The Crown of Thorns

Someone I know said that they were in an area of complete and utter darkness. "Then a mist appeared, through which two hands appeared that were handing me a crown of thorns.

"I took the crown of thorns from the outstretched hands and placed it upon my head. As the crown was being seated upon my head, I prematurely winced, fully expecting searing pain from those thorns to shoot through my head and throughout my entire body.

"But instead of pain, a warm and wonderful feeling of joy and peace settled over me. I was being bathed in God’s love.

"Simultaneously with the crown of thorns being placed upon my head, a vision appeared before me of a glass mirror “unfurling” like a window shade, even though it was glass.

"Jesus then appeared in the glass before me.

"I was immediately filled with shame because Jesus had caught me wearing his crown, and I immediately pulled it from my head.

"As I did, the glass rolled up and Jesus disappeared.

"I then placed the crown back onto my head.

"As I did, the glass again unfurled before me...and again Jesus was standing before me.

"At that moment, the realization hit me that I was looking into a mirror and seeing my own reflection, and that reflection was my Savior and my Lord! And me! One and the same!

"This vision greatly troubled me. After all, who did I think I was, anyway? Was I so vain as to think myself equal to Jesus? God forbid! The vision continued to frighten me long afterwards, fearing that my attitude was obviously not right with God…that is, until I heard these words spoken to me:

“Do not be afraid to put on my crown of thorns.
It is My crown of glory!
Wear it as I did.
I will bear the pain so that you have none.
Then, and only then, will you see Me in glory.
Then we shall meet face to face.
You in me, and I in you.
People will see me in your image.
Give yourselves to Me fully,
And I will come to you in glory…”

Mystic Monk Coffee - Helping the Portiuncula: the Little Portion

The Carmelite Monks are a Roman Catholic Monastery that has a great passion for Coffee as an incredible fruit of the earth as well as a way to help Catholic culture. The monks love coffee from its growth, drying process to its roast and taste in the cup. Every step adds to the taste of the beans in your cup and the monks find this a delightful past time that compliments their monastery.

The monks hope to add a new chapter in the history of coffee. It is a well known fact that monks discovered the great use of the coffee beans as a delicious drink that helps a sleepy monk.

How do monks know anything about roasting coffee? Monks are perfectionists in all their labors. Monks also love everything natural and earthy because it is very contemplative and recalls God's works to them.

Monks have always been the backbone of Catholic culture. In America ever since the revolution, coffee also has been the backbone of American society. This is why coffee and Catholic monks go hand in hand. The Carmelite Monks know that coffee is so integral to our modern society and see it as a great opportunity to give people everywhere a chance to have a unique relationship with monks. The uniting of coffee and Catholic monks is a perfect combination. For more information about the Carmelite monks and their focus on helping Catholic culture click here: Real monks and catholic coffee

Buy catholic coffee roasted by the monks. Truly most people who drink the monks coffee think it is the best they have ever drank and come back to buy more catholic coffee.

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To place your order, simply scroll down the page and double click on "Mystic Monk Coffee" Icon on the Left!
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Richmond Catholic Community Charismatic Prayer Group

Richmond Catholic Community Charismatic Prayer Group

Sunday, September 21, 2008 7:00 PM Eastern Time

St. Mary's Church 701 North A Street Richmond, IN

Everyone is welcome to attend!

"In the midst of these experiences that are both painful and delightful together, our Lord sometimes gives the soul feelings of jubilation and a strange prayer it doesn't understand..What I'm saying seems like gibberish, but certainly the experience takes place in this way...

Saint Teresa of Avila
(Doctor of the Church)
The Interior Castle
The Sixth Dwelling Places
CHAPTER 6

Richmond Catholic Community Charismatic Prayer Group Meeting July 20th

The Richmond Catholic Community Charismatic Renewal Prayer Group will be meeting this Sunday, July 20th, from 7:00-9:00 P.M. in the basement of Seton East.

Everyone is invited to attend!

A Rapture Of Contemplation

St. Francis would never let any call of the Spirit go unanswered; when he experienced it, he would make the most of it and enjoy the consolation afforded him in this way for as long as God permitted it. If he was on a journey, and felt the near approach of God's Spirit, he would stop and let his companions go on, while he drank in the joy of this new inspiration; he refused to offer God's grace an ineffectual welcome( 2 Dorinthians 6:1). He was often taken out of himself in a rapture of contemplation, so that he was lost in ecstacy and had no idea what was going on about him, while he experienced things which were beyond human understanding.

Saint Francis of Assisi
Bonaventure, Major Life
CHAPTER X : 2

Congressman Mike Pence Awarded 2008 Distinguished Christian Statesman Award

2008 Distinguished Christian Statesman Award




D. James Kennedy Center for Christian Statesmanship honors Indiana
Congressman

June 28, 2008 -- The D. James Kennedy Center for Christian Statesmanship (CCS) honored Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana on Wednesday evening at a dinner in the Cannon Caucus Room on Capitol Hill. Dr. George Roller, Executive Director of the Center, along with the Rev. John Sorensen, President of Evangelism Explosion International, and Anne Kennedy, widow
of the late D. James Kennedy, presented the Distinguished Christian Statesman award to Pence, thanking him for his exemplary conduct in public office.

A Christian Statesman is one whose commitment to Christ and love of country compel him or her to stand for truth and righteousness in government. Pence is the thirteenth recipient of this award. Previous awardees include Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, Rep. Mike McIntyre, Sen. Dan
Coates, Judge Roy Moore, Director of U.S. Office of Personnel, Kay Coles James, Sen. Sam Brownback and Rep. Todd Akin.

In accepting the award, Mike Pence said he had been greatly influenced by the ministry of D. James Kennedy. "The Center for Christian Statesmanship is a model of faith in action - action which has been and continues to be a blessing to scores of Congressional staff as well as
Members of Congress," said Pence. "I am deeply humbled to be chosen as the 'Distinguished Christian Statesman of 2008.' To join the company of those statesmen who have been chosen in the past is a great honor."

The Center for Christian Statesmanship is a part of the international outreach of Evangelism Explosion International, the first Christian ministry to reach into every nation on earth. Sorensen said that, "the work on Capitol Hill fits perfectly into the vision of Evangelism
Explosion, which is fulfilling the Great Commission and spreading the gospel to all people in this generation."

Admonition VII

Good works must follow knowledge.

A man has been killed by the letter when he wants to know quotations only so that people will think he is very learned and he can make money to give to his relatives and friends.

Saint Francis of Assisi

The Admonitions

Admonition VI

The Imitation of Christ

We ought to be ashamed of ourselves; the saints endured all that (trials and persecutions, in ignominy, hunger, and thirst, in humiliations and temptations), but we who are servants of God try to win honour and glory by recounting and making known what they have done. 

Saint Francis of Assisi

The Admonitions

Admonition V

No one should give way to pride but boast in the cross of the Lord.

If you were the most handsome and the richest man in the world, and could work wonders and drive out devils, all that would be something extrinsic to you; it would not belong to you and you could not boast of it. But there is one thing of which we can all boast; we can boast of our humiliations (2 Corinthians 12:15) and in taking up daily the holy cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Saint Francis of Assisi

The Admonitions

Admonition IV

No one should claim the office of superior as his own.

Those who are put in charge of others should be no prouder of their office than if they had been appointed to wash the feet of their confreres. They should be no more upset at the loss of their authority than they would be if they were deprived of the task of washing feet. The more they are upset, the greater risk they incur to their souls.

Saint Francis of Assisi

The Admonitions

Admonition III

Perfect and Imperfect Obedience

There are many religious who under the pretext of doing something more perfect than what their superior commands look behind and go back to their own will that they have given up (Proverbs 26:11). People like that are murderers, and by their bad example they cause the loss of many souls.

Saint Francis of Assisi

The Admonitions

Admonition II

The Evil of Self Will

A man eats of the tree that brings knowledge of good when he claims that his good will comes from himself alone and prides himself on the Good that God says and does in him.

Saint Francis of Assisi

The Admonitions

Admonition I of Saint Francis of Assisi

I. The Blessed Sacrament

Our Lord Jesus told his disciples, I am the way, and the truth, and the life

That is why all those were condemned who saw the Lord Jesus Christ in his humanity but did not see or believe in spirit in his divinity, that he was the true Son of God. In the same way now, all those are damned who who see the sacrament of the Body of Christ which is consecrated on the altar in the form of bread and wine by the words of our Lord in the hands of the priest, and do not see or believe in spirit and in God that it is really the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the Most High himself who told us, "This is my Body and Blood of the new covenant" (Mark 14:22-24), and "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has everlasting life" (John 6:55).

Saint Francis of Assisi

The Admonitions

Note: The Admonitions are found in the Assisi MS. 338, the Orgissanti MS., the thirteenth-century MS. in the Laurentian library at Florence, and in some twenty-one other manuscripts. Since the manuscripts are unanimous in attributing them to St. Francis, there can be no question as to their authenticity.

The Portiuncula Is To Be An Example

Blessed Francis caused it to be written down in his Testament that all the houses of the brothers were to be made of clay and wood as a sign of holy poverty and humility and that the churches built for them were to be small. On this specific point of building with wood and mud, it was his wish that St. Mary of the Portiuncula the first friary where the Lord began to multiply the brothers, be taken as an example. He wanted this friary always to be a model and a reminder to the present and future brothers.

Saint Francis of Assisi

Legend of Perugia - 77

Poverty Is The Special Way To Salvation

When the friars asked him privately what virtue made one dearest to Christ, he replied as if revealing his closest secret, "Believe me, my brothers, poverty is the special way of salvation. It is the source of humility and the root of all perfection and its fruit is manifold, although unseen. This is the treasure hidden in the field in the Gospel to by which we must sell all - and anything that cannot be sold should be abandoned for love of it."

Saint Francis of Assisi
Bonaventure - Major Life
CHAPTER VII : 2

Love Money As Much As Dung

Francis, the true friend and imitator of Christ, utterly despised all things belonging to this world, and hated money above all else. He always urged his brethren both by word and example to avoid it as they would the devil. And he told the friars to have as little love and use for money as for dung.

Saint Francis of Assisi

Mirror of Perfection - 14

Richmond Catholic Community Charismatic Prayer Group Meeting July 20th

The monthly meeting of the Richmond Catholic Community Charismatic Prayer Group will meet on July 20, 2008 in the basement of St. Mary Church 710 North A Street Richmond, IN 47374.

"I have no hesitation in saying that all pastoral initiatives must be set in relation to holiness....Stressing holiness remains more than ever an urgent pastoral task....

"Our Christian communities must become genuine 'schools' of prayer, where the meeting with Christ is expressed no just in imploring help, but also in thanksgiving, praise, adoration, contemplation, listening, and ardent devotion until the heart truly 'falls in love.' Intense prayer, yes, but it does not distract us from our commitment to history: by opening our heart to the love of God it also opens it to the love of our brothers and sisters, and makes us capable of shaping history according to God's plan."

Pope John Paul II

NMI 30,33

For additional information, please Email Chris Dickson at: dicksoncorp@parallax.ws

Imitate Christ

Christ gave to the world a summary of Christian perfection in his Sermon on the Mount. Francis studied this sermon and made it, in a sense, the core of his rule of life for his brothers, as expressed in the final rule of 1223. 

...But Francis sought not only to follow the words of Christ, he wished also to imitate the life of Christ as perfectly as he could, and he willed that his friars too should "follow the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ." 

Saint Francis of Assisi

Sacrum Commercium Sancti Francesci cum Domina Pauperate

INTRODUCTION

by Placid Hermann, O.F.M.

Wrongfully Criticizing The Poor

When blessed Francis had gone to preach at a house of the friars near Rocca Brizzi, it happened that on the day he was due to preach, a poor, sick man came to him. Full of compassion for him, he began to speak about the man's poverty and sickness to his companion. And his companion said to him, 'Brother, it is true that this man seems poor enough, but it ma be that no one in the whole Province has a greater desire for riches.' He was at once severely rebuked by blessed Francis, and confessed his fault. Then the Father said to him, 'Are you ready to perform your penance that I give you?' 'I will do it willingly,' he replied. And he said to him, 'Go and remove your habit, and throw yourself naked at the poor man's feet, and tell him how you have sinned in speaking ill of him, and ask him to pray for you.' So the friar went and did all that blessed Francis had told him. And the Father said to him, 'Do you want to know how you sinned against him, and against Christ Himself? Whenever you see a poor man, remember Christ in Whose Name he comes, and how He took upon Himself our poverty and weakness.'

Saint Francis of Assisi
Mirror of Perfection - 37

It Is Not Right For A Servant Of God To Show A Sad And Gloomy Face

So the Father (Francis) used to censure those who went about with gloomy faces, and once rebuked a friar who appeared with a gloomy face, saying, "Why are you making an outward display of grief and sorrow for your sin? This sorrow is between God and yourself alone. So pray Him in His mercy to pardon you and restore to your soul the joy of His salvation, of which the guilt of your sins has deprived it. Always do your best to be cheerful when you are with me and the other brethren; it is not right for a servant of God to show a sad and gloomy face to his brother or anyone else."

Saint Francis of Assisi
Mirror or Perfection - 96