A Prayer for Intimacy with the Lamb,
the Bridegroom of the Soul

    Oh Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of the world, come and act on my soul most intimately. I surrender myself, as I ask for the grace to let go, to just be as I exist in You and You act most intimately on my soul. You are the Initiator. I am the soul waiting Your favors as You act in me. I love You. I adore You. I worship You. Come and possess my soul with Your Divine Grace, as I experience You most intimately.

  

                       
               Pray for 5 urgent intentions.

               Pray for a particular bishop and cardinal.

               Pray for the pope.
                         
               We desperately need funds.
                Please pray for this.
  

    
June 28, 2002

Jesus speaks:    I speak to you of trust.
  

June 28, 2002 message continues

Jesus speaks:     Say over and over again Sacred Heart of Jesus I trust

                                in You.

                            Stay united in prayer.

                            You have been given such a gift in the Mass.

                            Pray united to the Mass.

                            There is so much Power in the Mass.
     

    from Tell My People

                                                Trust in Jesus

Jesus: "My beloved priest-companion, tell My people to trust Me unreservedly. I am Lord and Master. I am their God. So many fail to trust Me as they should. I love all My people much, much more than they love themselves. This great love of Mine should encourage the greatest trust. The more you realize how much a friend loves you, the more you place your trust in the friend. I am your perfect Friend! I love you infinitely more than your best earthly friend. Tell My people to give Me their trust. Tell them to say often, 'Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place my trust in You.' I am Lord and Master. Please do as I request."
  
End of excerpt  from Tell My People
  

Don't Ever Close Your Heart

November 2, 1993 - 4:00a.m.

Put yourself in My presence and come to Me not all bowed down but as you were awaiting a King. You would rise to the occasion with such an eager heart! I am God and I am truly present to you. Come with your heart full of excitement and yearning. Come to Me and know God truly waits to be with you. Empty your mind of fear and doubts and let Me do My work in you. I am the Good Shepherd. I know Mine and they follow Me. Follow Me for nothing else matters.

What you write here is not up to you. I will fill you and you will know all I say comes from Me, the one, true, magnificent God. To you be honor, My little ones, because I have created you little less than an angel. Your mother is Mary. Your Father is God. Open your hearts to My words that I might work in your heart. Your heart is My instrument to reach your brothers. I act in your heart when I love your brothers through you. Don't ever close your heart, even for a little while. Put doubt and fear aside. Trust totally in My Sacred Heart. I am He Who is with you always, always by your side, catching you when you fall, guarding you and you doubt Me. You move away and want to run to the world for your security. Run to My open arms and let Me hold you and feel My security! I have security, but not as the world could ever give it. I am security and you know it when you open up to Me. Satan will try everything to close you down, get you to doubt. You must ask for my strength. Ask Me to take the blinders off your eyes so you can see all that I want to show you.

I show you My heart, ablaze in fire, warm and kindling. I show you this heart and you feel the heat as of an open furnace. The heart is My love. Be of the heart, My children. It is there that you learn to know Me. Let your heart be as an open door to Me. It is always open and ready to whatever I send your way.

I come into your heart and I fill you with all My gifts. You were made whole. Your chest was on fire with the love of Christ and you doubted no more because such a union was unmistakable and true.

The heart of Jesus radiates power and light. It is ablaze for you every day in the Eucharist. He comes to you as a bridegroom awaiting His bride and He gives you His love. Be ready for the occasion. Anticipate the event with great eagerness. Let yourself be open and vulnerable as a new bride. Take all He gives and do not turn away. Let yourself be filled to all the gifts you receive and have His joy, which only He can give.

Oh, if you could only know a little of what I have in store for you! The trumpet sounds and all glory you shall know at the appointed hour. You will be taken into My glorious kingdom and all your pain will cease. Your mind cannot even imagine what you will experience. Trust in Me, My babies. My love is everlasting. It never runs cold. It only gets hotter as we grow in our love. Will you put all the things of this world aside and come to Me? Let go of yourself. Let go of any doubts. Choose Me as your Savior and let no talk that is not conducive of My trust into your mind. Know I am truth, your truth-one, true, magnificent God-Who loves you and never leaves your side. Don't ever doubt Me, even a little. You are My baby. Be a baby. Let Me rock you in My arms and you will know I am truly here with you! Your fears and doubts leave like a thief in the night and peace covers you as a warm blanket and you are filled by Me, your one, true, glorious Savior. I love you. Alleluia, Alleluia.

Trust in Me, My child. Your mind can run crazy. Open yourself up to Me and trust. Why do you not see that Satan wants to stop you and that he does not want the world to get these messages. Such messages of love and comfort! If he can work on you, you will stop. Don't be fooled by him. He is the grand deceiver. He plans to trip you up, to rob your sanity and move in with his sick ways. You, My child, are strong in Me. I need you to do My work. Laboring in your head, looking for proof, not totally trusting in Me-those come from him. Step on his head. Do not doubt. Pray for My strength. Open your heart to Me and My love-no room for a drop of doubt. I am truly here talking to you, little one. Think about My passion and death. I loved you. I love you this much still today. My heart is so on fire for love of you. You can't even begin to know how much love I have for you. Just be open to all I send you and cast your doubts away. It is your act of trusting that helps you develop trust in Me. Step-by-step you ascend the stairs and you get closer each time to trusting more in Me. It is your taking each little step that counts. Ascend My steps each day, every day. A million times a day you can trust or worry. You choose, "Do I trust or not trust?" How could you not trust after all I did to prove My love for you? Focus on My passion, on My wounds, on My love, on Me, the one, true God, Who loves you this much! You are precious to Me, My little baby. Come and let Me comfort you. Lose yourself in My arms. "And they came and they were given His peace and love deep in their souls."

                End of November 2, 1993
  

                                    
                                Excerpt from Response to God's Love, p. 47 
                                                    by Father Edward J. Carter, S.J.     

                           

               Hope

      ...Let us also remember that as we trust in God so we receive. There are certainly exceptions to this role—God can, for example, give great graces to a person at a time when trust is feeble—but the general principle stands. In our Christian hope, let us expect great things from God—remembering what truly great things are in the sight of God—not only for ourselves, but also for others...

                           End of excerpt from Response to God's Love 
  

  
June 28, 2002 message continues  

Messenger:        Part of Fr. Carter's newsletter on Trust will 

                                follow at the end of this message.

Jesus speaks:     Be thankful.

Messenger:        Oh God thank You for the gifts You have given

                                to me.

                            Thanks for the gifts You have given to us.
    

  
A Prayer of Thanksgiving

O God, on behalf of Shepherds of Christ Ministries and Our Lady of Light Ministry, we offer up these prayers of thanksgiving:

Thank You Father for Your love, patience, and understanding. We know we are not worthy of such gifts, but that You give them anyway - because of Your great love for souls.

Thank You Jesus for the many gifts and graces You give us as members of Your Movement - Shepherds of Christ. We offer You our love and gratitude through Your Mother's Immaculate Heart.

Thank You Holy Spirit for Your special gifts. Please inspire us to be grateful for what we have been given. Please help us to give ourselves in love to You and all we meet.

Thank You Holy Trinity for Your boundless love and mercy. Please help us to nurture Your presence within us. Help us to be obedient to Your commands and give all the glory to You - Our loving God. We especially thank You for the gift of our Heavenly Mother, Mary.

Thank you Mary for your example while on earth, and for your constant intercession today. Please help us to grow in holiness and put into action all that your Son, Jesus, asks of us.

We thank St. Michael and the Holy Angels for their prayers, help, and protection. Finally, we thank the saints in heaven and the souls in purgatory for their prayers. We ask them to unite with us in giving thanks and praise to the most Holy Trinity - Our Heavenly Father, Our Lord Jesus, and our Comforter- the Holy Spirit.

We love You! We love You! We love You! Amen.

-This Prayer of Thanksgiving is by John Weickert

(TO BE RECITED AT THE END OF EACH DAY)
  

from the Priestly Newsletter

September/October 1995

Trust in the Lord

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd is one who lays down his life for his sheep. The hired man, since he is not the shepherd and the sheep do not belong to him, abandons the sheep and runs away as soon as he sees a wolf coming, and then the wolf attacks and scatters the sheep; this is because he is only a hired man and has no concern for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep. (Jn 10:11-15¹)

The fact that Jesus the Good Shepherd has laid down His life for each and every one of us should fill us with the greatest confidence, with the greatest trust. As St. Paul tells us: “We were still helpless when at His appointed moment Christ died for sinful men. It is not easy to die, even for a good man—though, of course, for someone really worthy, a man might be prepared to die—but what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. Having died to make us righteous, is it likely that He would now fail to save us from God’s anger? When we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, we were still enemies; now that we have been reconciled, surely we may count on being saved by the life of His Son? Not merely because we have been reconciled but because we are filled with joyful trust in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have already gained our reconciliation.” (Rm 5: 6-11).

Those words of Paul remind us that we have every motive to have the greatest trust in Our Lord. One of the major reasons we fail to progress in the spiritual life as we should is that our trust is deficient. We should pray for an increase in this extremely important virtue each day of our lives. We should pray for an increased awareness of how much Jesus loves us as unique individuals. The more I am convinced how much Jesus loves me, the easier it is to surrender to Him in trust.
  

  
Reflections on Trust

There follow further thoughts on the attitude of trust which we should strive to possess in greatest measure:

• Trust does not always come easily. Especially in times of great difficulty or crisis we can experience the difficulty of trusting properly in God. Yet it is precisely then that we have a special need for trust. Despite the suffering, we must trust, even though the darkness may enshroud us. We must try to trust as did Abraham: “Though it seemed Abraham’s hope could not be fulfilled, he hoped and he believed, and through doing so he did become the father of many nations exactly as he had been promised: Your descendants will be as many as the stars. Even the thought that his body was past fatherhood—he was about a hundred years old—and Sarah too old to become a mother, did not shake his belief. Since God had promised it, Abraham refused either to deny it or even to doubt it, but drew strength from faith and gave glory to God, convinced that God had power to do what he had promised.” (Rm 4:18-21).
• God can accomplish great things through us, too, if only we allow Him. What He accomplishes through us may be for the most part hidden from others, yet true greatness can still be there. But if we are to achieve truly great things, we must trust. We must trust that God will lead us on to Christian maturity. We must trust that He will aid us in the fulfillment of our roles in life. Even at those times when we are painfully aware of how weak we are, we must trust that we can attain true greatness and accomplish the task God sets before us. Actually, at those times during which we are especially experiencing our weakness, our optimism should grow. For the more we realize our weakness, the more we should throw ourselves into the arms of Christ. We then become strong and secure in His strength. As long as we do not surrender to our weakness, we should glory in our helplessness so that the strength of Christ may support us. This was the attitude of St. Paul: “So I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me, and that is why I am quite content with my weaknesses, and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and the agonies I go through for Christ’s sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong.” (2 Cor 12: 9-10).
• If our days are too much colored with discouragement and pessimism, our trust has become dormant. We must rekindle it and tell ourselves that we belong to Jesus and that nothing, absolutely nothing, should destroy the basic peace and joy He desires for us.
• How fortunate that our Christian trust can carry us beyond the toil, the pain, the anxiety of the present moment.
• In times of distress we instinctively turn to Jesus, immediately realizing the need for trust. However, we do not so easily realize our need for Him during times when all goes smoothly and a sense of joy seems to touch every fiber of our being. Yet we need to be cognizant of our dependence on Jesus during these happy episodes. For, if during time of distress we need to trust in the Lord for patient endurance, during times of joy we are in no less need of His help. We must trust that He will give us the light and strength to use these periods of joy not selfishly, but as He wills.
• Why don’t we decide once and for all to take Jesus at His word? He tells us not to worry. He tells us there is no reason to be overly anxious about anything. He tells us to trust. He loves us, His Father loves us, the Holy Spirit loves us. They love us much more than we love ourselves. Their love can cut through the bonds of any fear, any worry, any anxiety.
• Fr. Edward Leen, C.S.Sp., speaks about trust and spiritual childhood: “To be childlike is far different from being childish. Jesus was the one; He was anything but the other…
  
  “A child’s glance is always outwards. To keep one’s eyes habitually turned towards God, as a child looks to its parent, is the way to self-oblivion. To commit ourselves wholly to God’s paternal love, to put fearless childlike trust in His goodness, and to base all one’s hopes of being in the Divine favor, in life and in death, in His fatherly loving kindness and mercy, is to have attained to a lofty degree of spiritual childhood.”²
• Fr. Gordon Aumann, O.P., describes some of the characteristics of the virtue of trust in those far advanced in the spiritual life:
  “Universal confidence in God. Nothing is able to discourage a servant of God when he or she enters upon an enterprise pertaining to the divine glory…
  “Indestructible peace and serenity. This is a natural consequence of their universal confidence in God. Nothing can disturb the tranquility of their spirit. Ridicule, persecution, calumny, injury, sickness, misfortune—everything falls upon their souls like water on a stone, without leaving the slightest trace or alteration in the serenity of their spirit…”³
• In the diary of Blessed Faustina, we read these words given to her by Our Lord: “I have opened My Heart as a living fountain of mercy. Let all souls draw life from it. Let them approach this sea of mercy with trust…On the cross, the fountain of My mercy was opened wide by the lance for all souls—no one have I excluded!…The graces of My mercy are drawn by means of one vessel only, and that is trust. The more a soul trusts, the more it will receive.”⁴
• St. Claude de la Columbière: “My God, I am so convinced that you keep watch over those who hope in You, and that we can want for nothing when we look for all from You, that I am resolved in the future to live free from every care, and to turn all my anxieties over to You…
  
  “Men may deprive me of possessions and of honor, sickness may strip me of strength and the means of serving you…but I shall never lose my hope. I shall keep it till the last moment of my life; and at that moment all the demons in Hell shall strive to tear it from me in vain…
  
  “Others may look for happiness from their wealth or their talents; others may rest on the innocence of their life, or the severity of their penance, or the amount of their alms, or the fervor of their prayers. As for me, Lord, all my confidence is my confidence itself. This confidence has never deceived anyone. No one, no one has hoped in the Lord and has been confounded.
  
  “I am sure, therefore, that I shall be eternally happy, since I firmly hope to be, and because it is from You, O God, that I hope for it. I know, alas!, I know only too well, that I am weak and unstable. I know what temptation can do against the strongest virtue. I have seen the stars of heaven fall, and the pillars of the firmament; but that cannot frighten me. So long as I continue to hope, I shall be sheltered from all misfortune; and I am sure of hoping always, since I hope also for this unwavering hopefulness.
  
  “Finally, I am sure I cannot hope too much in You, and that I cannot receive less than I hoped for from You. So I hope that you will hold me safe on the steepest slopes, that You will sustain me against the most furious assaults, and that You will make my weakness triumph over my most fearful enemies. I hope that You will love me always, and that I too shall love You without ceasing. To carry my hope once for all as far as it can go, I hope from You to possess You, O my Creator, in time and in eternity. Amen.”⁵
    

    
Thoughts on the Eucharist

The Eucharist is our chief source for growth in trust. We should pray for a deepened awareness of this magnificent Gift.

• St. Peter Julian Eymard: “It is true also that the world does all in its power to prevent us from loving Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament with a real and practical love, to prevent us from visiting Him, and to cripple the effects of this love.
  
  “The world engrosses the attention of souls; it finds and enslaves them with external occupations in order to deter them from dwelling too long on the love of Jesus.
  
  “It even fights directly against this practical love and represents it as optional, as practicable at most only in a convent.
  
  “And the devil wages incessant warfare on our love for Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
  
  “He knows that Jesus is there, living and substantially present; that by Himself He is drawing souls and taking direct possession of them. The devil tries to efface the thought of the Eucharist in us, and the good impression made by it; for in his mind, that should decide the issue of the struggle.
  
  “And yet God is all love.
  
  “This gentle Savior pleads with us from the Host: ‘Love Me as I have loved you; abide in My love! I came to cast the fire of love on the earth, and My most ardent desire is that it should set your hearts on fire.’”⁶
      

The Heart of Christ

Jesus, in revealing His Heart as symbol of His life of love—including His overwhelming love for each of us as unique persons—invites us to have the greatest trust in Him. Here are some quotations which can help us in developing trust in the Heart of Christ:

• St. Bonaventure, Doctor of the Church, in his work The Mystical Vine, says: “The heart I have found is the heart of my King and Lord, of my Brother and Friend, the most loving Jesus. I say without hesitation that His Heart is also mine. Since Christ is my head, how could that which belongs to my head not also belong to me? As the eyes of my bodily head are truly my own, so also is the heart of my spiritual Head. Oh, what a blessed lot is mine to have one heart with Jesus!…Having found this heart, both yours and mine, O most sweet Jesus, I will pray to you my God.”⁷
• Ludolph of Saxony, whose book The Life of Jesus Christ played a key role in the conversion of St. Ignatius Loyola, gives us these inspiring words from this very book regarding the Heart of Christ: “The Heart of Christ was wounded for us with the wound of love, that through the opening of His side we may in return enter His Heart by means of love, and there be able to unite all our love with His divine love into one love, as the glowing iron is one with the fire. Therefore for the sake of this wound which Christ received for him on the Cross, when the dart of unconquerable love pierced His Heart, man should bring all his will into conformity with the will of God. But to fashion himself into conformity with Christ’s sufferings, he should consider what surpassingly noble love our Lord has shown us in the opening of His side, since through it He has given us the wide open entrance into His Heart. Therefore, let man make haste to enter into the Heart of Christ: let him gather up all his love and unite it with the divine love.”⁸ 
    

  
NOTES:

1. Scriptural quotations are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, Doubleday & Co.
2. Fr. Edward Leen, C.S.Sp., The True Vine and Its Branches, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, pp. 221 and 228.
3. Fr. Jordan Aumann, O.P., Spiritual Theology, Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., pp. 262-263.
4. Blessed Faustina Kowalska, The Divine Mercy, Message and Devotion, Marian Helpers, p. 27.
5. St. Claude de la Columbière, An Act of Confidence in God, Apostleship of Prayer, Chicago Regional Office.
6. St. Peter Julian Eymard, “The Most Blessed Sacrament Is Not Loved!,” as in The Treasury of Catholic Wisdom, Fr. John Hardon, S.J., ed., Ignatius Press, p.584.
7. St. Bonaventure, “The Mystical Vine,” Ch. 3, “Opera Omnia,” Vol. VIII, as in Heart of the Redeemer, Timothy O’Donnell, Trinity Communications, p. 101.
8. Ludolph of Saxony, “The Life of Jesus Christ,” as in Heart of the Redeemer, op. cit., pp. 112-113.

                                       End of excerpt from September/October 1995 Newsletter 
      

 
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Copyright © 2002 Shepherds of Christ.
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All scripture quotes are from the New Jerusalem Bible, July 1990, published by Doubleday.
Revised: June 28, 2002
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