Station of the Cross Prayer
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SR. LUCIA’S GREAT VISION
In 1929, she saw a vision of Jesus Crucified. At the top of the cross, there was a man with a body up to the waist and upon his chest was dove of light. A little below the waist of Jesus was a chalice and a large host. Blood from the face of Jesus Crucified and from the wound in his side ran down on to the host and fell into the chalice. Beneath the right arm of the cross was Mary with her her immaculate heart. Under the left arm of the cross, large letters, as if of crystal clear water which ran down upon the altar, formed these words: “Grace and Mercy.”
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SR. LUCIA’S GREAT VISION
In 1929, she saw a vision of Jesus Crucified. At the top of the cross, there was a man with a body up to the waist and upon his chest was dove of light. A little below the waist of Jesus was a chalice and a large host. Blood from the face of Jesus Crucified and from the wound in his side ran down on to the host and fell into the chalice. Beneath the right arm of the cross was Mary with her her immaculate heart. Under the left arm of the cross, large letters, as if of crystal clear water which ran down upon the altar, formed these words: “Grace and Mercy.”
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The Second Sunday of LentFr. Thomas Hoisington
Genesis 15:5-12,17-18 + Philippians 3:17—4:1 + Luke 9:28-36
But our citizenship is in heaven ….
In this Sunday’s First Reading from Genesis, we hear about God’s relationship with Abram, whom God renames “Abraham” a few chapters later. In the snapshot of their relationship presented by the First Reading, we see the kernels of a life of prayer.
If you were to choose a single word out of the First Reading to summarize this snapshot, it would be the word “covenant”. In our society, about the only place you hear of a “covenant” is in a housing edition that calls itself a “covenant community”. This is a mis-use of the word “covenant”, because belonging to a housing community is based upon a contract.
A contract is based in time, has limits, and involves an exchange of money, possessions, and labor or the like. By contrast, a covenant is based in eternity, is meant to be limitless, and involves an exchange of persons. When one buys a house, one signs a contract. When one marries one’s spouse, one enters into a covenant. When one is baptized, one enters into a covenant with God, even if one is an infant.
In the First Reading, God enters a covenant with Abram, and through him, also with his progeny. Through this covenant, God and Abram make promises about how they would act towards each other. They enter into a relationship with spiritual and moral dimensions.
You can see here the similarity between the marriage covenant and a biblical covenant like that between God and Abram. In a covenant, each party agrees not only to be moral in behavior towards the other, but even to sacrifice oneself for the other.
Entering into a covenant with God, or with another person in a sacrament like Marriage, is the giving of one’s whole self: one’s whole life. Each saint’s life demonstrates just how much effort this takes. That’s why prayer is so needed, and in this we have an example of God’s generosity. Not only does He enter into a covenant with us in our Baptism, so that we might possibly enjoy His life eternally in Heaven. God gives us the strength through prayer and the sacraments to live up to our end of the deal.
What can we say about prayer, then, as it helps us grow stronger in our covenant relationship with God? You might describe prayer as “communication” with God. Real communication, whether in marriage or in one’s relationship with God, involves both listening and speaking. A marriage where only one spouse speaks—where’s there’s no dialogue, but only monologues—will not grow to its intended fullness.
But this covenant relationship between God and Abram also shows us that prayer, while often a dialogue, is meant to lead into something profound. The trance that Abram enters in the First Reading symbolizes the deepest stage of prayer: what in our Catholic tradition is called mystical prayer. This deepest stage of prayer is not just for gifted Christians like St. Teresa of Avila.
This deepest level of prayer is the goal of prayer for every Christian, as the Council Fathers at Vatican II said. If you and I reach Heaven, this is what we will experience there: a mystical relationship with God.
The question isn’t whether you are meant for this. The question isn’t even only whether you will experience it in Heaven. The spiritual life also asks whether even on earth you might grasp some glimpse of this experience in prayer while on earth. A good resource to help Christians grow in this pursuit is Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen’s book Union with God according to St. John of the Cross (Sophia Institute Press).
The difficulty is that to be disposed to deeper levels of prayer, we have to root out of our souls the selfishness that lies underneath the surface of our lives. So the Christian life is like the chicken and the egg: the relationship between our moral life and spiritual life is complex. Each builds upon the other.
To take one simple step forward this Lent, in either our moral life or our spiritual life, we should keep in mind the simple phrase of Saint Paul in today’s Second Reading: “our citizenship is in Heaven.” God has created you for Heaven, not for earth. Like Jesus at the Transfiguration, we cannot remain here and rest. We have an exodus to make, a pilgrimage to set out upon, and Christ is our guide if we would only hear and heed Him.
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The First Sunday of Lent
Author Image
Fr. Thomas Hoisington
Deuteronomy 26:4-10 + Romans 10:8-13 + Luke 4:1-13
He brought us out of Egypt with his strong hand and outstretched arm ….
There are many different types of freedom. For example, sometimes we want to be free from the influence that another person holds over us. Sometimes we want to be free from a job, or from an agreement we’ve made with someone, or from an assignment that we’ve been handed. But none of those is the type of freedom that Jesus gave up his life to offer us.
Jesus died on the Cross to free us from our own sinfulness. During Lent, we look inside ourselves, and look at how we have enslaved ourselves to sin, thereby destroying the greatest type of human freedom: the power to choose what is best in life, which is to say, what is of God.
There is, of course, no human being who does not experience the temptation to sin. Even Jesus experienced temptation, as we hear in today’s Gospel passage.
There are many situations in life that present temptations. God uses some temptations, in fact, in order to “school us” in self-discipline.
Some situations, though, we must stay away from if they are occasions of sin. But how does a person know whether something—for her or him personally—is a near occasion of sin? Some situations are occasions of sin for practically everyone. But other situations are occasions of sin for only some individuals.
Everyone who wants to take God’s call to holiness seriously is invited to follow Christ. But since each of us leads a different life—through a particular vocation with unique circumstances—each walks a different path through this spiritual desert. Nonetheless, each path leads through the same desert, and it is Christ who leads each of us.
There are three stages by which Jesus leads His disciple through the desert. The first stage is the simplest and perhaps easiest: the sacrifice of material things, which we practice in our fasting. Each of us must learn how to resist the temptation to live our lives by “bread alone”. This doesn’t necessarily mean owning nothing—like monks or nuns—but it does mean not being attached to our belongings. By detaching ourselves from things, fasting increases our self-control and freedom.
The second stage through the desert is the sacrifice of power and control over others, which is what we practice through almsgiving. There are many ways in which we, like Christ, are called to exercise power authentically (for example, with money and positions of authority), and we face temptations to abuse that power. At this second level of sacrifice, it can take us longer to be honest with ourselves and face up to our sins. But by detaching ourselves from control over others, almsgiving increases our self-control and freedom.
The third stage through the desert is the final stage: the end stage. This stage, which we sometimes simply call “prayer”, is underestimated. Authentic prayer means sacrificing our life to a God who doesn’t always give us the answers we feel we need.
We human beings want to understand the path that we are on. Likewise, we want to understand the meaning of each cross that appears in our lives. Like the other two stages through the desert, this is a matter of control. Unfortunately, when we don’t get answers, it’s easy instead to choose sin, because sin seems at least to offer an answer as well as some sort of control. Such an answer will of course be false, and the sort of control that sin offers ends up making life more difficult. But as human beings, we become comfortable with sin and the falsehoods it offers.
Sin sinks roots into our lives. We begin to accept sin as so ordinary a part of our lives that we don’t see it as sin anymore. Once sins take deep root in our lives, it’s easy to believe that those sins are part of us, and that we can’t live without them: that there’s no use in trying to root them out of our lives.
It’s much harder to face the truth that Jesus is calling each of us into this driest and hottest part of the desert. He is calling each of us to radical holiness. He is calling each of us to conform our lives to His Cross: the Cross that we will reverence—bow before, kneel before, and kiss—on Good Friday.Leviticus 19:1-2,11-18 + Matthew 25:31-46
“Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
At the beginning of this first full week of Lent, Jesus preaches to us about the Final Judgment. The parable that Jesus preaches in today’s Gospel passage reminds us of the old adage: “Always begin with your end in mind.” This saying is good for reflection first thing in the morning, as an entire day upon God’s green earth stretches out before us. At the beginning of the day we pray the Morning Offering, which reminds us that each day on earth is about God: living in His love, and for His glory.
This saying—“Always begin with the end in mind.”—is good for reflection at the beginning of Lent, as we recognize our need for conversion, our need for forgiveness, and our need for redemption. Thanks be to God that all of these are possible in Christ!
Some would argue that God’s Judgment at the Second Coming inspires fear, and so therefore we ought not reflect upon either the Second Coming, or upon the three of the four Last Things that seem “negative”: Hell, death and judgment. But Hell, death and judgment do not come directly from God. God permits each, but only when man chooses them. God’s direct choice is always love. Love is the end for which God has created each person. Reflecting upon the consequences of the Last Things help us more firmly choose God in all things, even in suffering.
Isaiah 55:10-11 + Matthew 6:7-15“If you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.”
Our prayers of petition add nothing to God: neither to His knowledge of us, nor to His love for us. God cannot love us more than He already does. Likewise, He knows everything about us, better then we know ourselves. He knows our past lives, our current thoughts, motives and actions, and our destiny. So if we offer our petitions to God, since we do so not for God’s sake, we must do so for our sake. But in what sense is this true?
If our petitions are answered as we wish, then the act of petitioning God beforehand helps our little minds understand our dependence on God: that every good thing comes from him, not from ourselves.
If our petitions are not answered as we wish, because what we wish is contrary to what God wishes for us, then the act of petitioning God helps our little hearts turn towards Him and ask questions about our own desires, and how we might need to reform them. Hopefully this helps us enter more deeply into God’s Heart and His desires for us.
Yet if our petitions are not answered as we wish because what we wish is something we are not ready for, then the act of petitioning God helps our little souls to grow in their capacity and desire for God’s good gift. We hear St. Augustine speak to this holy need in the Office of Readings during the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time:
“The whole life of a good Christian is a holy desire. Now what you long for, you do not yet see: however, by longing, you are made capable, so that when that has come which you may see, you shall be filled. For just as, if you would fill a bag, and know how great the thing is that shall be given, you stretch the opening of the sack or the skin, or whatever else it be—you know how much you would put in, and see that the bag is narrow—by stretching you make it capable of holding more. So God, by deferring our hope, stretches our desire; by the desiring, stretches the mind; by stretching, increases its capacity. Let us desire therefore, my brethren, for we shall be filled.”
“Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.”
Signs are important in the Christian journey. Jesus speaks of two signs in today’s Gospel passage. He says that both Jonah and the Son of Man are signs for others. But Jesus says more. He explains that “as” Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, “so will” the Son of Man be a sign to “this generation”.
So we need to ask first how it was that Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites. The Old Testament Book of Jonah presents Jonah in two ways. First, Jonah preaches the need for repentance throughout Nineveh. Second, he is thrown overboard into deep waters and is swallowed by a large fish where he spends three days, all because he is the scapegoat for the affliction facing his shipmates.
Given all this, how does Jonah foreshadow Jesus serving as a sign to Jesus’ own generation? First, Jesus proclaims the Kingdom of God. This proclamation always begins with preaching the need for repentance and conversion. His preaching, however, along with His saving works, inevitably lead to His condemnation. Jesus rhetorically asks His co-religionists, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?” [John 10:32]. This reflects what the Beloved Disciple declares in the prologue of his Gospel account: “He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him” [John 1:11].
Jesus’ rejection reaches its climax on Good Friday. Yet we need to reflect upon the plain fact that Jesus’ rejection continues today. His rejection, which the story of Jonah foreshadows, is shared in today by each faithful member of Christ’s Body who lives and breathes in this fallen world. At His Last Supper Jesus declares to His disciples, “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first” [John 15:18
Esther C:12,14-16,23-25 + Matthew 7:7-12
“… how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.”
When a Christian is a beginner in the spiritual life, most of his prayers are likely prayers of petition. As he grows in spiritual maturity, fewer of his prayers will be petitions. More of his prayers will be of the other three types of vocal prayer: contrition, thanksgiving and adoration.
However, is one of the goals of the spiritual life to no longer offer prayers of petition? Should you strive to reach the point where you no longer “need” to offer petitions? Would this even be possible?
In the secular culture that surrounds us, independence is prized. Standing on one’s own two feet is a hallmark of personal identity. But Christian growth is marked by becoming more like a little child. This occurs as one realizes one’s deep and abiding—indeed, everlasting—dependence upon God the Father. One doesn’t, strictly speaking, grow in dependence upon God, for one can never be anything but fully dependent upon Him. One grows, rather, in one’s awareness of this dependence, as well as one’s comfort in resting in His providential care.
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Jesus said that your soul is worth more than the rest of the world put together. He asked, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). It is impossible for us to grasp what is meant by “the whole world.” For this is not only the physical world or the geographical world. It includes the business world, the scientific world, the intellectual world. Jesus said that the soul is worth more than all the world.
Why is your soul so valuable? First, the value of your soul is measured by its eternal quality. It will never die. You are going to live forever. Your body will die, but your soul, the part of you that is made in the image of God, will never die. Your soul—your spirit—will live forever. It is that part of you that has understanding and wisdom.
Many people have knowledge, but they don’t have wisdom. The Bible says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). A great British historian said some years ago, “Man, by his knowledge, has brought himself to total annihilation.”
Knowledge without God and without wisdom is very dangerous. That’s one of the problems in the world today. We have a lot of knowledge; we have a lot of learning, but the Bible says you can be “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). We lack the wisdom to use our knowledge.
Your soul is that part of you that has judgment. It makes decisions—moral decisions—what is good and what is bad. Your soul also involves your will. Your will chooses or rejects things that are brought before it. Your soul is that part of you that has emotion, like love and fear. It has memory—the mental capacity for storing up knowledge of ideas and events. There is something down inside us that is beyond science to know. The Bible calls it soul or spirit.
We tend to put all of our emphasis on the body with its pleasures and its physical appetites. But the soul also has appetites. The soul longs for God. Down deep inside every person’s heart is a cry for something, but he doesn’t quite know what it is. Man is a worshiping creature. He instinctively knows that there is something out there somewhere, and he longs to know that something or someone. Your soul longs for vital contact with God. Your soul is valuable because it is eternal—it is forever.
Second, the value of your soul is measured by the devil’s interest in it. Jesus said the devil is the prince of this world. He is the god of this age. The devil is greatly at work in our world, and he is after your soul.
God created a perfect world. He and man were friends. God never meant that there would be suffering and war and death. But Satan came. He was a mighty angel, possibly the greatest of all of God’s created beings, and he rebelled against God.
When God built the earth, He put humans in charge of the earth. God wanted someone in the universe whom He could love and who would return love to Him. So He gave man freedom of choice. God said to man, “I put one tree in this garden—you are not to eat its fruit. If you eat it, you will suffer and die” (Cf. Genesis 3:3). God was testing man. He gave man the freedom of will.
But the devil told man, “God doesn’t mean what he says. You’re not going to die. If you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will be as great as God” (Cf. Genesis 3:4-6). So Eve ate the fruit first and then Adam, her husband, ate it too. And that was the first rebellion by people against God. God had to keep His word or He would not be a just God. He had said, “If you eat the fruit of that tree you will suffer and die.” Man ate of the tree, and since then he has been suffering and dying.
But God had a plan. God said, “In spite of their rebellion, I am going to save the human race. I am going to send my Son to this earth.” And every step of the way the devil tried to kill God’s Son, even when He was a baby. Finally, when God’s Son was on the cross, it looked as if the devil had won a great victory, but instead the devil lost his greatest battle. When Jesus died, the devil suffered a mighty defeat, because on the third day Jesus Christ rose from the dead. The Bible says Jesus has “the keys of Hades and of Death” (Revelation 1:18). Christ is alive, and He is coming back to this earth again!
God is building His Kingdom, but the devil is also building his. Even though Satan is a defeated foe, he is still working. In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus said, “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart” (Matthew 13:19). Jesus pictured Satan as an enemy battling and bidding for the souls of people.
Third, the value of your soul is measured by God’s concern for saving your soul. God is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
“God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). God sees your soul as the most valuable thing in the world, so valuable that He sent His only Son to the cross to suffer and die so that your soul may be saved. And if you were the only person in the whole universe, Christ would have died for you.Fourth, the value of your soul is measured by the severity of its loss. It is terrible when a person loses his health, or his money, or his friends, or, worse still, his character. But what about the loss of a soul?
Suppose you had all the gold in the world and all the clothes you could ever dream of owning, and you lived in a magnificent home, and owned all the oil in the Middle East.
Suppose it was all yours, but you lost your soul. Jesus said it would be a poor bargain.
Even if you could get everything you wanted, it wouldn’t give you peace. You would still be searching. Great riches cannot make you happy. Much pleasure cannot make you happy. Only the peace of God coming into your heart through Jesus Christ can bring peace and joy and happiness.Are you prepared for eternity? Are you sure that you have been born from above? The Bible says that you can be sure. The Bible says that there is a Heaven, that there is a hell. You choose where you spend eternity, and many of you are choosing right now.
Fifth, the value of your soul is measured by the price paid for its redemption. The Bible says, “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19). What are you doing with your soul? Are you gambling with your soul, taking a chance with it?
I am asking you to make sure of your relationship with Christ. Christ demands more than just churchgoing, more than just baptism, more than just being good. He demands your total surrender—the surrender of your mind, your heart, your body, every part of you—to the Lordship of Christ. If you have a doubt in your heart that you have totally surrendered to Christ, do it now. Make sure of your salvation. Make certain that you know Christ.
Repent of your sins. Confess your sins, acknowledge them and turn from them.
Receive Jesus Christ into your heart by faith, making a total commitment to Him, and to Him alone.
Scripture Quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New King James Version.
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The Traditional Mysteries of The Holy Rosary
The 15 Decade Traditional Mysteries of the Rosary (Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious) is “Mary’s Psalter” and comprise of 150 Hail Mary’s, which corresponds to the 150 Psalms of David. If you count the 3 “introductory” Hail Mary’s prayed to ask for an increase in the virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity, there are 153 Hail Mary’s.
The number 153 is symbolic of The Catholic Church, founded by Jesus. To name a few:
• Saint Peter caught 153 fish.
• The Rosary is comprised of 153 Hail Mary’s.
• There are 153 days between May 13 and October 13 (the first and last of the Fatima apparitions in 1917).
• In a sermon, a priest said there were 153 gallons of water that Jesus made into wine at the Wedding Feast of Cana.
Our Lady said to St. Dominic, “Preach my Psalter” meaning 15 decades of the Traditional Rosary. Our Lady asked us to pray one-third (5 decades of one mystery) of the rosary every day.
Some people pray all 15 decades of the Traditional Rosary each day or when feasible – i.e. Joyful (morning); Sorrowful (afternoon); Glorious (evening).
• One third of the Psalter of the ‘original’ Traditional 15 decades (Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious Mysteries) given to Saint Dominic by Our Blessed Mother = 5.
• One third of the Psalter of the ‘modernist’ Novus Ordo 20 decades (including the Luminous Mysteries) = 6.66 (no long Mary’s Psalter).⚜ Nuestra Señora del Pilar is the name given to an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary honored in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar in Saragossa, Spain.
⚜ According to medieval traditions, the Apostle Saint James (“the Greater”) was proclaiming the Gospel in Spain, to little effect. As he was feeling dejected and even questioning his mission, he experienced a vision of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Mary—who was still alive and living in Jerusalem—encouraged him to continue his work.
⚜ The tradition also claims that the apparition was standing atop a pillar carried by angels. In honor of his vision, Saint James placed an image of the Madonna and Child atop the pillar. This is the pillar which is said to be enshrined in Saragossa today.
⚜ The oldest account of this tradition dates to the 13th century and the centuries that followed saw special privileges being granted to the shrine in Saragossa.
⚜ In the 19th century, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich recounted the story of the apparition to Saint James in her collection of visions, popularly known as the Life and Passion of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
⚜ Pope Clement XII allowed the celebration of the feast of Our Lady of the Pillar to be celebrated throughout the Spanish Empire in 1730.
⚜ The Blessed Virgin Mary, under her title Nuestra Señora del Pilar, is honored as the patroness of Saragossa, Spain, several places in the Philippines, and of all Hispanic peoples.
⚜ Our Lady of the Pillar is important in the history and mission of several religious communities, most notably the Marianist Family of brothers, priests, and sisters. These communities were founded by Blessed William Joseph Chaminade who, during a period of political unrest in the years following the French Revolution, lived in Saragossa, Spain, and often visited the shrine of Our Lady of the Pillar.
⚜ For prayer and reflection
“Let the thought and the image of Our Lady of the Pillar be a forceful reminder that we walk in the footsteps of St. James and the early Christians of Hispania in following Christ. May she be for us a pillar of faith.” -
ST. DOMINIC AND THE DEVIL
One night, as St. Dominic was walking about the convent of S. Sabina, he met the devil in the dormitory, going like a lion seeking whom he might devour; and recognizing him, he said,
“Thou evil beast, what doest thou here?”
“I do my office,” replied the demon, “and attend to my gains.”
“And what gains dost thou make in the dormitory?” Saint Dominic asked
“Gain enough,” returned the demon. “I disquiet the friars in many ways; for first, I take the sleep away from those who desire to sleep in order that they may rise promptly for matins; and then I give an excessive heaviness to others, so that when the bell sounds, either from weariness or idleness they do not rise; or, if they rise and go to choir, it is unwillingly, and they say their office without devotion.”
Then the saint took him to the church, and said, “And what dost thou gain here?”
“Much, answered the devil; “I make them come late and leave soon. I fill them with disgusts and distractions, so that they do ill whatsoever they have to do.”
“And here?” asked Dominic, leading him to the refectory.
“Who does not eat too much or too little?” was the reply; “and so they either offend God or injure their health.”
Then the saint took him to the parlour, where the brethren were allowed to speak with seculars, and to take their recreation. And the devil began maliciously to laugh, and to leap and jump about, as if with enjoyment, and he said,
“This place is all mine own; here they laugh and joke, and hear a thousand vain stories; here they utter idle words, and grumble often at their rule and their superiors; and whatsoever they gain elsewhere they lose here.”
And lastly they came to the door of the chapterroom, but there the devil would not enter. He attempted to fly, saying,
“This place is a hell to me; here the friars accuse themselves of their faults, and receive reproof and correction, and absolution. What they have lost in every other place they regain here.”
And so saying, he disappeared, and Dominic was left greatly wondering at the snares and nets of the tempter; whereof he afterwards made a long discourse to his brethren, declaring the same unto them, that they should be on their guard.
St Dominic, Pray for us!
†Bishop Shanahan Bulletins -
King David was known as “a man after God’s own heart.”
David loved God, lived with passion and prayed with poetic and transparent honesty.But David was also a sinner.
He stole the wife of one of his most loyal soldiers, conceived a child by her and then to cover his deceit, murdered the man.
But once this crime was exposed by Nathan, the prophet, David turned again to God.
His prayer asking for forgiveness is written in the Bible as Psalm 51. Here’s a portion of that prayer.
O loving and kind God, have mercy. Have pity upon me and take away the awful stain of my transgressions.Oh, wash me, cleanse me from this guilt. Let me be pure again.
For I admit my shameful deed-it haunts me day and night. It is against you and you alone I sinned and did this terrible thing.
You saw it all, and your sentence against me is just. Create in me a new, clean heart, O God, filled with clean thoughts and right desires.
Don’t toss me aside, banished forever from your presence.
Don’t take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. (Psalm 51:1-12 TLB)
All of us need forgiveness. If something is separating you from God, repeat this ancient prayer.Jesus came to make the hope expressed in this prayer a reality for anyone who will ask!
Psalms 51:1-19
[1]Be merciful to me, O God, because of your constant love. Because of your great mercy wipe away my sins!
[2]Wash away all my evil and make me clean from my sin!
[3]I recognize my faults; I am always conscious of my sins.
[4]I have sinned against you — only against you — and done what you consider evil. So you are right in judging me; you are justified in condemning me.
[5]I have been evil from the day I was born; from the time I was conceived, I have been sinful.
[6]Sincerity and truth are what you require; fill my mind with your wisdom.
[7]Remove my sin, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
[8]Let me hear the sounds of joy and gladness; and though you have crushed me and broken me, I will be happy once again.
[9]Close your eyes to my sins and wipe out all my evil.
[10]Create a pure heart in me, O God, and put a new and loyal spirit in me.
[11]Do not banish me from your presence; do not take your Holy Spirit away from me.
[12]Give me again the joy that comes from your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.
[13]Then I will teach sinners your commands, and they will turn back to you.
[14]Spare my life, O God, and save me, and I will gladly proclaim your righteousness.
[15]Help me to speak, Lord, and I will praise you.
[16]You do not want sacrifices, or I would offer them; you are not pleased with burnt offerings.
[17]My sacrifice is a humble spirit, O God; you will not reject a humble and repentant heart.
[18]O God, be kind to Zion and help her; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.[19]Then you will be pleased with proper sacrifices and with our burnt offerings; and bulls will be sacrificed on your altar.
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Message to priests, Bishops and Cardinals about false prophet.
June 7, 2011fatherofloveandmercy.
My dearly beloved daughter, you have suffered because the deceiver is tormenting you. You must pray hard to resist his attacks on you. Place all your trust in Me and then let Me deal with these. Instead, you are getting upset, when you must offer this suffering to Me with joy in your heart. If you keep reminding yourself that it is because you are in union with Me that these sufferings come about and that you are truly blessed as a chosen soul, then you will feel differently.
Many of My followers are now beginning to realise what is happening in the world and through the graces of the Holy Spirit they are rising to the challenge of defending My Word. This army of the faithful will become stronger now and will fearlessly lead sinners towards salvation.
My Holy Vicar, Pope Benedict, needs your prayers. Pray for him daily for he needs protection on every level to take him through the torment that lies ahead. It is important that My followers keep alert to any new pope that may come forward for he will not be from God. Please urge all My sacred servants to prepare for the terrible challenges, the most daunting they will ever have to face in their ministry. It will take great courage to stand up to the Truth of My Teachings. So many of My sacred servants are blind to the promises I made, when I said I would come again. When did they think this would be? So used are they to reciting My Teachings that they have forgotten that they may witness these events at any time and, perhaps, even in their own lifetime. For this is one of the greatest challenges today.
If I sent prophets into the world thousands of years ago, then of course, I will send them again in the period to prepare the world for when I will come again.
Wake up to the lessons you teach your congregation. Realise that it is I who speaks to you now. Many will come in My Name, but few will speak the Truth. This Message comes from Me, your Divine Saviour. Pray for the discernment to recognise My True Voice when it is given to you. Open your hearts now and listen to what I have to tell you. The time has come, to inform you, that the prophecies contained in the Book of Revelation are about to unfold before your eyes.
You, My beloved servants, must fight with bravery, through your love for Me, against the obstacles placed by the deceiver that will challenge you to the end of your endurance. You must acknowledge that the false prophet is about to seduce you. Charm you. Convince you that he represents the Truth. You must now show your allegiance to Me, and My Eternal Father. Please do not despair. For although these events will frighten you and disturb you, your allegiance and loyalty must be to Me.
For the first time in your ministry, your faith will be truly tested now. The Church of Peter is My Church. But when the Keys are handed back to God the Father, which they will be now, the Church becomes part of My Kingdom. I Am the Truth. Follow the Truth at all times.
Pray to Me now, for the graces required to ensure you will rise above the deceit of Satan in time. Otherwise the false prophet will ensnare My beloved children through his charismatic, charmful ways, the ways of the deceiver, with whom he is entangled. Satan will not win over My Church if My servants are alert to the deceit and see it for what it is. A diabolical lie, from which, if you become involved and swear allegiance to this new abomination, there will be no return!
Hear Me now. Turn to Me for guidance and the special graces required to lead My flock back to Me and My Heavenly Father. For when you do, I will bestow such graces that it will not be long before you will find the strength to defend My Word, at all costs.
I love you all and yearn for your support during these end times.
Jesus Christ