Little Flower Parish at 204 1st St. N.W., Browning, MT 59417 US - A Gift For You!

          This Christmas I want offer you a different kind of gift in which you do some praying-- but you must read this Christmas letter first.

          We all form ourselves based on the choices we make and the choices we make are to a great extent fashioned by the influence of the environment that we live in.  Our environment these days is so secular that to believe in Jesus Christ puts us in a situation that makes us un-cool, narrow minded, ignorant, or just insensitive to non-believers and therefore not politically correct.  Because of this powerful secular influence many Catholics (and other Christians) live their lives in a way that is not different from non- believers.  Their destiny will be the same as a non-believer based on the free choices they made to govern the direction of their lives.   Yes, this point is true and the following explains why.

          The Christian message is a very simple one that teaches us God’s plan for creation.   The fundamental plan of creation is that the divine Son of God comes down from heaven to become human so that we who are human, and desire it, can be connected to Him, be taken up to heaven, and become divine -- God becomes our Father and Jesus becomes our brother.  To achieve this goal it is not a matter of just being a good person. That does not do it.   If we want to achieve this goal we must follow Jesus or have hearts disposed to do so once we meet Him.

          This is logically true.  We do not become sons and daughters of God by simply being born and being a good person.  God has only one Son and he is Jesus.  For us to become divine sons and daughters of God we must be connected to God’s Only Son.  He is the only one who knows how to be divine.  By allowing Him to be a part of our lives He takes us on a journey recreating us into sons and daughters of God.  We are actually reborn or recreated into sons and daughters of God.  This is an action in us that can be done only by the Holy Spirit.  John’s Gospel says it very clearly in chapter fourteen where Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  That’s the way it is.   No one of us knows how to become divine.  Only God’s Son knows how to be divine.  If we want to achieve our destiny, our reason for being born, we must follow Him.  There is no other way.  But this is only half of the story.

          The other reason we need Jesus is the larger point of my Christmas message.  When we lose sight of our ‘reason for being born’ we take a different view of life that many times leads us to be enemies of Christ or behave in ways that a son or daughter of God would not behave-- and we sin.  Our sins have far reaching consequences that undermine our families, our community, our economy (i.e. the recent melt down of our economy), our government and its laws (i.e. Abortion), our art forms (i.e. the hopeless message of Hollywood), and the holiness of the church (I remind you that we priests are formed in families).  Quite frankly we could never pay the price that justice demands of the wrongs done by simply not following the ways of Jesus.  Our God is a just God and justice demands to be answered, and our God will deal with us in a just way.

          Separate from Jesus we must pay the demands of justice on our own.   But if we want mercy we must go to Jesus.  It was a very significant event for the creator to see His Son murdered on the cross.  (Hopefully none of us will every have to go through a similar experience.)   But because of His love for us the Father actually sent His Son to die on the cross to pay the price that justice demand of our sins.  Jesus ransoms us and redeems us by His sacrificial offering on the cross.  We need Jesus to pays the demands of justice.  The Fathers says if you want mercy from Me accept my Son and His sacrifice for you.  If not, then you have to pay your own way.  That is God’s plan of salvation.  That’s reality.  There is no changing it. Yet the secular world simply does not give a hoot-- and that is reality too.

          If you have read this far with understanding you have unrapped the package so that now you can   hear  the Christmas gift I want to give you.

 

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy.   

            After the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass itself the Chaplet of Divine Mercy is a very powerful prayer.  It wants to say what the sacrifice of the Mass says but in a lesser way.

          The chaplet is given to us by Jesus through some visions He gave Saint Faustina (a saint that lived during the Second World War.  For more about her you can go to the Internet).

          Here is the point.  The Creator God Our Father went through a lot of sadness by sending His Son to the world as a sacrificial offering for our sins.  The secular world does not care about the Son of God, nor does it think important the suffering and death of God’s Son.  The secular world rejects what is most important to the Father.  I hope you are not one of those Christians who think that God does not get angry. 

           At any rate, the essential message revealed to Saint Faustina states that anyone who goes to the Father through the Son, but not only through the Son, but also recognizing and honoring the sacrifice that His Son offered to Him from the cross, the Father will pour out oceans of mercy on that person in answering their prayer requests.  OCEANS OF MERCY!  THIS IS THE GIFT!    And this is the consequence of saying The Chaplet of Divine Mercy.   God will pour out an ocean of mercy on any person who has the good sense to honor the sacrificed Son of God.   Desired from saying the Chaplet could be the answer to a heart felt intention of a person praying, “Father in Heaven I come before you as a sinner, still weak in sin and with a life all messed up, but I do want to believe that Jesus is your Son with all my heart,  so I ask you Father to look upon me remembering your Son and His sacrifice on the cross and  pour out your mercy on me.”   Another person could have the prayer intention as they do the Chaplet: “ Father in heaven, I am very worried about (my child, my health, my job, my marriage, etc,) and I pray that you look upon me through your Son Jesus sacrificed on the cross and that you have mercy on me."

          I believe in the power of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy BECAUSE I HAVE EXPERIENCED THE POWER OF THE CHAPLET OF DIVINE MERCY, and for that reason I am giving it to you this Christmas.  It is done on rosary beads and it only takes seven minutes to say.  Say this prayer every day.   Click here to see the text for the Chaplet of Divine mercy.   ewtn.com/Devotionals/mercy/dmmap.htm   The rest is up to you.    Merry Christmas.