Messenger:
Dear God, I kneel before you, I open my heart, I beg for
grace to be outpoured to me. I beg dear Holy Spirit for
your wisdom. I am a little child of the Father, I am
humbly kneeling before you wanting your will. I give
you myself, my Divine God, I want all my actions
to serve your Divine Majesty.
We direct our minds, we give ourselves to God, we tell Him
we want to do His will. We turn our minds and our wills to God.
We want to serve God. We want God to direct us.
Prayer for Union with Jesus
Come to me, Lord, and possess my soul. Come into my
heart and permeate my soul. Help me to sit in silence with You and let You
work in my heart.
I am Yours to possess. I am Yours to use. I want to
be selfless and only exist in You. Help me to spoon out all that is me and
be an empty vessel ready to be filled by You. Help me to die to myself and
live only for You. Use me as You will. Let me never draw my attention back
to myself. I only want to operate as You do, dwelling within me.
I am Yours, Lord. I want to have my life in You. I
want to do the will of the Father. Give me the strength to put aside the
world and let You operate my very being. Help me to act as You desire.
Strengthen me against the distractions of the devil to take me from Your
work.
When I worry, I have taken my focus off of You and
placed it on myself. Help me not to give in to the promptings of others to
change what in my heart You are making very clear to me. I worship You, I
adore You and I love You. Come and dwell in me now.
Words of Surrender of a Soul
Today Lord, (today's date), I give You my entire will-
I give You all my liberties, I want to love and serve You as You
desire.
I surrender myself to You.
I ask You to run my life.
I ask You to help me act like You, Jesus, and like Your Mother Mary.
God, this day I consecrate myself to You.
I am (name) , Your beloved child, guide me on my way now
as I go about my day (or if in Church) as I leave Your Eucharistic
presence.
Sing: Mighty Lord
Sing: Take Lord Receive
Sing: Like a Sunflower
Sing: Before the Sun Burned Bright
Messenger:
So we turn our minds and our hearts to God.
We seek deep connection with God our Father as His little child. Jesus
is our spouse. Dear Holy Spirit fill our hearts with fire and wisdom.
Dear Spirit of God permeate our souls. We want to be filled with your grace.
We want grace to permeate our soul, we beg for a deeper presence of
God within us. I unite so deeply to the Masses going on around the world.
Excerpt from January 29, 2004
God
the Father speaks:
Pray like this - say:
Dear Father, in the name of Your
Son Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, I give
you myself at this moment —
united to the Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass —
Oh Father, I love You so much and
I thank You for Your gifts to me.
Oh Father, You are so good.
Oh Father, help me.
Dear Father I pray through the
powerful intercession of Our
Lady of Clearwater and Father Carter.
I pray in union with the saints
and the souls in purgatory.
Oh Father, I love You, I love
You, I love You and beg
for Your mercy.
Oh Father, please forgive the
human race for their sins,
we are sorry for offending
God, please Father outpour
Your grace and Your mercy —
help us to be united in love
as You desire.
Dear Father cast the devil far
from us and spread us with the
Blood of Your Divine Son.
Oh Father please protect us
from the snares of the devil.
Please protect our children.
Please help us now, Father,
We pray for this particular need.
end of prayer
From The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius,
by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. p.
12
23. FIRST PRINCIPLE AND FOUNDATION
Man is created to praise, reverence and serve God
our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.
May 4, 2004
message continues
Messenger:
This is truth.
Genesis Chapter 1
In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Now the earth was a formless
void, there was darkness over the deep, with a divine wind sweeping over the
waters.
God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.
God saw that light was good, and God divided light from darkness. God called
light ‘day’, and darkness he called ‘night’. Evening came and morning
came: the first day.
God said, ‘Let there be a vault through the middle of
the waters to divide the waters in two.’ And so it was. God made the vault,
and it divided the waters under the vault from the waters above the vault. God
called the vault ‘heaven’. Evening came and morning came: the second day.
God said, ‘Let the waters under heaven come together
into a single mass, and let dry land appear.’ And so it was. God called the
dry land ‘earth’ and the mass of waters ‘seas’, and God saw that it
was good.
God said, ‘Let the earth produce vegetation:
seed–bearing plants, and fruit trees on earth, bearing fruit with their seed
inside, each corresponding to its own species.’ And so it was. The earth
produced vegetation: the various kinds of seed–bearing plants and the fruit
trees with seed inside, each corresponding to its own species. God saw that it
was good. Evening came and morning came: the third day.
God said, ‘Let there be lights in the vault of heaven
to divide day from night, and let them indicate festivals, days and years. Let
them be lights in the vault of heaven to shine on the earth.’ And so it was.
God made the two great lights: the greater light to govern the day, the
smaller light to govern the night, and the stars. God set them in the vault of
heaven to shine on the earth, to govern the day and the night and to divide
light from darkness. God saw that it was good. Evening came and morning came:
the fourth day.
God said, ‘Let the waters be alive with a swarm of
living creatures, and let birds wing their way above the earth across the
vault of heaven.’ And so it was. God created great sea–monsters and all
the creatures that glide and teem in the waters in their own species, and
winged birds in their own species. God saw that it was good. God blessed them,
saying, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters of the seas; and let the
birds multiply on land.’ Evening came and morning came: the fifth day.
God said, ‘Let the earth produce every kind of living
creature in its own species: cattle, creeping things and wild animals of all
kinds.’ And so it was. God made wild animals in their own species, and
cattle in theirs, and every creature that crawls along the earth in its own
species. God saw that it was good.
God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in the
likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the
birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild animals and all the creatures that
creep along the ground.’
God created man in the image of himself,
in the image of God he created him,
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful,
multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the
birds of heaven and all the living creatures that move on earth.’ God also
said, ‘Look, to you I give all the seed–bearing plants everywhere on the
surface of the earth, and all the trees with seed–bearing fruit; this will
be your food. And to all the wild animals, all the birds of heaven and all the
living creatures that creep along the ground, I give all the foliage of the
plants as their food.’ And so it was. God saw all he had made, and indeed it
was very good. Evening came and morning came: the sixth day.
From The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius,
by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. p.
12
23. FIRST PRINCIPLE AND FOUNDATION
Man is created to praise, reverence and serve God
our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.
Genesis 2: 8-9
Yahweh God planted a
garden in Eden, which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned. From
the soil, Yahweh God caused to grow every kind of tree, enticing to look at and
good to eat, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 2: 15-18
Yahweh God took the man
and settled him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and take care of it. Then
Yahweh God gave the man this command, ‘You are free to eat of all the trees in
the garden. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you
are not to eat; for, the day you eat of that, you are doomed to die.’
Yahweh
God said, ‘It is not right that the man should be alone. I shall make him a
helper.’
May 4, 2004
message continues
Sing: Before the Sun Burned Bright
Sing: Mighty Lord
Messenger:
We look up to God as the source of our being, God made us,
He has a plan for us.
Excerpt from Response to God's Love
1
The Mystery of
Christ and
Christian Existence
In reference to Christianity, God himself is the ultimate mystery.
Radically, God is completely other and transcendent, hidden from man in his
inner life, unless he chooses to reveal himself. Let us briefly look at this
inner life of God.
The Father, in a perfect act of self-expression, in a
perfect act of knowing, generates his son. The Son, the Word, is, then, the
immanent expression of God's fullness, the reflection of the Father.
Likewise, from all eternity, the Father and the Son bring forth the Holy
Spirit in a perfect act of loving.
At the destined moment in human history, God's
self-expression, the Word, immersed himself into man's world. God's inner
self-expression now had also become God's outer self-expression.
Consequently, the mystery of God becomes the mystery of Christ. In Christ,
God tells us about himself, about his inner life, about his plan of creation
and redemption. He tells us how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit desire to dwell
within us in the most intimate fashion, how they wish to share with us their
own life through grace. All this he has accomplished and does accomplish
through Christ. St. Paul tells us: "I became a minister of this Church
through the commission God gave me to preach among you his word in its
fullness, that mystery hidden from ages and generations past but now
revealed to his holy ones. God has willed to make known to them the glory
beyond price which this mystery brings to the Gentiles—the mystery of
Christ in you, your hope of glory. This is the Christ we proclaim while we
admonish all men and teach them in the full measure of wisdom, hoping to
make every man complete in Christ" (Col 1:25-28).
The Christian life, then, is rooted in the great event of
the Incarnation. We must, consequently, always focus our gaze upon Christ,
realizing that everything the Father wishes to tell us has been summed up in
the life of Jesus of Nazareth. It only remains for us, then, to fathom ever
more deeply the inexhaustible truth of the Word Incarnate: "In times
past, God spoke in fragmentary and varied ways to our fathers through the
prophets; in this, the final age, he has spoken to us through his Son, whom
he has made heir of all things and through whom he first created the
universe" (Heb 1:1-2).
end
of excerpt from Response to God's Love
May 4, 2004
message continues
Messenger:
God gives us a share in His joy, a special sharing in His life through grace.
In prayer we can contemplate our relationship with God. We can
contemplate the reason for our being.
Acts 17: 28
since it is in him that
we live, and move, and exist, as indeed some of your own writers have said:
We
are all his children.
May 4, 2004
message continues
Messenger:
I came from God. I receive my life from God. My relationship with
God is vital. I love Him so much, I desire to praise Him,
worship Him. I reverence Him, never wanting to take
His name in vain. He is my God. I am in awe of Him.
It is my duty as a human person created by God to worship
and love Him and show respect for my Creator.
I am dependent on God for my very being. I belong to Him.
From The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius,
by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. p.
12
23. FIRST PRINCIPLE AND FOUNDATION
Man is created to praise, reverence and serve God
our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.
May 4, 2004
message continues
Messenger:
We worship God at Holy Mass, we worship God in prayer.
May 4, 2004
message continues
Messenger:
We praise God by trying to grow in greater perfection —
by living
more perfect lives —
our lives should be lived to praise God —
we praise God by living according to His will —
Matthew 5: 48
...You must
therefore be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.’
May 4, 2004
message continues
Messenger:
If someone says to me, your son or daughter are so wonderful, I can
see your influence on their lives, this is a high compliment to me.
Genesis 1: 26-27
God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in
the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea,
the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild animals and all the
creatures that creep along the ground.’
God created man in the image of himself,
in the image of God he created him,
male and female he created them.
May 4, 2004
message continues
Messenger:
Living holy lives according to God's will is giving God the Father
praise if we are acting like His sons and daughters.
God delights in our lives lived as He wants us to live them, doing
His will, trying to be more perfected, more like Him. We are
children of God. We praise God by living holy lives
for His honor and glory. Can people see that we are acting
as holy persons of God —
in which God's light shines from
us in our actions? Are we living an existence that shows
others we are God's children living according to His will?
Do people see Our Father's influence in our actions?
God is teaching us to be like Him.
Excerpts from the Spirituality Handbook
by Father Carter
An Overview of the Spiritual Life
The Christian life is rooted in the great event of the Incarnation. We
must consequently always focus our gaze upon Christ, realizing that
everything the Father wishes to tell us has been summed up in the life,
death, and resurrection of Jesus. It only remains for us, then, to strive to
understand with greater insight the inexhaustible truth of the Word
Incarnate: "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers
by the prophets; but in these last days He has spoken to us by a Son, Whom
He appointed the heir of all things, through Whom also He created the
world." (Heb. 1: 1-2) (1)
Christ was radically to release us from the dominion of sin and elevate
us to a new level of existence. This life Christ has given us is not a type
of superstructure which is erected atop human existence. Although nature and
grace are distinct, they do not lie side by side as separate entities.
Rather, grace permeates nature. The Christian is one graced person. The
Christian is one who has been raised up, caught up, into a deeper form of
life in Christ Jesus. Nothing that is authentically human in the life of the
Christian has been excluded from this new existence. Whatever is really
human in the life of the Christian is meant to be an expression of the
Christ-life. The simple but deep joys of family life, the wonderment at
nature's beauty, the warm embrace of a mother for her child, the agony of
crucial decision making, the success or frustration that is experienced in
one's work, the joy of being well received by others, and the heartache of
being misunderstood--all these experiences are intended to be caught up in
Christ and made more deeply human because of Him.
Jesus has come, then, not to destroy anything that is authentically
human, but to perfect it by leading it to a graced fulfillment. This is the
meaning of the Word's becoming flesh, the meaning of the Incarnation. The
more God-like we become through Christ, the more human we become.
We, through our incorporation into Christ which occurs at Baptism, are
meant to relive the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In doing so, we
are not only accomplishing our own salvation, but we are assisting in the
salvation of others also. The Incarnation continues all the time. Christ, of
course, is the one Who fundamentally continues the Incarnation. But He
enlists our help. The world no longer sees Jesus, no longer is able to reach
out and touch Him. We are the ones who now, in some way, make Christ visible
and tangible. In union with the invisible, glorified Christ, and depending
on Him as our source of life, we continue the Incarnation in its visible and
temporal dimensions. This is our great privilege. This is our great
responsibility.
The Christian is initiated into the mystery of Christ, into his or her
role in prolonging the Incarnation, through Baptism. In the words of St.
Paul: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him
by Baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the
glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." (Rom.
6: 3-4).
It is not sufficient, however, that we be incorporated into Christ
through Baptism. All forms of life require nourishment. So, too, our life in
Christ must be continually nourished. How can we continually keep in contact
with Christ? There are various ways. We contact Christ in a most special way
through the liturgy, above all in the Eucharistic liturgy. Here the entire
course of salvation history, as centered in Jesus, is sacramentally renewed
and continued. Through our most special and most personal meeting with Jesus
in the Mass, we are more deeply incorporated into Christ. Also, we should
remember that all the sacraments make up part of the Church's liturgy.
The reading of Scripture provides another special opportunity for meeting
Jesus. This is true for both Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament
prefigures the New Testament and leads to it. It is obvious, however, that
we meet Christ especially in the pages of the New Testament. How true it is
to say that not to be familiar with Scripture is not to know Jesus properly.
We should resolve to read from Scripture daily.
We also meet Jesus in our interaction with others. Everyone we meet,
everyone we serve, is in the image of Jesus. We have to take the means to
grow in this awareness. If I truly believe that everyone has been redeemed
by the blood of Jesus, how should I treat everyone?
These, then, are some of the ways we keep in contact with Jesus. Common
to the various ways of meeting Jesus is a certain degree of prayerful
reflection. Our contact with Jesus in the liturgy, in Scripture, and in our
interaction with others, and so forth, will not be all that it should be
unless we are persons of prayer. The light and strength of prayer enables us
to keep in contact with Jesus as we should.
We live out our Christ-life in an atmosphere of love. Indeed, the life
Jesus has given us is centered in love. It has its origins in the mysterious
love of God: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son,
that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life"
(Jn 3: 16).
Our new life in Jesus has arisen out of God's fathomless love. Christ, in
His descent into human flesh, has established a milieu of love. The life He
came to give can flourish only in the framework of love. Indeed, we can
summarize the meaning of the Christian life by stating that it is our loving
response to God's love. The pierced Heart of Jesus, this Heart which shed
its last drop of blood in the greatest love for each one of us, is the
symbol of God's tremendous love for us. Christ's Heart also calls us to
respond by giving ourselves in love to God and neighbor. Yes, Jesus invites
us to respond to God's love by giving ourselves in love to Him in an ever
closer union. The more closely we are united to Him, the greater is our
capacity to love God and neighbor. The more closely we are united with
Jesus, the more closely He unites us to the Father in the Holy Spirit, with
Mary our Mother at our side.
Excerpt from the Spirituality Handbook
by Father Carter
Consecration to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary
We have already spoken of how we are incorporated into Christ at Baptism.
Now we shall speak of the life which comes to us in Baptism in terms of
consecration:
"To consecrate means to make sacred, to make holy. Only God can
make a being holy. So to speak of our consecration is to speak of God's
activity in making us holy, His activity of giving us a share in His own
holiness. At Baptism we receive a share in God's life, a share in His
holiness. Christ is the Mediator of this grace life. We are baptized into
Christ, into His death and resurrection. In Baptism we become holy by
sharing in the holiness of Christ. We become consecrated, sealed with the
divine holiness. We belong to the Father, through Christ, in the Holy
Spirit.
"On our part, we must respond to God's consecration of us. We must
live out the consecration of Baptism. We must realize what God has done
for us in Christ and live according to this awareness. We need to live the
life of holiness and grow in it. In other words, we must develop the life
of grace, the Christ-life.
"What God has done for us in Christ involves Mary. God has given
us a Christ-life, our life of grace, and Mary is the Mother of this
Christ-life. Consequently, living out our life of consecration to
God--living out the Christ-life--includes allowing Mary to increasingly be
the Mother of our Christ-life.
"Consecration to Mary, therefore, is an aspect of our consecration
to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is entrusting ourselves entirely to
her maternal love so that she can bring us ever closer to Jesus, so that
we can increasingly live out our consecration to God in Christ.
"At Fatima, Our Lady asked that we consecrate ourselves to her
Immaculate Heart. Mary shows us her heart as a symbol of her love for God
and us. She asks us to make a return of love to her, to consecrate
ourselves to her, to give ourselves to her completely. She wants us to
entrust ourselves to her completely so that she may help us love God and
neighbor.
"As stated above, consecration to Mary is an aspect of our
consecration to God in Christ and she has asked for consecration to her
Heart so that she may assist us. Christ, in turn, invites us to live out
this consecration to Him through consecration to His Sacred Heart. We see
the divine symmetry: consecration to the Immaculate Heart helps us to live
out consecration to Christ Who reveals His Heart as symbol of His life of
love in all its aspects, including His tremendous love for each of us
individually. His Heart also asks for our love in return, a return which
ideally is summed up in consecration to Jesus' Heart. Through this
consecration we give ourselves completely to Jesus through the Immaculate
Heart. In this consecration to Jesus, we promise to strive to live
according to His Father's will in all things." (2)
2. Edward Carter, S.J., Mother at Our Side, Faith
Publishing, Milford, Ohio, 1993, pp. 15-17.
May 4, 2004
message continues
Messenger:
This is about relationship —
relationship with God our
Creator —
relationship with each other —
We are dependent on God, we are to live a "Christ-like" existence
being the sons and daughters of God. We are to imitate the
Master in our actions.
Sing this song —
Miracle of Life
Messenger:
In the retreat we meditate on the lives of Jesus and Mary in
the Mysteries of the rosary. We meditate on a different set of
mysteries each day.
THE JOYFUL
MYSTERIES
1. The Annunciation to Mary
2. The Visitation of Mary
3. The Nativity of Our Lord
4. The Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple
5. The Finding of Jesus in the Temple
MYSTERIES OF
LIGHT
1. Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan
2. Self-Manifestation at the Marriage of Cana
3. Proclamation of the Kingdom of God
4. Transfiguration
5. Institution of the Holy Eucharist
THE
SORROWFUL MYSTERIES
1. The Agony in the Garden
2. The Scourging at the Pillar
3. The Crowning with Thorns
4. The Carrying of the Cross
5. The Crucifixion and Death of Our Lord on the Cross
THE GLORIOUS
MYSTERIES
1. The Resurrection of Our Lord
2. The Ascension of Our Lord
3. The Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and Mary
4. The Assumption of Mary into Heaven
5. The Crowning of Mary Queen of Heaven and Earth
May 4, 2004
message continues
Messenger:
We should reverence Our God, we should be in awe of Him,
we should never take the name of God in vain and we must
pray for those today who are so disrespectful to God in their speech.
It is wrong for people to disrespect God.
Someone can treat someone in authority as "one of the boys."
God is a Supreme Being. He is our Creator. He is Divine, we are
human creatures. We should never treat God with disrespect and
we, as human creatures, should make reparation to God by showing
Him love and devotion to make up for the human creatures who
disrespect God.
From The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius,
by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. p.
12
23. FIRST PRINCIPLE AND FOUNDATION
Man is created to praise, reverence and serve God
our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.
May 4, 2004
message continues
Messenger:
Once we understand our origin we should understand our duty
as the sons and daughters of God to give Him the highest praise.
I
Call You to Holiness
Copyright
© 200