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Retreat in China

June 10th - 13th

June 13th is the feast of St. Anthony

Pray for funds for the building.

Please help us.

Please help us with the Priestly

Newsletter and the books
for the priests.

Please help us.

June 9, 2008

Jesus: I give to you My richest blessings.

                My love for My precious souls is so — you
                do not even understand how I long and want
                you to want Me —
                The world is very cold — the focus on worldly
                things — and yet I outpour graces to you
                of My richest love.

Come and sit with Me — do not talk — just be with
Me — Focus on the love of the Trinity for you —

                Let go of the debris satan tries to stick in
                your head —
                    let go to love —
                    The world is full of souls seeking love and looking
                    Where —
                    in the wrong places

                My heart is a vat of endless love —
                    My knowledge I impart to you
                    My tenderness surrounds you

                You are quieted as a baby at the breast
                    Where there is love — there is that warmth
                    the world does not bring —

                The devil gets you to focus on yourselves —
                    tempting you with negative thoughts —
                    like the devil tried to tempt Eve in the
                    garden

See the devil tempting Eve with an apple —
See her say yes

See the negative, judgmental thoughts of
the head —

see you saying yes — like Eve to the
forbidden fruit

See through the eyes of God —

do not condone evil,
but look with compassion —

                    pray for those that are acting in ways
                        of anger, possessiveness,
                        untruths — games of secrecy —
                        denial — pride

Pray as you have never prayed before

When waters came to wash you — you
ran to the dry land

                Like gentle rain — I have sent My special
                    grace to you and you ran from My
                    gentle ways —

                You who are so imperfect
                You who have been taught from generations
                    past — so many dysfunctional,
                    imperfect ways —

Hold tight to your imperfections

like trophies your ancestors acquired
and gave you

You see not your brothers falling by
your angry ways —

the pride and manipulation —

Where love is what will bring
you peace —

Going from point A to point B —

You have on your armored guard —

                    guarding your heart from gentle
                        ones I have surrounded you
                        with

You make the meek your enemy

because you yourself are combattal
and try to get them in your

angry ways —

I will smite you when you disregard

the tenderness of their hearts and

eat the strong meat of pride and
contempt

Soften your heart then —

                        lest you live your life in
                        pride
                        wanting glory for yourself —

                A mother is taught to sacrifice —
                    the child she carries may be a burden
                        to her health —
                    yet her anticipation of her child is
                        never waning -

and when the child of beauty comes —
her joy is so filled —

her nights sleepless —

                        her days tarried with other little
                            ones always tugging at her
                            skirt —

wanting her undivided attention

                Such is the way to sainthood
                    A man of selfishness does not see
                        the others

I am a man — I came to teach you about
being a son of God —

                        I gave My life for the souls —
                        I died on the cross for others —
                        I was bruised and bloodied

I give you a thorn to have a crown of
thorns — worn for the Lord

You complain — oh take it away

Do you see only yourself

                Have you focused so much on yourself —
                    you manipulate events to
                    control others for your pride

Is your face your god

                Your pride that which keeps you stuck —
                    licking wounds and
                    you have hurt others far more
                    then you have been hurt —

                Your habits — are they loving?
                Are your eyes looking outward
                    for your brothers —

Put away pride, selfishness — see Me
go to the cross for you and your sins —

Selfish pride is selfish pride

I am meek and tender of heart
I died for My precious souls —

Your life is so short —
The batting of an eye and it is ended

If you had only one day to live, would
you waste it in selfish complaints —

Open your heart and
let Me love through you

Open the walls that surround you —
Don't make more walls —

How do you make walls —
by an ugly attitude —

open the walls —

                    do you make ugly complaints —
                        attack others
                        cause problems for control

open the walls —

Do you project past anger on people

                    today who are innocent —
                    satan knows your old hurts —
                        you are the child of the past —
                        full of emotions, memories,
                        unfinished business,

beg to be healed —

sing the Word
go to the Eucharist

open the bottle to your stone heart —

sing the Word —
let the Word seep in your soul —

like a two-edged sword —

Oh sweet and beauteous child created by
Your heavenly Father —

                    He has a plan for you —
                    He wants you to use the talents He
                        gave you as He desires —

Adam and Eve disobeyed God and

their descendents suffered for
their sins

Sin is disorder

God wants the Shepherds of Christ to help renew
the Church and the world

You have been chosen by God

formed for His mission

                When Jonah did not do as he was
                    told he found himself
                    in the belly of the whale —

                When you go to the boat and God wants
                    you somewhere else —
                    do you act like
                    a round screw in a square
                    hole

Do you do everything, but work in harmony
with the Plan of the Father —

                Living according to God's will —
                    loving and serving God is
                    the secret to the spiritual life —

Doing God's will in love —
every action —

                    the more you do God's will in love —
                        obeying authority — the more
                        grace can be outpoured
                        for simple actions

Your actions are not simple —

                    You let your impurities guide how
                        you try to control others'
                        lives

                    Simple — do God's will in love —
                        with much love
                        docility —

take off the bricks on your back —

peal away the covering on your
heart — like a naval orange —

peeling and letting go

years of discord

DISORDER —

Years against God's will

Let go and make Me your
pilot on every journey

TRUST IN MY MIGHT

SEEK PERFECTION

HARMONY with others always doing
God's will in all things

ORDER

Power comes from God — through the
authority —

God is all powerful

God's Design

Sun comes up ——> who does that?

Moon comes up ——> who does that?

Who allows weather to do things?

Who gives life to the baby?

Homily from Fr. Joe

29thSunday Ordinary Time
October 16, 2005

INTRODUCTION: (Isaiah 45, 1.4-6; Mt. 22, 15-21) The Babylonians lived in the land we now know as Iraq, 600 years before Christ. The capital city of Babylon was just less than 100 miles south of modern day Baghdad. 587 years before Christ the Babylonians conquered the Jews and enslaved most of the Jews and took them as captives to Babylon. At that time the Persians lived in modern day Iran. Fifty years after the Babylonians conquered the Jews, the Persians conquered the Babylonians. The Persian king, Cyrus, allowed the Jews to return to their Israel. He even encouraged them to rebuild their temple to Yahweh. The prophet Isaiah, in today’s first reading, sees the hand of God at work in all these events. He calls this pagan king, Cyrus, God's anointed. And although Cyrus thought it was by his own strength and shrewdness that he conquered the Babylonians, Isaiah said this was God’s doings. Isaiah stresses the absolute supremacy of God, a theme in today’s liturgy.

HOMILY: There were some scientists and biologists who thought they had found the secret of life. And they decided to tell God he was no longer needed. They said they could create life also. God said “well, I created life from a hand full of dirt.” They said we could too. Then they picked up a hand full of dirt and started to show God what they could do. God said to them, “wait just a minute. Create your own dirt.”

In today’s gospel, the enemies of Jesus thought they really had Jesus in trouble this time. The gospel tells us he was approached by Pharisees and Herodians. These two groups were bitter enemies. Israel was under Roman rule, as you know, and the Herodians were totally loyal to Rome. They would have immediately accused Jesus of promoting civil rebellion and revolution if he had said “don’t pay the taxes.” The Pharisees, on the other hand, held that God alone was their king and Lord and they viewed the payment of taxes to Rome as caving in to the hated Roman emperor, Tiberius Caesar, a foreigner and a pagan at that! This hot issue was made worse by the fact that Rome’s tax burden on the Jewish people was extremely heavy. Jesus asked them to show him a Roman coin; apparently he didn’t have one. The fact that they could produce one gave evidence that, like it or not, they participated in Rome’s commerce and economy. Jesus’ answer to their question is well known, “Give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God's.”

Jesus avoided getting caught in their trap. He reminded us we have obligations to both God and civil authority. We need good leadership in our country and in the countries of the world. With good leadership the citizenship will prosper. Without it the people will suffer. St. Paul even reminds us to pray for our leaders and obey them. (I Tim 2,2 and Rom 13). In this particular confrontation, Jesus did imply that since the people chose to participate in the Roman economy, they had obligations there. But Jesus did not answer how we are to treat some of those thorny issues that we have to deal with in a society that believes in the separation of Church and State.

We have to figure out most of those issues ourselves, taking a cue from other things Jesus taught us, especially from his teaching that obeying God is our greatest responsibility. When we break the laws of our country, we get arrested or fined or have to pay some consequence. When we break God’s laws, however, God doesn’t come knocking on our door ready to fine us or lock us up in jail. If he did, people wouldn’t get by with a lot of the things they do. But God isn’t in the business of being a policeman. Rather he is interested in having us love him and doing right because of love. And love cannot be forced; it must be given freely. God could have made us all robots and we would have done exactly what he wanted us to do, but if we were robots we would not be human nor would we be capable of love. When God gave us a free will, God took a big chance that we might choose not to love him. Apparently he thought it was worth taking that chance.

Give back to God what is God's, Jesus tells us. Because God does not come knocking on our doors when we do not give him what we owe him, it’s easy for us to say I’ll pray later, or I’ll go to church next week or I’ll be good later! Later may not come for any of us. Nothing is more important than our relationship with God. Some day we will leave behind all the other things that we think are so important, and the only thing we will have left is the love for God and for others that we have demonstrated in our daily lives. That love will grow and develop only by prayer and good works.

In our society, which wants immediate results, many important things in life do not give immediate pay offs. When we plant a seed in the ground, it doesn’t produce fruit the next day. If we buy stock in a good company today, it probably won’t go up 50 points tomorrow. A good education takes many years before it pays dividends. The things we do to serve and obey our God are an investment, an investment that will bless us in this present life, but the full rewards of such a life are off in the future. As St. Paul tells us “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into our hearts what things God has prepared for those who love him.” (I Cor 2,9) What God asks of us is simple: prayer, obedience, love, love for God and for each other. In line with prayer, we cannot neglect the most important prayer we have, the Eucharist. “Do this in memory of me,” he said. That’s why we’re here today, to give to God our ears to listen, our hearts to be united with him, our gratitude, our expressions of faith as we praise him and receive him.

We will get in trouble with the law if we do not give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, but we have the most to lose if we do not give back to God the things that are God's. Our eternal happiness depends on it. Amen.