Caritas Newsletter

March 30, 1997
by Fr. Lucian Pulvermacher, OFM Cap.

on the Presence of God & Prayer

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Jesus Christ - Prince of Peace

Lest the virus of error invade your minds I must stress that the resurrection of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, is a truly historical event which we know for certain from natural history and above all by divine revelation. I say this because I know that in the Novus Ordo they teach the resurrection is as follows: "We (as Catholics) must believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but if we found His remains yet on earth it would not create a problem." What such teachers of error say is that faith is not concerning reality but concerning fantasy. To all that we say, begone Satan! 

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The Presence of God & Prayer

So it is, in a measure, in our relations with God. We have already seen that mere bodily presence before the tabernacle, or mere recitation of formulae does not constitute God present to us; for that, it is needful that the powers of our soul be occupied with God and with the things of God. Now in prayer there is reciprocal action. Prayer is a conversation. It is as essential a part of mental prayer that God should address Himself to us, as that we should address ourselves to Him.

Prayer is a colloquy, a discourse or a conversation of the soul with God, by it we speak to God and He again speaks to us; we aspire to Him and breathe in Him, and He reciprocally inspires us and breathes in us. (Treatise on love of God, VI).

Prayer is a conversation of the soul with God, and intercourse of the spirit in which God teaches it in an interior way what it should know and do and in which the soul says to God what He Himself teaches it to ask for. (Conf. on Prayer, 1648)

"In a conversation one both listens and speaks. The soul gives itself up to God and God communicates Himself to the soul." (Christ the Life of the Soul, C. x, Part II.) 

God speaks to us through the deepening of our faith, through the illumination He supplies to our intelligence, the penetration into the mysteries of our religion that He grants us, and through the impulse to good that he gives to our wills. He speaks to us above all, by the life and actions of Jesus Christ - these are "His words" to us - His Own "Word". God Who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, in these days, hath spoken to us by His Son, Whom He hath appointed Heir of all things, by whom also He made thee, Who being the brightness of His glory, and the figure of His substance, sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on High." (Heb. 1,1-3) 

We become present with God by having present in thoughts, affection and in imagination the life of Jesus. We associate with and converse with God by associating and conversing in spirit with Jesus. He Himself said: "Philip, he that seeth me, seeth the Father also." (St. John xiv, 9) God on His side mingles familiarly with our life and its concerns, through and in the life of His Word on earth. He communicates His light and His life to us through Him. Jesus is the channel of the communication of Divine grace. Prayer consists in living with and conversing with Jesus and a view to becoming like to him. Prayer is literally the instrument of transforming process by which we leave our own form and put on the form of the Son of Man. The function of prayer consists in stripping us of earthly desire: "Stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds and putting on the new, him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of him that created him." St. Paul, (Col. iii, 9-10).

"By thought we can put ourselves in the presence of Christ, set ourselves gradually aflame by a great love for the Sacred Humanity, keep company with Him at all times, speak to Him, recommend our need to Him, seek compassion for Him in our trials, rejoice with Him in our consolations, keep ourselves from forgetting Him in times of prosperity. Let us not seek to make beautiful speeches to Him; but rather speak simply to express our desires and wants. This is an excellent method and makes us advance in a very short time. The person who studies how to live in this precious company and draws therefrom a genuine love for the Master who has showered so many benefits upon us, that person, I assert, has gone forward in the way of prayer. So that we must not grow disconsolate, as I have already said, if the feeling of devotion is lacking. Let us rather give thanks to Our Lord, Who despite the imprecations in our works keeps alive within us the desire of pleasing Him. 

This method of prayer, which consists in keeping ourselves in the company of the Savior, is profitable at every stage. It is a very certain means of progressing in the first degree of prayer and of reaching the second in a short time. And in the last stages it serves as a protection against the temptations of the devil." (Life by Henelj, Ch. xii)

Then (again quote from above) St. Vincent de Paul says: 

Prayer is a conversation of the soul with God, an intercourse of the spirit in which God teaches it in an interior way what it should know and do and in which the soul says to God what He Himself teaches it to ask for.

I shall quote Father Leen again from page 144: 

Our natural activity of knowing must be elevated and enlivened by the infused intellectual habit of faith in order that it may help to bring us close to God." Here Leen quotes St. John of the Cross: "All apprehension and knowledge of supernatural things cannot help us to love God so much as the least act of living faith and hope made in detachment from all things.

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Homo / Lesbians

Family Research Institute 
P.O. Box 62640 
Colorado Springs, CO 80962-2640.

"The corporate world is only one of the homosexual fronts. They also seduce the NEA (National Education Association). This past year the NEA adopted a resolution which adds homosexuality to their list of oppressed classes (American Indians/Alaska Natives, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Blacks, Hispanics, women, gay and lesbians). The resolution says that teachers must teach acceptance and sensitivity to those groups. Previously, the NEA talked about tolerance. Now it is acceptance, and training programs must be put into place to enforce this "acceptance." 

"The homosexuals do not want just acceptance or "their civil rights" (they already have the same civil rights as we do), they want to homosexualize our society."

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Resurrection of Christ 

1. He arose from the dead, and 
2. He was raised from the dead,

Happy Easter!