1Cor 3:11

Christ, the Church’s one foundation (cf 1 Cor 3:11).

(http://www.focolare.org/en/news/2014/01/01/gennaio-2014/)

Jesus is the fulfillment of the expectations and hopes of Israel. The Spirit descends upon Him in baptism in the Jordan and consecrates Him to bring the salvation of God. This salvation becomes good news to the poor, freedom preached to the captives, sight offered to the blind, dignity for the oppressed and the year of grace as God's gift.

This salvation is no longer offered in an undetermined time, but it happens "today", in the "today" of the finally accomplished time by the Son of God made man. It is in this time of grace that the Lord comes to the streets of His creatures and proposes Himself as Savior.

The today of Jesus becomes the today for us, called to respond to the invitation of the Lord, to react in a positive and decisive way to His proposals of salvation. Jesus fulfills the Word of God, and indeed He is the Word Himself of God, Who fills my life not with things but with people to love. And He can reassemble into unity the fragments of this world, with a love that becomes sharing, attention, sense, sight, freedom, common road.

But we must always remember that “the truth shall set you free” (Jn 8:32)! If we invent the truth (small “t”) according to our own heads, as do so many people today, tomorrow there will be slavery. Instead if we seek the Truth (big “T”) from Jesus explained by His Church (the Catechism of the Catholic Church; www.vatican.va/archive/ccc/), and we put into practice the Truth with the help of Jesus, with much prayer and the Sacraments, tomorrow there will be true freedom and true joy!

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An Experience of Life:

About a year ago, at the end of the celebration of the Holy Mass, a boy of my age presented himself to the Community to which now I belong for nearly six years, speaking to us about his encounter with Jesus. I remember vividly a particular sentence: "Jesus loves you just as you are." JESUS LOVES YOU. With these words, he invited us to the catechetical meetings.

I think it is difficult for everyone to accept these words; the first thing that can come to mind is to ask Jesus, Who loves us so much, why does He allow all the pain and evil that we encounter in our lives.

I also asked myself these things, I also asked myself why did it happen precisely to me that my life is upset and the lives of my loved ones for a fact that I never wanted and desired. Why does Jesus allow that my father is in a precarious physical condition, why did He allow my wife to take refuge in silence rather than allowing dialogue and discussion, why did He permit me to be allowed to see my beloved children only three times a year for a few hours at the most?

I wanted to discover the meaning of that phrase, and I wanted to see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears if this was true or if they were words of some religious fanatic. Here we are not dealing with knowing Jesus, His history, but we are dealing with discovering Jesus Who lives in us. The catechetical meetings did not make me feel good, in fact, I suffered even more than before, but my pain was caused, and still is, by the Word of the Lord which comes like a sharpened tip in my heart to bring the light I had lost, to make me discover the true meaning of LOVE.

I forgot: my name is Lucio, I am a convict in the home district of Montorio Veronese (Italy), sentenced to thirty years in prison. If it is permitted to me to rejoice, and I am the most insignificant, why do you not seek love and happiness also? We are brothers in the Lord and as brothers I desire the best for all of you.

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Father Joseph Dwight

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P.s.

I invite you to visit periodically my principle web site: http://josephdwight.blogspot.com. At this web site I put the references of the more important articles and the new updates as well.

Recently I published the following articles that perhaps you will find interesting and perhaps helpful and enlightening:

The Masonic Plan For The Destruction Of The Catholic Church

http://spir-food.blogspot.it/2013/11/masonic-plan.html

It is most interesting how often we find this FALSE “LOVE” USED AS A POWERFUL STRATEGY in the 33 directives of the Grand Master of the Masons to the Catholic Bishops to destroy the Catholic Church! The word “love” APPEARS A WHOPPING 11 TIMES in these 33 directives! “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2Cor 11:14)!

Directive 26. “Use committees of lay people and priests weak in faith who might CONDEMN AND REPREHEND WITHOUT DIFFICULTY EVERY APPARITION OF MARY and apparent miracle … Indicate the Seers as disobedient against Ecclesiastical Authority. Bring down their good name in the mud, so that no one will hold in consideration their Message.”

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The “Prophecy” of Saint Francis (Assisi)

http://spir-food.blogspot.it/2013/11/prophecy-st-francis.html

“At the decisive moment of this crisis, a personage not canonically elected, raised to the Pontificate, will endeavor to administer shrewdly to many the mortal poison of his error.”

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Prophecies of Blessed Anne-Catherine Emmerick

http://spir-food.blogspot.it/2013/11/prophecies-emmerick.html

May 13, 1820: “I SAW ALSO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TWO POPES. . . I SAW HOW BALEFUL WOULD BE THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS FALSE CHURCH.”

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A DAMNED PRIEST WARNS ABOUT HELL

The following is the documentation of the confessions of a human demon, a dammed priest, by way of an EXORCISM (April 5, 1978) on a Swiss woman.

THE ABBOT VERDI-GARANDIEU, A HUMAN DEMON, priest of the diocese of Tarbes, France in the seventeenth century, addresses this pathetic message, THROUGH A POSSESSED WOMAN, to his brothers in the Priesthood, to beseech them - by order of the Most Holy Trinity and the Virgin Mary - to go back onto the narrow road of the Gospel, and so prevent themselves in their turn, from suffering in eternal Hell the horrible fate which befell him because of his infidelities to grace.

During an exorcism the demons are forces to reveal what is commanded of them in the name of God or the Blessed Virgin Mary etc. These confessions OFTEN REVEAL SATAN’S MOST POWERFUL BUT SUBTLE AND HIDDEN TRAPS which lead countless numbers of souls toward and into hell. I believe the following document will help many people of good will to take the precious gift of life, as well as eternity, much more seriously in a world in which Satan has done all he can to put us to sleep spiritually and to convince us that hell does not exist.

http://spir-food.blogspot.it/2013/12/damned-priest.html

You can DOWNLOAD THIS DOCUMENT, which can be printed, at:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/192729143/A-Damned-Priest-Warns-About-Hell

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“THE DREAM OF ST. JOHN BOSCO” of the two pillars indicates to us the great importance of staying very close to Jesus in the Eucharist (while it is still possible) with our Rosary in hand.

(Visit: http://thereedofgod.blogspot.com/2010/04/don-boscos-prophecy-of-two-columns.html).

SAINT PADRE PIO said: "It would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than to do so without the Holy Mass." This saint also said: “The Rosary is the weapon for these times”!

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Just as Mary had a fundamental role in the first coming of Jesus Christ, so too it will be for the second coming of Christ!

A prophetic book precisely for our times is “TRUE DEVOTION TO MARY”, by Saint Louis De Montfort. This treasure was found 130 after the death of the saint; very quickly it was translated into many languages.

To read some excerpts of what Father Stafano Gobbi, the founder of the Marian Movement for Priests, wrote about Montfort’s book, visit: “Funeral Stefano Gobbi” (http://spir-food.blogspot.com/2011/07/funeral-stefano-gobbi.html).

Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote about this book:

“The reading of this book was a decisive turning-point in my life. I say ‘turning-point’, but in fact it was a long inner journey… This ‘perfect devotion’ is indispensable to anyone who means to give himself without reserve to Christ and to the work of redemption.” “It is from Montfort that I have taken my motto: ‘Totus tuus’ (‘I am all thine’). Someday I’ll have to tell you Montfortians how I discovered De Montfort’s Treatis on True Devotion to Mary, and how often I had to reread it to understand it”.

To see or DOWNLOAD THE WHOLE BOOK, “True Devotion To Mary”, visit one of the following websites:

http://www.montfort.org/content/uploads/pdf/PDF_EN_26_1.pdf

http://www.familyland.org/PDF_Files/305-26TrueDevotion.pdf

http://ebookbrowsee.net/st-louis-de-montfort-true-devotion-to-mary-pdf-d318170213

1 John 3:18

Let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth. (1 Jn. 3:18)

(http://www.focolare.org/en/news/2013/08/26/settembre-2013/)

The first question that we learned in the catechism as children was: “Why did God create you? And we answered: To know, love and serve God. TODAY THIS IS TOTALLY UPSIDE DOWN: religion exists for a great number of people to serve me, not to help me to serve God, not to help me to discover the will of God from the teachings of the Church guided by the Pope (Mt 16:18), not to help me to do the will of God with the help of prayer and the Sacraments (as we say in the Our Father: “THY (not mine!) will be done”!). The great majority of people today do not want to take even the first step to discover what God wants. The philosophy of life is: “Ignorance is bliss”! Bliss today, but tomorrow, and after death?!? The recent Popes tell us that the gravest sin today is that we have lost the sense of sin. One trusts in himself and not in God-Love! “Jesus I trust in You!” (Saint Faustina).

A teacher asked a child what is love. The little girl answered simply that live means to want to be together and to pass time together with those who you love. How many parents, and in particular, the fathers of children, pass very little time with their children. If a girl does not receive love from her true father, afterwards, she easily welcomes false love from boys that want to take advantage of her for their own egoism and pleasure. If a boy does not receive true love from his father, the boy seeks to gain the attention of the father by seeking success in doing instead of being, in the simple friendship of true love between Dad and son. If there is not the presence of the father at all, there is the danger that the small boy identifies himself with the mother and to develop the disorder of homosexuality in which the relationships with other homosexual boys is not altruism but egoism, because the boy never received true love of altruism from the male model in his family. Behold how the fathers in the families can love “in deed and in truth”, to love their children as the father want to be loved, as the children want to be loved, and above all to be together in the simplicity of wanting well for each other with the help of God.

If a person did not receive true love in the family, how can he love others? We are born in original sin, in egoism; without pray and if no one offers personally true love, not only empty words, it is very difficult to come out of the pit of disguised egoism. Thus my brothers and sisters, let us pray much and offer small sacrifices for those who did not receive this authentic love from the family, which are very numerous today! But the most fundamental thing is to pass as much time as possible with the Divine Prisoner in the tabernacle, Who gives us drop by drop divine milk in order to have more and more a deep relationship with Him, without which it is impossible to have a relationship or human friendship based on true love and altruism, not disguised egoism. Then when we have that opportunity to love concretely, let us love totally to the point of being ready to give our life for Jesus Who hides in each brother who presents himself before us during the day, in particular those in our homes, not just those on the other side of the street with which we do not live in the same house!

"It would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than to do so without the Holy Mass", Saint Padre Pio.

“The Rosary is the weapon for these times”, Saint Padre Pio.

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An Experience of Life:

I live near the wall that was built in my country to divide us between the Arabs and the Jews. I see it every day opening the window of my room. Along the way, then, there are checkpoints where the soldiers stop anyone wanting to pass to check the documents, and so to go school, to visit relatives or friends becomes an adventurous undertaking ...!

I become agitated every time the soldiers stop us, but then I remember that I can offer my fear to Jesus and that the soldier is a man like me, so I have to love him.

In this way I feel that Jesus becomes everything to me, giving me the strength to re-begin each day, the weight of the difficulty becomes lighter.

Juliana, the Holy Land

John 8:7

“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (Jn 8:7)

(http://www.focolare.org/en/news/2013/03/01/marzo-2013/)

In a climate of confusion, uncertainty, distrust, there are many erroneous explanations and answers, but a lived faith gives us confidence: Some people do not lose sight of us.

Jesus opens a new path: salvation! Paul, in his letter to the Philippians (3:8-14), speaks of his own "newness" after his encounter with Jesus Christ. His is a true "miracle of Easter": it draws him out of himself, from his pride, he acquires new eyes and a new heart, he meets the Risen One and - consequently - lives a new life.

The newness is also present in the Gospel. The adulterous woman, in the encounter with Jesus: "Woman - he says - where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?".

"No one, sir," replies the woman. "Neither do I condemn you."

Amazed at so much love, she feels loved and forgiven: she is now a new creature, able on her part to love and forgive.

But this gift of forgiveness is received if one lives also the words that Jesus said to the adulterous woman at the end: “Go, and do not sin again”, as we say in the Act of Contrition: “I firmly resolve with the help of thy grace to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin”! Thus for the very numerous people WHO HAVE LET THEMSELVES slid into relativism, “the most profound difficulty of our time" (Pope Benedict XVI), the sins remain not forgiven!

In his homily at the Mass preceding the conclave that quickly elected him Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger said: “How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth. Every day new sects spring up, and what St Paul says about human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error (cf. Eph 4: 14) comes true. Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. WE ARE BUILDING A DICTATORSHIP OF RELATIVISM that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.” (http://www.vatican.va/gpII/documents/homily-pro-eligendo-pontifice_20050418_en.html; http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/colson_relativism_may05.asp).

On the other side of the coin are those who are quick to judge while being blind to their own sinfulness and hypocrisy. Objectively we must judge right from wrong according to the actions of others so as not to do the same as well as praying and offering our sacrifices for them and then perhaps offering a word of advice at the right moment with love and humility. But subjectively, that which is going on inside the head of the one who is objectively doing wrong, his motives, the graces receive from God, his personal life history, etc., only God knows this, and thus only God can judge this person’s culpability.

On the left side are those who presume that all is ok according to their relativistic mentality. “Today, I was led by an Angel to the chasms of hell… But I noticed one thing: that MOST OF THE SOULS THERE ARE THOSE WHO DISBELIEVED THAT THERE IS A HELL.” (Diary, 741).

On the right side are those who are fond of doing as the Scribes and Pharisees who brought in a woman who had been caught committing adultery. THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES WERE BLIND TO THEIR HYPOCRISY even to the point that Jesus said: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:20). “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Mt 7:3; Lk 6:41).

Both sides of the spectrum lack humility and trust in God and thus are not trying to see things from the point of view of God but from their own point of view as if they decide what is right and wrong as the serpent tempted Adam and Eve (Gen 3:4-5).

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An Experience of Life:

I was 17 years old when, expecting a baby, I got married: after ten weary years I got divorced. Then I met Mark, my current partner. To this failure was added the awareness that a clear relationship with the Church and perhaps with God was ending: as a divorced person I would not have been well received in the Church anymore.

What would I have been if a priest had not told me, "God loves you immensely, even as you are?". If he had not kept me in the Church despite my condition? I felt that in the parish there was a place even for me. And from this point my journey of faith was resumed. The first fruit was the desire in me for the need of prayer, the Mass and even the Rosary. My life has changed and along with mine also that of Mark and of my son Lorenzo.

I discovered that all the past pain had a meaning, it was linked to the cry of Jesus on the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" To that cry I tied the pain of not being able to receive the Eucharist, I tied the review of my previous marriage with the ecclesiastical tribunal. The lived experiences of others in the Group of the Gospel that I frequented are precious to me where there are many who are living now what I went through before.

(Cecilia, Modena)

John 15:3

You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. (Jn 15:3)

(http://www.focolare.org/en/news/2012/04/01/aprile-2012/)

One finds this verse in the passage where Jesus speaks of the vine and the branches (John 15:1-8). These disciples of Jesus "have already been cleansed" because they live the word of Jesus, each one individually and together as a community.

The true vineyard is the community of those who adhere to Jesus, as the branches to the stump. Only he who remains united to Jesus, as the vine to the branches, belongs to the Father's vineyard. The disciple who follows Jesus is called, every day, to give his response to the Word, and in this way is grafted into Jesus. The Word of Jesus, accepted and lived, is like a seed of rebirth, like a germ of life, destined to grow incessantly in those who live it. An ever greater fidelity to the Word is the condition of every apostolic activity. The branch can have apostolic power only to the point that it is rooted in the Lord, bearing witness to Him in sorrows, trials and even death. This indwelling of Christ is a strong and courageous, manly and daily faithfulness. Because this fidelity of the disciple is guaranteed by the faithfulness of the Lord: "I in him."

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An Experience of Life:

Simone Weil, a Jewish converted to Christianity, looking one day at the tall and slender plants, with long and leafy branches, commented that these branches, flooded with sunlight, by way of the phenomenon of chlorophyll, transmitted the lifeblood to the whole plant and thus the roots branched deep into the earth. Concluding her paper, Simone Weil posed a question: "But the plants, then, where do they have their roots, in the earth or in heaven?". And she herself replied: "In Heaven". And she concluded: "So too we have our roots in heaven, and the more one is rooted in God, so much the more one becomes man and so much the more one enters into humanity and becomes companion to each man.”

John 6:68

‘Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life’ (Jn 6:68)

(http://www.focolare.org/en/news/2012/03/01/marzo-2012/)

How many words we hear in a day! There are simple and difficult words, those for love or for hate, those which soothe or make angry. There are tender words or words of reproach. There are words that are imprinted in the memory, which enter into the heart, others that slip away and that we forget quickly. Jesus, after the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, turns to the crowd with a long speech. In the first part He speaks of the mystery of His Person. In the second part Jesus pauses to talk about the bread of the Eucharist. And He identifies Himself with this Food: it is He, Jesus, the living Bread. He who eats It deeply unites himself to God and can live for God Himself.

The listeners were surprised and found it difficult to receive these words. This is why so many leave. Jesus sees the uncertainty of faith even among the twelve. Jesus asks them also to take a position. Peter responds on behalf of the friends with an authentic profession and experience of Christian faith: he recognizes and testifies that only the revelation of Jesus can lead into the divine life: "You have words of eternal life," of the fullness of life. The words of Jesus are words of life. Not only because they can be put into practice, but also because when you live the words your life takes on a particular fullness. We learn to hear the word of God, distinguishing it from a thousand other words that pass by. It is the Word of a Father Who wants the good of the children and this is why He gives us words that give meaning to daily life.

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An Experience of Life:

I went many times to visit Franca in prison. Her pain, her anguish, within the walls of the prison grew every day. I just felt helpless, but every now and then I could give her a bit 'of serenity.

One day she said to me: "I like you because you are like me ".

She had expressed the desire to come to our home during the periods of leave. We talked with the children and together we received her with joy. There was with us, at that time, our mother, rather ill, and it was surprising to see how she knew how to console Franca.

Then there was a special Christmas; Franca was already at our house when we received the news of the arrival of my brother with his whole family.

Knowing his way of thinking I was afraid that the presence of Franca would upset him. Instead, seeing our willingness and the joy that Mom felt in helping the unfortunate girl, after a first moment of surprise, he was taken up by the climate of solidarity without judgment. Franca had found the warmth of a family.

N.S., Italia

P.s.

I highly recommend reading the book:

The True Devotion To Mary,

By St. Louis De Montfort.

(http://www.catholictradition.org/Classics/secret-mary.htm).

In particular read paragraphs 47-59 for our very particular period of time in the history of the world and of the Church.

Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote about this book:

“The reading of this book was a decisive turning point in my life. I say ‘turning point,’ but in fact it was a long inner journey… This ‘perfect devotion’ is indispensable to anyone who means to give himself without reserve to Christ and to the work of redemption.” “It is from Montfort that I have taken my motto: ‘Totus tuus’ (‘I am all thine’). Someday I’ll have to tell you Montfortians how I discovered De Montfort’s ‘Treatise on True Devotion To Mary’, and how often I had to reread it to understand it.”