Can anyone please help us payoff
our loan on the building?
Please pray for Jimmy.
Pray for grace and funds.
Please pray for an urgent intention.
Jesus Statue in Florida
March 3, 2011 - 9:00am
R. I didn't know Jesus' head on the statue was knocked off,
when Jesus told me this writing.
Today is the anniversary of the Falmouth flood.
R. My dear Jesus —
I am here at the Virgin Mary building,
I am sorry Mary's image head was destroyed
by the human race.
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All 5ths -
Our Lady of Clearwater Florida
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R.
Mary's image was here for 7 and 1/2 years —
Now it is 7 years since it was destroyed
by a sling shot —
Her image head was made up of 3 panes
of glass —
No one came on March 1, 2011, the
anniversary of the destruction —
We pray here for 4 days every month
in reparation for the sins
of man and for the priests, the
Church and the world —
Mary's
Message
from the Rosary of August 27, 1996
Mary:
I stood beneath the cross of my Son, and my Heart was in such pain for I
saw Him before my eyes. I saw Him covered with blood. I saw Him die. My
Heart, my children, my Heart to watch my Son, but my Heart, my Heart, how I
suffered for my little children of the world that give in to this world and
give up the love of my Son. O my little children of light, I give you this
message. Carry this light into the darkness for your Mother Mary, for I
stood beneath the cross and I cried. I cried for the little ones. I cried
for the young ones, the ones that do not care and will lose their souls. How
do I make you see for you will not listen to me? What can I do? I come. I
appear. I beg. I plead. I give you these gifts from my Son, and you reject
me. I do not deliver messages very often anymore for I have been ignored.
The message is the same. You do not read the messages I have given to you.
Please help me. Help the little children. I appear. I appear. I appear, and
I am ignored. I stood beneath the cross, and I cried. I cried, and my Heart
was in such anguish for my little children, for I am searching for them this
day as I searched for the Child Jesus. Please, please help me. I cannot hold
back the hand of my Son any longer. I am Mary, your Mother. I ask you to
help my children. You are my children of light.
end of Mary's Message
R.
God created an orderly, harmonious world
and man sinned —
Our life here is very short —
We may not wish to think it is as short
as it is —
The Good Shepherd laid down His life
for us in His brutal and agonizing
death on the cross and rose gloriously
from the dead so that we might have
abundant life in Him —
Jesus appeared after His resurrection
to His Apostles
John 20: 19-21
In the evening of that same day, the
first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the
disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among
them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you,’ and, after saying this,
he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled
with joy at seeing the Lord, and he said to them again, ‘Peace be
with you.
‘As the Father sent me,
so am I sending you.’
R.
The world needs peace —
Individual nations need peace
Families need peace —
The Church needs peace
We must pray for peace —
Be people who are Christ-like —
St. Augustine says that peace is the
tranquility of order
God has put order into His creatures —
This order must be respected —
Mary said at Fatima
July 13, 1917
"But in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph, the
Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, Russia will be converted,
and a certain period of peace will be granted to the world."
(13)
Tell everybody that God
gives graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Tell them
to ask grace from her, and that the Heart of Jesus wishes to
be venerated together with the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Ask
them to plead for peace from the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
for the Lord has confided the peace of the world to her.
(19)
Our Lady of Fatima's Peace Plan from Heaven (Rockford: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1983).
pp.5, 10
R.
The human family will have peace when
it is living according to God's will —
obeying God's commandments —
the greatest of which is
Matthew 22: 36-40
'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.'
R.
We must live according to the order God
has established for creation —
To this extent peace will exist in the
various segments of creation —
God created man with a purpose
God created the world —
We are the creatures
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.
R.
To the extent we violate God's plan,
of His will, to that extent
peace is absent —
Prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of
your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me
sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, life.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I
may not so much seek
to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to
understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we
receive,
it is in pardoning that we are
pardoned.
It is in dying that we are born
to eternal life.
R.
If we are to be instruments of peace —
we must be at peace —
Our personal peace is that tranquility
of order which results from
our doing God's will —
Fr. Carter says "The more we are united through
love with God in the doing of
His will, the more we experience
peace —
We live daily trying to do God's will
in love
This is the key to peace in our lives —
Even in suffering — we experience
peace, because we know
if God is allowing it —
under the surface of problems —
there is peace in our soul —
for we live doing God's will
in love —
We walk through life with that depth
of peace as we experience the
everyday joys, disappointments,
successes and failures,
laughter and tears —
Fr. Carter always talked about St. Francis
de Sales and this analogy he gave —
He asks us to picture an ocean body
of water at the time of a violent
storm —
The surface of the water becomes
extremely turbulent —
Francis asks us, as we use our
imagination, to descend
beneath the surface of the
water into its depth —
What do we find?
The more deeply one descends away
from the turbulent surface,
the calmer, the water becomes.
Likewise says the saint and
doctor of the Church, should
it be with us during times of profound
suffering. Although the surface of
the spirit may be very agitated,
one can still maintain basic peace
of spirit by going deep down to one’s
center where God is more directly
experienced. Here the person
experiences a calm, a basic peace,
although the suffering remains."
R.
Fr. Carter
says
"If we are
trying to do God’s will in love,
God intends
us to be at peace.
The more we
conform to God’s will,
the more we
are living according
to the order
He intends for us.
In turn, the
more our lives are in
harmony with
the order established
by God, the
more we experience
peace—peace
being the tranquility
of order. The
more we ourselves
live in this
manner, the more fit
instruments
we become for
promoting
God’s order and
consequent
peace throughout
the various
segments of society."
From the Priestly Newsletter Book III
2000 - Issue 3
Pope John Paul II instructs us: "The Church,
as a reconciled and reconciling community, cannot forget that at the
source of her gift and mission of reconciliation is the initiative, full
of compassionate love and mercy, of that God who is love (see 1 John
4:8) and who out of love created human beings (see Wisdom 11:23-26;
Genesis 1:27: Psalms 8:4-8)…He created them so that they might live in
friendship with Him and in communion with one another.
"God is faithful to His eternal plan even when man,
under the impulse of the evil one (see Wisdom 2:24) and carried away by
his own pride, abuses the freedom given to him in order to love and
generously seek what is good, and (instead) refuses to obey his Lord and
Father. God is faithful even when man, instead of responding with love
to God’s love, opposes Him and treats Him like a rival, deluding himself
and relying on his own power, with the resulting break of relationship
with the One who created him. In spite of this transgression on man’s
part, God remains faithful in love.
"It is certainly true that the story of the Garden of
Eden makes us think about the tragic consequences of rejecting the
Father, which becomes evident in man’s inner disorder and in the
breakdown of harmony between man and woman, brother and brother (see
Genesis 3:12 ff; 4:1-16). Also significant is the Gospel parable of the
two brothers (the parable of the ‘prodigal son’; see Luke 15:11-32) who,
in different ways, distance themselves from their father and cause a
rift between them. Refusal of God’s fatherly love and of His loving
gifts is always at the root of humanity’s divisions.
"But we know that God…like the father in the parable
(of the prodigal son), does not close His heart to any of His children.
He waits for them, looks for them, goes to meet them at the place where
the refusal of communion imprisons them in isolation and division. He
calls them to gather about His table in the joy of the feast of
forgiveness and reconciliation.
"This initiative on God’s part is made concrete and
manifest in the redemptive act of Christ, which radiates through the
world by means of the ministry of the Church."
13
Shortly before he was to die from
cancer, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin left us these inspiring words about peace:
"It is the first day of November, and fall is giving way to winter.
Soon the trees will lose the vibrant colors of their leaves and snow will
cover the ground. The earth will shut down, and people will race to and from
their destinations bundled up for warmth. Chicago winters are harsh. It is a
time of dying.
"But we know that spring will soon come with all its
new life and wonder.
"It is quite clear that I will not be alive in the
spring. But I will soon experience new life in a different way...
"What I would like to leave behind is a simple
prayer that each of you may find what I have found—God's
special gift to us all: the gift of peace. When we are at peace, we find the
freedom to be most fully who we are, even in the worst of times. We let go
of what is non-essential and embrace what is essential. We empty ourselves
so that God may more fully work within us. And we become instruments in the
hands of the Lord."
15
St. Teresa of Avila, one of the three
women doctors of the Church, tells us how the spiritual life is summed
up in loving conformity to the Father’s will:
"All that the beginner in prayer has
to do — and you must not forget this, for it is very important — is to
labor and to be resolute and prepare himself with all possible diligence
to bring his will in conformity with the will of God. As I shall say
later, you may be quite sure that this comprises the very greatest
perfection which can be attained on the spiritual road."
16
Again she states: "...love consists
... in the firmness of our determination to try to please God in
everything."
17
We live out our spiritual
lives within the Church. The Church is a multi-splendored reality. Let
us reflect upon some of the key ideas connected with the Church.
-
Henri de Lubac states: "The Church is a
mysterious extension in time of the Trinity, not only preparing us for
the life of unity but bringing about even now our participation in it.
She comes from and is full of the Trinity. She is for us — in a favourite phrase of Bossuet
— ‘Jesus Christ … communicated’. She is
‘the Incarnation continued.’ She is, as Dietrick Bonhoeffer used to say,
‘the presence of Christ on earth’ — she speaks with ‘the authority of
Christ living and present in her.’… St. Paul applies to her this same
word ‘mystery’ which he had first used of Christ. She is after all, the
spouse of Christ and his body." 19
-
Fr. Bruno Forte tells us: "The Church
comes from the Trinity, reflects in itself the Trinitarian
communion—oneness in diversity—and journeys toward the Trinity, to the
final handing over of all things to Christ, so that he might hand them
over to the Father and God might be all in all. As ‘a people gathered in
the unity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,’ the
Church is the Church of the Father. In his universal salvific plan, God
has willed it to be a sign and instrument of the unity of people among
themselves and with him. It is the Church of the Son, who through his
incarnation and the paschal mystery has placed it in history as His
Body. It is the Church of the Spirit, who makes the Risen Christ present
in human history and enriching the people of God with charisms and
ministries, leads it toward the promised future goal."
20
-
The fact that the Church is here on earth
a reflection of the Trinitarian Community easily leads us to reflect
upon the Church as the Body of Christ, since this name given to the
Church also emphasizes the communal aspect of the Church. St. Paul tells
us: For as with the human body which is a unity although it has many
parts — all the parts of the body, though many, still making up one
single body — so it is with Christ. We were baptised into one body in a
single Spirit, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as free men, and
we were all given the same Spirit to drink. And indeed the body consists
not of one member but of many. If the foot were to say, ‘I am not a hand
and so I do not belong to the body’, it does not belong to the body any
the less for that. Or if the ear were to say, ‘I am not an eye, and so I
do not belong to the body’, that would not stop its belonging to the
body. If the whole body were just an eye, how would there be any
hearing? If the whole body were hearing, how would there be any
smelling?
Now Christ’s body is yourselves, each
of you with a part to play in the whole. And those whom God has
appointed in the Church are, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly
teachers; after them, miraculous powers, then gifts of healing, helpful
acts, guidance, various kinds of tongues. Are all of them apostles? Or
all prophets? Or all teachers? Or all miracle-workers? Do all have the
gifts of healing? Do all of them speak in tongues and all interpret
them? (1 Cor 12:12-17; 27-30)
-
Some two thousand years ago Christ walked
the earth teaching, healing the sick, forgiving sins, extending His
mercy and kindness. By such a life which culminated in death and
resurrection, Christ redeemed the world. This objective redemption was
accomplished by Christ alone. Through it, He won for people of all time
the necessary graces for their salvation and sanctification.
However, it is necessary that such graces
be distributed to each individual as one plays out his or her part in
the drama of human existence. Such a distribution of grace is the work
of subjective redemption.
Jesus still walks the earth as the work
of redemption continues. However, He now walks the earth according to a
different type of existence. He does not walk the earth in His physical
body, but rather in His Mystical Body, the Church, the People of God.
Through the members of His Church, Christ continues to be present as He
teaches, administers the sacraments, extends His mercy — all done
through the members of His Body, the Church. This mystical Christ, in
turn, derives all supernatural power from Christ, the Head, who reigns
gloriously with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
The Church, therefore, is the earthly
continuation of Christ’s redemptive Incarnation. This mission which the
Church has, although a great responsibility, is also a great privilege.
In proportion as each Christian offers and commits himself or herself to
Christ, the Church in her entirety more and more mirrors forth Christ to
the world. This Christ, whom the Church portrays to the world, is the
Christ who is Prophet, King and Priest.
-
We now reflect upon the Church as Spouse
of Christ. Fr. Joseph Murphy, S.J., tells us: "John Paul II always
quotes the rich doctrinal and patristic traditions of the Church which
refer to Christ as the Spouse of the Church and the Spouse of souls,
given to both in the Eucharistic mystery. For him the key to
understanding the sacramentality of marriage, not to mention the nature
of humanity, is the spousal love of Christ for the Church demonstrated
in Ephesians 5. Christ is the Head of the Church as Savior of His Body.
The Church is exactly that Body which receives from Him all that through
which it becomes and is His Body. As Head and Savior of the Church He is
also Bridegroom of His Bride…" 21
"The Church is my mother because she
brought me forth to a new life. She is my mother because her concern for
me never slackens, any more than do her efforts to deepen that life in
me, however unenthusiastic my cooperation. And though in me this life
may be a fragile and timid growth, I have seen its full flowering in
others...
"Happy those who from childhood have
learnt to look on the Church as a mother! Happier still those whose
experience, in whatever walk of life, has confirmed its truth! Happy
those who one day were gripped by (and whose appreciation of it ever
grew) the astonishing newness, richness and depth of the life
communicated to them by this mother!" 22
-
Avery Dulles, S.J., the well-known
theologian who has written much about the Church, observes: "The Church,
as I have already contended, is essentially a mystery of grace, a
wonderful encounter between the divine and the human. Even in its
visible structures, the Church is not a mere organization to be judged
on grounds of efficiency, but a sacrament of God’s saving deed in Jesus
Christ. From this it follows, in my judgment, that the Church’s forms of
speech and life, and indeed its entire corporate existence, must be such
as to mediate a vital communion with Christ the Lord. The Church must be
a place of prayer and worship, praise and witness. Any institutional
change in the Church must be carefully assessed for its effect on the
spiritual life of the members. Does it intensify their faith, their
hope, their charity? Does it help them to center their lives on Christ
and to ground their existence in the God who raised him from the dead?"23
"If you live in the Church and try to use
the power of the Church to increase the life of the Church, then the
power of the Church will make you yourself whole; and in your wholeness
you will help to make your family and make your world. But you will be
building for a more than earthly beatitude because you will be building
the city which is eternal. Here you build in shadow, you build for a
future which is invisible, and so you can only build in hope. And often
your plans will be wrecked and your dreams come crashing about your
ears, and you will need the strength of the Rock which is Christ to give
you patience and fortitude...
"And when death has come to you...the
Church will bless you for the life you have added to it, and there will
be men to heed you better than they did when you were here...
"But you, for your part, will be no
longer in the shadow but in the glory of the Light inaccessible; you
will be in the City that is yours because you helped to build it; you
will see Him at last as He is, and be wholly with Him; and you will have
no more any mourning or weeping or any other sorrow, for all these
former things will have been transmuted into happiness and peace, and
you will walk with Him—together with all those you have helped to bring
to Him, even until the end of the world—you will walk with Him in
happiness for ever, in the cool of the eternal evening."
24
The Church’s existence
centers in her liturgy. Vatican II says: "The liturgy is the summit
toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it
is the fountain from which all her power flows."
25 The
Church’s liturgical life is centered in the sacraments and, most
especially, in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. We will briefly consider the
sacraments in general, and then more extensively develop ideas about the
Mass.
The sacraments are special encounters
with Christ. Jesus unites Himself with the sacramental sign as He offers
His grace to the recipient. In this sense, Christ and His sacraments
become one; the sacrament and its minister are merely instruments that
Christ employs to give Himself anew. The primary sacramental encounter
is between Jesus and the recipient.
Christ offers Himself through the Church
and her sacraments so that we might become ever more united to Him. This
incorporation into Christ begins at baptism, through which the Christian
becomes a member of both Christ and the Church. What is more, this
incorporation into the life of Christ means being incorporated into his
paschal mystery. Death-resurrection was the summary mystery of Christ’s
redemptive existence. Death-resurrection was the central mystery whereby
Christ gave us life, and it is the central mystery that the Christian
must relive in Christ.
Each one of the sacraments deepens our
incorporation into Jesus’ death-resurrection; each one achieves this in
a somewhat different manner according to its primary purpose; finally,
and very importantly, each of the sacraments deepens this incorporation
within an ecclesial framework. The sacraments, because they are
realities of both Christ and his Church, intensify the Christian’s
relationship not only with Jesus, but also with the members of the
Church and, ultimately, with all others.
The death-resurrection of Jesus, which
is encountered in a special way through the sacraments, is most
especially renewed in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Consequently, we can
see the logical connection between the sacraments and the Mass. Indeed,
all of the sacraments point to the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
At the Last Supper, on the night He
was betrayed, our Saviour instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His
Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the
Cross throughout the centuries until He should come again, and so to
entrust to His beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and
resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a
paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with
grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us (Vatican II,
Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, No. 17)26
The Church, therefore, earnestly
desires that Christ's faithful, when present at this mystery of faith,
should not be there as strangers or silent spectators. On the contrary,
through a proper appreciation of the rites and prayers they should
participate knowingly, devoutly, and actively. They should be instructed
by God’s word and be refreshed at the table of the Lord’s body; they
should give thanks to God; by offering the Immaculate Victim, not only
through the hands of the priest, but also with him, they should learn to
offer themselves too. Through Christ the Mediator, they should be drawn
day by day into ever closer union with God and with each other, so that
finally God may be all in all. (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,
No. 48)27
Through the Eucharistic Sacrifice
Christ the Lord desired to set before us in a very special way this
remarkable union whereby we are united one with another and with our
divine Head, a union that no word of praise can ever sufficiently
express. For in this sacrifice the sacred ministers act not only as the
representative of our Saviour, but as the representative of the whole
Mystical Body and of each one of the faithful. Again, in this act of
sacrifice, the faithful of Christ, united by the common bond of devotion
and prayer, offer to the eternal Father through the hands of the priest,
whose prayer alone has made it present on the altar, the Immaculate
Lamb, the most acceptable victim of praise and propitiation for the
Church’s universal need. Moreover, just as the divine Redeemer, while
dying on the Cross, offered Himself to the eternal Father as Head of the
whole human race, so now, ‘in this clean oblation’ He not only offers
Himself as Head of the Church to His heavenly Father but in Himself His
mystical members as well. He embraces them all, yes, even the weaker and
more ailing members, with the deepest love of His Heart. (Pope Pius XII,
Mystici Corporis AAS, XXXV, 232-233)28
Pope John Paul II states: "This
worship, given therefore to the Trinity of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit, above all accompanies and permeates the celebration
of the Eucharistic Liturgy. But it must fill our churches also outside
the timetable of Masses. Indeed, since the Eucharistic Mystery was
instituted out of love, and makes Christ sacramentally present, it is
worthy of thanksgiving and worship. And this worship must be prominent
in all our encounters with the Blessed Sacrament, both when we visit our
churches and when the sacred species are taken to the sick and
administered to them.
"Adoration of Christ in this sacrament
of love must also find expression in various forms of Eucharistic
devotion: personal prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, Hours of
Adoration, periods of exposition—short, prolonged and annual (Forty
Hours) - Eucharistic benediction, Eucharistic processions, Eucharistic
congresses. A particular mention should be made at this point of the
Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ as an act of public worship
rendered to Christ present in the Eucharist, a feast instituted by my
predecessor Urban IV in memory of the institution of this great Mystery.
"All this therefore corresponds to the
general principles and particular norms already long in existence, but
newly formulated during or after the Second Vatican Council.
"…The Church and the world have a
great need of Eucharistic worship. Jesus waits for us in this sacrament
of love. Let us be generous with our time in going to meet Him in
adoration and in contemplation that is full of faith and ready to make
reparation for the great faults and crimes of the world. May our
adoration never cease."29
The following words of Fr. M. Raymond,
O.C.S.O., emphasize the great importance regarding personal holiness and
one’s participation in the Mass: "Mass, insomuch as it is Christ’s
offering, is not only always acceptable to God, but is of infinite value
as well.
"But, inasmuch as it is your offering
and mine, and that of every other member of the Mystical Body ... we can
limit the effectiveness of God’s great Act of Love; we finite beings can
set bounds to the veritable flood of God-life made possible by the
Infinite Son of the Infinite Father." 30
Yes, the effectiveness of each Mass,
which makes the sacrifice of Calvary sacramentally present, depends in
part on the holiness of the entire Church offering it with Christ to the
Father in the Holy Spirit, including the holiness of the individual
priest offering and the holiness of his participating congregation.
Yes, the effectiveness of each Mass,
which makes the sacrifice of Calvary sacramentally present, depends in
part on the holiness of the entire Church offering it with Christ to the
Father in the Holy Spirit, including the holiness of the individual
priest offering and the holiness of his participating congregation.
-
Fr. Maurice de la Taille, S.J.,
formerly professor of theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University,
and a universally recognized authority on the Mass, also points out the
great importance of personal holiness in the Church relative to the
effectiveness of the Eucharistic sacrifice: "It is, then, of the
greatest importance that there should be in the Church many holy, many
very holy persons. Devout people, men and women, who should be urged by
every means to higher sanctity, so that through them the value of our
Masses may be increased and the tireless voice of the Blood of
Christ, crying from the earth, may ring with greater clearness and
insistence in the ears of God. His Blood cries on the altars of the
Church, but, since it cries through us, it follows that the warmer the
heart, the purer the lips, the more clearly will its cry be heard at the
Throne of God. Would you wish to know why for so many years after the
first Pentecost the Gospel was so marvelously propagated, why there was
so much sanctity amongst the Christian people; why such purity in heart
and mind, such charity, the sum of all perfection? You will find the
answer when you recall that in those times the Mother of God was still
on earth giving her precious aid in all the Masses celebrated by the
Church, and you will cease to wonder that never since has there been
such expansion of Christianity, and such spiritual progress."
31
If all, then, have a responsibility to
grow in holiness in order to render the Mass more efficacious, the
priest has a special duty to do so. His goal must always be to grow in
holiness — to grow in union with Christ the Priest, this Christ Who
leads us to the Father in the Holy Spirit with Mary at our side.
-
The Sacrifice of Calvary is
sacramentally made present in the Mass. When we pray the Morning
Offering Prayer, united to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we act as
intercessors, pleading to God that great graces be released all day
through our prayerful actions as we act in love according to the
Father’s will. Whether we are eating, taking care of a sick parent,
enjoying time spent with a friend, working at our job, we can help bring
down great graces for the world.
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."
32
-
Fr. Edward Leen, C.S. Sp., tells us:
"Unless we are pleasing to God we cannot be saved, we cannot realize the
purpose of our divine adoption. We cannot please God unless we resemble
Jesus Christ, and the Blessed Sacrament is instituted for the very
object of perfecting in us this likeness. Bodily food is transformed
into the flesh of him that receives it; this heavenly food, the food of
our souls, which is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, has the directly
opposite effect: it changes him who receives it into Itself. It must not
be forgotten that the presence in us which follows the reception of Holy
Communion is a living active presence. Our Lord is more present with us
than is a person with whom we are speaking. As He influenced whilst on
earth those who allowed themselves to fall under the charm of His
Personality, so He exercises a profound effect on the soul of the
communicant, if that soul wishes to submit to His action. We cannot be
in the society of one who is good without being incited to goodness; we
cannot be with Our Lord—and we are as close to Him as our desires
extend—without receiving the effects of His virtue and without being
stirred to become as he was, without being drawn, in a mystical sense to
become one with Him, to become ‘Christified’."33
-
From a spiritual journal: "Go to the
tabernacle. Jesus will give us our answers. He is waiting for us to
come. We must come and sit in silence and let Him work in our hearts. We
must not be filled with fear, we should be filled with hope and joy. We
must pray to the Holy Spirit to give us His wisdom to know the will of
the Father. Mary is our Mother. She will help us with all our trials and
all of our struggles. We must discipline our thoughts and go to the
Heart of Jesus. It is through the Eucharist that we will be strengthened
for our trials.
"This is how I am with Jesus. I am
empty. I want Him to make Himself known to me. I didn’t have much
theological knowledge when I started sitting in front of the tabernacle.
I was looking for love from Jesus. Nobody loved me the way my soul
wanted to be loved. I craved to be with Jesus. I wanted my heart filled.
I wanted the craving I felt inside satisfied. I thirsted for love. I sat
with Him present in the tabernacle and He filled me. He revealed Himself
to me. He was the Bridegroom of my soul and I His bride. As I became
more intimately united to Him, sitting there in silence and going to
Him, I cried. I was so filled with love. I found what I was looking for
all my life. He wrote the knowledge of Himself on my soul. He wrote this
knowledge in the intimate moments I spent with Him at Mass after
Communion and before the tabernacle.
"I struggle intently to do His work,
and I am weary from running the race. I am tired, I am truly human, but
the unquenchable love I have for Him in my heart is at the core of my
existence. It is in Him I exist and in Him I love. I love Him so
intently and yet I am so unworthy of His gifts given to me. I long more
for the desire to help souls, and His desires become mine through my
deep union with Him especially after the reception of the Eucharist. On
this day (Feast of the Assumption), I felt the unquenchable purity of
the Heart of Mary and the joy of dwelling deeply in His Heart in her
pure love. It was a special gift He gave to me, to be wrapped in Mary’s
Heart despite my faults. He gave Himself so completely to me. I only
long for this, knowing this presence. 34
-
Mother Teresa of Calcutta shares these
thoughts with us: "I make a holy hour each day in the presence of Jesus
in the Blessed Sacrament. All my sisters of the Missionaries of Charity
make a daily holy hour, as well, because we find that through our daily
holy hour our love for Jesus becomes more intimate, our love for each
other more understanding, and our love for the poor more compassionate.
Our holy hour is our daily family prayer where we get together and pray
the Rosary before the exposed Blessed Sacrament for the first half hour,
and the second half hour we pray in silence. Our adoration has doubled
our vocations. In 1963, we were making a weekly hour together, but it
was not until 1973, when we began our daily holy hour that our community
started to grow and blossom."35
-
St. Peter Julian Eymard, founder of
the Blessed Sacrament Fathers, tells us: "The Eucharist, behold the
Christian's treasure, his delight on earth. Since Jesus is in the
Eucharist for him personally, his whole life ought to be drawn to it
like a magnet to its center."36
__________
13. Pope John Paul II, as in
Celebrate 2000!, Servant Publications, pp. 140-141.
15. Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, The Gift of
Peace, Loyola University Press, pp. 151-153.
16. St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, translated by E. Allison
Peers, Doubleday and Co., "Second Mansions", p. 51.
17. Ibid., "Fourth Mansions", p. 76.
19. Henri de Lubac, S. J., The Church: Paradox
and Mystery, translated by James R. Dunne, Alba House, p. 24.
20. Fr. Bruno
Forte, He Loved Them to the End, St. Paul Books & Media, p.
74-75.
21. The Thoughts of Pope John Paul II: A
Collection of Essays and Studies, John M. McDermott, S. J., Editor,
Editrice Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, p. 135.
22. Henri de Lubac, S.J., The Church: Paradox
and Mystery, op. cit., pp. 2-4.
23. Avery Dulles,
S.J., The Resilient Church, Doubleday & Company, p. 39.
24. Gerald Vann, O.P., The Heart of Man,
Longmans, Green and Co., pp. 151-152.
25. The Documents of Vatican II,
"Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy", America Press Edition, No. 10.
26. Ibid,
No. 17
27. Ibid, No. 48.
28. Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Letter, Mystici Corporis, AAS XXXV,
pp. 232-233.
29. Letter of Pope John Paul II,
The Mystery and Worship of the Eucharist, Pauline Books and
Media, No. 3
30. M. Raymond,
O.C.S.O. This Is Love, Bruce, p. 106.
31. Maurice de la Taille, S. J., The Mystery of Faith, Book 2,
"The Sacrifice of the Church", translated by Joseph Carroll and P. J.
Dalton, Sheed and Ward, p. 240.
32, Rita Ring, Rosary Meditations for Parents and Children,
Shepherds of Christ Ministries, p. 189
33. Fr. Edward Leen, C.S..Sp., In the Likeness
of Christ, Sheed and Ward, pp. 250-252.
34. Rita Ring, Mass Book - A Journey into the Hearts of Jesus and
Mary, Shepherds of Christ Ministries, p. 101
35. Mother Teresa, Rosary Meditations from
Mother Teresa, contact Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament, PO Box
1701, Plattsburgh, New York.
36. St. Peter
Julian Eymard, Eucharistic Handbook, Emmanuel Publications, as in
Adoration, Ignatius Press, p.97.
from Tell My People
Age of the Two
Hearts
Jesus: "My beloved priest-companion, I have
allowed you to experience in extraordinary fashion the riches contained in
My Heart and My Mother's Heart. I desire that you tell all My people about
these riches. I desire that My people consecrate themselves to My Sacred
Heart and to Mary's Immaculate Heart. My people are living in the beginnings
of the age of the Two Hearts.
"After the time of the purification is completed,
this new era of the Church and the world will become firmly established.
This era will be characterized by the triumph of the Immaculate Heart and
the reign of My Sacred Heart. All those who consecrate themselves to My
Heart and to My Mother's Heart will help to establish this glorious new age.
I am Lord and Master. Please listen to My urgent request. Within Our Hearts
you will experience the love and security, the peace and the joy, which you
all desire. I love My people with a tremendous love, and in My love I give
them this message!"
March 3, 1997
Day Falmouth Flooded Early Morning
Jesus: Oh, the waters will run and
the earth will shake and you will suffer and suffer and work your own plan
and say it happened before, it is not a sign from God - it is a
phenomenon, a happening, no reason to take notice.
And I will shake you on your tree and you will fall to
the ground as rotten fruit and all that will remain will be the fruit of
heaven.
R. We, as the people of God are
destined to Christian holiness —
We are to live holy lives —
To live to be more perfected in
love more as Our Heavenly Father is
perfect —
We are to reach maturity more and more
in the Christ life —
God has given to us this sharing
in His life through baptism —
We are called to holiness —
The Holy Spirit leads us in this
life of sanctification —
In obedience to the Father's will
we are to worship God and love God
first with our whole heart,
our whole soul and our whole being —
What is grace —
Excerpt from Response in Christ
— The Christian Life of Grace
Grace is first and foremost the lavish self-giving or
self-communication of God to man through the person Christ. This is
the stress of St. Paul. Contemporary theology therefore is correct
in describing grace first of all in terms of the special presence of
the Triune God. The divine persons are present to give us a
participation in their own life, to be a guide of our actions, and
to be known and loved by us. This special presence is variously
named: the divine indwelling, the indwelling of the Trinity,
uncreated grace.
R. In baptism we receive a sharing
in God's life —
our knowing and loving capacity
is elevated —
The Father, Son and Holy Spirit dwell
in a special way in the graced
baptized soul —
There is a special presence of the
Triune God dwelling in us —
The Divine Persons give us a
participation in Their own
life — through this life
of grace we receive in
baptism and we are careful to remain
in the state of grace by obedience
to the commandments of God —
This special presence is named
the Divine Indwelling of the Trinity
John 14: 23
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.
R. Through this special presence —
Father, Son and Holy Spirit unite
themselves so intimately to us in
personal love that Their image is
left upon us —
God gives Himself to us in this
special presence —
the life of grace —
Grace is given
Grace is received
We are given such a gift —
God is all good and He gives us
this precious gift —
Today’s Gospel in its story certainly
points ahead to Jesus in His Passion and death. And as we read passages such
as this during the Lenten season, we are reminded once again that the Church
in her Liturgy of the Word gives us an opportunity to undergo a purification,
an ever deepening cleansing of ourselves so that we may be a more fit
instrument for receiving the great graces which are to be given to us at the
time of the Resurrection memorial on Easter. And so all in all, Lent is a time
of purification to prepare us for ever-greater gifts of the Lord. It’s a
time of self-discipline, a time to renew our efforts to be self-disciplined in
the service of the Lord. Self-discipline is an aspect of purification. And I
suggest that one of the most difficult acts of self-discipline in the
spiritual journey is to concentrate on the present moment. We have a very
strong tendency to disregard the importance of the present moment by focusing
in a wrong way on the past or in a wrong way on the future. There are proper
occasions for thinking of the past and the future. For example, we have to
learn from the past and we have to prepare for the future, but our great
emphasis has to be upon the present. There is a Latin axiom which says, age
quod agis, age quod agis, which means: do what you are doing, concentrate
on the present. And of course we are familiar with that term in the history of
spirituality: the sacrament of the present moment. And so the discipline of
Lent certainly encourages us to include in a deeper self-discipline a greater
determination to get as much as we can out of the present moment. People with
a terminal illness have an opportunity as they prepare for death for increased
prayer, contrition, love of God. However, some are taken very, very quickly.
But for those who have the opportunity of knowing with some certainty the time
of their death, I’m sure as they look back on their lives, they are saddened
by the many times they did not use time and opportunities for the service of
the Lord properly, and are overjoyed at those times in which they did use the
present opportunity properly. A great means we have of living in the present
properly is a greater focus upon our Lord. For if I have that awareness of the
fact I am united with Jesus here and now, why should I be concerned so much
about the future or the past? Yes, a great help in living in the present and
deriving all the good we can from it for ourselves and others is an ever
greater focus upon Jesus, because the more I focus upon Jesus and the more I
live with Him in the present moment, the more I am satisfied with the present
moment. And so let us in our Lenten activity resolve to grow in that
self-discipline - which is very difficult at times - to really live in the
presence with the fullness of our being as much as is possible, with the help
of God’s grace. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the day of salvation.
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Crucifixes, and
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© 2011 Shepherds of Christ.