August 25, 2001 

We're going to have a big

Sidney Rosary on August 28, 2001

It's the 7th year anniversary

Jesus speaks: 

                     Your mission is very clear.

                     I come to set a fire on the earth.

                    How do you think this would come about in
                        the state the world is in today?

                    I have called you to help Me.

                    I have called you to help renew the
                        Church and the world.

                    A calling is a calling.

                    I called the apostles.

                    They recognized it was God who called.

                    They followed Me.

                    They were fishers of men.

                    Satan wants you to give in.

                    Satan wants you to write your own plan.

                    I show you My picture

February 5, 2001

August 25, 2001 message continues

_{Jesus speaks:}

                    I am God and I call you.

                    I show you My face

April 5, 2001

August 25, 2001 message continues

_{Jesus speaks:}

                       Father Carter answered the call.

                        He gave himself so you could have what
                            you have today.

                        He was totally dedicated to this mission.

                        The Masses twice a week in China, Indiana
                            show you how he treasured this Mission,
                            how he recognized the importance in
                                China, Indiana.

                        I give you the gift in Florida, and so many
                            take it for granted.

                        Are you coming to serve Me.

                        Are you coming to help Me.

                        Can you not forgive one another
                            and see the importance of My Plan
                            and how it is reaching millions
                            of souls on the earth.

                        If you say no, then who will I send.

                        Sing the song "Here I am Lord."

                        You can look at all that has happened
                            since the Message July 31, 1994.

August 25, 2001 message continues

_{Jesus speaks:}

                        Could men on this earth have made this all
                            happen.

                        This is the Plan of the Father to help bring
                            to completion the mission my
                            Mother began at Fatima.

                        Unless you say the prayer for Union with
                            Jesus often during the day, the devil
                            will continue to try to get you
                            focused on yourselves and abandon
                            the ship.

                        He is the devil.

                        He wants you stopped.

                        I wish you would write a letter of where
                            your relationship with God and others
                            was before Shepherds of Christ and
                            where you are today.

                        Now I want you to come to Sidney,
                            Tuesday August 28, 2001, great healing
                            graces will be given to those who
                            pray fervently. It is the 7th
                            anniversary of the first core chapter
                            that began so much of all this.

                        I want to tell you of the graces granted
                            September 5, 2001. (in Florida)

                            I have appeared to you month after
                                month on the building.

                            I have appeared to you and My Mother
                                has appeared to you.

                            You seek for happiness and fulfillment—
                                you will never be satisfied here on
                                earth.

                            I cry to you. I love you so much. I
                                have called you.

                                Focus on My love for you.

                                Servants and handmaids are given
                                    a strong calling to be My
                                    special bride and help renew
                                    the priesthood and the religious life.

                                Your children are all the souls you
                                    help.

                                You have lots and lots of children.

                            I am Jesus. I give special graces to
                                those who answer My call.

                            I love you so much.

                            I love you, I love you, I love you,

                            I long for your love.

                            How do you handle suffering and trials, do you
                                accept them and offer them up and pray
                                for God's will to be done?
                                Do you miss the opportunity to bring
                                    down great grace because
                                    you complain.

                            The bottom line is

                                "What is God's will for you?"

                            You should pray
                                to do God's will and pray to be
                                shown the way to do it.

                            Pray the Prayer for Union with Jesus.

                            How do you like one who gives you a

                                present and then treats you

                                mean afterward.

                                Be a cheerful giver.

                                In this Movement, you give to

                                    serve Me.

_{Jesus speaks:}

                            _{My dear ones,}

                                _{Many times you are doing your work for Me and
                            are making great progress and someone
                            comes demanding an answer, it can be
                            a member of the family or someone you think
                            you must help. In their impatience they can
                            leave in a hurry after this interruption. They didn't
                            wait for the answer to the question they asked you.
                            You must learn detachment. Satan can be working 
                            in the situation to trick or stop you when a new   
                            unsettled person shows up when you are working   
                            diligently and soon you begin to feel unsettled because 
                            of the new visitor. The new person may leave you with  
                            this feeling of being unsettled, or angered and you  
                            wonder what happened. Your energy level may slip 
                            and your focus be greatly disturbed.}

                                _{You must focus on My task for you and the job
                            at hand. Pray for grace and spread My Blood
                            on all that talk to you or interrupt you. In a calm
                            day of productivity, it may seem as if a whirlwind
                            comes through and you feel disturbed. Pray
                            the Prayer for Union with Jesus.}

                                _{Satan can use tactics like this to try to stop you or
                            slow you down. From the Prayer for Union with Jesus "Help
                            me not to give into the promptings of others to change
                            what in my heart you are making very clear to me."}

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.

-God's Blue Book, January 17, 1994

Excerpt from Response to God's Love

                                                                          7

                                                                           Liturgical Participation

                                                                           The Church's existence centers in her liturgy: "The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the fount from which all her power flows" (Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, no. 10). Furthermore, 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.

       In the previous chapter, we stated that the Church, in union with Christ, her head, helps continue the work of Jesus according to the pattern of Jesus. One aspect of Christ's existence, we stated, was that he was the primordial sacrament of God. We concluded, therefore, that the Church is also sacrament. The Church's sacramentality is then actualized in a special manner through the seven sacraments. In the same way that the Church in general is the visible continuation of Christ's Incarnation, so also can her individual sacraments be considered particular, visible extensions of Jesus.

       It is evident, therefore, why 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 because death-resurrection was the summary mystery of Christ's 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 Mass.

       The eucharistic sacrifice renews and summarizes the Christ-event, and likewise summarizes our participation in this mystery of Jesus. Obviously, then, the Eucharist is a multisplendored reality. All dimensions of the Eucharist are profoundly interlinked with one another; as a matter of fact, all are dimensions of the Eucharist as sacrifice because the sacrificial note is the fundamental characteristic. We say fundamental because we presuppose the idea of Christ's real presence in the Eucharist. These two aspects have always been stressed in Church teaching, as Richard McBrien has pointed out: "Catholic eucharistic doctrine has been focused on two issues: the sacrificial nature of the Mass and the real presence of Christ in the consecrated elements of bread and wine. It is official Catholic teaching . . . that the Mass is a true sacrifice . . . without diminishing the value of the sacrifice of Calvary. Christ is the same victim and priest in the Eucharist as he was on the cross, although the mode of offering is different at Mass. The sacrifice of the cross was a bloody sacrifice; the sacrifice of the Mass is unbloody" (Catholicism, vol. 2, p. 763). Because the idea of sacrifice is so fundamental to the understanding of the Mass, we will begin our discussion of the Eucharist from this perspective.

       Christ's redemptive activity can be placed within the framework of sacrifice, a framework that had been developing over the centuries before the coming of Jesus. The theology of sacrifice can be summarized according to five elements: (1) the interior offering; (2) the external, ritual offering centered around a victim; (3) the immolation of the victim; (4) the acceptance of the sacrifice by God; and (5) the sacrificial meal.

       A very critical element of these five is the first, the interior offering. Our first duty is to surrender ourselves to God out of love; this fact flows from the truth that God is the Creator and we are his creatures. If we are ideally to fulfill our creaturehood, we must respond as perfectly as possible to the loving demands of our Creator. Because we ourselves and the gifts of creation that surround us are from God, we should offer ourselves completely to the Creator. Our gift of self to God is, in turn, centered in loving conformity to the divine will.

       In formal religious sacrifice, this interior offering is ritually externalized around a victim that is immolated or slain. The slaying or immolating of the victim symbolizes that it is being completely dedicated to God, and this, in turn, symbolizes the complete dedication to God of those who are offering the sacrifice because the victim symbolizes them. The sacrifice, if properly enacted, is accepted by God and is concluded with a sacrificial meal. Here, then, we observe in a succinct way the five elements that comprise sacrifice.

       In Jesus' sacrifice, the same five elements occur, although not exactly in the same order. There is the interior offering; Christ as priest offers himself to the Father in love for the purpose of adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and satisfaction for sin. This interior offering is then externalized at the ritual of the Last Supper. The victim, Jesus himself, is immolated upon Calvary. The Father gives a miraculous sign that he accepts Jesus' sacrifice through the resurrection. Finally, there is the sacrificial meal at the Last Supper.

       Because the first element of Jesus' sacrifice is the most important—the interior dispositions of his human will—let us expand a bit upon it. Jesus' offering of himself was a total offering, wondrously diversified in its rich completeness. It was an offering that contained the entire life of Jesus; although Jesus' sacrifice became formalized only at the Last Supper and upon Calvary, it nevertheless embraced his entire life. The offering, or sacrifice, of Jesus contained, then, his teaching, his healing the sick, his acts of kindness to the poor and the ignorant and the unimportant, his patient training of the apostles—all this and more was included. Jesus' offering also included his personal relationships with Mary, Joseph, Lazarus, and others; it embraced, as well, his thrill at the beauty of nature, the simple joys shared with friends, his welcoming the children who loved to come to him, the enthusiasm and zeal that buoyed him as he went about his Father's business. Moreover, Jesus' sacrifice included his endurance of the unpleasant side of the human condition—the pettiness and meanness of some, the hardness of heart he often encountered, the ugly selfishness that bursts forth and often mars the beauty of the person and that, ultimately, put Jesus to death.

        Unlike Christ's earthly sacrifice, which he and he alone offered to the Father, the Eucharist, by God's gracious design, is also the Church's sacrifice. It is Christ's sacrifice, but it is also ours, for we are priests and victims along with Jesus, the chief priest and chief victim. As Christ's offering of himself is renewed and continued in the Mass, our offering of ourselves is also included. Furthermore, just as Christ's earthly offering included everything in his life, so also the offering that we make of ourselves at the Eucharist is meant to touch all the authentic experiences of our Christian lives. Our friendships, our love for one another, our service to mankind—all this is part of our eucharistic offering. Bearing properly with physical pain, frustration, failure, misunderstanding, boredom, anguish of spirit—this, too, we offer at the altar. To love and be loved by another human—and to be in wonder at this mystery of love—is also a cherished part of our eucharistic offering. To enjoy a meal together, to walk by the seashore, to drink in the morning freshness, to feel the warmth of the summer sun and the invigorating cold of a winter day—this also we offer with Jesus. The Eucharist, then, gathers up what would otherwise be the too-fragmented pieces of our lives and gives them a marvelous unity, a Christ-like unity. The Eucharist permeates these pieces of our lives with the love, the beauty, and the strength of Jesus' own offering and then presents them to the Father under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We see, then, the richness and extensiveness of the eucharistic sacrifice's first element—the interior offering.

      The second element of sacrifice—that is, the external, ritualized offering—is easily recognized at each Eucharist because each Eucharist is a ritual of celebration. We all know that special days of celebration are important for both families and civil society. The celebration of a birthday or a wedding anniversary can do much to lift family spirits. The strictly ordinary is temporarily dispensed with; family members dress up a bit, have special food and drink, and otherwise make the day of celebration different from the usual routine of daily existence. Civil society acts similarly for its days of celebration; business and industry often close down for the day, parades frequently mark the occasion, and special banquets or galas help make the day seem special.

       The Eucharist is the main setting for the celebration of the Christian community. Some liturgies are very special moments of celebration—Easter and Christmas are obvious examples. But daily liturgies are celebrations, too, although obviously on a smaller scale than that of the major liturgical feasts. The daily liturgy can truly be called a celebration because a special event—the Christ-event that is centered in Jesus' death-resurrection—is always being called to memory and sacramentally re-enacted. Furthermore, each liturgy briefly raises us above—notice, we are not saying that each liturgy falsely separates us from—the ordinary setting of our lives. Refreshed by the special setting of the Eucharist and nourished by Christ himself, we are meant to return to the secular framework of life with a deepened desire to live Christ.

       We can easily conclude from what we have been discussing that the externals of the liturgy should not become too commonplace. Certainly the rather rigid ritualism of the pre-Vatican II liturgy is not what we now judge to be desirable. Any celebration, despite the fact that it purports to be something quite different from what the participants daily experience, still must allow the participants to feel at ease with one another and the total situation. The setting of the Eucharist must likewise allow the participants to feel basically comfortable with one another and able to experience a sense of familiar connaturality with the celebration. On the other hand, if the Eucharist is celebration, its setting, its ritual, cannot become so ordinary that its participants tend to lose sense of the specialness of the event. Remember, one of the purposes of celebration is to provide a special type of experience, something quite different from the ordinary course of our lives. Consequently, the liturgy, as sign or ritual, has to achieve a rather delicate balance; it must be enacted in such a manner that we will feel at ease while, at the same time, it still remains something special.

       The balance of ritual also has to be concerned with another factor. Ritual is also meant to be meaningful, that is, ritual is meant to point to the invisible realities of the liturgy in a way that is pertinent and attractive to the participants. The participants, for their part, have a responsibility toward the sign of the liturgy. The liturgy, as sign, presupposes the faith of the participants; no matter how perfect the external liturgy might be, it cannot be really meaningful to one who lacks faith. Conversely, the deeper the participants' faith is, the more meaningful is the liturgy of sign. We can also say that the more mature one's faith is, the better prepared he or she is to bear with possible deficiencies in the liturgy of sign. Persons of mature faith might well decry these shortcomings and take all reasonable steps to better the situation, but they will still love the Eucharist and derive deep meaning from it rather than give up participating in such a treasured event just because the external liturgy might be deficient.

       The third element of sacrifice, immolation, touches Christ and us because we are both victims in the eucharistic offering. The immolation of both Jesus and us is, obviously, an unbloody one. Traditionally, the immolation of Jesus has been seen in the separate consecration of the bread and wine. Moreover, the very words of consecration manifest Christ as being in the state of victimhood.

       Our immolation in the Eucharist is a mystical one. Summarily, we become victims with Christ by conforming our wills in love to the Father's will. Conformity was the essence of Christ's sacrifice, of his victimhood, of his immolation; a similar conformity must therefore be found in the victimhood and immolation of Christ's members. This mystical immolation is a lifelong process; each Eucharist that we participate in should mark a growth in our victimhood. As true Christians, we should desire to die more and more to all that is not according to God's will so that we might rise to greater life with Christ—both here upon earth and in eternity. Jungmann strikingly portrays the situation: "Every sacrament serves to develop in us the image of Christ according to a specified pattern which the sacramental sign indicates. Here the pattern is plainly shown in the double formation of the Eucharist; we are to take part in His dying, and through His dying are to merit a share in His life. What we here find anchored fast in the deepest center of the Mass-sacrifice is nothing else than the ideal of moral conduct to which the teaching of Christ in the Gospel soars; the challenge to an imitation of Him that is ready to lose its life in order to win it; the challenge to follow Him even, if need be, in His agony of suffering and His path of death, which are here in this mystery so manifestly set before us" (The Mass of the Roman Rite, p. 146).

       We have said that the fourth element of sacrifice refers to God's acceptance. If sacrifice is to have its desired effect, it must be pleasing to God. That the Father always accepts the eucharistic offering is certain, for the principal priest and victim is Jesus himself who is always supremely acceptable to the Father. What is more, the Father always accepts the subordinate priesthood and victimhood of the People of God, for even though the Eucharist may be offered through the sacrilegious hands of an unworthy priest, there is always a basic holiness in the Church that is pleasing to God. Because of this holiness, the Father always accepts the Church's sacrificial offering, for each Mass is the sacrifice of the whole Church and cannot be fundamentally vitiated by the basic unworthiness of any particular member or members—even if that member is the officiating priest.

       What do we say concerning the Father's acceptance of the sacrificial offering of the individual Christian? Such an offering will be acceptable in proportion to the Christian's conformity in love to the Father's will. Again, Jungmann has words for us: "It follows that an interior immolation is required of the participants, at least to the extent of readiness to obey the law of God in its seriously obligatory commandments, unless this participation is to be nothing more than an outward appearance" (Roman Rite, p. 146).

       The last element of the eucharistic sacrifice, the meal, is, obviously, a very important part. The Eucharist as meal is a rich reality. It is the sign of Jesus' complete self-giving and, consequently, a sign of Jesus' fathomless love for us. This sign actually contains what it signifies. In the Eucharist, Jesus comes to us in his entirety. There is no holding back on his part; his boundless love for us results in boundless giving.

       If the Eucharistic meal is a sign of Jesus' self-giving, it is also a sign of our self-giving. In receiving divine food, we pledge ourselves to a deeper God-like existence. We pledge that, in love, we will strive for a more radical giving of ourselves to both God and others. Each eucharistic meal that we participate in is a new opportunity for a more perfect assimilation to Christ and his mysteries, especially the mysteries of death and resurrection. Each eucharistic meal that we participate in increases our responsibility to live Christ, that is, to more fully incorporate the Gospel ideal in all that we do.

       The fact that our participation in the eucharistic meal is a sign of our self-gift not only to God in Christ, but also to one another leads us to a consideration of the communal aspect of the meal. The eucharistic meal is a great sign and cause of our unity in Christ. Rahner maintains that "insofar as everyone participates in the same meal of Christ, who is the giver and the gift at the same time, the Eucharist is also the sign, the manifestation and the most real actualization of the church insofar as the church is and makes manifest the ultimate unity of all men in the Spirit, a unity which has been founded by God in grace" (Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 427). We are therefore to receive the one and same Christ, the implications of which are far-reaching. In receiving the one and same Christ we are actually pledging ourselves to unity both among ourselves and with all mankind. We are pledging ourselves to uproot from our hearts those attitudes that work against the building up of community in the Church and in the world. We are pledging ourselves to look upon others with a sense of respect, love, and even wonder as we marvel at how God's love has created and redeemed each one, at how the blood of Jesus has salvifically touched each one. Our participation in the eucharistic meal truly pledges us to these ideals. We, for our part, must ask ourselves whether we are actually assimilating these ideals. We must ask ourselves whether we are allowing the Eucharist to transform us into more loving and concerned persons, persons less and less influenced by forces that disrupt and tend to weaken and destroy communal unity.

The discussion of the communal aspect of the eucharistic meal reminds us that the entire eucharistic sacrifice is a covenant act. What is covenant? In the context of salvation history, a covenant is an agreement, a bond, a union, a life relationship both between God and his people and among the people themselves. At the Last Supper, Jesus emphasized the covenant aspect of the Eucharist: "During the meal Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples. 'Take this and eat it,' he said, 'this is my body.' Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them. 'All of you must drink from it,' he said, 'for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, to be poured out in behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins' " (Mt 26:26-28).

       When Jesus speaks of his blood as "the blood of the covenant," we are reminded that blood sealed or ratified the Mosaic covenant at Mt. Sinai. Moses sprinkled blood upon the altar, which represented God, and upon the Jewish people. Because blood was a distinctive symbol of life for the Jews, such an action had a deep significance for them. This action of Moses symbolized the sealing or ratification of the covenant—a new life relationship between Yahweh and the Jews. 

      The blood of Jesus has also formed a covenant—the new covenant. In the shedding of his blood, Jesus has established a new life relationship between his Father and mankind. Forming a core focal point of redeemed mankind are the people of the new covenant, namely, the members of the Christian community, the Church. The Eucharist, in recalling and sacramentally re-enacting the shedding of Jesus' covenant blood, is the Church's great covenant act. The Eucharist sustains the life of the covenant, nourishes it, causes it to grow to greater maturity. Through participation in the eucharistic liturgy we should be growing in covenant attitudes—in a sense of community, in a deep love of the Church, in a desire to contribute our share to the building up of this Body of Christ. We should be learning to curb our selfishness because it deadens a dynamic concern for the Christian community and makes us a burden to the brethren. Participation in the Eucharist should also be curbing divisive jealousy, forming us more and more as persons who want to deeply love one another so that it can more often be said of us, "See those Christians, how they love one another." The Eucharist can more radically shape us according to these covenant attitudes if we allow it. We repent concerning the times we have resisted; we rejoice concerning the times we have opened ourselves to the Eucharist's transformative power.

end of excerpt from Response to God's Love

_{Table of Contents}

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Revised: August 25, 2001
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