Get Ready for Christmas by Praying the Christmas Novena!

Thanksgiving (Nov 24),

Advent begins (Nov 27),

the Immaculate Conception (Dec 8),

Our Lady of Guadalupe (Dec 12),

St John of the Cross (Dec 14, for all you Carmelite Fans),

then Our Lord’s Birthday (Dec 25)

followed by the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, the First Drops of His Innocent Blood Shed for humanity, on New Year’s Day!

http://bookofheaven.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Christmas-Novena-nine-excesses-with-letter-from-Fr.-Annib….pdf

FROM THE BOOK OF HEAVEN

V30 – 12.6.31 – “…there is a sentence pronounced by Us in the terrestrial Paradise: ‘Here one cannot enter—this is a place only for those who do and Live in Our Will.’ And therefore the first creatures were put out, placing an Angel as Guard, to prevent their entrance. Our Will is Paradise for creatures—terrestrial on earth, and Celestial in Heaven, and it can be said that an Angel is placed there to Guard It. One who does not want to do It, and does not want to Live in Its arms and Live common Life in Its House, would be an intruder if he did so—but he cannot do it either, because Our Veils become so thick that he would not find the way to get in. And just as an Angel forbids him the entrance, so another Angel Guides and gives the hand to one who wants to Live of Our Will. Therefore, content yourself with dying a thousand times rather than not doing Our Will.

V30 – 5.22.32 – “Now, You Must Know that one (Luisa and the souls Linked to Luisa) who Lives in the Divine Will shall reacquire, among so many prerogatives, the Gift of Infused Science; Gift that will be her guide in order to know Our Divine Being, that will facilitate for her the carrying out of the Kingdom of the Divine Fiat in her soul. It will be as Guide for her in the order of natural things. It will be like the Hand that guides her in everything and will make known the Palpitating Life of the Divine Volition in all created things, and the Good that It continuously brings her. This Gift was given to Adam at the beginning of his Creation. Together with Our Divine Will he possessed the Gift of Infused Science, in a way that he knew Our Divine Truths with clarity. Not only this, but he knew all the Beneficial Virtues that all created things possessed for the Good of the creature, from the greatest thing even to the littlest blade of grass.”

V36 – 5.6.38 – “My blessed daughter, one (Luisa and the souls Linked to Luisa) who Lives in My Will has always been inseparable from her Creator. She was with Us from all Eternity. Our Divine Will brought her to Our Laps to Love, court and enjoy her, and since then, We have felt her love palpitating in Us, calling for the Work of Our Creative Hands, to make of her one of Our best Images. O! how much We delighted in finding in Our Will someone in whom We could express Our Creativity. Now, You Must Know that since these souls that Live, and will Live, in Our Fiat are inseparable from Us, they were coming down with Me when I, the Eternal Word, came down from Heaven to earth in the Excess of My Love. They were guided by the Heavenly Queen; they formed My People, My loyal Army, My Living Royal Palace, in which I was True King of these children of My Divine Will.

V36 – 7.11.38 – “My good daughter, You Must Know that the Power of each act done in My Will is such that it opens a way to Heaven for oneself, and others who follow. Therefore every act is a way that leads to Heaven. All these ways, coming down from Heaven, braid the earth; they spread everywhere and become safe paths and safe guides for anyone who wants to enter, guiding her up to the Womb of her Creator. See then, what an act in My Will can do: it is one more way that opens between Heaven and earth. How Beautiful it is Living in My Will. The act is not only a way but, as the soul is about to do it, the Divine Breath descends into it and, blowing, fills all Creation with Its Omnipotent Breath. Everybody feels the Refreshment, the Love and the Power of the Creative Breath, that has the Power to enclose everyone and everything, embalming with Its Divine and Celestial Air My Operating Will, within Ourselves as much as in the creature. It makes Wonders to the extent that It can say: ‘I am a Divine Act, I can do anything.’

V36 – 12.8.38 – “The soul that unites with My Humanity in all her acts and pains, by wanting to find My Will and make It her own, breaks the veil of My Humanity, finding in My Acts the fruit, the Life, the Prodigies that My Humanity did within Me, and receiving all that I did within Me as her own Life. My Humanity will serve to help and guide her, showing her how to Live within It.

Paragraph 91 – III. The Interpretation of the Heritage of Faith
They have received the anointing of the Holy Spirit, who instructs
them 53 and guides them into all truth. 54 ( 737 ) CCC

 Paragraph 1834 – III. The Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit
1834 The human virtues are stable dispositions of the intellect and the will
that govern our acts, order our passions, and guide our conduct in accordance with reason and faith. CCC

Paragraph 1949 – CHAPTER THREE GOD’S SALVATION: LAW AND GRACE
… salvation from God. Divine help comes to him in Christ through the
law that guides him and the grace that sustains him: CCC

 Paragraph 302 – V. God Carries out His Plan: Divine Providence
… God has destined it. We call “divine providence” the dispositions by
which God guides his creation toward this perfection: CCC

Exodus 13:21 – And the Lord went before them to shew the way by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire: that he might be the guide of their journey at both times.

Pslams 26:11 – Set me, O Lord, a law in thy way, and guide me in the right path, because of my enemies.

Wisdom 7:15 – And God hath given to me to speak as I would, and to conceive thoughts worthy of those things that are given me: because he is the guide of wisdom, and the director of the wise:

FROM THE BOOK OF HEAVEN

V12 – 12.6.19 – “My daughter, Luisa, Echo of My Life, while you were Praying, My MERCY was Softening, and My Justice was Losing Sharpness – and not only in the present time, but also in the future, because your Prayer will Remain in Act in My Divine Will. By Virtue of it, My Softened MERCY will Flow More Abundantly, and My Justice will be Less Rigorous. Not only this, but I will Feel the Note of the Love of the lost souls, and My Heart will Feel for you, Luisa, a Love of Special Tenderness, Finding in you the Love which these souls Owed Me; and I will Pour into you, Luisa, the Graces which I Had Prepared for them.”

FROM THE BOOK OF HEAVEN

V1 – One morning – it was the eve of the nativity of Mary Most Holy – my always benign Jesus Himself came to dispose me. He did nothing but come and go continuously. He would speak to me now about Faith, and then He would leave me, and I would feel a life of faith being infused in my soul. As rough as I felt it before, at the speaking of Jesus, I would feel my soul become very light, in such a way as to penetrate into God; and I would contemplate now His Power, now His Sanctity, now His Goodness, and so on. My soul would remain stupefied, and in a sea of stupefaction, I would say: ‘Powerful God, what power is not undone before You? Immense Sanctity of God, what other sanctity, as sublime as it might me, would dare to appear before You?’ Then I would feel myself descend into myself, and I could see my nothingness, the nonentity of earthly things, how everything is nothing before God. I would see myself as a little worm, all full of dust, climbing up in order to take a few steps; it would take nothing to destroy me but someone who would trample me under foot, and I would be undone. So, seeing myself so ugly, I almost would not dare to go to God, but His Goodness would make itself present before my mind, and I would feel drawn as though by a magnet, to go to Him. And I would say to myself: ‘If He is holy, He is also merciful; if He is powerful, He also contains full and highest Goodness within Himself.’ It seemed to me that Goodness surrounded Him on the outside and inundated Him from within. So I would contemplate the Goodness of God.

V19 – 7.11.26 – “…Now, My daughter, just as it was necessary to make known to creatures who He and She were, and how much it cost Them to form the Kingdom of Redemption, so it is necessary to make known she whom my paternal goodness has chosen, first, to form the Kingdom of the Supreme Fiat within her, and then, to give rise to Its transmission to others.

V23 – 10.30.27 – “My little daughter, you must know that Our Love gushed out in Creation, and overflowing outside of Ourselves—without anyone having merited such a great good, not even with a single word—Our highest Goodness and Liberality with no limits created the whole machine of the universe with such great magnificence, order and harmony, for love of the one who did not yet exist.

“After this, Our Love gushed out more strongly, and We created he for whom all things had been created. And since, in operating, We operate always with unreachable magnanimity, and while We are not depleted, We give everything, so that nothing of magnanimity, of greatness and of all goods may be lacking to Our work—in creating man, with no merit at all on his part, as dowry, foundation and substance of all goods, joys and happinesses, we gave him Our Will as his Kingdom, so that he might lack nothing, having a Divine Will at his disposal and, with It, Our Supreme Being.

V23 – 2.28.28 – “…each additional knowledge about My Divine Volition is one new creation that It forms in creatures, of happiness and of unreachable beauty, because it is a Divine Life that runs within it, bringing within itself all the shades of the Beauties of He who manifests them, and all the keys and sounds of the Joys and Happinesses of Our Divine Being.

“So, if Our paternal Goodness exposes Its life, Its beauty and happiness, to the point of creating it in the midst of creatures, and they do not interest themselves in knowing it in order to take it by means of Our knowledges already given to them, it is not right that they receive either the beauty, or the sounds of Our Joys as their own endowments. They will take what they have known. Therefore, there will be various choirs in the hierarchy of the Kingdom of My Divine Will.

            … My Goodness is so great that I reward justly and superabundantly the good that the creature does, especially in this work of My Will, that I so much care for. What will I not give to those who occupy and sacrifice themselves in order to place in safety the rights of My Eternal Fiat? I will exceed so much in giving, as to make Heaven and earth astonished.”

V23 – 3.8.28 – “My daughter, Our Paternal Goodness created man to keep him on Our paternal knees, for Us to enjoy him continuously, and for him to enjoy himself perennially with his Creator. And so that his enjoyments and Ours might be stable, We kept him on Our paternal knees; and since Our Will was to be his also, It brought the echo of all Our Acts into man’s inmost being, whom We loved as Our child. And Our child, in hearing Our echo, acted as the repeater of the Acts of his Creator. What contentments did not form between him and Us, as this creating echo of Ours resounded in Our child’s inmost heart, forming in him the order of Our Acts, the harmony of Our Joys and Happinesses, the image of Our Sanctity. What happy times for him and for Us.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

• Paragraph 51 – I. God Reveals His “Plan of Loving Goodness”
  51 “It pleased God, in his goodness and wisdom, to reveal himself and
  to make known the mystery of his will. His will was …
• Paragraph 299 – IV. The Mystery of Creation
  … 153 Because creation comes forth from God’s goodness, it shares
  in that goodness — “And God saw that it was good… …
• Paragraph 306 – V. God Carries out His Plan: Divine Providence
  … cooperation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token
  of almighty God’s greatness and goodness. For God …
• Paragraph 294 – III. “The World Was Created for the Glory of God”
  294 The glory of God consists in the realization of this manifestation and
  communication of his goodness, for which the world was created. …
• Paragraph 310 – V. God Carries out His Plan: Divine Providence
  … 174 But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world
  “in a state of journeying” toward its ultimate perfection. …

DOUAY-RHEIMS BIBLE

BARUCH 2:27 – And thou hast dealt with us, O Lord our God, according to all thy goodness, and according to all that great mercy of thine:

ROMANS 11:22 – See then the goodness and the severity of God: towards them indeed that are fallen, the severity; but towards thee, the goodness of God, if thou abide in goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.

TITUS 3:4 – But when the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour appeared:

FROM THE BOOK HEAVEN

V2 – October 29, 1899 – “…once the soul has made everything go out of herself, then do I enter, and united with the will of the soul, we build a house. The foundations of it are based on humility, and the deeper they are, the higher and stronger the walls will be. These walls will be built with the stones of mortification, cemented with the purest gold of charity. After the walls have been built, I, like a most excelling painter, plaster it and form the most excelling paintings – not with lime and water, but with the merits of my Passion, represented by the lime, and with the colors of my Blood, represented by the water. This serves to protect it well from rains, from snows, and from any shock. Then come the doors, and in order for them to be solid like wood and not subject to wood worms, silence is necessary which forms the death of the exterior senses. In order to keep this house, a guardian is necessary to watch over it everywhere, inside and out. This is the holy fear of God which guards it against any inconvenience, wind or anything else that may threaten it. This fear will be the safeguard of this house, which will cause one to operate, not out of fear of penalty, but out of fear of offending the master of this house. This holy fear must do nothing but do everything to please God, with no other intention.

January 10, 1917 – This morning my lovable Jesus told me: “My daughter, sanctity is formed of little things; so, one who despises the little things cannot be holy. It would be like someone who despises the little grains of wheat which, as many of them are united together, form the mass of the wheat; and by neglecting to unite them, he would cause the necessary and daily nourishment for the human life to be lacking. In the same way, one who neglected to unite many little acts together, would cause the nourishment of sanctity to be lacking; and just as one cannot live without food, in the same way, without the food of the little acts, the true shape of sanctity, and the mass sufficient to form sanctity, would be lacking.”

October 5
St. Maria Faustina Kowalska
(1905-1938)

St. Faustina’s name is forever linked to the annual feast of the Divine Mercy (celebrated on the Second Sunday of Easter), the divine mercy chaplet and the divine mercy prayer recited each day at 3 p.m. by many people.

Born in what is now west-central Poland (part of Germany before World War I), Helena Kowalska was the third of 10 children. She worked as a housekeeper in three cities before joining the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in 1925. She worked as a cook, gardener and porter in three of their houses.

In addition to carrying out her work faithfully, generously serving the needs of the sisters and the local people, she also had a deep interior life. This included receiving revelations from the Lord Jesus, messages that she recorded in her diary at the request of Christ and of her confessors.

At a time when some Catholics had an image of God as such a strict judge that they might be tempted to despair about the possibility of being forgiven, Jesus chose to emphasize his mercy and forgiveness for sins acknowledged and confessed. “I do not want to punish aching mankind,” he once told St. Faustina, “but I desire to heal it, pressing it to my merciful heart” (Diary 1588). The two rays emanating from Christ’s heart, she said, represent the blood and water poured out after Jesus’ death (John 19:34)

Because Sister Maria Faustina knew that the revelations she had already received did not constitute holiness itself, she wrote in her diary: “Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures, nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union of the soul with God. These gifts are merely ornaments of the soul, but constitute neither its essence nor its perfection. My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God” (Diary 1107).

Sister Maria Faustina died of tuberculosis in Krakow, Poland, on October 5, 1938. Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1993 and canonized her seven years later.

Comment:

Devotion to God’s Divine Mercy bears some resemblance to devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In both cases, sinners are encouraged not to despair, not to doubt God’s willingness to forgive them if they repent. As Psalm 136 says in each of its 26 verses, “God’s love [mercy] endures forever.”

Quote:

Four years after Faustina’s beatification, John Paul II visited the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy at Lagiewniki (near Krakow) and addressed members of her congregation. He said: “The message of divine mercy has always been very close and precious to me. It is as though history has written it in the tragic experience of World War II. In those difficult years, this message was a particular support and an inexhaustible source of hope, not only for those living in Krakow, but for the entire nation. This was also my personal experience, which I carried with me to the See of Peter and which, in a certain sense, forms the image of this pontificate. I thank divine providence because I was able to contribute personally to carrying out Christ’s will, by instituting the feast of Divine Mercy. Here, close to the remains of Blessed Faustina, I thank God for the gift of her beatification. I pray unceasingly that God may have ‘mercy on us and on the whole world’ “(Quote from the Chaplet of Divine Mercy).

LUISA PICCARRETA AND DIVINE MERCY

FROM THE BOOK OF HEAVEN

V9 – 9.11.10 – “My daughter, Luisa, Justice and MERCY are in a Continuous Fight, and the Victories of MERCY are More than those of Justice. Now, when a soul is Perfectly United With My Divine Will, she Takes Part in My Actions ad extra, and as she Satisfies with her Sufferings, MERCY Obtains Its Most Beautiful Victories over Justice. And since I Delight in Crowning All of My Attributes with MERCY, even Justice Itself, in Seeing Myself Being Importuned by the soul United with Me, in order to Content her, I Surrender to her, because she has Surrendered All of her things in My Divine Will. This is why I do not Come when I do not Want to Surrender – because I don’t Trust that I can Resist without Surrendering. So, what is your doubt?”

V12 – 12.6.19 – Now, I remember that one night I was doing the Adoration of my Crucified Jesus, telling Him: ‘My Love, in Your Will I Find All Generations; and in the name of the Whole human family, I Adore You, I Kiss You, I Repair You for All. I Give Your Wounds and Your Blood to All, so that All May Find their Salvation. And if the lost souls can no longer Benefit from Your Most Holy Blood, nor Love You, I Take It in their place, in order to do what they should have done. I do not Want Your Love to Remain defrauded in anything on the part of creatures. I Want to Compensate, Repair You, Love You for All, from the first to the last man…’

While I was saying this and other things, my Sweet Jesus Stretched His Arms around my neck, and Squeezing All of me, Told me: “My daughter, Luisa, Echo of My Life, while you were Praying, My MERCY was Softening, and My Justice was Losing Sharpness – and not only in the present time, but also in the future, because your Prayer will Remain in Act in My Divine Will. By Virtue of it, My Softened MERCY will Flow More Abundantly, and My Justice will be Less Rigorous. Not only this, but I will Feel the Note of the Love of the lost souls, and My Heart will Feel for you, Luisa, a Love of Special Tenderness, Finding in you the Love which these souls Owed Me; and I will Pour into you, Luisa, the Graces which I Had Prepared for them.”

• Paragraph 2635 – III. Prayer of Intercession
  2635 Since Abraham, intercession—asking on behalf of another—has
  been characteristic of a heart attuned to God’s mercy. …CCC
• Paragraph 2769 – III. The Prayer of the Church
  … When the Church prays the Lord’s Prayer, it is always the people made up
  of the “new-born” who pray and obtain mercy. 21 ( 1243 )…CCC

Psalms 32:18 – Behold the eyes of the Lord are on them that fear him: and on them that hope in his mercy.

Jude 1:21 – Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto life everlasting.

Matthew 5:7 – Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

October 4th is the

FEAST DAY OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI

St. Francis of Assisi (Italian: San Francesco d’Assisi, born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, but nicknamed Francesco (“the Frenchman”) by his father, 1181/1182 – October 3, 1226)^[1][3] was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men’s Order of Friars Minor, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the Third Order of Saint Francis for men and women not able to live the lives of itinerant preachers followed by the early members of the Order of Friars Minor or the monastic lives of the Poor Clares.^[1] Though he was never ordained to the Catholic priesthood, Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.^[1]

Francis’ father was Pietro di Bernardone, a prosperous silk merchant. Francis lived the high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young man, even fighting as a soldier for Assisi.^[4] While going off to war in 1204, Francis had a vision that directed him back to Assisi, where he lost his taste for his worldly life.^[4] On a pilgrimage to Rome, he joined the poor in begging at St. Peter’s Basilica.^[4] The experience moved him to live in poverty.^[4] Francis returned home, began preaching on the streets, and soon amassed a following. His Order was authorized by Pope Innocent III in 1210. He then founded the Order of Poor Clares, which became an enclosed religious order for women, as well as the Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance (commonly called the Third Order).

In 1219, he went to Egypt in an attempt to convert the Sultan to put an end to the conflict of the Crusades.^[5] By this point, the Franciscan Order had grown to such an extent that its primitive organizational structure was no longer sufficient. He returned to Italy to organize the Order. Once his community was authorized by the Pope, he withdrew increasingly from external affairs. In 1223, Francis arranged for the first Christmas manger scene.^[4] In 1224, he received the stigmata,^[4] making him the first recorded person to bear the wounds of Christ’s Passion.^[6] He died during the evening hours of October 3, 1226, while listening to a reading he had requested of Psalm 140.

On July 16, 1228, he was pronounced a saint by Pope Gregory IX. He is known as the patron saint of animals, the environment, and is one of the two patron saints of Italy (with Catherine of Siena). It is customary for Catholic and Anglican churches to hold ceremonies blessing animals on his feast day of October 4.^[7] He is also known for his love of the Eucharist,^[8] his sorrow during the Stations of the Cross, and for the creation of the Christmas creche or Nativity Scene.^[9]

For much more information on St. Francis of Assisi click here

BOOK OF HEAVEN

Excerpt from Volume 17 – April 15, 1925

Furthermore, of David it was said that he was an image of Me, so much so, that all of his psalms reveal my person; of Saint Francis of Assisi, that he was a faithful copy of Me.  It is said in the Holy Gospel:  ‘Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect’ – no less; it is also added that no one will enter the Kingdom of Heaven if he is not similar to the image of the Son of God; and many other things.  About all these, no one says that they have been exalted too much, and that these are things not conforming to truths spoken by my very mouth.  Only because to you I said that I wanted to compare you to the Virgin – to make you Her faithful copy, I have exalted you too much?  So, comparing those to Me was not exalting them, nor did anyone raise any doubt or difficulty; but then, comparing to the Virgin – that’s too much exaltation.  This means that they have not understood well the mission of the knowledge of my Will.  Indeed, I repeat to you that I not only place you near Her as Her little daughter, on Her maternal lap, that She may guide you, instruct you on how you must imitate Her, to become Her faithful copy by always doing the Divine Will; so that, from Her lap, you may pass onto the lap of the Divinity.  In fact, the mission of my Will is eternal, and it is precisely the mission of Our Celestial Father, who wants, commands, expects nothing else but that His Will be known and loved, that It be done on earth as It is in Heaven.  So you, making this eternal mission your own and imitating the Celestial Father, must want nothing else for yourself and for all but that my Will be known, loved and fulfilled.  And besides, when it is the creature who exalts herself, one should think about it; but when she remains at her place and I exalt her, all is permissible to Me – making one reach wherever I want, and the way I want.  Therefore, trust Me and do not be concerned.”