That compassion exceeds greed.

That humiity surpasses self-importance.

My beloved Trinity:

Thank you for all my many blessings, my abundant graces, your daily help with my work and my life, which is consecrated to you.

Thank you for my growing faith, and courage to share it.

Thank you for being patient with my denseness, blindness and pride.

Thank you for keeping me in touch with my humility.

Thank you for allowing us to participate in the ministries of helping others.

Thank you for loving me and not forgetting me.   I love you back!  Forgive me for forgetting or ignoring you.

Thank you for YOU, your infinite, incomprehensible love and giving us life.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

International Standard Version (©2008)
In everything be thankful, because this is God’s will for you in the Messiah Jesus.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English (©2010)
Give thanks in everything, for this is the will of God in Yeshua The Messiah among you.

Written in white on his “eye-black” (under eyes)………

Philippians 4:6-7

New King James Version (NKJV)

“‘Arise, Oh Lord, and let Your enemies be scattered, and let those that hate You flee before Your Face,’ and also six large beads on which are recited the ejaculation, ‘My Jesus, mercy,’ followed by the doxology, ‘Glory be to the Father, etc.’”

An all but unknown 19th-century mystic received dramatic revelations that were stunningly similar to those at the famous apparition in LaSalette, France, but with this twist: her messages came before (as well as during and after) those far better known messages.

The locutions in question — to an obscure Discalced Carmelite in the French city of Tours named Sister Mary of St. Peter — were recorded from 1843 to 1847 and — like LaSalette (exactly) — focused on the sins of dishonoring the Sabbath and using the Lord’s Name in vain.

It was on September 19, 1846, that two children, Mélanie Calvat and Maximim Giraud, tending a cow near the top of a mountain in the French Alps, near Corps, encountered the Blessed Mother. Mary appeared in a globe of light and sat on a rock with her face in her palms, weeping over the sins of mankind.

“I gave you six days to work,” the Blessed Mother said, in that Church-approved apparition. “I kept the seventh day for myself, and no one wishes to grant it to me. This is what weighs down the arm of my Son so much. Those who drive carts cannot speak without putting the Name of my Son in the middle.”

As a result — because of this use of Jesus’ Name as a swear word, she warned — the potato crop would be ruined and there would be disease as well as famine.

Precisely this occurred beginning later that very same year as an historic failure of potatoes caused more than a million deaths in northern France and across the English Channel in Ireland (where it was known as the Great Potato Famine).

It was years before, however — on August 26, 1843 — that Sister Mary, the mystic in Tours, who had grown up in a devout family, and had early brushes with death, received a similar revelation when there was a “terrible storm during which I felt the Justice of an angry God as I had never before felt it in my life.

“Kneeling, so that my forehead touched the ground, I ceaselessly offered our Savior, Jesus Christ, to His Eternal Father, for the expiation of my sins and for the needs of the Holy Church. I spoke to Him about the incident of the storm. I asked Him to tell me the reason why I felt so strongly on that day the roused anger of His Eternal Father.

“My Name is everywhere blasphemed,” Jesus allegedly responded, showing her that such misuse of His Name nullified His redemption and cursed Him to His Face…..”

“Our Lord then made me visualize the act of blasphemy as a poisoned arrow continually wounding His Divine Heart,” recounted the nun in an autobiography that received the imprimatur of Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York as well as a Nihil Obstat. “After that He revealed to me that He wanted to give me a ‘Golden Arrow’ which would have the power of wounding Him delightfully, and which would also heal those other wounds inflicted by the malice of sinners.”

To repair this outrage, said the religious, the Lord prescribed a prayer of “reparation” that He promised would have special power. On November 10, 1843, Christ also asked for a novena aimed at this same cause.

“Our Lord inspired me at this time to compose certain prayers of reparation in the form of a chaplet, or a small Rosary,” she wrote in this fascinating work that has only now come to our attention. “This chaplet is made up of thirty-three small beads, on which is recited thirty-three times the prayer, ‘Arise, Oh Lord, and let Your enemies be scattered, and let those that hate You flee before Your Face,’ and also six large beads on which are recited the ejaculation, ‘My Jesus, mercy,’ followed by the doxology, ‘Glory be to the Father, etc.’” Sister Mary said Jesus appeared to her in an interior vision and showed precious stones on a fine gold chain as He presented her with a similar chaplet. The devotion brings to mind the Divine Mercy novena devised a century later by Saint Faustina Kowalska in Poland.

But the most electrifying aspect continues to be the warnings on using His Name in vain and violation of the Sabbath.

Two weeks after the aforementioned revelation, Sister Mary said the Lord “seized possession of the powers of my soul” and caused her to hear the following words: “The whole earth is covered with crimes and the violation of the first three of the Ten Commandments of God has aroused the anger of My Father. The crimes that fill up the cup of wickedness are blasphemies against God’s Holy Name and the profanation of Sundays. These sins have reached the very Throne of Almighty God, and they have provoked His wrath which is about to strike everywhere unless His Justice be appeased. Never before have these crimes reached such a peak.”

That was more than a century and a half ago.

It is daunting to think of how widespread misuse of the Lord’s Name has grown in our own time — amplified by methods of mass communication, including TV, radio, the internet, and at the theatre — where nearly no modern movie goes by without using the Name of “God” or “Jesus” as a curse word.

“My soul is terrified at what Our Lord has just made me hear during prayer this morning, charging me with the duty of transmitting His message to my superiors without any fear of being deceived,” she wrote in her autobiography, The Golden Arrow, which we will be making available. “He said He was incensed with anger against our nation, and that He has sworn in His Wrath to avenge Himself if reparation to the honor of His Divine Father were not made for all the blasphemies of which the people are guilty, making me hear that He could no longer remain among men who, like vipers, were tearing at the entrails of His Mercy.”

That was in December of 1843. Sister Mary was 27 at the time. She was later to win the support of her bishop, and died in the odor of sanctity in 1848. Her mission: spreading that remarkable cause of reparation. “Yes, I will grant pardon once more, but mark my word: once!” Jesus responded in regard to her plea to spare France. “And since this crime of blasphemy extends over the whole nation, and since it is public, I demand that Reparation be extended to all the cities of the nation, and that it be public. Woe to those cities that will not make this reparation!”

Woe indeed: other fierce storms were to descend, causing, in one case, an overflowing of the River Loire that the nun described as “so frightful and so unprecedented” that such “had not been seen in centuries.”

“The whole city of Tours was in imminent danger as terror and confusion gripped the citizens,” she wrote. “Everywhere people acknowledged that an Omnipotent Hand was wielding the elements at will and even those persons who professed hardly any religious belief whatsoever now openly admitted that it was only through a miracle that the whole city of Tours did not perish.”

The cause, she said, again: “profanation of Sunday, as Our Lord Himself told me, yet this principal fact was and continues to be ignored” — again too, as in our time, if not far more so.

Foretelling another disaster that was soon to befall France, the Savior said, “Imagine what will be the state of things in this country when soon My powerful Arm will shake this throne and overthrow him who is now seated thereon.”  The following week — December 2, 1847 – He said, “The executioners crucified Me on Friday but Christians crucify Me on Sundays.”

On February 20, 1848, it was made known to Sister Mary that the crisis of which He spoke — the “rumbling storm” — was close at hand: that the Lord “has strung His bow and He is about to discharge His arrows,” in the words of these locutions, which garnered the support of her bishop.

Almost immediately after this communication came word of a serious revolution in Paris that shook the very foundations of French government and all of Europe, sending King Louis Philippe fleeing with his family into exile (after eighteen years of secure rule). “The Lord told me that in consequence of the initial efforts made to establish somewhat the Work of Reparation, our country which was to be almost entirely destroyed by the darts of His Justice would now only be partly punished by the terrible flames of His Anger,” wrote Sister Mary in this revelation that preceded the far better known Divine Mercy ones. “Oh, how I long entreat all the bishops to establish the Work of Reparation in their dioceses.”

Read more….REVELATION TO FRENCH NUN Revealed warning from Jesus,

This is the irony of the whole Christian equation – that the gifts and offerings Jesus seeks are the very things we want to get rid of! But, we hold on to them – so we don’t “bother him with such unpleasant stuff” or think we are too unimportant. All of this type of thinking is the ‘false ego’. Just let it go. Trust Jesus. The miraculous movement of his love in your life will blow your mind. Just give it a try. You will not be giving anything up (except your pride, lack of trust, self-importance). Rather you will be adding a new dimension to your real self, and to your experience.

In the Name of Jesus:
Glory be to Father, Son and the Holy Spirit
As it was in the beginning,
It is now,
and EVER shall be.

We are the gift Jesus wants. He wants our prayers for help because it reveals our childlike trust in him to help us as our Father. Make yourself closer to Jesus with your trust, your courage, and your willingness to let his will be your will. Remove all separation and distractions that add distance to your intimacy with Jesus.

I am praying with you, for you and for me. Your prayers are my prayers. In the trust and love of Jesus, Amen

Following is a prayer by Thomas Merton (OSB) asking for deliverance from these 7 illusions.

Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk, 20th Century

The following prayer is from his book, “New Seeds of Contemplation.” It is widely available. For Merton, the word illusion could be substituted freely for sin. This makes sense in many ways: we often lament our past sins and say, “How could I have not seen how horrible this was?” or “What was I thinking of?” Here is a prayer from his book:

Let me use all things for one sole reason: to find my joy in giving You glory.

Therefore, keep me, above all things, from sin. Keep me from the death of deadly sin which puts hell in my soul. Keep me from the murder of lust that blinds and poisons my heart. Keep me from the sins that eat a man’s flesh with irresistible fire until he is devoured. Keep me from loving money in which is hatred, from avarice [greed] and ambition that suffocate my life. Keep me from the dead works of vanity and the thankless labor in which artists destroy themselves for pride and money and reputation, and saints are smothered under the avalanche of their own importunate zeal. Staunch in me the rank wound of covetousness and the hungers that exhaust my nature with their bleeding. Stamp out the serpent envy that stings love with poison and kills all joy.

Untie my hands and deliver my heart from sloth. Set me free from the laziness that goes about disguised as activity when activity is not required of me, and from the cowardice that does what is not demanded, in order to escape sacrifice.

But give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which is the heaviest of burdens. And possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love. Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love, that I may love not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but for You alone.

Thomas Merton, 1961, Gethsemani. Imprimatur Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York

The Seven Deadly Sins – A List of Capital Sins
(for more visit: http://whitestonejournal.com/index.php/seven-deadly-sins)

The table below lists The Seven Deadly Sins (vices) in the traditional order with the virtues against which they are sins. The history of this list goes back at least to Pope St. Gregory the Great and St. John Cassian, but while the list itself is not strictly biblical, the Bible proscribes all seven. If one or more of these doesn’t seem like a big sin to you, it almost certainly means you have already rationalized it. Work on that one first. By the way, there is no set list of virtues corresponding to these, what follows below reflect our choices.

If you need additional information on Dante’s views of these, it is after the table.

This novena prayer was recited every day by Padre Pio for all those who asked his prayers:
I. My Jesus, You have said, ‘Truly I say to you, ask & it will be given you, seek & U will find, knock & it will be opened to you.’ Through the intercession of Mary, your holy Mother, I knock, I seek & ask that my prayer be granted. (I ask for the protection of Fr. Corapi & the preservation of his ministry & his good name) ____________
Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory be to the Father…
Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.
II. O my Jesus, you have said, ‘Truly I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, He will give it to you.’
Through the intercession of Mary, your holy Mother, in your Name I ask the Father that my prayer be granted.
Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory be to the Father…
Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.
III. O my Jesus, you have said, ‘Truly I say to you, heaven & earth
will pass away but my words will not pass away.’ Encouraged by
your infallible words, through the intercession of Mary, your
holy Mother I feel confident that my prayers will be answered.
( I ask for the protection of Fr. Corapi & the preservation of his good name & his ministry)
Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory be to the Father…
O Sacred , O Merciful, O Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, for whom its impossible not to have compassion on the afflicted, have pity on us poor sinners & grant us the grace which we ask of  you, through the Sorrowful & Immaculate heart of Mary, your tender mother & ours.
Hail, Holy Queen…
St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, pray for us

Why have Purgatory? Most people will continue sinning in the course of the human condition, even if they try everything to stop it or avoid it. Yes Jesus did die for our sins. But we need to satisfy the debt because of the ongoing sinful nature we perpetuate through our imperfect nature. Jesus is like the dad who pays for the window broken by his son’s baseball gone astray. Jesus paid for the damage and debt, but like any loving father he wants us to ‘settle up’ with him to satisfy the debt he cleared for us. But Jesus died for me and he is my personal savior! I thought I was saved!? Well, what if you never paid your dad back or served some sort of justice to make it right? You would not truly appreciate what he did for you.

While on earth we have no certainty of even making it to purgatory -because we have free will. Those in purgatory at least have the certainty of being released to enter heaven. The others not capable of choosing to be with God, at any expense, will truly go to hell with no hope of ever completing the journey to God’s perfect and spotless presence.

I would choose purgatory any day over reincarnation, as I am closer to settling up there than in an unPredictable next life. Because Jesus HAS saved those who have chosen him, we are on the right path. Through his love and continual offering of himself for us, we too, can have the certainty of the future promise of heaven. Without his self sacrifice, we would not have the door opened as such for us.

Jesus’ holy mother Mary consoles the suffering souls in purgatory and asks for us still in a body on this earth to pray for them. Such sacrifices accrue to our credit, along with any suffering of our own that we offer up as an offering for those souls in purgatory. So we can actually use our earthly lives to help others already passed on, as well as expand our own growth. Sure we will fall, and sin again, but as any good sportsman knows, you must get up again to master the game. Jesus showed us that mastery can be achieved. So, if we haven’t totally mastered it by the time we die, we still have the opportunity to satisfy our final judgement. Hopefully, we will have chosen to take every opportunity to earn a lighter debt, or skip it altogether by the graces from loving all, and selfless service and sacrifice.

I know all this sound rather strict and un-warm and fuzzy. Jesus never promised us warm and fuzzy. He said many would be called, but few would be chosen. What do you think would help to make you be chosen?

Are you starting to get the picture? We should learn about this subject early on, but sadly most don’t want to discuss it, or take the belief that it is all worked out for us, or don’tbelieve anything at all.

For me, now that I have begun to learn about purgatory, I understand what it is and how to prepare for it. I am grateful for Gods grace to have led me to question, have the curiosity and desire to learn what it is and how I can help myself and others too.

Prayer for our loved ones is needed. The Rosary can be said for great results for those in Purgatory, as are Masses said specifically for named deceased.

My prayer journey just amped up because of this understanding. There are many good writings about purgatory. I encourage you to check them out. Just do a search on the Internet. You will find plenty, as did I.