Tomorrow is September 22, 2002, on September
22, 2000 Father Carter went in for surgery. The doctor said at 7am to me and
his sister it could be something like an extra appendix. Less than two hours
later he said Father had cancer and chemo wouldn't help. He said he had three
months to live. Father's funeral was December 22, 2000, three months later.
Messenger: The days of our lives go so
quickly. Many do not realize the gift they have been given by Jesus in this
Movement. Father worked so very, very hard that last summer. He worked very
hard for this Movement from the beginning. The following talk was given
February 1, 1998 at the end he began to cry asking people to help and to do
what Jesus had asked us to do.
There are many who have
taken the great gifts God has given to them through the Movement and have not
helped us to spread what Our Lord has given to us.
How can we be given such
gifts from Jesus to help us advance in the spiritual life and hold this back
from others.
Is it right that one
cared so much to share this with us and yet we do not see our calling from God
to spread it to others.
The message I have
received from Jesus today is to ask you to spread the great gifts God has
given to you through the Movement. Spread the knowledge, the pictures of how
Mary appears on the building in Clearwater, Florida.
Truly pray as Apostles of
the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. Jesus has asked you to do so.
Father Carter, me, Rita
Ring, and our President, John Weickert, are not able to do all that has been
done through this Movement. This is a Movement begun by Jesus through Father
Carter to help in the renewal of the Church and the world.
Think of where your life
was before Shepherds of Christ. Do you not feel the responsibility to thank
Jesus by helping to spread the Movement.
July 5, 2000
Father Carter's last visit to
the Virgin Mary Building.
September 21, 2002
Mary speaks: This is the
building of the Two Hearts.
My Son Jesus is asking you to help
through the words of your founder,
Father Carter given here.
I give you this message, I am Mary the Sorrowful Mother.
I cry for my children, the children of this earth.
Your Father has allowed me to appear to deliver this
message. Please circulate the wallet pictures of
my image to all. Please do not tarry, this is a
message from Mary your Mother.
Please I beg of you to tell my children I appear.
Why will you not help me by showing my image
picture to all.
What sign do you want God to send you.
I appear so sweetly for all my children.
Why do you not think you should tell others
about my image and that I appear.
I am Mary, your Mother, your Mother,
many of your brothers and sisters are in trouble.
Well, it’s been a
long time since I’ve seen all of you at once in the same place. It’s a
tremendous treat for me. So praise be the Lord. Let’s start with the Holy
Spirit Prayer.
Come, Holy Spirit, almighty Sanctifier, God of love, who filled the Virgin
Mary with grace, who wonderfully changed the hearts of the apostles, who
endowed all Your martyrs with miraculous courage, come and sanctify us.
Enlighten our minds, strengthen our wills, purify our consciences, rectify
our judgment, set our hearts on fire, and preserve us from the misfortunes
of resisting Your inspirations. Amen.
...So after I talk here I will have to depart and leave the praying to you
at this place. I’ll be praying with you as I drive away...
...I’m spending much more time on the newsletter now. Our Lord had been
calling me to do that for months but it was when I was fully active it was
very, very hard to get the time to really spread it around the world like He
wanted to, although we had been working with the English edition trying to
get that in more and more countries. We are in about eighty or more
countries with the English edition...
And in cases where it needs translation, for instance, the Spanish edition
we translate that up here, we print it up here and we bulk mail it.
[Note: He talks about the spread of the Newsletter to priests and bishops in
Central, South America in Spanish, Africa, India, French speaking, England,
Scotland, New Zealand, Australia]
...It is Our Lord’s wish along with the prayer chapters that this be
considered our primary ministry, the Newsletter. So please, please, please,
please pray for it’s continued success and expansion. It is so
extremely important because as you know, if you can change the heart of one
priest, he is in a position to do so, so much good with even thousands of
people. And we have received extremely encouraging letters over the
years that the newsletters been published from priests, how it’s helped
them out on their own spiritual life but in their ministries, giving them
homilies and so forth. And from bishops which are highly encouraging
commending us on the quality and the worthwhileness of the newsletter.
- Dear Father Carter,
For years I have received Shepherds of Christ
Newsletter; I do not know who put me on your mailing list, but I’m
grateful to you both. Since I first began to receive the newsletter I
have been assigned as the Director of Formation Advising for the
Pontifical North American College in Rome.
I would like to know if it would be possible to make
a bulk order so that our seminarians could benefit from the newsletter
as well. I will make sure they are distributed to our seminarians. At
present we have about 200 seminarians and student priests on our campus,
all eager for good spiritual reading!
Please let me know if we can make an arrangement for
the delivery of the newsletter here at the college.
Please keep our faculty and seminarians in your
prayers.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Rev. J. Mark Williams
Director of Formation Advising
Pontifical North American College
00120 Vatican City State
[He
then talks about funds for the Newsletter.]
I think I came to speak to you today because I think we’re at a very, very
significant point of the Shepherds of Christ Movement as it marches into the
new era of which was promised by Our Lady of Fatima. And I think the
Movement is basically strong, basically healthy but I think we need a
recommitment of ourselves to the Movement precisely because much more is
being asked of us. We have three centers to staff not only with people but
with materials.
So as we go on in what Our Lord wants us to do, we just need a deeper
commitment to the Movement just like the spiritual life in general. You
never stand still on the spiritual journey. I mean spiritual masters have
always told us this, you either go back or you go forward.
And so it is with the Movement, we just don’t stand still. We have to keep
on deepening our commitment to the Movement individually and collectively or
it’s not going to move forward obviously. So I guess you can say that’s
the main reason I thought it was very important that I come here today to
speak to you to ask you to renew your commitment to Our Lord in the
Movement. And to put some thoughts before (you) which hopefully will
help you to renew your commitment.
I’ll begin by reminding all of us of the great, great privilege it is
to have been called to this Movement. I’ve said this before, I say it
now even with deeper conviction, I really believe that this will go down
in history as one of the great Movements in the history of the Church.
And if you reflect upon what we’ve been called to do, I don’t think
it’s hard to come to that conclusion. I don’t know of any just taking
our ministry to the priests with the newsletter and with the prayer chapters
whose primary duty is to pray for the priests as well as the whole human
race. But I am unaware of any other Movement in the history of the Church
which has tried to reach all priests the world over with the newsletter and
the prayer chapters to the extent that we are trying to do so. So just
those two ministries in themselves I think point to the greatness of this
Movement. Then our many other ministries: the rosaries, the consecration of
the schools, the nursing home, prison ministries are all our various
publications. So much wonderful literature, rosary in the homes, one of our
newest ministries, the couples rosary and the spirituality which comes out
of that and we hope to work more and more nationally to strengthen marriage
and family life through working with couples as couples.
So if you look at what we are doing with the tremendous amount of materials
which are being distributed from the Florida site and through orders from
this site and through other sites.
So again I think this is one of the great, great Movements in the history
of the Church. And we have to pinch ourselves every once in awhile
and nudge ourselves and realize the great calling we have been given to work
in this Movement. I think there has been a certain, despite all the
great work which is being done, I think there is a certain stagnation
which has set in to a certain degree and we have to jolt ourselves out of
that and recommit ourselves.
St. John of the Cross in one of his writings says—of course he is one of
the greatest mystical theologians in the history of the Church and in one of
his writings he says, “What
does it profit you to give God one thing if He wishes for another? Consider
what it is God wants and then do it.”
Let’s read that again together “What
does it profit you to give God one thing if He wishes for another? Consider
what it is God wants and then do it.”
[Father Carter is speaking to Servants and Handmaids of the Good
Shepherd—]
[Apostles who dedicate themselves completely to the Shepherds of Christ
Ministries—]
Applying that to our calling to Shepherds of Christ—there’s more work
to this Movement than any of us, individually or all put together can ever
attend to properly. What I am getting at, if you really feel you’ve
been called to this Movement and especially to the apostle's level, I am
suggesting to you very fervently and hopefully, persuasively, the Shepherds
of Christ Ministries can use all the spare time, all the ministerial time
you have to give to the work of the Kingdom. You don’t have to go
around looking for other ministries to contribute your time to. You are free
to do that, you are free to leave the Movement at any time. We are not
forcing anyone to stay, we hope everybody stays but we have had people leave.
So there should always be that, that sense of freedom if you want to lessen
off your commitment or hopefully it would never happen, but if you would
chose to leave the commitment, Jesus respects your freewill.
But looking at it again positively I’m suggesting to you—there is so
much work to be done in the Movement. So this first day of February which
happened to be the month of the feast of St. Claude de la Columbiere,
February the 15th, who has been one of the greatest apostles to the devotion
to the Heart of Jesus in the history of the Church, so in a certain sense
it’s a type of month of the Sacred Heart because of his feast, so I ask
that all of us renew our commitment to the Movement. And again
realize the great privilege, that’s one of the first ways to persevere in
the Movement and to grow in the Movement, everyday to thank God for the
great graces He has given you in the Movement.
And I ask you just briefly to look back over your lives, now compared
to when you joined the Movement. Has not Our Lord through Our Lady
drawn you so, so, so much closer to Them. And He in turn has led you so much
closer to the Father and the Spirit. The chairman of our theology
department, the first departmental meeting when he took over, he said Xavier
has been very good to me, now I feel it’s payback time and I think I
should serve the University being chair of the Theology department.
Being chair of a department, it’s really a pain of any department. But
those words stick in my mind, he says now it is payback time.
I should payback Xavier for all the good Xavier has done to me. I
suggest we keep that in mind in reference to Jesus in His Movement. It’s
always payback time. He does not give us graces and gifts in
the Movement just for ourselves. Every gift of Jesus has a
social dimension, it’s meant not only for my own spiritual growth, but for
growth of the Kingdom. And so if we find ourselves becoming
somewhat complacent in our gifts received through the Movement and not
properly using them at least to the full extent that we could and helping to
spread the Movement, helping to spread the Kingdom, then let us resolve here
and now to do better.
Perseverance in the Movement—all vocations, all callings need
perseverance. I pray for perseverance as a Jesuit every day of
my life. I pray for perseverance. I’m suggesting to all of us that we pray
for perseverance in the Movement and not just a status quo type of
perseverance, but pray for a perseverance which will allow us to dynamically
grow and be greater apostles in the Movement. And we have to take the means
to persevere.
First of all, of course, is Mass and communion, then our visit to the
Blessed Sacrament, saying the rosary and listening to at least five minutes
a day to a live rosary which Rita receives, praying the hourly prayers
without feeling overburdened. If you begin to feel overburdened by the
hourly novena just make a 30 second prayer, say Jesus, say the three
invocations, “Lord ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find,
knock and it shall be opened to you, through the intercession of Mary, thy
most holy mother I knock, I seek, I ask that my prayer be granted” and
just say we pray for all needs of the Shepherds of Christ Movement and the
other two invocations. You can do that in about 30 seconds.
And then at times of course when you have the time and you feel moved bring
in the specific intentions. But that hourly prayer has great power to keep
our motivation up but it should not on the other hand feel burdensome to
you. If it feels burdensome to you for any length of time, just use the
short form for quite a while.
[Note: servants and handmaids and apostles of the Good Shepherd of the
Shepherds of Christ Movement go to daily Mass and spend one hour before the
tabernacle and pray hourly for the priests, the Church and the world.]
Reading the Blue Book messages, at least just a few minutes a day, can
do wonders to help us persevere in the Movement. Renew your
love and commitment to the Movement. Included in that renewed
love and commitment I think should be a resolution that we don’t bad mouth
the Movement, certainly not to those outside the Movement, certainly not
even to those within the Movement. We have problems, we always
have had some, we always will, the universal Church has monumental problems.
But we have to learn how to handle the problems responsibly. If you have a
significant problem please contact John or Rita, talk it over with them,
with me if you feel so called. They usually report problems to me. I’m in
constant contact with them. Currently I talk to them each day about the
Movement, what’s going on, strong points, weak points and so forth. If
you have problems with the Movement, don’t spread your problem with the
problems to somebody else who starts to think negatively also.
I mean go to Jesus, of course, first of all, but then bring your problem to
somebody who has the authority in the Movement to handle it. That’s very,
very important, 'cause our loyalty and love for the Movement, I think
are significantly harmed when we don’t take that approach.
Obedience in the Movement is going to become more and more important as the
Movement grows. Any organization needs a certain structure, a hierarchy of
command, obedience to legitimate authority. When John asks you to do
something, please try to answer his request. If you can’t, just tell him I
can’t do it now. When he directs you to do something, which is stronger
than a request, don’t give him a hard time. Jesus wants obedience in the
Movement. No Movement can survive or progress without obedience,
without a structure of command. John has a terrifically difficult
job. Don’t make it more difficult for him by, as I say, giving him a hard
time or by never answering his request for help.
I understand that the level of volunteerism here at the center has
gradually slackened off over recent months, and it is very
difficult to get people together to do our mailings. We can’t keep
depending on just a few people all the time. Here again it’s payback time.
I mean everyday is payback time. You can never fully repay Jesus for
what He has done for us or what He continues to do for us. Now we have to
use Christian prudence in all this, we’ve got family duties; we’ve got
other duties that’s God’s will for us. We have to take care of those.
But granting all those other calls on our time and our energy, if
Jesus has called you to this Movement, He’s called each and every one of
you, then He expects you to live up to your commitment. And if
it’s always looked upon, if you feel it’s always more of a burden than a
privilege, then I think a person has to consider, 'Shall I stay in the
Movement?' Jesus loves a cheerful giver. Suffering is involved, is it not?
Any following of Christ involves suffering. Any non following of Christ
brings suffering, and a greater suffering—those who don’t believe, who
don’t have any religious faith or conviction. They end up suffering much
more than we who suffer in the following of Christ.
I would like to read you something that I’ve written on suffering that
will appear in the next newsletter—
FATHER
CARTER'S VOICE WAS VERY SAD
and VERY LOVING.
Excerpt from Priestly Newsletter 1998 Issue 1
To
follow Jesus entails a willingness to suffer for Him and His cause. The
furthering of any worthwhile cause demands a spirit of sacrifice, a
willingness to endure a variety of hardships and difficulties. We cannot
expect it to be otherwise regarding the cause of Christ. To help further the
process of ongoing redemption demands a price.
There
is an almost endless variety of pains, sufferings, and difficulties which
can arise in following Jesus and promoting His cause. At times seeing few,
if any, visible results of our labors, feeling unappreciated, experiencing
opposition, sometimes comprehending that we are being hated precisely by
some of those whom we are striving to help, at times being laughed at and
ridiculed—these are some of the ways we experience the sufferings of an
apostle.
The
suffering involved in contributing to the process of ongoing redemption is
not, however, the complete picture. The happiness resulting from commitment
to Christ and His mission far outweighs the hardships. To be aware that one
is so intimately loved by Jesus, to experience the satisfaction that one is
contributing to a cause that cannot fail, to play a role in helping to bring
to others the love and peace of Jesus—all of this makes for a life that
has no equal. The committed follower of Christ, experiencing what it means
to be closely associated with Jesus, realizes why St. Peter said, Lord,…it
is wonderful for us to be here. (Mt. 17:4).
Father
Carter's talk continues
So in God’s
plan in the following of Christ, suffering is always meant to lead to
greater life here and hereafter, not only greater life for us as we grow in
Jesus through the proper handling of suffering, but also greater life in the
sense that we become more apt instruments for channeling His life to others,
as we are purified by His suffering, so that we may more and more allow Him
to live in and through and for us. One of the greatest Apostles of all times
of suffering showing us the place of suffering in the Christian dispensation
is St. Paul. He brings out this theme of death-resurrection of Jesus and our
participation in it in various places in his writing. I think one of the
most dramatic of those places is in
2
Corinthians 4: 7-11
The
hardships and hopes of the apostolate
But
we hold this treasure in pots of earthenware, so that the immensity of the
power is God’s and not our own. We are subjected to every kind of
hardship, but never distressed; we see no way out but we never despair; we
are pursued but never cut off; knocked down, but still have some life in
us; always we carry with us in our body the death of Jesus so that the
life of Jesus, too, may be visible in our body. Indeed, while we are still
alive, we are continually being handed over to death, for the sake of
Jesus, so that the life of Jesus, too, may be visible in our mortal flesh.
Father
Carter's talk continues
So we suffer with Jesus, so that here below and in eternity, so that
we may live more with Him, and that we may become more fit instruments for
helping to channel His life to others. We have a particular way of doing
that, a magnificent way within the Shepherds of Christ Movement. He hung
upon a cross on a hill called Calvary. He had already suffered so much, had
He not? He had been brutally scourged at the pillar, crowned with thorns,
laughed at, ridiculed, without sleep. He had to carry the
heavy cross up the hill, upon reaching the hill He was mercilessly nailed to
the cross. He hung there in that agonizing suffering until death came. His
side was pierced and from His pierced Heart flowed blood and water, symbols
of sacramental life in the Church, Baptism and the Eucharist. And as He hung
on that cross nearing death in that brutalized suffering, St. Francis de
Sales, who was a Doctor of the Church—a Doctor of the Church means that
the Church recognizes not
This is Father Carter blessing
us
at the Morrow Center |
only
the great holiness of the person, but the great learning, the great
wisdom—in one of his classic works, St. Francis de Sales, his work Treatise
on God's Divine Love, he says, “As Jesus hung upon the cross there in
that brutal suffering each of us was present to Him. He knew each of us
intimately and the perfect one gave His last drop of blood for you and for
me.” So if we ever have problems with our motivation in the Movement, I
suggest that we come to the foot of the cross and we realize what Jesus has
done for me and continues to do. It is payback time. St. Ignatius Loyola,
founder of the Jesuits, has left us this beautiful prayer,
“Lord teach me to be generous, teach me to serve you as you deserve, to
give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil
and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to ask for reward save that of
knowing that I do your will.”
Now I will give the blessing. May the blessing of Almighty God, Father,
Son and Holy Spirit descend upon you and remain forever. Amen.
end of Father Carter's talk February 1,
1998
Through the Eucharistic
Sacrifice Christ the Lord desired to set before us in a very special way this
remarkable union whereby we are united one with another and with our divine
Head, a union that no word of praise can ever sufficiently express. For in
this sacrifice the sacred ministers act not only as the representative of our
Saviour, but as the representative of the whole Mystical Body and of each one
of the faithful. Again, in this act of sacrifice, the faithful of Christ,
united by the common bond of devotion and prayer, offer to the eternal Father
through the hands of the priest, whose prayer alone has made it present on the
altar, the Immaculate Lamb, the most acceptable victim of praise and
propitiation for the Church’s universal need. Moreover, just as the divine
Redeemer, while dying on the Cross, offered Himself to the eternal Father as
Head of the whole human race, so now, ‘in this clean oblation’ He not only
offers Himself as Head of the Church to His heavenly Father but in Himself His
mystical members as well. He embraces them all, yes, even the weaker and more
ailing members, with the deepest love of His Heart. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici
Corporis AAS. XXXV, 232-233) 14
The Sacrifice of Calvary is sacramentally made present in
the Mass. When we pray the Morning Offering Prayer, united to the Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass, we act as intercessors, pleading to God that great
graces be released all day through our prayerful actions as we act in love
according to the Father’s will. Whether we are eating, taking care of a sick
parent, enjoying time spent with a friend, working at our job, we can help
bring down great graces for the world.
When we pray the Morning Offering Prayer
we offer our lives to the Father, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit, with the
prayerful assistance of Mary, our Mother. Let us pray together united in our
hearts in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There follows a Morning Offering
Prayer.
"My dear Father, I offer You this
day all my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings in union with Jesus in the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in the Holy Spirit.
"I unite with our Mother, Mary,
all the angels and saints, and all the souls in purgatory to pray to the
Father for myself, for each member of my family, for my friends, for all the
people throughout the world, for all the souls in purgatory, and for all
other intentions of the Sacred Heart.
"I love You, Jesus, and I give
You my heart. I love you, Mary, and I give you my heart. Amen."
-
From a spiritual journal we are given these words:
"When a priest is filled with the love of Jesus, he unites more deeply
with Christ in the great sacrifice being offered to the Father. The faithful
more easily see Jesus, through the priest, offering sacrifice to the Father.
They more easily experience, at this great sacrifice, the presence of
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
"At the Mass we unite in offering
sacrifice to the Father. We all unite as one and give ourselves in such
oneness with Jesus, in such love to the Father, in the Holy Spirit. We desire
to die to all the things that are not of God and join in the great miracle
taking place. The Father looks down and He sees the sacrifice of His Son being
offered through His priest. Heaven unites to earth. Earth cries out in such
jubilation at the great gift of the Almighty God, and we unite as creatures
giving ourselves as a sacrifice to our beloved Creator. Do we experience the
presence of God as His power flows through His priest, who takes bread and
wine, and changes them into the Body and Blood of our Lord? Do we hear Jesus
speak, as He did at the Last Supper, with the intensity in His voice
reflecting the knowledge of the upcoming events of His passion and death?
"Do we hear the priest say the
words of consecration with the emotion of Jesus about to give His life for His
beloved ones? And the earth stands still. There is, at that moment, the
sacrifice of Calvary sacramentally made present through the words of the
priest. Oh, that God so loved the world to give His only Son as a sacrifice,
and that God wants us in this deep oneness with Him! I give You myself, my
Savior, my beloved Jesus, as You so willingly gave Yourself to me on Calvary.
I want to die and rise more and more with You in the deepest possible love for
You and for those for whom You died a brutal, bloody death on the cross, and
for whom You rose gloriously from the dead!"
Priesthood
-
The Directory on the Ministry and Life
of Priests tells us: "The command of the Lord: go to all the
nations (Mt 28: 18-20) definitively expresses the place of the priest in
front of the Church. Sent -- missus -- by the Father by means of Christ,
the priest pertains in ‘an immediate’ way to the universal Church...
"The spiritual gift received by priests
in Ordination prepares them for a wide and universal mission of salvation. In
fact, through Orders and the ministry received, all priests are associated
with the Episcopal Body and, in hierarchical communion with it, according to
their vocation and grace, they serve the good of the entire Church. Therefore,
the membership to a particular church, through incardination, must not enclose
the priest in a restricted and particularistic mentality, but rather should
open him to the service of other churches, because each church is the
particular realization of the only Church of Jesus Christ, such that the
universal Church lives and fulfills her mission in and from the particular
churches in effective communion with her. Thus, all the priests must have a
missionary heart and mind and be open to the needs of the Church and the
world."
The
Christian and the World
Pope John Paul II tells
us: "Love for others, and in the first place love for the poor, in whom
the Church sees Christ himself, is made concrete in the promotion of
justice. Justice will never be fully attained unless people see in the
poor person, who is asking for help in order to survive, not an annoyance or a
burden, but an opportunity for showing kindness and a chance for greater
enrichment. Only such an awareness can give the courage needed to face the
risk and the change involved in every authentic attempt to come to the aid of
another. It is not merely a matter of ‘giving from one’s surplus,’ but
of helping entire peoples which are presently excluded or marginalized to
enter into the sphere of economic and human development. For this to happen,
it is not enough to draw on the surplus goods which in fact our world
abundantly produces; it requires above all a change of lifestyles, of models
of production and consumption, and of the established structures of power
which today govern societies. Nor is it a matter of eliminating instruments of
social organization which have proved useful, but rather of orienting them
according to an adequate notion of the common good in relation to the whole
human family."24
Act
of Consecration (new)
"Jesus, You show us
Your Heart as symbol of Your life of love in all its aspects, including Your
most special love for each of us as unique individuals. Out of Your great love
for us, You died a brutal death, nailed to the wood of the cross. Out of Your
great love for us, You rose gloriously from the dead.
"From Your pierced
Heart the Church with her life-giving Sacraments was born. In the Eucharist,
Crown and Center of the Church’s life, You continue to give Yourself to us
with the deepest, most tender, most on-fire, most complete love.
"Jesus, since in
Your great love You give Yourself so completely to us, it is only fitting that
we make a gift to You in return. It is entirely fitting that we give ourselves
completely to You. Yes, we consecrate ourselves to Your most loving Heart.
Each of us says to You, O Lord, our Savior and our Friend: ‘Jesus, take me
wholly, take me completely to Your magnificent Heart. Out of love I give
myself to You. Live in and through me. In love You give Yourself completely to
me. In love and in a spirit of reparation, I want to give myself, with the
help of Your grace, entirely to You. Take me, Jesus, to an ever closer union
with the Father, in the Holy Spirit, with Mary my Mother at my side. Pierced,
Glorified, Eucharistic Heart of Jesus I place my trust in You.’ "
"Dear Blessed Virgin Mary, I
consecrate myself to your maternal and Immaculate Heart, this Heart which is
symbol of your life of love, including your most special love for me as this
unique individual. You are the Mother of my Savior. You are also my Mother. In
a return of love, I give myself entirely to your motherly love and protection.
You followed Jesus perfectly. You are His first and perfect disciple. Teach me
to imitate you in the putting on of Christ. Be my motherly intercessor so
that, through your Immaculate Heart, I may be guided to an ever closer union
with the Pierced, Glorified, Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, Chief Shepherd of the
flock."
A
Prayer for Priests
Many of the laity pray
for us priests, and consistently so. Is it not also fitting that we priests
pray for all our brothers in the priesthood, and consistently so? There
follows a prayer that can aid us in this endeavor.
"Lord Jesus, Chief
Shepherd of the Flock, we pray that in the great love and mercy of Your
Sacred Heart that You attend to all the needs of Your priest-shepherds
throughout the world. We ask that You draw back to Your Heart all those
priests who have seriously strayed from Your path, that You rekindle the
desire for holiness in the hearts of those priests who have become lukewarm,
and that You continue to give Your fervent priests the desire for the
highest holiness. United with Your Heart and Mary’s Heart, we ask that You
take this petition to Your heavenly Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit.
Amen".
The above prayer is
taken from the prayer manual of Shepherds of Christ Associates, a facet of
Shepherds of Christ Ministries. The associates are members of prayer groups
which meet regularly to pray for all the needs of the entire human family, but
most especially for priests. If you would like a copy, or copies, of this
prayer manual, and further, if you would like information on how to begin a
Shepherds of Christ prayer chapter, contact us at:
Shepherds of Christ
P.O. Box 193
Morrow, Ohio 45152-0193 U.S.A.
Phone (toll free): 1-888-211-3041,
Phone: 1-513-932-4451
Fax: 1-513-932-6791
Letters
The latest special issue of Shepherds
of Christ is very good (Issue 3, 2000). I like the idea that you are
expanding it so that although aimed for the needs of priests it is an
available resource for lay people as well. It will keep it more viable in
the long run. But the choice of articles and topics in the issue are an
excellent thematic list of the major spiritual topics of today.
My best,
Lawrence Boadt, CSP
Paulist Press
Mahwah, NJ
Please let me tell you how much I am
grateful for your "Shepherds of Christ" newsletter. I received the
Issue 3, 2000, manual from a long-time family friend and monk who handed it
along to my family. The articles are interesting and inspirational!
I am a 20-year old college student and I
attend a private, secular school. The prayers and articles in
"Shepherds of Christ" help me understand the Eucharist and live a
life focused on Jesus. I especially like the Act of Consecration prayer. It
is so beautiful! I say it daily.
Thank you again and may God bless all
those involved in the "Shepherds of Christ" ministry.
Sincerely,
Bonnie Deignan
Farmingdale, New Jersey
I just finished reading the Special Issue
"Overview of the Spiritual Life" Excellent! Please send me the
book form of the 1st 12 issues.
Thank you.
In Christ
Fr. Gerald Sherer
Hermosa, SD
Mabuhay! Greetings from the Philippines!
Please allow me to congratulate you for the expansion of your readership. It
is indeed true that even the laity would benefit from your spiritual
publication. As for my case, I am not yet a priest yet I found your notes to
be helpful in my personal spiritual journey. Thus, I am asking for a
personal copy of Shepherds of Christ. The ones that I had been reading were
given by a fellow seminarian. May I also request the audiocasette recording
of your previous issues. Thank you very much for your dedication. May
Mary’s protection never leave you in your life.
In Christ
Sem. Nono Acompanado
Holy Rosary Major Seminary
Concepcion Heights, Naga City
Philippines
Greetings in the name of the Risen Lord! I
hope you had a good Lent and a joyful celebration of Easter. Here at St.
Anne the Vigil and the Easter Sunday celebrations were memorable.
Father, since the time I started receiving
these spiritual newsletters through my Vicar General Mons. Joseph Kimu of
St. John the Baptist Major Seminary in the diocese of Mangochi here in
Malawi, I feel my spiritual life has been enriched tremendously.
On the other side, I would like to welcome
most gratefully the idea of extending the readership to the laity.
I think there could be some food for them too. We as priests, and they as
the flock need each other’s assistance.
Sincerely in the Risen Christ
Rev. Fr. Lucious Kamwana
St. Anne Catholic Parish
Balaka - Malawi - AFRICA
I have been receiving your newsletters for
over a year now and have enjoyed it immensely. Every issue I read from front
to back. I am now 48 years ordained and each newsletter renews me
spiritually.
Enclosed is a little donation. I enjoy
each issue very much.
Yours in Christ and Mary,
Father John Graham, C. SS. R
St. Cecilia’s Rectory
New York, NY
Copyright
© 2002 Shepherds of Christ.