prepared a place for her to be looked after for twelve hundred and sixty days.

    And now war broke out in heaven, when Michael with his angels attacked the dragon. The dragon fought back with his angels, but they were defeated and driven out of heaven.
  3. Revelation 14:1-7

    Next in my vision I saw Mount Zion, and standing on it the Lamb who had with him a hundred and forty-four thousand people, all with his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads. I heard a sound coming out of heaven like the sound of the ocean or the roar of thunder; it was like the sound of harpists playing their harps. There before the throne they were singing a new hymn in the presence of the four living creatures and the elders, a hymn that could be learnt only by the hundred and forty-four thousand who had been redeemed from the world. These are the sons who have kept their virginity and not been defiled with women they follow the Lamb wherever he goes; they, out of all people, have been redeemed to be the first-fruits for God and for the Lamb. No lie was found in their mouths and no fault can be found in them.

    Then I saw another angel, flying high overhead, sent to announce the gospel of eternity to all who live on the earth, every nation, race, language and tribe. He was calling, 'Fear God and glorify him, because the time has come for him to sit in judgement; worship the maker of heaven and earth and sea and the springs of water.'

    Revelation 19: 7-8

    let us be glad and joyful and give glory to God, because this is the time for the marriage of the Lamb. His bride is ready, and she has been able to dress herself in dazzling white linen, because her linen is made of the good deeds of the saints.'
  4. Revelation 21:1-10

    Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; the first heaven and the first earth had disappeared now, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride dressed for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice call from the throne, 'Look, here God lives among human beings. He will make his home among them; they will be his people, and he will be their God, God-with-them. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain. The world of the past has gone.'

    Then the One sitting on the throne spoke. 'Look, I am making the whole of creation new. Write this, "What I am saying is trustworthy and will come true."' Then he said to me, 'It has already happened. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give water from the well of life free to anybody who is thirsty; anyone who proves victorious will inherit these things; and I will be his God and he will be my son. But the legacy for cowards, for those who break their word, or worship obscenities, for murderers and the sexually immoral, and for sorcerers, worshippers of false gods or any other sort of liars, is the second death in the burning lake of sulphur.'

    One of the seven angels that had the seven bowls full of the seven final plagues came to speak to me and said, 'Come here and I will show you the bride that the Lamb has married.' In the spirit, he carried me to the top of a very high mountain, and showed me Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down out of heaven from God.

    Revelation 22:20

    The one who attests these things says: I am indeed coming soon.

    Amen; come, Lord Jesus.

Scriptural quotations are taken from The New Jerusalem Bible, Doubleday & Co.
Imprimatur granted by Cardinal Hume.

 

                December 11, 2014
 


                R. We are all servants. We are to deliver the truth
                to men, especially we who are dealing in spiritual
                matters – we seek the absolute truth ALWAYS –

                    Satan is the father of lies. Lies can become
                bad habits to get into. When one has that intimacy
                with Christ – one wants only the truth in them –

                Jesus: Put aside any falsity – living your lives
                focused on your own glory – put this aside now –
                You are to live for the honor and glory of God –
                Life is very short – make your lives – lived to
                grow in My peace and trust in Me – Trust is
                a process – just as is those who become
                suspicious of everybody and never learn to
                grow in trust and intimacy needed to work
                in the building of My Kingdom.

                    So a man who never learns trust says –
                I trusted no one, but myself, trying to
                find a place on earth to live such a life –
                is a life lived stepping on those I called
                you to work with –

                    I am the Source of knowledge. Seek knowledge
                that is the truth – seek the truth always
                in all things –

                I am your God and you should have no gods
                    before Me –

                Seek to know the truth – the absolute
                    truth found in Me –
                    I am the source of knowledge –

                I am the God of all reality –

                Truth is in Me –
 

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

 

Galatians 2: 19-20

...I have been crucified with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is no longer I, but Christ living in me.

   

                R. Jesus showed us His Divine Power in
                    His miracles –
 

Luke 7: 22-23

Then he gave the messengers their answer, ‘Go back and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind see again, the lame walk, those suffering from virulent skin–diseases are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, the good news is proclaimed to the poor; and blessed is anyone who does not find me a cause of falling.’

 

Luke 6: 17-19

    He then came down with them and stopped at a piece of level ground where there was a large gathering of his disciples, with a great crowd of people from all parts of Judaea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon who had come to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. People tormented by unclean spirits were also cured, and everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him because power came out of him that cured them all.

 

                R. God is All - Powerful

                We see Jesus healed many –
                    the blind could see
                    the lame walk
                    the lepers healed
                    demons came out
                    Lazarus rose from the dead
                    Christ fed thousands

                God is omnipotent

                Faith is a gift –

                In faith we believe in the power of God –

                We seek to know more insight into
                    the Divine Mysteries –

                We want relationship deeply with
                    God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit –

                Christ showed us miracles –

                We see the supernatural –

                We seek an increase in faith to
                    believe – to see the vision of God –

                Believing in God's truth –
                    His omnipotence leads man
                    to happiness –
                    to know reality more and more –
                    Reality is in God!

 

                From November 22, 2000

        We conclude with the entire information on Theme II, The Concept of the Christian Life

    A. The Christian life considered as response to God's love

1)   God's love for us (GOD FIRST LOVED US)

a)    John 3:16 


John 3:16

For this is how God loved the world:
he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him 
    may not perish
but may have eternal life.


God first loved us!!!

Incarnation - Son of God took flesh

Human nature of Jesus belongs to a divine person

Jesus has everything our human nature has -

   a human body
   a human soul
   a human intellect
   a human will
   human senses

b)    The Heart of Jesus is a symbol of His love for us

God loves me as an individual

c)    Galatians 2: 19-21 


Galatians 2: 19-21

In fact, through the Law I am dead to the Law so that I can be alive to God. 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. I am not setting aside God’s grace as of no value; it is merely that if saving justice comes through the Law, Christ died needlessly.


Jesus has loved me.

Jesus has died for me.

Jesus knew me by name when he died for me.

The Son of Man gave his life for me, in that agonizing crucifixion.

Jesus personally loves me. 

This love of Jesus for us calls for our response.

2)    Our response to God's love

Matthew 22: 34-40  


Matthew 22: 34-40 

The greatest commandment of all

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees they got together and, to put him to the test, one of them put a further question, ‘Master, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second resembles it: You must love your neighbour as yourself.  On these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the Prophets too.’


Christianity is a religion of love.

God overwhelmingly loves us and He wants our response to Him.

3)   Connection between the three loves

From Response to God's Love p. 91 and I quote here:

"HERE, THEN, WE SEE THE PROFOUND INTERACTION BETWEEN THE THREE AWARENESSES AND LOVES—AWARENESS AND LOVE OF GOD, SELF, AND NEIGHBOR."

a)    Genesis 1: 26-27


Genesis 1: 26-27

God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild animals and all the creatures that creep along the ground.’

God created man in the image of himself,
in the image of God he created him,
male and female he created them.


b)    1 John 4: 19-21   


1 John 4: 19-21

Let us love, then,
because he first loved us.
Anyone who says ‘I love God’
and hates his brother,
is a liar,
since whoever does not love the brother
    whom he can see
cannot love God whom he has not seen. 
Indeed this is the commandment
    we have received from him,
that whoever loves God,
    must also love his brother.


God loves His creation. If we live a God-like existence we must love what He creates. We have been  created and redeemed by God's love.

We must love our brothers. We do not have to like their actions, but we must love them because they are creatures of God.

And so I quote from Chapter 8 in Fr. Carter's book, Response to God's Love.


Excerpt from Response to God's Love, Chapter 8, by Father Edward Carter, S.J.

To authentically encounter others we must be properly aware of who they really are; we must, in short, be able to penetrate beyond surface appearances, which may or may not be appealing to us, and contact others in their core existence. When we are truly in touch with others at the core of their beings, we are simultaneously aware of their awesome dignity. We are conscious that these persons are created and redeemed by God in his love. Fortified with this proper awareness, we are thus in a position to relate to them as we should.

In order to be in touch with the inner self of others, we must be aware of or in touch with our own inner or true self. This awareness, in turn, is an awareness that our self is likewise made in the image of God, that it has been divinized in Christ and is to be oriented toward God and neighbor. Here, then, we see the profound interaction between the three awarenesses and loves—awareness and love of God, self, and neighbor. As Christians, consequently, we should have a maturing sense of how our existence is, in varied ways, profoundly interlinked with the existence of others. This feeling of union with others is not limited to those we directly encounter, but, in some sense, is directed to all members of the human family.

Let us now consider some of the main attitudes that the Christian should maintain and develop in his or her dealings with others. We will build upon the very basic attitude we have already mentioned—that we must always try to be aware of the true self of others, the self that has been created and redeemed by God's love. This awareness, in turn, calls forth our own love for them.


c)    Matthew 25: 31-46 


Matthew 25: 31-46 

The Last Judgement

‘When the Son of man comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels, then he will take his seat on his throne of glory. All nations will be assembled before him and he will separate people one from another as the shepherd separates sheep from goats. He will place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right hand, "Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take as your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you made me welcome, lacking clothes and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me." Then the upright will say to him in reply, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and make you welcome, lacking clothes and clothe you? When did we find you sick or in prison and go to see you?" And the King will answer, "In truth I tell you, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me." Then he will say to those on his left hand, "Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you never gave me food, I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink, I was a stranger and you never made me welcome, lacking clothes and you never clothed me, sick and in prison and you never visited me." Then it will be their turn to ask, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or lacking clothes, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help?" Then he will answer, "In truth I tell you, in so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected to do it to me." And they will go away to eternal punishment, and the upright to eternal life.’


Feeding the hungry includes telling others about God. Telling others about our Church and the Eucharist is feeding the hungry.

We are really hating ourselves when we do not love our neighbor.

In order to inherit eternal life we must love God, our neighbor and ourselves. 

1 John 4: 21 


1 John 4: 21 

Indeed this is the commandment
    we have received from him,
that whoever loves God,
    must also love his brother.  


Matthew 22: 37-38   


Matthew 22: 37-38   

Jesus said to him, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.


Therefore we conclude with this comment following the scripture 1 John 4: 21 and Matthew 22: 37-38.

God first loved us. He loves us overwhelmingly and He wants our loving response to Him. We must love God, ourselves and others, we must love all three, truly love as God desires.

This book written by Fr. Carter, Response to God's Love, helps Christians to develop their loving response to God's love. This book written by Father Carter will help us love as a Christian in our everyday lives responding to God's love.

God first loved us.


The study of this material and the scripture quotes will help us understand how God first loved us and how we are to respond to our God with deep love for Him.


    B. Christian life as participation in God's life

2 Peter 1: 3-7


2 Peter 1: 3-7

The generosity of God

By his divine power, he has lavished on us all the things we need for life and for true devotion, through the knowledge of him who has called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these, the greatest and priceless promises have been lavished on us, that through them you should share the divine nature and escape the corruption rife in the world through disordered passion. With this in view, do your utmost to support your faith with goodness, goodness with understanding, understanding with self–control, self–control with perseverance, perseverance with devotion, devotion with kindness to the brothers, and kindness to the brothers with love.


The triune God creates

Creation does not become God

God is perfect

He cannot gain anything

He cannot lose anything

Creation - reflection of God

               - reflection of his existence

Existence - a rock reflects God by the fact it exists

Life of vegetation - a tree

                             - higher reflection of God's life

Life of sensation - a dog (seeing, feeling, smelling, etc.)

Life of rationality - human person - intellect

                                                      - knowing

                                                      - will

Man reflects God

God is a Being Who knows and wills

A person has this ability in a finite way

In Baptism a soul receives an added sharing in His life

A sharing above that, of our human nature

    C. The Christian life considered as elevation of human nature

Response to God's love as elevation of human nature

In Baptism a person receives a higher elevation in God's life

The human person receives a new sharing in God's life

Super natural - above and beyond human nature

                     - life of Baptism

                     - life of grace

                     - Christ life

1) Elevation - new life in Him

God is triune - human intellect by itself can never arrive at that truth

WILL - LOVE

2) 1 Corinthians 10: 31


1 Corinthians 10: 31

       Whatever you eat, then, or drink, and whatever else you do, do it all for the glory of God.


Our life is permeated to a new level in Christ through baptism

Our intellectual capacity is elevated

We have a new power of knowing through Baptism. FAITH IS PARTICIPATION IN GOD'S KNOWING

LIFE of BAPTISM permeates all of human nature

    D. The Christian life considered as the Christ-life

1) Scripture

a) Romans 6: 1-11


Romans 6: 1-11

Baptism

What should we say then? Should we remain in sin so that grace may be given the more fully? Out of the question! We have died to sin; how could we go on living in it? You cannot have forgotten that all of us, when we were baptised into Christ Jesus, were baptised into his death. So by our baptism into his death we were buried with him, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glorious power, we too should begin living a new life. If we have been joined to him by dying a death like his, so we shall be by a resurrection like his; realising that our former self was crucified with him, so that the self which belonged to sin should be destroyed and we should be freed from the slavery of sin. Someone who has died, of course, no longer has to answer for sin. But we believe that, if we died with Christ, then we shall live with him too. We know that Christ has been raised from the dead and will never die again. Death has no power over him any more. For by dying, he is dead to sin once and for all, and now the life that he lives is life with God. In the same way, you must see yourselves as being dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus.


b) 2 Corinthians 4: 7-11


2 Corinthians 4: 7-11

The hardships and hopes of the apostolate

But we hold this treasure in pots of earthenware, so that the immensity of the power is God’s and not our own. We are subjected to every kind of hardship, but never distressed; we see no way out but we never despair; we are pursued but never cut off; knocked down, but still have some life in us; always we carry with us in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus, too, may be visible in our body. Indeed, while we are still alive, we are continually being handed over to death, for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus, too, may be visible in our mortal flesh.


c) nature - pattern

              - structure

Nature is a principal of operation

Everything must respect its nature

A fish cannot come out of water and live

We must respect our nature to grow and live

2) The new life at Baptism gives us a new nature - a capacity to know and to love which we do not have without Baptism

We can do Christlike activities through the virtues of faith, hope and love, and others

3) The Christic-self

-We have a personal relationship with Jesus

- Galatians 2: 19-24


Galatians 2: 19-24

In fact, through the Law I am dead to the Law so that I can be alive to God. 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. I am not setting aside God’s grace as of no value; it is merely that if saving justice comes through the Law, Christ died needlessly.


- Jesus has a personal unique love for me

- Christ is the mediator between God and man -

Jesus says quote -

"No one can come to the Father except through me"

John 15: 11-17


John 15: 11-17

I have told you this
so that my own joy may be in you
and your joy be complete.
This is my commandment:
love one another,
as I have loved you.
No one can have greater love
than to lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends,
if you do what I command you.
I shall no longer call you servants,
because a servant does not know
the master’s business;
I call you friends,
because I have made known to you
everything I have learnt from my Father.
You did not choose me,
no, I chose you;
and I commissioned you
to go out and to bear fruit,
fruit that will last;
so that the Father will give you
anything you ask him in my name.
My command to you
is to love one another.


My personal relationship with Jesus takes into account my personal uniqueness.

We can study the The Christian's Personal Uniqueness in Chapter 2 of Response to God's Love.

I am in the process of becoming, this is discussed in Chapter 3 of Response to God's Love.

Like a baby coming out of the womb, the baby develops intellectually. We develop more every day in our spiritual life to be more in His image and likeness if we stay rooted in Him.

    E. The Christian life considered as life in the Holy Spirit

1 Corinthians 2: 6-16


1 Corinthians 2: 6-16

    But still, to those who have reached maturity, we do talk of a wisdom, not, it is true, a philosophy of this age or of the rulers of this age, who will not last long now. It is of the mysterious wisdom of God that we talk, the wisdom that was hidden, which God predestined to be for our glory before the ages began. None of the rulers of the age recognised it; for if they had recognised it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; but it is as scripture says: What no eye has seen and no ear has heard, what the mind of man cannot visualise; all that God has prepared for those who love him; to us, though, God has given revelation through the Spirit, for the Spirit explores the depths of everything, even the depths of God. After all, is there anyone who knows the qualities of anyone except his own spirit, within him; and in the same way, nobody knows the qualities of God except the Spirit of God. Now, the Spirit we have received is not the spirit of the world but God’s own Spirit, so that we may understand the lavish gifts God has given us. And these are what we speak of, not in the terms learnt from human philosophy, but in terms learnt from the Spirit, fitting spiritual language to spiritual things. The natural person has no room for the gifts of God’s Spirit; to him they are folly; he cannot recognise them, because their value can be assessed only in the Spirit. The spiritual person, on the other hand, can assess the value of everything, and that person’s value cannot be assessed by anybody else. For: who has ever known the mind of the Lord? Who has ever been his adviser? But we are those who have the mind of Christ.


The spirit of the person within knows the person.

Other people can know a lot about us, but nobody knows me as I know myself in the depth of my being.

With regard to knowledge of God, the Spirit of God knows God.

The Holy Spirit teaches us about LIFE, about divine life.

We live a God-like life. We must listen to the Spirit.

The Spirit teaches us about the God-like life.

We live our lives after Baptism with this elevated human nature. We want to always remain in the state of grace.

We want to be filled with His grace, His life.

    ALSO: Mary's role in the Christian life

1) Read the text that follows in Mother at Our Side

2) John 19:25-27


John 19: 25-27

Jesus and his mother

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. Seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near her, Jesus said to his mother, ‘Woman, this is your son.’ Then to the disciple he said, ‘This is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.


3) Mary's role in the Christian life

4 aspects of Mary's role in God's plan

a) Mother of Christ

b) Our spiritual Mother

c) Mother of the Church

d) Church's model

Mary is Mother of our Christ life.

We are formed more and more in our spiritual life in Mary's Immaculate Heart, the spiritual womb.

We are formed more and more in the image and likeness of Jesus through the workings of the Holy Spirit.

We praise Mary.

We honor Mary.

We love Mary as our Mother.

We do not worship Mary, we worship God.

Mary realizes her greatness, but she is totally humble.


John 2: 5

His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’


Mary always takes us to her Son.

The Heart of Mary is the symbol of her love for us.

In the litany it says, "Mother of divine grace."

In summary, we go to the Father through and with Christ in the Holy Spirit with the assistance of Mary our spiritual Mother.


Excerpt from Response to God's Love, by Father Edward Carter, S.J.

                                 1

The Mystery of Christ and
            Christian Existence


                                                                               Etymologically, the word mystery basically means that which is secret or hidden. It was used in a religiously technical sense even before Christianity. Mystery was used, for example, to designate certain religious rites of pagan Hellenism, secret rites that were closed to outsiders unless they had been properly initiated into them. In relation to Egyptian hermeticism, the word mystery was applied to initiation into secret religious ideas or doctrines. In reference to Christianity, God himself is the ultimate mystery. Radically, God is completely other and transcendent, hidden from man in his inner life, unless he chooses to reveal himself. Let us briefly look at this inner life of God.

    The Father, in a perfect act of self-expression, in a perfect act of knowing, generates his son. The Son, the Word, is, then, the immanent expression of God's fullness, the reflection of the Father. Likewise, from all eternity, the Father and the Son bring forth the Holy Spirit in a perfect act of loving.

    At the destined moment in human history, God's self-expression, the Word, immersed himself into man's world. God's inner self-expression now had also become God's outer self-expression. Consequently, the mystery of God becomes the mystery of Christ. In Christ, God tells us about himself, about his inner life, about his plan of creation and redemption. He tells us how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit desire to dwell within us in the most intimate fashion, how they wish to share with us their own life through grace. All this he has accomplished and does accomplish through Christ. St. Paul tells us: "I became a minister of this Church through the commission God gave me to preach among you his word in its fullness, that mystery hidden from ages and generations past but now revealed to his holy ones. God has willed to make known to them the glory beyond price which this mystery brings to the Gentiles—the mystery of Christ in you, your hope of glory. This is the Christ we proclaim while we admonish all men and teach them in the full measure of wisdom, hoping to make every man complete in Christ" (Col 1:25-28).

    The Christian life, then, is rooted in the great event of the Incarnation. We must, consequently, always focus our gaze upon Christ, realizing that everything the Father wishes to tell us has been summed up in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. It only remains for us, then, to fathom ever more deeply the inexhaustible truth of the Word Incarnate: "In times past, God spoke in fragmentary and varied ways to our fathers through the prophets; in this, the final age, he has spoken to us through his Son, whom he has made heir of all things and through whom he first created the universe" (Heb 1:1-2).

    What was the condition of man and his world at the time of Christ's coming? In some ways, people were much the same as we are today. There were those who were just being born into this world of human drama; there were those who, in death, were leaving it, some of whom had grasped but little of life's meaning. There were those who were healthy and vigorous; there were those who were sick and lame. Some especially felt the burdens, the grief, the suffering of the human condition; others were ebullient and desired all the pleasures that life could provide. There was some good being accomplished: there was Rome, for example, with her genius for government and architecture; there was Athens with her philosophers, writers, sculptors, and artists. The moral condition of those times, however, was at a very low ebb. What St. Paul tells us concerning the time that immediately followed Christ's earthly existence certainly could also be applied to the time of his entrance into the world. It is, in short, an ugly picture that Paul depicts for us (Rm 1:22-32).

    Into such a depraved condition of mankind Jesus entered, with a full and generous heart, to lead man from the depths of sinfulness to the vibrant richness of a new life in himself. Through his enfleshment, this Christ had become the focal point of all history. The authentic hopes and dreams of the human family, now so deeply overshadowed by the ugliness of sin, came converging upon this Christ. He would gather them up in himself, give them a new luster and brilliance and dynamism, and would lead the human race back to the Father in the Spirit.

    Christ came, then, for a double purpose, or rather for a single purpose that has two facets. He was radically to release us from the dominion of sin and elevate us to a new level of existence. This life that Christ has given us is not a type of superstructure that is erected atop man's human existence. Although nature and grace are distinct, they do not lie side by side as separate entities; rather, grace permeates nature. The Christian is one graced person. In his entirety he has been raised up, caught up, into a deeper form of life in Christ Jesus. Nothing that is authentically human has been excluded from this new existence. Whatever is really human in the life of the Christian is meant to be an expression of the Christ-life. The simple but deep joys of family life, the wonderment at nature's beauty, the kiss that unites lovers, the warm embrace of a mother for her child, the agony of crucial decision making, the success or frustration that is experienced in one's work, the joy of being well received by others, and the heartache of being misunderstood—all these human experiences are intended to be caught up in Christ and made more deeply human because of him. As Karl Rahner has put it: "The basic and ultimate thrust of Christian life consists not so much in the fact that a Christian is a special instance of mankind in general, but rather in the fact that a Christian is simply man as he is. But he is a person who accepts without reservations the whole of concrete human life with all of its adventures, its absurdities, and its incomprehensibilities" (Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 402).

    Christ has come, then, not to destroy anything that is authentically human, but to perfect it by leading it to a graced fulfillment. This is the meaning of the Incarnation. The more God-like we become through Christ, the more human we become.

    As Christians, then, we live in Christ. We have been incorporated into his life, into the mystery of Christ. The mystery of Christ is the Christ event, that is, all the happenings or events of Christ's life, death, and resurrection. We may speak, consequently, not only of the total, unified mystery of Christ, but also of the individual events or mysteries. Christ's mysteries of death and resurrection are central and, in some way, they contain all the other mysteries; but these other mysteries or events also have their own importance.

    The mysteries or events of Christ are not mere past events; they are still dynamically present in the glorified Christ. How is this so? The mysteries of Christ have a twofold aspect: one dimension is historical and, therefore, limited by time; the other dimension is eternal, perennially and actually present in Christ. Let us first consider the historical, temporal aspect of Christ's mysteries. In assuming a human nature, the Son subjected himself to the historical dimension of man's existence. In other words, the actions that Christ performed on earth, through his human nature, were limited by temporal historicity. The temporal historicity of these acts cannot be re-enacted—not even sacramentally in the liturgy. To do so would require that God reproduce a past act now precisely as past, which is a contradiction in terms.

    There is, then, the temporal, not-to-be repeated dimension of Christ's mysteries. These mysteries, however, possess another aspect, namely, an eternal and perennially dynamic aspect. Jesus, although he has a divine nature and a human nature, is only one person—and that is a divine person. The consequence of this fact is demonstrated in reference to the acts that Christ performed as man. Although they were enacted through Jesus' human nature, these acts are attributed to the divine person and share, as much as a human act can, in the eternity of the divine person who is above the historical, temporal limitations of earthly existence. These events of Jesus' historical existence endure, then, eternally in the glorified Christ, and they endure for a purpose, that is, the mysteries of Christ perennially endure in him so that we might assimilate them. We are thus saved and sanctified by entering into the mystery of Christ, assimilating it, and reproducing it in our own lives according to our particular vocations, graces, and historical exigencies. There is only one manner of life that the Father holds before us, and it is patterned after the existence of his incarnate Son.

    By reliving and reincarnating the mysteries of Christ, we are not only accomplishing our own redemption, but assisting in the continued application of Christ's redemption to all mankind. The Incarnation continues for all 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 upon him as our source of strength, we continue the Incarnation in its visible and temporal dimensions. The fact that, at times, we do this poorly because of our human weakness and sinfulness does not change the great privilege and responsibility that is ours: we do, in fact, help continue the Incarnation. We are the Body of Christ. We must strive ever more perfectly to reincarnate the mystery and mysteries of Christ.

    The Christian is initiated into the mystery of Christ, into his or her role of prolonging the Incarnation, through baptism. In the words of St. Paul: "Are you not aware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Through baptism into his death we were buried with him, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life" (Rm 6:3-5).

    It is not sufficient, however, that we be incorporated into Christ and his mysteries through baptism. All forms of life require nourishment; so too, our life in Christ must be continually nourished; we must continually keep in contact with Christ and his mysteries. How can we continually encounter Christ? There are various ways. We contact Christ in a special manner 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 this Eucharistic encounter we become more deeply incorporated into Christ and his mysteries.

    The reading of Scripture provides another special opportunity for encounter with Jesus. This is true for both the Old and New Testaments; the Old Testament prefigures the New Testament and leads to it. It is obvious, however, that we meet Christ especially through the pages of the New Testament. How true it is to say that not to be familiar with Scripture is not to know Christ properly.

    There is yet another way in which we encounter the mysteries of Christ; we make renewed contact with Jesus and his mysteries as these are present within ourselves and others. The mysteries of Christ that are to be relived by us are structured into our life of grace. One of the best ways, then, to encounter the mysteries of Christ is to experience them personally in our own Christian living. To personally relive the mysteries of Christ is to more perfectly understand them; what is more, this deeper penetration of their truth allows for their still greater assimilation in our lives. To see the truth of Christ, the Christ-event, reincarnated to a marked degree in another person—is a wonderful gift from God. To see the selflessness of Jesus, his love, his kindness, his willingness to suffer and endure the difficult, his joy and peace despite the pain and anguish of life—to see all this reflected in the lives of at least some of the people we meet is indeed a significant encounter with Christ.

    Common to the various ways of properly encountering Jesus and his mysteries is a certain degree of prayerful reflection. Our encounter with the mystery of Christ in the liturgy, in Scripture, in ourselves, and in others will not be all that it should be without this kind of reflection. The light of prayer enables us to see more perfectly how the mysteries of Jesus are to be assimilated. The strength of prayer provides us with a greater determination to live a more Christ-like existence.

    We live out our assimilation to Christ in an atmosphere of love. Indeed, the life that Jesus has given us is centered in love; it has its origins in the mysterious love of God, his agape, through which he achieves his self-communication to us. In the words of St. John's gospel:

Yes, God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him may not die
but may have eternal life.

Jn 3:16.


    Our new life in Christ has arisen out of God's fathomless love, and, what is more, its entire dynamism breathes love. The Incarnate Word himself has taught us this. On our behalf, Christ, as man, has perfectly opened himself to the Father's love; he has then responded to the Father in love. In relation to men, Jesus has loved completely from the depths of his being, pouring himself out in a life of selfless service, a self-giving that drew from him life's breath itself so that he could say he loved—without reserve and to the end. Thus forever was etched upon the pages of man's history—indelibly and so deeply—the love of Jesus for mankind. In this very greatness and depth of Christ's love for us, he was also opening himself to our love, for he can enter the human heart only if there is a response of love that encounters his own. Consequently, Jesus is the sacrament—the visible sign—of the great dimensions of Christian love. Christians are the persons who receive God's love and respond with their own love; Christians also love their fellow human beings as themselves and, in turn, open themselves to receive others' 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 a response to God's love—a love that God freely gives to us without conditions or qualifications. Love is the beginning and the end. The main truth that we must comprehend is that the redemptive incarnation was wrought by God's love to raise us, in turn, to a deeper level of loving. Our further penetration into the mystery of the Incarnation can take place only in love. Incarnate love can only be understood and participated in more fully through our own life of love.

    Another characteristic of our assimilation to the mystery of Christ is its personalism. There were numerous possibilities open to God, given his decision to redeem the human race. He actually chose, however, to accomplish our redemption in the most personalistic way; he communicated himself to us through the personal enfleshment of his Son. This means that God was giving himself to us through the warmth, the kindness, the strength, the gentleness, and the selflessness that emanated from the incarnate person of Christ. It was truly the incarnate, personal acts of Christ that redeemed us—his work and relaxation, his joy, his friendships, his love for Mary and Joseph, the training of the apostles, his concern for the most abject of those he encountered, his fatigue, his agony and death, and his resurrection. Our redemption was truly personalistic.

    Moreover the personalism of the Incarnation continues. In union with Christ, we are called upon to help him continue his Incarnation in its visible, earthly dimension. Only one framework is available to us according to which we can help further the Incarnation—our personal lives, that is to say, our lives as individuals united as a people, the People of God. The human condition as we experience it—joyfully and painfully, too—also provides the soil for our participation in the continued Incarnation. Redemption continues to take place not when we try to remove ourselves from the human condition, but when we strive to live an authentically human life that is more and more in Christ. It is by living truly personalistic lives—that is, lives springing forth from the greatness of the person as created and redeemed by God, lives that do not flinch from the human condition—that redemption continues to be made visible to this world.

    Christian personalism centers in our personal relationships with God and others, and again, Christ shows the way. Through the Word made flesh, the life of the Trinity has incarnationally manifested itself to mankind. The life of the Trinity centers in the personal relationships between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; but God's life is also his love gone out to the human race. The Incarnation projects this Trinitarian life into the temporal sphere. Jesus has come to tell us about Trinitarian life, to give us a share in it, to teach us that through grace we share in God's life—a life of relationships—by entering into deepened personal relationships with God and other persons. Redemption that is received and contributed to is the experience of these relationships. In other words, as Jesus has told us, the Christian life is summed up in love of God and neighbor. Out of these personalized love relationships flow many things; for example, redemption continued is the loving abandonment to the love of God that despite possible fear, allows a person to accomplish things that are totally beyond his or her natural courage. Or again, redemption continued is loving those who are afar off whom I will never see or know, but whom I know are my brothers and my sisters and whom my work and prayer can reach out and touch. Or again, redemption continued is the Christian hope and trust that allows man and woman to take the risk of the mutual self-giving that is marriage. Or again, redemption continued is the black person who continues to relate to his or her white neighbors in faith, hope, and love despite temptations to hatred and bitterness. Or again, redemption continued is the ecstasy and the agony of loving and being loved. Truly, the Incarnation visibly continued is our Christian faith, hope, and love made alive in our personal relationships with God and man.

    In our assimilation to the mystery of Christ, then, we learn about love and the personalistic. We also learn a further truth—the value of the material, the tangible, in God's plan of redemption. The Incarnation established a set pattern for the redemption of the world, that is, redemption taken both objectively (the historical, salvific life of Christ) and subjectively (the redemption as applied to mankind). Christ redeemed the world through his humanity, which was a created and, in part, a tangible reality. As Jesus' humanity was indispensable for accomplishing the objective redemption, so also created things are necessary for continuing the subjective redemption. An outstanding example of this occurs in the Eucharistic liturgy, for bread and wine—material, tangible realities—are the central focus of the liturgical rite as they are changed into Christ's body and blood.

    In assuming a human nature, then, Jesus has united to himself not only mankind, but also the material world. Not only the human spirit, but also the human body and the material world have been given a new dignity because of the Incarnation and enter so vitally into the Incarnation continued. Once for all let us lay aside the influence of Manichaeism, Gnosticism, and similar false teachings that denigrate that which is material. It is obvious that we do not always properly use material creation; at such times, we have failed to relate to material creation according to God's will. Let us remember, then, that Christ, in elevating the material to a new dignity, has accomplished this partially through that aspect of the Incarnation that is the cross—a dimension of the Incarnation that, along with its other aspects, must also be present in our encounter with the material. We must realize that such elements as Christian self-discipline and renunciation must find a place in our lives if we are to use material creation according to God's designs.

    There are numberless applications of the value of the material, the visible, the tangible, in our Christ-lives: there is, for example, the warm, receptive smile of a friend and the reading of Scripture and the physical love of husband and wife and the exhilarating refreshment of a day at the seashore and God's loveliness that is reflected in a little child—and, of course, the list could continue on. The fundamental principle, however, is the same in all cases:—the human nature of Jesus, something that has been created and is in part material, has reached out and touched all these other things and experiences that are part of life in a material world. When we properly relate to them, they become for us extensions of the Incarnation. They are the redemptive Incarnation applied to us; in addition, they are opportunities for us to assist Christ in continuing his Incarnation for others.

    The Incarnation, as we have briefly pointed out, was and is a rich and varied event. The truths that accompany Christ's descent into our world are numerous and capable of not only originally elevating us to a new life, but also constantly leading us to a deeper, richer, and more vibrant participation in that life. This is why Christ came to live in our midst—to give us life in abundance:

The Word became flesh
                                    and made his dwelling among us.
                                    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
                                    Of his fullness
                                    we have all had a share—
                                    love following upon love.

       —Jn 1:14-16

(End of Excerpt from Response to God's Love)

 

 

Blue Book Blow Out for Christmas

Give the gift that keeps giving this Christmas 

6 different Blue Books for $30.00 including postage 

       


$
6.00


$5.00


$4.00


$2.00


$2.00


$3.00


$3.00


$3.00


$3.00


$3.00


$3.00


$3.00


$3.00


$3.00


$3.00

   Books available in limited supply for this sale.

 

   

Blue Book Blow Out for Christmas

Blue Book 1 – $6.00 each plus postage

Blue Book 2 – $5.00 each plus postage

Blue Book 3 – $4.00 each plus postage

 

 

Blue Books 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6A, B, C – 
$3.00 each plus postage

  

Blue Books 4 & 5 –$2.00 each plus postage

 

The more you use the Blue Books and
    become one with Jesus – more
    intimate with Jesus –
    the more your lives are a blessing and
    everything you do in life can help
    to bring down great grace for the world
    because of your being so
    one with Jesus.

 

Guiding Light Homily Book Series

Fr. Joe’s Books


Cycle A –
Steadfast to the Son


Cycle B –
Focusing on the Word


Cycle C

Feed My Soul

 
Cycle A
 
Inspired to be Genuine

4 for $20 plus postage of $5.95 

 

These books can be given to:

1) All Priests

       2) Good for Music Ministers
       3) Good for DRE's
       4) Good for Deacons
       5) Good for Principals of Schools
       6) Good for Teachers
       7) Good for Mom and Dads

     

     
Give the gift that keeps giving this Christmas!!

This statue was handmade and hand-painted
and has a little piece of the glass
from the image face of Mary –

PV-Fatima
w/glass - 27
PV-Fatima
w/glass - 18
PV-Fatima
w/glass - 15
OL-Fatima
w/glass - 18
PV-Fatima
w/glass - 12
OL-Fatima
w/glass - 11

OL-Guadalupe
w/glass - 28

OL-Grace
w/glass - 24

OL-Mt. Carmel
w/glass - 24

OL-Lourdes
w/glass - 24
 

IH-Mary
w/glass - 24

IH-Ivory
w/glass - 24

SH-Jesus
w/glass - 24
SH-Blessing
w/glass - 24
Sorrow M
w/glass - 24
Inf.-Prague
w/glass - 24

OL-Lourdes
w/glass - 18

OL-Mt. Carmel
w/glass - 18

I Heart
w/glass - 18

I Heart - Ivory
w/glass - 18

OL-Grace
w/glass - 18

SH-Jesus
w/glass - 18
OL-Guadalupe
w/glass - 12
 

We cannot get these statues any more –
the men making them were from
Portugal and no longer do so

We will have a limited number
until they are gone –

These statues are a treasure, a work of art

At the end of this message are healings
from statues and the Jesus
and Mary waters –
 

   

   


 

                Given March 21, 2014

                R. Pray for These Things

                1) Pray for the Pope & hierarchy to help us start prayer chapters.
                2) Pray for Dan, Sally Jo, Richard, Carol, Margaret, Sue,
                    Jack, Jean, Amanda, Matthew, Special intentions.
               
3) Pray for the priests, the Church and the world!
                4) Pray for the spread of prayer chapters,
                    also for the spread of priests doing prayer chapters.
                5) Pray for the spread of Blue Books.
                6) People going to Florida and China.
                7) Vocations to all 7 categories.
                8) Pray for spread of Consecration and Rosary.
                9) Pray for pope helping us.
               10) Pray for Jeff - sales & health. Pray for Nick.
               11) Blue Book 14 cover; Blue Book 13 – all involved.
                    For our Publisher and all involved
               12) All intentions on my list, Jerry's list.
               13) Priests getting Fr. Joe's book.
               14) Pray for Fr. Joe's new book, cover & funds for printing & postage.
               15) Donors and members and their families.
               16) Healing of the Family tree.
               17) Dan & Melanie, Catherine & mom, Gary, Mary Jo,
                    Jim & statues, Fr. Ken, Monsignor, Kerry, Tom & wife.
               18) All who asked us to pray for them.
               19) All we promised to pray for.
               20) Rita, John, Doris, Sheila, Jerry, Regina, Sanja,
                    Betty, Sophie, Lisa, Eileen, Fr. Mike, Louie, Laverne,
                    2 Dons, Mary Ellen, Fr. Joe, all priests helping us,
                    Ed, Jimmy, Steve, a special couple
, Rosie & all involved.
               21) 2 babies and moms.
               22) Funds and insurance.
               23) Jerry's garage.
               24) In thanksgiving for gifts, graces, & blessings received.
               25) Spread the Blood of Jesus on all of us here.
               26) Consecrate all hearts.
               27) Cast the devil out of all of us here and all in Movement.

 

 

We need money for
Fr. Joe's new homily book
(we sent almost 40,000 to priests,
cardinals, bishops)
Can you please help us?
888-211-3041

    
 

 The Wedding Rosary 

Crystal Image Rosary

$40 plus shipping

 

Special First Communion Rosary with Image Center

in a gift box

white     blue     red

and an 8 x 10 picture of Our Lady of Clearwater
and a 4 x 6 picture of Our Lady of Clearwater

$10 plus postage

 

 

Original Image Rosary

8mm glass beads
in a matching gift box

$40 plus shipping

 

 

 

Special Sale Statues with image glass

 

15" Pilgrim Virgin Fatima – $85

12" Our Lady of Fatima – $75

 plus shipping
while supplies last

Call Regina 1–727–776–2763
Call Rosie 888–211–3041

 


 

In Spanish with the Imprimatur

Also we are ready to print
5000 copies of the
Parents and Children's Rosary Book
in SPANISH.
Can you help with a donation?

  

Give the gift that counts.

                Give to your priests Fr. Carter's Books plus postage.

Tell My People                    $5.00
Response to God's Love    $8.00
Response in Christ              $8.00

   

  

    God's Blue Books 4, 5, 6A, 6B, 6C, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
        $4.00 each plus postage


Blue Book 4


Blue Book 5


Blue Book 6A


Blue Book 6B


Blue Book 6C


Blue Book 7


Blue Book 8


Blue Book 9


Blue Book 10


Blue Book 11

 
Blue Book 12 & 13

 

Old Mass Books with the Imprimatur 
$2.00 plus postage

New Mass Book with Imprimatur   
$8.00 plus postage

New Parents & Children's Book with the Imprimatur
$8.00 plus postage

Fr. Joe's Cycle A – Steadfast to the Sun – Starts in Advent
$5.00 plus postage

Give the gift that keeps on giving!

Give to your priest.


Fr. Carter's Priestly Newsletters Book II
$6.00 plus postage

     

Special sale statue with glass

27" Statue of Our Lady of Fatima
$175 plus postage

 

Get a canvas print of Mary's image
with a sliver of glass and a little
bottle of Jesus and Mary water.
The glass will be fixed behind the
back of the picture.
$200.00 plus postage

Dan called and gave the report to me, when I hung up I saw this rainbow and took a picture for him.


Shepherds of Christ Ministries   P.O. Box 627  China, Indiana 47250

Telephone: (toll free) 1-888-211-3041 or (812) 273-8405   FAX: (812) 273-3182

Main Shepherds of Christ Page


SofC LogoCopyright © 2014 Shepherds of Christ.
Rights for non–commercial reproduction granted:
May be copied in its entirety, but neither re–typed nor edited.
Translations are welcome but they must be reviewed for moral and 
theological accuracy by a source approved by Shepherds of Christ Ministries 
before any distribution takes place. Please contact us for more information.