February 13, 1997
Talk given by Fr. Edward J. Carter, S.J.
Founder of Shepherds of Christ Ministries
Talk given February 13, 1997 National Conference of
Shepherds of Christ, held at Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center, Norwood,
Ohio.
Before we begin the
rosary, I’d like to say a few words about the great importance of these days
on the 13th of each month. Before Our Lord asked me to begin the Shepherds of
Christ Ministries, the 1st dimension of that ministries was given to me on May
the 31st, 1994. But before Our Lord asked me to start the ministries, I had
been given a great devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. And I knew that everything
concerning recent Marian apparitions centered around the Fatima message. The
Fatima message is key to the peace of the world, as Our Lady of Fatima has
told us. So because I had been given a great devotion to Our Lady of Fatima,
it was no surprise to me when Our Lord told me, and through me the whole
Movement, the great connection that there would be between Shepherds of Christ
Ministries and helping to bring the Fatima message to conclusion. I’ll
expand more upon that in my talk this afternoon. But here and now I’d like
to read just a part of the message I received on October the 13th, 1994, when
Our Lord called the full Ministries into existence. It had begun May 31st ,
some five or six months previous to that. But really October the 13th, 1994,
marks the real birth, the complete birth of Shepherds of Christ Ministries.
And part of the message I received on that day reads as follows:
"I am giving you this message on this
day, the 77th anniversary of the great apparition at Fatima, because of the
close connection between the Shepherds of Christ Movement and the Fatima
message. The Fatima message is centered in devotion to My Heart and My
Mother’s Heart, especially in consecration to Our Hearts. Shepherds of
Christ Ministries is also centered in devotion to Our Hearts. I will use
Shepherds of Christ Ministries as a great instrument in helping to bring
about the triumph of the Immaculate Heart and the Reign of My Sacred Heart.
Today then, October the 13th, 1994, the 77th anniversary of the great
apparition at Fatima, marks the birth of Shepherds of Christ Ministries. I
pour forth the great love of My Sacred Heart to all. I am Jesus, the Chief
Shepherd of the Flock."
The calling of Our Lord
to Shepherds of Christ to be present if possible at these meetings on the 13th
of each month, and if they cannot be present physically, to be present in
spirit with us then comes as no surprise. It’s merely another unfolding in
the history of the Shepherds of Christ Movement and in the Fatima message.
These 13th of the months
meetings are extremely important. They are great instruments which Our Lord
and Our Lady are using to help bring to completion the Fatima message, which
will result in that great era of peace, which Our Lady of Fatima promised
eventually would come to the world.
So I ask you to take
these meetings on the 13th of the month with the utmost seriousness,
gratitude, thanksgiving, joy that Our Lord, for His own reasons has chosen
Shepherds of Christ, the members thereof, the whole Ministries to play such a
great part in the completion of the Fatima message. It comes as no surprise
either that Our Lord gives special messages during the rosary on the meeting
of the 13th, just as Our Lady of Fatima gave messages to the three visionaries
at Fatima in 1917, from May through October. So at this stage of the Fatima
message’s unfolding, it is no surprise that they continue, and in a new way
and a new phase of the Fatima plan, give us these very special messages on the
13th. They are meant not only for us here present, they are meant for all
members of the Movement, and eventually for the whole world. All these
messages, all these rosaries on the 13th, eventually go onto our Internet with
its world-wide audience.
So please, be very
grateful to God for the messages He gives us during the rosary. Not everything
which Rita says is a message. I think you’ll be able to distinguish when
she’s receiving a message from Our Lord or from Our Lady, and when she is
speaking from her own heart. Sometimes the transition is very quick and you
may miss it, but there are both ways in which meditations are given on the
decades: in strict locutions or messages, and then from Rita’s meditations
or reflections herself.
(After the Rosary)
I wish to thank everybody
who made the effort to be here with us, especially those people who had to
travel from out of town. I’m sure the Lord has blessed you already and will
continue to do so for your effort to be here. These are extremely important
meetings on the 13th of the month. Our Lord has, Himself, instructed us in His
great love and mercy for us and the whole world to have them. From these
meetings, the messages of Our Lord, the previous message given at Fatima, go
out to the whole world...
I sort of left off when I
introduced the rosary by reading the rest, or at least a good part of the
rest, of that message which I, myself, received on October the 13th, 1994,
when Our Lord called the full Shepherds of Christ Ministries into existence.
"My beloved priest-companion, today I
come to you with another mission."
He had already asked me
on May the 31st of 1994 to start the priestly newsletter and then shortly
after that to start the prayer chapters.
"I’m asking you
to establish Shepherds of Christ Ministries. At My request you have already
begun the priestly newsletter, Shepherds of Christ, and the prayer chapters,
Shepherds of Christ Associates...
"I am giving you
this message on this day, the 77th Anniversary of the Great Apparition at
Fatima, because of the close connection between the Shepherds of Christ
movement and the Fatima message. The Fatima message is centered in devotion
to My Heart and My Mother’s Heart, especially in consecration to Our
Hearts. Shepherds of Christ Ministries is also centered in devotion to Our
Hearts. I will use Shepherds of Christ Ministries as a great instrument in
helping to bring about the triumph of the Immaculate Heart and the reign of
My Sacred Heart. When this occurs, My Church and the world will be
experiencing the great era of peace promised by My Mother at Fatima.
"Today, then,
October 13, 1994, the 77th Anniversary of the Great Apparition at Fatima,
marks the birth of Shepherds of Christ Ministries. I pour forth the great
love of My Sacred Heart to all. I am Jesus, Chief Shepherd of the
flock."
So (this is) one of the
most important messages given in the whole history of our Movement, and I
think you can see why. Not only was Our Lord calling the Ministries into full
bloom with this message, but He was making that great connection between
Shepherds of Christ and the Fatima message.
You see how He says that
both the Fatima message and Shepherds of Christ is centered in devotion, and
especially in consecration, to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
So in my moments here
before you this afternoon, I wish to speak a bit about this consecration.
I’ll start off by
reading a message of Our Lord and from "Tell My People" which deals
with this consecration to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
"My beloved
friend, tell My people that I desire all to consecrate themselves to My
Sacred Heart and to Mary’s Immaculate Heart. Tell them not to just recite
words in making the Act of Consecration, but to realize what they are
saying. Consecration to Our Hearts means a total gift of self. That means
handing over everything to Me and My Mother. Consecration means a
willingness to surrender completely to Me. In Baptism, one is consecrated to
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But how many fail to live out their
consecration? I extend to all the invitation to renew this Baptismal
consecration through consecration to My Heart and to My Mother’s Heart.
"My beloved
companion, I have taught you what this consecration means. I have given you
great peace, joy and happiness because you have made this consecration. I
have taught you that you are to renew this act of consecration each day. I
constantly remind you that you are to pray each day for the grace to more
and more live the consecration. I have taught you that your consecration to
Me and My Mother means that you constantly surrender yourself to Us and to
Our care. I have taught you that the more you surrender yourself to Me, the
more I live in you, and through you and for you. I have taught you that My
great love for you longs to draw you more deeply into My Heart. I have shown
you that I wish your Mother Mary to place you there within My Heart, and
that the more you dwell within her Heart, the more deeply she places you
within My Heart. Dwelling within Our Hearts, the Holy Spirit fashions you
more and more in My likeness. The Father thus looks upon you with greater
favor and takes you more closely to Himself.
"Tell My people all these wondrous
truths. I am Lord and Master and I desire all to listen to My words. (end of
message)"
And what beautiful words
those are, which Christ gives all, to us all regarding the consecration to His
Heart and Mary’s Heart.
I want to - after that
message of Jesus telling us what consecration involves, I wish to single out a
few aspects of the consecration, what it includes. One aspect of our
consecration and especially the consecration which Our Lord has given us for
Shepherds of Christ, one aspect of our consecration to Their Hearts is to
realize that we are apostles and that we are called to go out into the world
as we have heard in the rosary today, and other times to be the apostles of
His love, of His love and His Mother’s love, and thus to help bring about
that great era of peace promised by Our Lord, Our Lady of Fatima in which love
will just dominate. That’s what it means when Our Lady says, "In the
end," she says, "my Immaculate Heart will triumph." And along
with that triumph of her Immaculate Heart will occur the Reign of the Sacred
Heart. The Reign of the Sacred Heart and the triumph of the Immaculate Heart
simply is a reign of love, a triumph of love and in that era there will be a
type of love existent in the hearts of the members of the human family never
known before. We will all be so united in love to the Father and the Holy
Spirit through the Hearts of Jesus and Mary. And not only with Them, but with
each other. What a glorious era we have to look forward to.
We are apostles. More and
more as the Movement has gone on, Jesus is letting us know that, yes, we are
supposed to pray. This is one of our primary duties in the chapters and
elsewhere, to pray for priests and all others. But more and more He is telling
us that now is the time to start to more and more move out from our chapters
and to be apostles of His love, to help spread the Movement, to help spread
the consecrations in the schools through the consecration cards, the Rosary
Aves, both of which have the Imprimatur of the Cincinnati Archdiocese, to help
spread all our materials, all our books and all the various rosaries, the
rosary tapes. And you are called to do that.
In the beginning of the
Movement, it was a relatively few people who were carrying the burden and
carrying the Ministry on. We have entered a great new episode of the Movement,
principally in that episode, principally centers itself around these meetings
of the 13th. More and more people are realizing as they hear more and more the
messages, more and more people in the Movement are hearing that Jesus is
calling each one of us to be apostles of the Movement, to spread the Movement,
to help implement the various ministries in all ways possible, to help spread
the movement by starting new prayer chapters. Just think if we have something
like, I guess, 2500-3000 members in the chapters and the Apostles of the
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus Movement here in this country and throughout the
world-most of those, thus far, in this country.
But just think if each
person would take it upon himself or herself to go all out to get one more new
chapter formed. That’s not impossible, I don’t think that’s asking
something heroic. That would double our chapters; that would double our prayer
power. And so much of the Movement, the success of it, depends upon the prayer
power coming out of the chapters and the Apostles of the Eucharistic Heart of
Jesus Movement. So He’s calling all of us; and how admirably so many in the
Movement are answering. I wish to single out-just because all of you know
about the Florida apparition-four or five, six, I don’t know how many now of
our members from Rita’s core group have gone down to the apparition site.
One of our main members, Tom A., has a home there at St. Petersburg, and
Clearwater is just a short distance from there. And they’ve been going down
and staying in his house, and each day going over to the apparition site and
handing out our materials, especially the rosary message tape, but other
materials also. This is what Our Lord, Our Lady has asked us to do. And
they’ve had phenomenal success. We can’t keep enough materials down there.
They just, the people are just so eager for it. But this is what. . .and they
do it on their own time, they drive down, some of them spend three or four
days, some a week and they come back. But what a marvelous example of their
answering the call to the apostleship to which Jesus calls them in the
Movement. And they’re doing just a tremendous amount of good.
And by the way when I’m
talking and as long as I’m talking about Florida I might read you part of
that message of Our Lady. You have read it, no doubt if you’d gotten a copy
of the picture with the message on the back. But for my own purposes I want to
read that here and now. So Mary tells us, this is the message which Rita
received on December the 19th:
Mary: My dear children, I
give to you, my Son, Jesus, born in a stable in Bethlehem on Christmas
morn’. He is the Almighty God the Light of the world.
I appear to you, my
children on a bank in Florida. You have made money your god! Do you know how
cold are your hearts? You turn away from my Son, Jesus for your money. Your
money is your god.
I am Mary, your Mother.
I do not appear as I once appeared to you.
When Rita got that
message and when she gave it to me, both of us for a number of days thought
that her number of apparitions was simply decreasing, but we both came to the
conclusion; well Rita came to the conclusion and I followed after her, in
agreement with her conclusion, Mary says, "I do not appear as I once
appeared to you." She was saying apparently that, "I’m appearing
to you in this new way, where the whole world can see me."
So many others’
apparition sites have had their believers of course, but many, many people
throughout the world have doubted all this talk about the various apparition
sites of Mary. She says, "I do not appear as I once appeared to
you." She is appearing on a bank for the whole world to see.
Mary continues:
"I am asking you
today to circulate my message given on a tape on the Feast of Our Lady of
Guadalupe, December 12, 1996. Please circulate this tape now."
That’s one of the main
things our apostles down in Florida are doing, handing out the tapes with this
message.
Mary continues:
"Please circulate
this tape now. Give it to as many people as you can. I am Mary, your Mother.
Please circulate my Rosary Book."
She’s referring to a
book which Shepherds of Christ Publications came out right around Christmas
time. Hopefully all of you have received it in the mail, Rosaries from the
Hearts of Jesus and Mary, as given to Rita. Now here’s the point I want to
make here and now. Notice how she links up the apparition site with the
circulation of her Rosary Book, and we are circulating the book there. But to
me, there’s a very great phenomenon connected with the colors on the window,
bank windows and the Rosary Book. And Rita herself pointed this out to me. Now
this cover on this book-it was designed by Hal K. weeks and even months before
the apparition of Our Lady on the bank in Florida. When did you start to
design that Hal? (question asked to Harold K.) Almost, two years ago. And the
colors were already selected months ago, right? Well if you’ll take the
picture of the bank of the apparition of the bank on Florida, and this Rosary
Book, you will notice that the colors are the same. To me, that’s a
miraculous confirmation of the fact that Our Lady is connecting the apparition
site on the bank in Florida with the Shepherds of Christ Ministries in a
special way with the rosaries. It’s just phenomenal. You can check the
colors out one by one. They’re a little bit brighter on the book, but
because of the photography involved I think you can see how they wouldn’t be
quite as bright on this. But check out the colors. They’re the same on the
Rosary Book and on this. And these colors, as I say, were picked by Hal months
and months before the apparition. You can take it for what you want, but for
me it’s a miraculous confirmation of this message, that Our Lady chose those
same colors which are on the front of her Rosary Book, to show the same colors
relative to her apparition there on the bank in Florida.
Therefore, our Florida
apostles are one of the many examples I could point out to you of how people
in the Movement are more and more taking up the challenge, the invitation of
Jesus and Mary to spread this Movement throughout the world. They have chosen
the Shepherds of Christ Movement as a great instrument to help bring about the
Fatima message. How privileged we are to be part of it, to be called to it. I
believe, I’ve told you this before, at least some of you have heard me, I
think this Movement is one of the greatest in the history of the Church. And I
think history itself will bear that out. So how precious a gift each of us has
been given by Our Lord in calling us to be members of this Movement.
Therefore, a very
important aspect of our consecration to Their Hearts is to be apostles, to
help spread all the ministries. Another aspect of our consecration is the idea
of union. I think we’re all very well aware how the consecration unites us
to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and through Them to the Father and the Holy
Spirit. But perhaps we don’t think often enough of that how it unites us
with one another, in the Movement, in the Church, throughout the whole world.
You cannot grow in union with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and Mary,
without growing in union with all your neighbors. And this is the tough part.
It’s relatively easy to love Father, Son and Holy Spirit and Mary, isn’t
it? Three Persons in One God infinitely perfect and Mary a human person,
perfect, free from all sin. It’s easy to love the Triune Persons and Mary,
relatively speaking. But it’s not all that easy to love each other all the
time, isn’t it? And yet that’s what Jesus calls us to. Jesus literally
died for each and every person. And no matter how unattractive a person is in
their behavior, Jesus still died for that person. If He loved that person
enough to die for that person, then certainly we have to love them, him or
her, and especially within the Movement. Satan is violently attacking us, he
will always try to cause division in the Movement. But if we are going to be
examples - and we are called to that, to be examples to the whole Church and
the whole world of what it’s going to be like in the new era, when we all
exist in such great loving union with each other in Christ. We are the
forerunners of that. We’re helping to prepare the way for that for the whole
Church, for the whole world. Not only us, but we have been given a special
mission for that. So we have to be united in love with each other, if we have
differences, we work them out in love and in peace. We work them out in love
and in peace. In one of the Blue Books, Jesus says, "The glass is either
half-empty or it’s half-full." I look at my neighbor, whether he or she
is in the Movement or outside of it. I can either look at the half-empty part
of the glass or the half-full part. I can either look at that person’s
faults and concentrate on them, or I can concentrate on the great goodness
which is inherently theirs. If they are in the state of sanctifying grace,
their soul is magnificently beautiful, despite the blemishes of their failings
of their sins. When I look at a person, do I look at the half-empty part or
the half-full part?
Everyday I ask you to
pray for a growing unity in the Movement. What Our Lord has allowed us to
accomplish so far in less than three years is just miraculous, I think it’s
just miraculous. The sign becomes ever and ever greater that He started this
Movement, not me. I was just the instrument which He chose to head it up. He
has given me so many beautiful people to help me do the Movement and that
includes all of you. He has given you so many beautiful companions in the
Movement. Let us concentrate on that part of it. This is the only way we’re
going to be models to the rest of the Church and the world, of the profound
union that Our Lord calls us to, not only with Himself, but with each other.
Strength for all this,
day after day, it’s not easy to live this way, is it? But as I said in my
homily, the great strength we have for that is the Eucharist. The power of the
Eucharist is much greater than your faults or my faults or the faults of
others in the Movement that surround you, or the faults of others in your
parish, or the rest of the Church and the world. He can give you the strength
to arise above your own faults and the faults of others around you, and march
forward in the most positive way towards this great new era. Oh what a gift
the Eucharist is.
St. Julian Eymard, the
founder of the Blessed Sacrament Fathers, who gave us such beautiful writings
on the Eucharist, in one of his writings on the Eucharist he says:
"It is true also
that the world does all in its power to prevent us from loving Jesus in the
most Blessed Sacrament with a real and practical love, to prevent us from
visiting Him and cripple the effects of His love. This world engrosses the
attention of souls; it finds and enslaves them with external occupations in
order to deter them from dwelling too long on the love of Jesus. It even
fights directly against this practical love and represents it as optional,
as practicable at most only in a convent. And the devil wages incessant
warfare on our love for Jesus in the most Blessed Sacrament. He knows that
Jesus is there, living and substantially present; that by Himself He is
drawing souls and taking direct possession of them. The devil tries to
efface the thought of the Eucharist in us, and the good impression made by
it; for in his mind, that should decide the issue of the struggle."
(That is if we give in to Jesus’ desire to possess us in the Eucharist.)
"And yet God is all love. This gentle Savior pleads with us from the
Host: "Love Me as I have loved you; abide in My love! I came to cast
the fire of love on the earth, and My most ardent desire is that it should
set your hearts on fire." 1
1St. Peter Eymard, "The
Most Blessed Sacrament Is Not Loved!," as in The Treasury of
Catholic Wisdom, Fr. John Hardon, S.J., ed.; Ignatius Press, p. 384.
Union amongst ourselves
through our union with Jesus and Mary and Father and Holy Spirit. Each of you
is so precious to Jesus. He has given each of you a very, very, very special
gift, precious gift, in calling you to be involved in this Movement. Very
early on in the Movement, it was July 31st of 1994, on the Feast of St.
Ignatius, He often gives me very important messages on key feasts, and the
Feast of St. Ignatius is a feast for Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, the founder of
the Jesuits. And He told me in that message that He would give great, great,
great graces to those who join the Movement, and hope I’m sure, all of you
who have been in the Movement have experienced those great graces. In
appreciation for the great graces Jesus has given you in the Movement, I ask
you, with great joy and a great sense of responsibility and a great sense of
privilege, to do what you can to implement the ministries of the Movement. No
one else can do your role, can carry out your part. You are preciously unique,
no one exists like you now, no one ever has, no one ever will. It’s you
alone who can give Jesus the opportunity to do what He wants through your
humanity to help spread the Movement. To the extent that you answer Jesus and
give yourselves to Him, and work as time and energy permits, as your other
duties permit to help spread the ministries, to that extent you give Him an
opportunity which no one else can give Him, and to the extent that you hold
back, to this extent He loses this opportunity which no one else can give Him.
A precious Savior who has
done so much to each of us. Certainly He deserves our full loving response. As
I kneel before the crucifix each day, either before a actual crucifix or one
in my mind, let us ask ourselves those questions posed to us by Ignatius
Loyola, "What have I done for Christ?" "What am I now doing for
Christ?" "What ought I to do for Christ?"
end of February 13, 1997 talk by
Fr. Carter
Statues,
Crucifixes, and Religious Artwork 
Copyright
© 2012 Shepherds of Christ.