| Shepherds of Christ Daily Writing |
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| Shepherds of Christ Daily Writing |
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December 5, 2019
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December 6th Holy Spirit Novena |
The Novena Rosary
Mysteries |
Pray for Fr. Joe, Dan, Mary, Sanja,
Rita, Jim, Rosie, Louie's family –
Madonna, Christopher,
all Shepherds of Christ intentions on
lists.
Pray for China and the mailing.
Also pray for Urgent intention
Prayer for Grace for our Country
Dear Father united to Jesus in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacrifice of Calvary sacramentally made present, celebrated around the world, in the Holy Spirit. We offer up all we do united to the Mass. We unite in one mind and one heart as members of the mystical body of Christ, with Christ our head in the pure and holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary, through the powerful intercession of Mary with all the angels and saints and souls in purgatory, and we beg for the saving grace, for our country, the United States. Please help us. We further pray for unity to always do the will of God in love. We spread the Blood of Jesus on the leaders and people of the United States and cast the devil into hell. We consecrate our country to the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart and all our dioceses, and beg for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. God help us. We pray for our families, the priests, the Church and the world. In the Name of Jesus please hear us, we pray. We pray for our president and leaders. We pray that we are united as one nation under God to work together in love as God wants.
December 5, 2019
Christmas Gifts from the
Florida Gift Shop
Please come & visit.
R. Every relationship needs work –
We see that God wants us in heaven
with Him. Sin hurts our relationship
with God.
Adam and Eve sinned and Jesus
paid a precious price so we could
be saved.
Death / Life.
Jesus showed us He died for
our sins. He paid the price
so we could be saved. He is
our Savior. He gives us baptism
which gives us a sharing in
His life.
God the Father so loved the world
He sent His only begotten Son to
this world. Jesus took flesh,
Jesus suffered and died and
He rose on the 3rd day.
Baurch 3: 9-15
Listen, Israel, to commands
that bring life;
hear, and learn what knowledge means.
Why, Israel, why are you in the country
of your enemies,
growing older and older in an alien land,
defiling yourselves with the dead,
reckoned with those who go to Sheol?
It is because you have forsaken
the fountain of wisdom!
Had you walked in the way of God,
you would be living in peace for ever.
Learn where knowledge is,
where strength,
where understanding, and so learn
where length of days is, where life,
where the light of the eyes
and where peace.But who has found out where she lives,
who has entered her treasure house?
R. The Law of the Lord is perfect
The fallen are lifted up –
Christ suffered and died for our
sins –
Christ loves us so much.
God is trying to reach us
today in His letters of love.
Jesus is the Bridegroom –
He calls His people to
be intimately united to Him –
Isaiah 54: 5-14
For your Creator is your husband,
Yahweh Sabaoth is his name,
the Holy One of Israel is your redeemer,
he is called God of the whole world.
Yes, Yahweh has called you back
like a forsaken, grief–stricken wife,
like the repudiated wife of his youth,
says your God.
I did forsake you for a brief moment,
but in great compassion
I shall take you back.
In a flood of anger, for a moment
I hid my face from you.
But in everlasting love
I have taken pity on you,
says Yahweh, your redeemer.
For me it will be as in the days of Noah
when I swore that Noah’s waters
should never flood the world again.
So now I swear never to be angry with you
and never to rebuke you again.
For the mountains may go away
and the hills may totter,
but my faithful love will never leave you,
my covenant of peace will never totter,
says Yahweh who takes pity on you.
The new Jerusalem
Unhappy creature, storm–tossed,
unpitied,
look, I shall lay your stones on agates
and your foundations on sapphires.
I shall make your battlements rubies,
your gateways firestone
and your entire wall precious stones.
All your children
will be taught by Yahweh
and great will be
your children’s prosperity.
In saving justice you will be made firm,
free from oppression:
you will have nothing to fear;
free from terror:
it will not approach you.
Sing: Hosea
R. He calls us from slavery –
God gives us the Commandments –
He divided the Red Sea –
We have the gift of baptism –
He calls –
We answer like the stars
Shining brightly –
Here we are God –
Call / Response
Baruch 3: 33-35
he sends the light — and it goes,
he recalls it — and trembling it obeys;
the stars shine joyfully at their posts;
when he calls them, they answer,
'Here we are';
they shine to delight their Creator.
R. Response to God's Love
God so loved the world He
sent His only begotten Son –
The Exodus reminds us of
baptism saving us from
the slavery of sin –
Let us give praise and love
to our God –
God tested Abraham –
God promised to make
Abraham the Father of
many nations.
Christ came and gave
Himself to fulfill
that promise.
God created an orderly
world –
Man sinned and there was
disorder –
God is over – we are under
Ezekiel 36: 16-28
The word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows, ‘Son of man, the members of the House of Israel used to live in their own territory, but they defiled it by their conduct and actions; to me their conduct was as unclean as a woman’s menstruation. I then vented my fury on them because of the blood they shed in the country and the foul idols with which they defiled it. I scattered them among the nations and they were dispersed throughout the countries. I sentenced them as their conduct and actions deserved. They have profaned my holy name among the nations where they have gone, so that people say of them, "These are the people of Yahweh; they have been exiled from his land." But I have been concerned about my holy name, which the House of Israel has profaned among the nations where they have gone. And so, say to the House of Israel, "The Lord Yahweh says this: I am acting not for your sake, House of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I am going to display the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am Yahweh–declares the Lord Yahweh–when in you I display my holiness before their eyes. For I shall take you from among the nations and gather you back from all the countries, and bring you home to your own country. I shall pour clean water over you and you will be cleansed; I shall cleanse you of all your filth and of all your foul idols. I shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you; I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies and give you a heart of flesh instead. I shall put my spirit in you, and make you keep my laws, and respect and practise my judgements. You will live in the country which I gave your ancestors. You will be my people and I shall be your God.
Romans 6: 3-11
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.
R. Christ Rose from the tomb –
Jesus says: Come Out of Your Tombs
Come Out of Your Tombs
Come Out of Your Tombs
R. Baptism gives us a sharing
in His life –
Baptism opens the Supernatural world to us.
Our knowing and loving capacity
is elevated.
We receive the supernatural
virtues of faith, hope and charity.
Acts 10: 34, 37-43
Then Peter addressed them, ‘I now really understand’, he said, ‘that God has no favourites,
You know what happened all over Judaea, how Jesus of Nazareth began in Galilee, after John had been preaching baptism. God had anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and because God was with him, Jesus went about doing good and curing all who had fallen into the power of the devil. Now we are witnesses to everything he did throughout the countryside of Judaea and in Jerusalem itself: and they killed him by hanging him on a tree, yet on the third day God raised him to life and allowed him to be seen, not by the whole people but only by certain witnesses that God had chosen beforehand. Now we are those witnesses—we have eaten and drunk with him after his resurrection from the dead— and he has ordered us to proclaim this to his people and to bear witness that God has appointed him to judge everyone, alive or dead. It is to him that all the prophets bear this witness: that all who believe in Jesus will have their sins forgiven through his name.’
R. Sing –
The people who
walk in darkness
have seen a great
light –
Relationship –
Our life is a
life of relationships
focus on those things
above – not on those
below –
Lift us up Lord –
Give us these writings
to love God, others
and ourselves –
We are to become more
and more in the image
of God –
The world is to be more
Christic –
The Church is to be more
Christic –
We are to be more Christic –
Becoming more and more in
the image of God.
Excerpt from Response to God's Love by Fr. Edward Carter, S.J.
... 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).
R. Call / Response
Matthew 13: 31-32
He put another parable before them, ‘The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and shelter in its branches.’
R. The Church is a pilgrim
Church –
Excerpt from Response to God's Love by Fr. Edward J. Carter, S.J.
Chapter 3 - Becoming
In discussing both the world and the Church in a process of becoming, much has already been said about the individual Christian's state of becoming, because the Christian's life is inevitably caught up in the world's and the Church's existence. It is well, at this point, to more directly consider the individual Christian as a person who is in the process of growth, of becoming more what God destines him or her to be.
We are meant to be in a continuing process of becoming through a deeper radicalization of faith, hope, and love. True, one dimension of the grace-life is the fact that it is a stable given. It is not, however, a static given. We have to thrust toward that which is yet to be achieved. We are meant to be in a process of becoming the "more."
Full maturity in Christ is not suddenly achieved. Even after a relative maturity is attained, this maturity can always take deeper root. This gradual achievement in spiritual maturity can be viewed as a process of self-encounter, a process whereby we gain the proper, graced self-control amid many struggles. It is a becoming through an encounter with the true self, through a gradual achievement of that self-identity and uniqueness that God intends. This becoming is achieved through a path of progress that is not always perfectly upward: there is the reaching out for good, but also the succumbing to evil; there is the discovery of strengths and talents, but also the painful awareness of weaknesses and limitations. There are, in short, successes and failures. There is joy—sometimes intense joy—over what is achieved in personal growth; however, there are also periods of discouragement—sometimes moments of near despair—because further growth seems impossible. All this happens because the process of becoming has inherent within it a constant newness that is linked to a certain sameness. We are always the same persons, but always different persons, too.
Moreover, the process of becoming through a proper encounter with the true self takes place not in a vacuum, but rather, within the framework of an encounter with the material world, with human persons, and with God. The encounter with the material world—and, indeed, with the entire temporal order—is meant to be characterized by a correct use of creation, by periodic renunciation, and by a spirit of creativity. The correct use of material things enables the person to grow by respecting the fact that the bodily aspect of his or her being has situated him or her in a material world that is meant to serve the person's needs. The fact that persons are in part material beings means that one aspect of God's plan for men and women intends that they grow, that is to say, that they become, through the proper encounter with, or use of, the material.
As long as men and women are on this earth, there will always be in them both a sinful tendency and a thrust toward good, and, consequently, they do not always properly relate to the material. For an individual to achieve a correct use of material things and other temporal values, he or she must periodically renounce them. At times, becoming means not becoming in a certain way, not encountering this thing or this value.
Also, the material and temporal order offers wide possibilities for individual creative instincts. By shaping the raw stuff of creation through the various uses of one's creative forces, a person can become that which he or she was not. The imprint of one's creative image where it did not previously exist is a reflection of a certain development, or becoming, within the individual person...
If anyone says, "My love is fixed on God,"
yet hates his brother,
he is a liar.
One who has no love for the brother
he has seen
cannot love the God he has not seen.
—1 Jn 4:20...God draws us on to greater fulfillment according to the pattern of Christ's example and teaching. There is no other way according to which we progress to spiritual maturity. There is no Christian perfection that we can acquire, no possible development of our Christian personalities unless it occurs through Christ Jesus. The Spirit, however, does not superimpose this pattern of Christ upon us in an artificial way. The Spirit does not shape us according to the image of Christ without deep concern for our uniqueness; we are all different, and the Spirit supremely respects this fact. Furthermore, if the Spirit is of such an attitude, so must we be; we must not box ourselves in, all trying to fit into the exact same mold and maintaining that this is necessary because we must all follow the same Christ. The pattern of Christ is the creation of an infinitely wise God. He has arranged that the one pattern of Christ is also a pattern that has as many possibilities for unique assimilation as there are individual persons.
We all follow the one and same Christ and we must all have an attitude of complete openness, of expectancy concerning the unpredictable, an attitude that will allow the Spirit to lead us according to his way of forming us in the image of Christ. At times we might have a too minutely preconceived idea of how we will become in Christ and we are, therefore, somewhat rigid about the whole process. Although the following of Christ is basically the same for all, how can we be sure what particular path of imitation—mapped out in rather complete detail—the Spirit has prepared for each of us? We can certainly be tempted to think that we know with considerable certainty the way in which our becoming in Christ should logically evolve. We must learn, however, to balance an attitude of stability that is rooted in a certain way of life, a certain way of following Christ, with a spiritual freedom that makes us really open to what the Spirit wants of us, however surprising, novel, or unusual this may seem.
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© 2014 Shepherds of Christ.