Blue Book 16 is Available!

                May 27, 2016

                R. The whole world is vast. We cannot
                even phantom all the land and waters
                and all the people of the world, but we
                can pray for the whole Church and the whole
                world united to the Mass and we know God will
                outpour His grace on the Church and the
                world.
 

e) Relationship with Members of the Church

There is but one true Church of Christ. Yet this one Church has three different states of existence. There is the pilgrim Church, the Church of this world, composed of members who have received the grace of Christ and strive for its development. They have not yet obtained the goal of their efforts, as have the members of the heavenly Church, who enjoy God in eternal happiness. The Church suffering is an intermediate state of existence necessary for those who had not achieved the required purification as members of the pilgrim Church. Although there are these three phases of the Church’s existence, there is a profound union existing between all the members. All these members possess the same basic life of grace in Christ, and this common life establishes the most intimate bonds of love. In our preceding chapter, we discussed the pilgrim Church. Let us now consider the Church suffering and the heavenly Church.

The members of the Church suffering are those who have departed from this life in an incomplete state of Christian development. Their development is incomplete in the sense that grace has not fully taken possession of them, and, as a result, they are yet closed in upon themselves to a greater or lesser degree. They as yet cannot open themselves out in complete love to the Triune God in the beatific vision. They must undergo a further purification, a purification which could have been achieved upon earth with merit. Now the purification must be achieved with no merit attached. The pain of this purification is mixed with the certain expectation of achieving the vision of God. We can hasten the advent of this vision for this people by the offering of prayers and other good works. Scripture itself refers to our action on behalf of those in purgatory in Chapter 12 of the Second Book of Maccabees beginning with verse 38.

The members of the heavenly Church are those in whom the life of grace has taken full possession and has reached its completion in the life of glory. Faith now is unnecessary, as the light of glory gives the human intellect a new strength and capacity for seeing God face-to-face. While the Christian was a wayfarer, he received the imprint of the indwelling Trinity as he shared in God’s own life. Now in heaven that grace-life and possession of God reaches its completion—the absolute completion is not achieved, however, until the resurrection of the body. The divine persons give Themselves to the beatified in a profound union far surpassing that of the indwelling of the Trinity experienced here below.

This life of heaven is still the Christ-life, for just as we possess a share in Trinitarian life here below as mediated by Christ, and exercise this grace-life as structured by Him, so also in heaven is the mediation of Christ present. In the words of Rahner, "One always sees the Father through Jesus. Just as immediately as this, for the directness of the vision of God is not a denial of the mediatorship of Christ as man."¹⁴ And not only does the humanity of Christ unite the blessed to God, but also, in some way, to the whole of creation. This is merely a completion of what is begun here below, namely, the union with Christ in His humanity establishing the Christian in a special relationship with God, with other men, and with the whole of creation. We have a glimpse, therefore, of the fullness of life which members of the heavenly Church possess.

The heavenly Church, as St. Thomas says, is the true Church.¹⁵ The Church of this earth and the Church of purgatory are, each in its own way, reaching out in loving hope for the heavenly Jerusalem. Vatican II puts it very simply: "The Church, to which we are called in Christ Jesus, and in which we acquire sanctity through the grace of God, will attain her full perfection only in the glory of heaven."¹⁶

The members of the heavenly Church can help us in living our life of grace until we too share its fullness with them. Their power of intercession on our behalf is but another ramification of the communal aspect of Christianity. We are meant to help others grow in Christ. We, in turn, are intended by God to receive aid from others—yes, from members of the heavenly Church, as well as from those with whom we dwell here below.

Not only can we be aided by the saints’ intercession, but the example of the canonized saints can also be of great value to us. They have concretely proved that full holiness is possible. Such an inspiration is of real worth when we are tempted to think that Christian sanctity in its higher degrees is impossible of attainment. Moreover, the canonized saints, in their diversity, teach us that there are many authentic versions of Christian holiness. They can be innovators in showing us that there are numerous possibilities in assimilating the mystery of Christ, although the basic assimilation remains the same for all Christians of all times. In the opinion of Rahner this is one of the chief roles the canonized saints exert in the life of the Church.¹⁷

 

---

NOTES:

 ¹⁴Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, Vol. III (Baltimore: Helicon, 1967), p. 44.
 ¹⁵ Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, In Ad Ephes., c. 3, Lect. 3.
 ¹⁶Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Church, No. 48.
 ¹⁷Cf. Karl Rahner, Op. cit., pp. 100-101.

                R. We just don't know it all – We are always
                learning about God – He is the ultimate
                mystery.

    ... In reference to Christianity, God himself is the ultimate mystery. Radically, God is completely other and transcendent, hidden from man in his inner life, unless he chooses to reveal himself. Let us briefly look at this inner life of God.

    The Father, in a perfect act of self-expression, in a perfect act of knowing, generates his son. The Son, the Word, is, then, the immanent expression of God's fullness, the reflection of the Father. Likewise, from all eternity, the Father and the Son bring forth the Holy Spirit in a perfect act of loving.

    At the destined moment in human history, God's self-expression, the Word, immersed himself into man's world. God's inner self-expression now had also become God's outer self-expression. Consequently, the mystery of God becomes the mystery of Christ. In Christ, God tells us about himself, about his inner life, about his plan of creation and redemption. He tells us how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit desire to dwell within us in the most intimate fashion, how they wish to share with us their own life through grace. All this he has accomplished and does accomplish through Christ. St. Paul tells us: "I became a minister of this Church through the commission God gave me to preach among you his word in its fullness, that mystery hidden from ages and generations past but now revealed to his holy ones. God has willed to make known to them the glory beyond price which this mystery brings to the Gentiles—the mystery of Christ in you, your hope of glory. This is the Christ we proclaim while we admonish all men and teach them in the full measure of wisdom, hoping to make every man complete in Christ" (Col 1:25-28).

                R. Dear God – help me to be more and more
                as You intend me to be – Help me to live
                every day, as You desire in the building
                of Your Kingdom.

                    How many lessons God has tried to
                teach us about love and how many times we
                have not taken that opportunity to learn about
                loving because we were ignorant or
                ungrateful or focused on the things we
                wanted so bad for our honor.

                    God can let us have so many experiences
                and yet we can ignore the lesson we could
                be learning by blocking Him out.

                    We want to seek reality as it really is.
                When we think, as Fr. Carter wrote, about the
                3 stages of the Church – we can see more that
                big picture.

                    When I was little my mom died. It made a
                big difference in my life, my family's life.
                We all had a big lesson about heaven and death
                and the temporariness of this life.

                    Life is fragile. We are given lessons about
                death, when those close to us die and it
                teaches us about the temporariness of this
                life.

                    We have seen in the Shepherds of Christ miracles
                of healing and we can remember all the scriptures
                about the miracles Christ did. He even
                brought Lazarus and Jarvis' daughter back
                from the dead.

                    God is a God of miracles and it is
                ordinary for God to perform miracles. We
                cannot get ourselves into the thinking that
                if A and B happens - C necessarily follows.
                It is a miracle how we even got here, how
                we have been called to this mission – how
                God sent us our friends and how close
                we can be in our hearts to people we
                met because God wanted us to know them.

                    Life here is a journey and God is our teacher
                and we may have missed a lot of lessons He
                was teaching us in days gone by, but God is
                teaching us today. He is teaching us in the
                sufferings, He is teaching us in the joys – He
                is filling us with His love when we go to the
                Eucharist and receive Him. He is outpouring
                His life in our baptized soul when we go to
                the Eucharist.

                    I know when I go to Mass and pray before
                the Eucharist I see differently, I think differently.
                I am lifted up – even in suffering, I see
                through God's eyes. I am so grateful for
                the Eucharist. I love the Feast of the
                Precious Body and Blood of Jesus. This is
                real. God loves me so much – He comes
                to me and showers His grace on me when
                I go to Communion. God loves us so much.
                I receive Jesus and I know His Eucharistic
                presence in me. He comes in His Divinity
                and humanity in my soul and He showers
                me with His grace –

                    This message about the Eucharist and how
                God loves us must be preached to the world.
                We are commissioned in baptism to spread
                the Good News, but in these private
                revelations of the Blue Books we can
                spread the message God has given in the
                Shepherds of Christ. God wants us to spread
                this message and these prayers to the far
                ends of the earth.

                    Having faith means we believe without
                seeing. God sends us miracles to help our
                unbelief, but we must seek the vision of
                God, and hope and love as God calls
                us to. We walk by faith! We know that
                Jesus worked many miracles for the
                blind and deaf and healing. The blind
                man could see after Jesus cured Him.
                The lame could walk –

                    These miracles Jesus performed are in the
                scriptures – the Word of God. God teaches
                us about Himself – we have a glimpse
                of what is unseen. God loves us so much –
                we are called by God to spread this message –
                It is our duty!

                    We live our lives trying to bring the
                Absolute Truth to others. We ponder the
                truths of God. We seek the Divine truth.
                Knowing the truth unites us more deeply
                to God.

                    In baptism our knowing and loving capacity
                is elevated. We seek to know more on a supernatural
                level. We seek to know – We love the truth –
                We want to know the truths about God
                on a supernatural level. This gives us great
                happiness and joy. We want to understand
                more and have insight into the Divine
                mysteries.

                    To do this we must be more and more
                pure. We are living the virtues of
                justice and temperance and fortitude and
                prudence –

                    We walk humbly because we want to walk
                in the truth. We must be disciplined or we
                cannot walk this journey. We raise our
                minds and hearts to God – we therefore must
                walk purely to contemplate the truths
                about God, to know Him, we do not give
                into lies and deceptive thinking – how
                could we be close to God – to know Him
                if we live in lies, or are lustful, or are unjust
                to God and others, or if we fail to do the work
                God calls us to, because we are cowardly in
                our vocation.

                    We seek virtue to be happy in living our life
                as God has called us to do. We seek purity
                of being more and more in the image of
                Jesus. Happiness is found in God.
                We have the hope of eternal happiness –
                We seek to spread the Good News to lead
                others to eternal happiness. We seek the
                Divine Truth! Our actions are governed
                by right reasoning and doing God's will
                in love → this leads to happiness in this
                life and the goal of eternal happiness eternally.

                    We love the truth – we seek the truth – we
                embrace the truth, we wish to know and
                understand the truth – this leads us to
                greater happiness – in this we are more
                deeply united to God! We seek to be
                more and more perfect as our heavenly
                Father is perfect. We seek the vision of God.
                In heaven we will see God face to face –
                We live our lives preparing for eternity –
                God calls us to a particular vocation to
                further the Kingdom of God. We want to contribute
                to this unique gift God has given to us.

                    In the Shepherds of Christ God has given us
                these prayers, these writings in the Blue Book
                about the Mass, about God's love for us,
                about living according to God's will,
                about union with God and the interior
                life. God has given us Fr. Carter's writings
                in the Priestly Newsletter and the messages
                on the spiritual life to reach greater
                perfection and understand the hidden
                mysteries more and more.

                    God has given us Fr. Joe's books to understand
                more the Word of God – our beautiful liturgical
                cycles.

                    We have the Apostles of the Eucharistic Heart
                of Jesus to love adoration, to love to pray –
                the Holy Spirit Novena etc. –

November 4, 2013

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

 
 

Act of consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
and the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Lord Jesus, Chief Shepherd of the flock, I consecrate myself to Your most Sacred Heart. From Your pierced Heart the Church was born, the Church You have called me, as a member of Shepherds of Christ Associates, to serve in a most special way. You reveal Your Heart as a symbol of Your love in all its aspects, including Your most special love for me, whom You have chosen as Your companion in this most important work. Help me to always love You in return. Help me to give myself entirely to You. Help me always to pour out my life in love of God and neighbor! 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. You are the Mother of my Savior. You are also my Mother. You love me with a most special love as a member of Shepherds of Christ Associates, a movement created by your Son as a powerful instrument for the renewal of the Church and the world. 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 Heart of Jesus, Chief Shepherd of the flock.

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