Daily Writing
| Shepherds of Christ Daily Writing |
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March 1, 2009
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March 2nd Holy
Spirit Novena |
The Novena Rosary
Mysteries |
Retreat in Florida
March 2, 3, 4 and 5th.
1:30pm & 6:20pm each day
Retreat in China on March 10, 11, 12 and 13th
You can help put the Blue Book V
in the hands of 1,000 people
we need $1,100 postage for this
It is ready to go
Call Kathleen
1-888-211-3041
You can help put Fr. Joe's homily
book in the hands of
1,000 priests — it costs $1,100
This can help 1,000 parish priests
talk about Covenant for Lent
Please help us
It is ready to go
Call Kathleen 1-888-211-3041
We have this card telling priests about
Fr. Carter's books
Fr. Joe's homily books
Rita's Mass Book
This will help priests and bring in money —
$10.00 a book
several states that is 13,000
priests for $1,900.00 postage
also announcing
Response to God's Love Book
PLEASE HELP US
March 1, 2009
Today's Readings
Genesis 9: 8-15God spoke as follows to Noah and his sons, ‘I am now establishing my covenant with you and with your descendants to come, and with every living creature that was with you: birds, cattle and every wild animal with you; everything that came out of the ark, every living thing on earth. And I shall maintain my covenant with you: that never again shall all living things be destroyed by the waters of a flood, nor shall there ever again be a flood to devastate the earth.’
‘And this’, God said, ‘is the sign of the covenant which I now make between myself and you and every living creature with you for all ages to come: I now set my bow in the clouds and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I gather the clouds over the earth and the bow appears in the clouds, I shall recall the covenant between myself and you and every living creature, in a word all living things, and never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all living things.
1 Peter 3: 18-22
Christ himself died once and for all for sins, the upright for the sake of the guilty, to lead us to God. In the body he was put to death, in the spirit he was raised to life, and, in the spirit, he went to preach to the spirits in prison. They refused to believe long ago, while God patiently waited to receive them, in Noah’s time when the ark was being built. In it only a few, that is eight souls, were saved through water. It is the baptism corresponding to this water which saves you now—not the washing off of physical dirt but the pledge of a good conscience given to God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has entered heaven and is at God’s right hand, with angels, ruling forces and powers subject to him.
Mark 1: 12-15
And at once the Spirit drove him into the desert and he remained there for forty days, and was put to the test by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and the angels looked after him.
After John had been arrested, Jesus went into Galilee. There he proclaimed the gospel from God saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the gospel.’
The devil tempts - people then develop
habits —
God wants us to live a virtuous life
saying "yes" to Him —
living in the Holy Spirit
Living in humility — not pride, not
disobedience
Jesus obeyed His Father's will
Mary obeyed the Father's will
Song: Shelter Me Oh God
Life in Jesus
means we want to serve and love Jesus
means we want to be obedient to Jesus
means we live for His honor and glory
means we develop habits where we live
to please our heavenly Father —
We are not selfish
We are not willful
We live as the servants and handmaids
of God
Our way of life is love —
It is us — where we love God so much —
we are always saying yes to
God
Our heart beats life to the body
without our heart beating we would
die
Loving is our way of life
We are always focused on Jesus — what
Jesus wants
When we give into selfishness, jealousies,
envy, when we are in competition,
when our goal is being over others
for a selfish, self dominance
we open a door to satan and
he tries to move us
more into his way — not God's way
As individuals we need to love God
and each other —
We need to experience love as a unity —
as a member of society —
as a member of our parish
as a member of Shepherds of Christ
as a member of the Church
God is the object of our love —
We do all things for love of God
We love God first above all things
By loving our neighbor we express our
love for God —
God demands by the greatest commandment
we love
Matthew 22: 36-40
'Master, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?' Jesus said to him, 'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second resembles it: You must love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the Prophets too.'
We love the world
We do not love the selfish, sinful
ways of the world —
We pray in the Shepherds of Christ out of this
love of the world — all souls —
we pray for the souls Jesus died for —
1 John 3: 18
Children,
our love must be not just words
or mere talk,
but something active and genuine.
We are called by God to be a witness
of love —
Love is Action
Love is relationship with God and others
We are to love God —
We are called to die to the ways not like God
and to rise in Him
To witness to all of His life in us —
Covenant with God
God flooded the earth at the
time of Noah
In baptism the Father, Son and Holy Spirit
live in us —
God created out of nothing
Look at all He gives us
God gives us nature
God gives us the ocean
God gives us the beauty of the earth
God gives us the life under the
ocean
The sky, the sun, the stars, the moon —
The flowers, trees
God gives us babies
God gives us each other
We are God's people
God gives us the Church
God gives us the 7 sacraments
God gives us baptism, a sharing
in His life
God gives us the Eucharist to feed us
God gives us confession
We are children of God — called to love
God and love each other
Love is friendship with God and others —
It is 2 way —
Not a selfish love where I see everything
through my distorted vision of God and
others and myself —
Love is the selfless giving of oneself to help
build the Kingdom of God
A baptized Catholic, realizing I am a member of the
body of Christ — someone is a toenail — another
person a toe — they work together as one.
There is not hidden anger — competition
for those God has called us to live
with and work with —
We are like a detective begging the Holy
Spirit to fill us with God's love
to promote unity with others
rooted in that love — living in oneness
with God's love permeating our motives,
our actions, our lives
When we know God is our best friend — we
can see that relationship He wants
with us —
God wants that Personal relationship
with us — This is a big part of
Blue Book I, Blue Book II —
We are God's friends —
We don't listen to the devil who wants
us to see ourselves as isolated and
people not liking us in disorder,
disunity, disharmony
We are knowing that friendship of God —
John 15: 15
I shall no longer call you servants,
because a servant does not know
the master’s business;
I call you friends,
because I have made known to you
everything I have learnt from my Father.
1 John 5: 1
Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ
is a child of God,
and whoever loves the father
loves the son.
Fr. Carter wrote Response to God's Love —
We must see the call and Our Response —
If we continue to see God through our
distorted vision and not as He really
is we do not grasp the immensity of
the love of the Trinity as Fr. Carter talks of
here
Excerpt from Response to God's Love,
by Fr. Edward Carter, S.J.
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The Mystery of Christ and |
End of excerpt...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).
Let me be a holy sacrifice and unite with God in the sacrament of His greatest love.
I want to be one in Him in this act of love, where He gives Himself to me and I give myself as a sacrifice to Him. Let me be a holy sacrifice as I become one with Him in this my act of greatest love to Him.
Let me unite with Him more, that I may more deeply love Him. May I help make reparation to His adorable Heart and the heart of His Mother, Mary. With greatest love, I offer myself to You and pray that You will accept my sacrifice of greatest love. I give myself to You and unite in Your gift of Yourself to me. Come and possess my soul.
Cleanse me, strengthen me, heal me. Dear Holy Spirit act in the heart of Mary to make me more and more like Jesus.
Father, I offer this my sacrifice, myself united to Jesus in the Holy Spirit to You. Help me to love God more deeply in this act of my greatest love.
Give me the grace to grow in my knowledge, love and service of You and for this to be my greatest participation in the Mass. Give me the greatest graces to love You so deeply in this Mass, You who are so worthy of my love.
-God's Blue Book, December 27, 1995
We were created in the image and likeness of God —
God gives us this sharing in His life in
baptism
The Father, Son and Holy Spirit dwell in the graced
baptized soul —
God chose us
God created us
God wants us to see ourselves as His
loving creatures with dignity
and uniqueness
We are friends of God
If we do not love our brothers who
we see - how can we love God who
we do not see —
1 John 4: 20-21
Anyone who says 'I love God'
and hates his brother,
is a liar,
since whoever does not love the brother
whom he can see
cannot love God whom he has not seen.
Indeed this is the commandment
we have received from him,
that whoever loves God,
must also love his brother.
If we are really God's disciples - we
love all
We love the poor — minorities —
elderly — youth — sick — sinners —
If we see ourselves as above and others
beneath us - we can be guilty of seeing
ourselves as perfect and others as imperfect —
God created us all
All are loved by God
Jesus died for all
A person seeing only themselves and God as
their God is missing what God
is teaching us —
Jesus told Fr. Carter for us to pray for the
priests, the Church and the world
Matthew 25: 40
And the King will answer, "In truth I tell you, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me."
Love holds us together
God disciplines those He loves —
When a person is correcting another
and raising themselves to greater perfection
in their correction they are not seeing —
God is not jealous, envious —
His motives are pure —
To honor God
To build the Kingdom
To correct disorder to promote
unity and do His work
A person wanting their way can manipulate
through force - anger, passive-
aggressive - sneaky - with
others against authority —
God wants us to obey and to live to
die to ways that are defects
we must correct to be more
perfected like our heavenly Father
is perfect
Sing: Deep Within
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
ORDER IN MASS
SACRIFICE
HOLY
(1) Penitential Rite - helps us be holy
We Praise and Give Glory to God
If Gloria
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ, King of
endless glory —
Good News
Right Attitudes
Mary — New Eve
Revelation 11: 19, 12: 1-6, 10
Then the sanctuary of God in heaven opened, and the ark of the covenant could be seen inside it. Then came flashes of lightning, peals of thunder and an earthquake and violent hail.
Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman, robed with the sun, standing on the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant, and in labour, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth. Then a second sign appeared in the sky: there was a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and each of the seven heads crowned with a coronet. Its tail swept a third of the stars from the sky and hurled them to the ground, and the dragon stopped in front of the woman as she was at the point of giving birth, so that it could eat the child as soon as it was born. The woman was delivered of a boy, the son who was to rule all the nations with an iron scepter, and the child was taken straight up to God and to his throne, while the woman escaped into the desert, where God had prepared a place for her to be looked after for twelve hundred and sixty days.
Then I heard a voice shout from heaven, 'Salvation and power and empire for ever have been won by our God, and all authority for his Christ, now that the accuser, who accused our brothers day and night before our God, has been brought down.
July 5, 2000
November 6, 2000
Luke 1: 46-55
And Mary said:
My soul proclaims
the greatness of the Lord
and my spirit rejoices
in God my Saviour;
because he has looked upon
the humiliation of his servant.
Yes, from now onwards
all generations will call me blessed,
for the Almighty
has done great things for me.
Holy is his name,
and his faithful love extends age after age
to those who fear him.
He has used the power of his arm,
he has routed the arrogant of heart.
He has pulled down princes
from their thrones
and raised high the lowly.
He has filled the starving with good things,
sent the rich away empty.
He has come to the help
of Israel his servant,
mindful of his faithful love
—according to the promise
he made to our ancestors—
of his mercy to Abraham
and to his descendants for ever.
Sing: Holy is His Name
Isaiah 60: 16
You will suck the milk of nations,
you will suck the wealth of kings;
and you will know that I,
Yahweh, am your Savior,
and your Redeemer,
is the Mighty One of Jacob.
Genesis 9: 8-15
God spoke as follows to Noah and his sons, ‘I am now establishing my covenant with you and with your descendants to come, and with every living creature that was with you: birds, cattle and every wild animal with you; everything that came out of the ark, every living thing on earth. And I shall maintain my covenant with you: that never again shall all living things be destroyed by the waters of a flood, nor shall there ever again be a flood to devastate the earth.’
‘And this’, God said, ‘is the sign of the covenant which I now make between myself and you and every living creature with you for all ages to come: I now set my bow in the clouds and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I gather the clouds over the earth and the bow appears in the clouds, I shall recall the covenant between myself and you and every living creature, in a word all living things, and never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all living things.
Flood of Noah prefigures baptism
2 Chronicles 36: 14-16, 19-23
Furthermore, all the leaders of Judah, the priests and the people too, added infidelity to infidelity, copying all the shameful practices of the nations and defiling the Temple of Yahweh which he himself had consecrated in Jerusalem. Yahweh, God of their ancestors, continuously sent them word through his messengers because he felt sorry for his people and his dwelling, but they ridiculed the messengers of God, they despised his words, they laughed at his prophets, until Yahweh's wrath with his people became so fierce that there was no further remedy.
He burned down the temple of God, demolished the walls of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces to the ground and destroyed everything of value in it. And those who had escaped the sword he deported to Babylon, where they were enslaved by him and his descendants until the rise of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfil Yahweh's prophecy through Jeremiah: Until the country has paid off its Sabbaths, it will lie fallow for all the days of its desolation--until the seventy years are complete.
In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia--to fulfil the word of Yahweh through Jeremiah--Yahweh roused the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to issue a proclamation and to have it publicly displayed throughout his kingdom: 'Cyrus king of Persia says this, "Yahweh, the God of Heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a Temple in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, may his God be with him! Let him go up."
We honor Mary - ever virgin
We honor Joseph
We honor Apostles and martyrs
Sing: Holy, Holy
We come to give praise and thanksgiving —
to the Father- through Jesus Christ
and in the Holy Spirit
To make us holy — obedient to God —
not rebellious
Father, you are holy indeed
We give you praise Father
"All life, all holiness comes from
you through your Son, Jesus Christ
our Lord, by the working of the Holy Spirit"
from Eucharistic Prayer III
Jesus is the Lamb of God
"Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace."
"Lord I am not worthy to receive you
but only say the word and I shall be healed"
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Our Lady of Clearwater Florida
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 November 5, 2003 Jesus instructed the prayer service be done inside |
 November 5, 2003 Jesus instructed the prayer service be done inside |
 December 5, 2003 Jesus instructed the prayer service be done inside |
 December 5, 2003 Jesus instructed the prayer service be done inside |
 December 5, 2003 Jesus instructed the prayer service be done inside |
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 February 5, 2004 |
 February 5, 2004 |
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We can look with jealousy on people that are
doing God's will
This is impure.
Genesis 37: 2-36
This is the story of Joseph.
Joseph was seventeen years old. As he was young, he was shepherding the flock with his brothers, with the sons of his father’s wives, Bilhah and Zilpah; and Joseph brought his father bad reports about them.
Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other sons, for he was the son of his old age, and he had a decorated tunic made for him. But his brothers, seeing how much more his father loved him than all his other sons, came to hate him so much that they could not say a civil word to him.
Now Joseph had a dream, and he repeated it to his brothers, who then hated him more than ever. ‘Listen’, he said, ‘to the dream I had. We were binding sheaves in the field, when my sheaf suddenly rose and stood upright, and then your sheaves gathered round and bowed to my sheaf.’ ‘So you want to be king over us,’ his brothers retorted, ‘you want to lord it over us?’ And they hated him even more, on account of his dreams and of what he said. He had another dream which he recounted to his brothers. ‘Look, I have had another dream,’ he said. ‘There were the sun, the moon and eleven stars, bowing down to me.’ He told his father and brothers, and his father scolded him. ‘A fine dream to have!’ he said to him. ‘Are all of us then, myself, your mother and your brothers, to come and bow to the ground before you?’ His brothers held it against him, but his father pondered the matter.
His brothers went to pasture their father’s flock at Shechem. Then Israel said to Joseph, ‘Your brothers are with the flock at Shechem, aren’t they? Come, I am going to send you to them.’ ‘I am ready,’ he replied. He said to him, ‘Go and see how your brothers and the flock are doing, and bring me word.’ He sent him from the valley of Hebron, and Joseph arrived at Shechem.
A man found him wandering in the countryside and asked him, ‘What are you looking for ? ’ ‘I am looking for my brothers,’ he replied. ‘Please tell me where they are pasturing their flock.’ The man answered, ‘They have moved on from here; indeed I heard them say, "Let us go to Dothan." ’ So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.
They saw him in the distance, and before he reached them they made a plot to kill him. ‘Here comes that dreamer,’ they said to one another. ‘Come on, let us kill him now and throw him down one of the storage–wells; we can say that some wild animal has devoured him. Then we shall see what becomes of his dreams.’
But Reuben heard, and he saved him from their clutches. ‘We must not take his life,’ he said. ‘Shed no blood,’ said Reuben to them, ‘throw him down that well out in the desert, but do not kill him yourselves’—intending to save him from them and to restore him to his father. So, when Joseph reached his brothers, they pulled off his tunic, the decorated tunic which he was wearing, and catching hold of him, threw him into the well. The well was empty, with no water in it. They then sat down to eat.
Looking up, they saw a group of Ishmaelites who were coming from Gilead, their camels laden with gum tragacanth, balsam and resin, which they were taking to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, ‘What do we gain by killing our brother and covering up his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, then we shall not have laid hands on him ourselves. After all, he is our brother, and our own flesh.’ His brothers agreed.
Now some Midianite merchants were passing, and they pulled Joseph out of the well. They sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver, and these men took Joseph to Egypt. When Reuben went back to the well, there was no sign of Joseph. Tearing his clothes, he went back to his brothers. ‘The boy has gone,’ he said. ‘What am I going to do?’
They took Joseph’s tunic and, slaughtering a goat, dipped the tunic in the blood. Then they sent off the decorated tunic and had it taken to their father, with the message, ‘This is what we have found. Do you recognise it as your son’s tunic or not?’ He recognised it and cried, ‘My son’s tunic! A wild animal has devoured him! Joseph has been torn to pieces!’ Tearing his clothes and putting sackcloth round his waist, Jacob mourned his son for many days. All his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I will go down to Sheol in mourning and join my son.’ Thus his father wept for him.
Meanwhile the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials and commander of the guard.
We cut off our own hands and feet
Disobedience to God's laws —
then act like we are right
Jesus loves us so much — if we love Him
we are thankful for His gifts given
to others — not jealous
We serve God —
We focus on Him
We do not do things for pride or vain glory
We look through the eyes of God the Father —
the Creator of heaven and earth
We see His gifts and rejoice
We are so grateful for these gifts in others —
gifts He gives us through others
Call Kathleen to Order any of the items below
1-888-211-3041
