April 9, 2016

                R. Dear Friends,

                    I give my heart to Jesus and Mary with
                you in love.

                    We are happy to give to you
                God's Blue Book 16.

                    It is a beautiful season in the
                Church now.

                    We think about our baptism and
                the gifts God has given us through baptism.
                We receive a sharing in His life –

                Our knowing and loving capacity is
                    elevated in baptism so we can
                    know and love on a supernatural level.

                The Father, Son and Holy Spirit dwell in
                    our graced, baptized soul.+

                    What a wonderful time for this book to
                be born.

                    We know Mary's role in our life and
                the life of the Church.

                    We anticipate the coming of Pentecost
                and pray for the Holy Spirit to fill us with His
                Gifts in helping us live this Easter Season
                with greater life in God.

                    This book blends the writings I received
                and Fr. Carter's writings from July 1, 1997
                to September 30, 1997.

                    The Movement was begun, Fr. Carter, S.J.
                said at the request of Jesus 3 years before –

                    Our Lady's image appeared in Clearwater
                just 7 months before these writings and
                remained there for 7 1/2 years.

                    God is a God of miracles. He wants us
                as members of the Mystical Body of Christ to
                live more and more deeply in Him – in Christ
                our head –

                    We are called to live this life deeper and
                deeper and our lives lived in holiness and
                prayer can help the world today –

                    We are commissioned in baptism to spread
                the Good News.

                    If we as members of the Mystical Body of
                Christ want a better world – we must take
                this new life received in baptism seriously.

                    As we live united to the Mass we can
                help to bring down great grace for ourselves,
                the priests, the Church and the world!

                    It is a calling from God – we must
                respond to His call to live more and
                more our life in Him.

                    The Eucharist and Mary our spiritual
                Mother are such a gift.

                    Mary leads us closer to Jesus in the Holy Spirit.

                    This is our goal – eternal happiness –

                    Happiness is in God!

                Help me spread this message and please pray
                    the Shepherds of Christ prayers
                    Jesus gave Fr. Carter for the
                    priests, the Church and the world!

                This is joy!

                Christ has risen!

                Happy Easter Season –

                Let's be Easter People helping the world
                    as we live as Christ commissioned
                    us in baptism –

                Let's give to the world our lives of love
                    and joy and prayer –

                We can help the world with our lives!

                Help me spread this message and the
                    Shepherds of Christ prayers and
                    let's pray in one mind and one heart
                    for the priests, the Church and the world!

                Thanks,

                Love, Rita Ring and all at Shepherds of Christ

                R. A man was given a call to do
                something for God, but he needed
                to give of his all to Him and make
                Him the King and center of his heart –
                will he not abandon his own will
                and give himself to God.

Matthew 25: 31-46

                R. God has commanded us to love –
                to love God first and to love our
                neighbor as ourselves. To love God
                with our whole heart, our whole
                soul and our whole being. God
                has commanded us to put Him
                first in our lives.

Luke 11: 9-13

Effective prayer

‘So I say to you: Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; everyone who searches finds; everyone who knocks will have the door opened. What father among you, if his son asked for a fish, would hand him a snake? Or if he asked for an egg, hand him a scorpion? If you then, evil as you are, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’

                R. 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.

                    Fr. Carter wrote his book –
                Response to God's Love to develop
                a loving response to God's love for us.
                This book was written to help us love
                as a Christian in the everyday
                experiences we have in life.

                    God first loved us.

                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 little way –

                In baptism a soul receives an added
                    sharing in His life.

                A sharing above that of our human nature.

                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
                    of 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

                Elevation – new life in Him               

                R. God is triune – human intellect by itself
                    can never arrive at that truth.

                    WILL - LOVE

1 Corinthians 10: 31

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

                R. 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

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.

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.

                Sing: New Life

                Sing: Night is Over

                Nature –  pattern
                           – structure

                R. Nature is a principle of operation.

                Everything must respect its nature.

                A fish cannot come out of water and
                    live

                R. We must respect our nature to grow
                    and live

                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 Christ-like activities through
                    the virtues of faith, hope and love

                The Christic self –

                We have a personal relationship with Jesus.
  

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.

                R. Jesus has a personal unique love for me –

                Christ is the mediator between God and man.

                Jesus says:

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

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.

                Sing: We Have Been Told

                R. My personal relationship with Jesus takes
                    in my personal uniqueness

                I am in the process of becoming!
                    (becoming more and more like Christ)

                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.

                The Christian Life considered as life in the Holy Spirit.

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.

                R. The spirit of the person within knows
                    the person –

                Others 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 life 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.

                The Christian life considered as
                    response to God's love, as
                    participation in God's life,
                    as elevation of human nature,
                    as the Christ-life, as
                    life in the Holy Spirit. Mary's role
                    in the Christian life –

                Five different views of the Christian
                    life. One basic reality includes
                    the other four.
                    Talking about the Christian life
                    from the 5 different perspectives.

                What follows are the 5 perspectives –

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

                B. The Christian life considered as
                    participation in God's life.

                C. The Christian life considered as
                    elevation of human nature.

                D. The Christian-life considered
                    as the Christ-life –

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

                Also Mary's role in the spiritual life
                    as Mother of the Church.