Fight The Good Fight

2010-01-28 

Fight or you will be overtaken by the evil one.

He prowls around looking for all and anyone to devour.

When you see how l and how My Mother overcame the enemy of God, Lucifer and his cohorts, you will be able to follow our example.

You do not fight a battle as with men but a spiritual battle, for your very souls and for your heavenly reward. 

Satan hates you because you are Mine and l have given you his place in the new heaven.

Because redemption has freed you, a new life has been opened up for you.

l do not want you to dwell on or be constantly anxious concerning evil, but l do want you to be vigilant and not so light hearted that you will be swept away from Me being unaware of what has transpired in a worid that is mostly invisible to you.

Make friends and be on a first name basis with your angel who will guide and protect you.

Consecrate yourself to My Sacred Heart and to the Heart of The Blessed Mother, who is for you a gift from the Most High, your Father.

Calm yourself and receive My peace.

You receive in your being, scripture to fight the temptations.

Do not engage in argument or try to defend yourself except to praise and utter words of glory to God.

Ignore, and place your thoughts away from anything that causes you mental anguish or turmoil, that is not from Me but the evil one.

This is not a time for sleep, as you recall, My disciples in the garden or Gethsemane.  Three times I tried to rouse them but to no avail.

You must not be found unaware of the dangers in these last hours.

My love for you will be guiding you and leading you into the next step, the next hurdle.

Refuse despair or a tendency to fatigue, it is part of his strategy for you to give up the struggle and quit fighting the good fight which will eventually get you home.

Stay close and return to Me confessing failures, always trusting in the love I have for you.

You are my beloved. I created you to be with Me for all eternity , go in peace to love and serve all within your doing.

Prophecy from October 11, 2004

From Father Sam's Files

Father Sam handed this particular prophecy when we were at his house a while back, and it is very pertinent to this day and age. 

Dear Children, I am calling you to a new beginning.
Hear My message; receive My Word.
My  Spirit, My Power, is here upon you.
I will set a new fire upon the earth.

I will transform, mould, change and fill you,
But some of you are still so tense.
Open your heart to the love of Jesus.
And show a little more confidence.

Build up your faith to prayer and thanksgiving;
I am speaking to you friend to friend.
Walk with Me, step out in boldness;
I will be with you till the end.

Pray for wisdom, guidance and understanding.
Give me the struggles that you face.
Difficult is the mission that I will lay upon you.
Be open to my healing grace.

You are living in a demonic age.
My word is twisted and being misunderstood.
Trust in Me, My beloved ones,
And lead my people into one brotherhood.

Call upon My Name, and free your brothers
From bondage, pain and misery.
I will show you again and again
That I am Your God, Your Life, Your Hope, Your Victory.

I see a void, a need that's not yet been met,
A people crying to be free.
Your mission now is still incomplete.
You must go all the way for Me.

See how behind these clouds and darkness
A new radance is breaking through,
My Son is soon to appear in light and glory,
But He is waiting just for you.

As I see the wacky things going on at this time, I have no doubt that we are in an age where the devil is working very hard to turn us away from God.  But that makes it all the more important that we Trust God in all things.

Enemies

2010-01-23 

My life, I placed into the hands of My enemies.

You also must be willing as I was willing, to be obedient, to do whatever, the Father required of Me even unto death.

You ask “who are your enemies?” they are the ones that I want to reach through you.

You say that you do not want to make enemies, but because you are Mine, and they are not yet, they are your enemies.

Be willing to be vulnerable enough to allow yourself to be hurt, used, embarrassed, and humiliated for My sake.

No one chooses this for themselves but for Me you allow My Father’s Will to unfold and bring about conversion and sorrow for sin, which might come about against you.

You can refuse the cross, but My graces, which are seen only in the aftermath, will be the greatest at that time.

Not one of My children is expendable and I will do anything to save to the last one.

Fr. Sam on Hugging

Healing

When speaking with Father Sam recently, he told My Dear Wife and me about something from his childhood, the profoundness and lesson of which has taken me some time to absorb.

When he was a young baby, he was a good boy.  He was so good and so quiet as a baby that his mother focused her attention on the other children, who were more demanding, and she did not pick him up and cuddle him.  He, of course did not know that until many years later, after ordination, when something else happened.

As a middle aged priest, Father Sam was 38 when he was ordained, he spoke about the difficulties that he had getting things going for the youth of parishes that he was in.  He told of starting a youth choir with 19 eager kids the first day.  That declined such that 2 weeks later, he had just 2 children show up for practice.  He said that that was the way things went for him, and it was discouraging.

But, there seems to have been an underlying symptom.  Father Sam could not hug people.  That symptom now seems to have been one of the indicators of a loss of affection from his childhood and therefor the ability to reach out with affection and love to others.

But, Father Sam encountered Jesus and the Holy Spirit at age 42, when he went on a retreat for priests, and was baptized in the Holy Spirit.  He tells of his drive back to southern Ontario from the retreat in Toronto with Father Charlie Campbell, another priest of the diocese at the time, and telling him that he felt different, and could not explain it.

Father Sam had caught the Love Bug.  He became a hugger, but more than that he became a great lover of his fellow man, the others on the journey.  Suddenly, he was able to relate to the youth in ways he never could before.  Also, he looked for ways to introduce them to Jesus and to the Holy Spirit, with much positive effect.

Unbeknownst to Father Sam at the time, he was healed of a great pain in his heart, of the loneliness from his childhood, that one could not fathom in a family of several children.  He received a healing of the memories that were getting in the way of effective ministry.

Here is the lesson in this.  We are all bound to some extent or other in the memories of our lives.  Those memories of joy and love form us, but so too do the memories of hurt and trauma.  The memories from our childhood, when our mental capacities were not matured are the most damaging.  They form our responses to situations, that are in some way similar to the particular traumatic event that occurred, and over time a hard shell develops and we form patterns of behaviour that become hard to break.

Father Sam could not form the kind and gentle loving attachments to the youth of his parishes in the early days, because he had been formed by trauma to respond in certain ways, staying aloof and apart.  Consequently, the youth could not respond to him either, as they sought a Father in him.

But, God reached into his heart, and took away all the pain, in a miraculous way.  Suddenly, the past was gone and Father Sam could love, as His Saviour loved him, and the rest of his ministry years are a story of love and kindness, and of a big and gentle bear of a man.  When you have been hugged by Father Sam, you have been hugged, my friends.

He understands deep in his heart, why he is FATHER Sam.

If you can search into your own heart with curiosity, not judgment, and find ways of behaving that seem odd to you, or which impair your effectiveness in your life, try first to search your mind in prayer for the root traumatic event that set you on the path to your current actions.  Then, give it, whether or not you can uncover it, and all of its effect to Our Loving God.  Make it a gift to Him.  He wants ALL of you, not just what you think is good.  He wants it ALL.  Let Him take it, heal it and give you back the Truth.  Do this in the Name of Jesus, the Name above all names, and watch how the Lord heals you.

An Encounter With Jesus

Downstream Effects of Prayers

Yesterday in Tucson, My Dear Wife and I encountered Jesus in a special way, as I reported here.

The link to Father Sam is this.  Father's prayers with us, and his hearing of my confession a while back have opened my heart to see Jesus like never before.  My love for My Dear Wife has grown immensely, and the scales (at least some more of them) are falling away from my eyes.

Before we left his house the last time, he took a picture of us together with his digital camera, so he could pray for us.  He did not need the picture of us to pray, but he wanted it.

PTLA

Praise The Lord Anyway

When we visited with Father Sam a while ago, before leaving for the American Southwest, we talked about many things.  One of them is a personal philosophy of Father Sam's that is really scripturally based, and sound doctrine.

Somewhere in his journey of faith, Father Sam learned about praising God in all situations.  You know, sometimes it is easy, and sometimes it is not.  It fits in with the words of James 1:2  "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds".  I can tell you that for many years I struggled with that, particularly as my behind got hotter when God was busy getting my attention.

Father Sam was in a car crash in the later 90's, that as you can see from the picture below was pretty serious.  He did two things that day.  First, he refused to receive any injuries from that accident, and he walked away pain free.  Second, and most importantly, he Praised The Lord Anyway for the circumstance.

That's kind of how he lives his faith.  His car was hit so hard that his drivers seat was broken, and the back of the seat fell backwards into the back area of the car.  He got the car off to the side of the road, and was invited by a passing motorist to sit in his vehicle until help arrived.

As they were sitting, a truck passed by and something metal came flying over the roof of the car he was in.  They got out to check and it was Father Sam's licence plate.  As you can see above there is no plate on the back of his mangled car.  Since that was all he needed from the car in order to get a new one, once again Father Sam said Praise The Lord Anyway.

Rather than a traumatic experience that changed his life forever, the crash became an anecdote in a faith filled life.

A Thought from our Visit With Father Sam

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament

My Dear Wife and I have arrived in Tucson for some of the winter.  At Our Lady of Fatima Parish nearby, they have Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament each first Monday of the month.  St. Padre Pio was a devotee of Adoration, and it is said that when he said mass it was like a missionary journey, and a most mystical experience.

When we saw Father Sam a while ago, he showed us his prayer room, a converted sun porch, complete with a tabernacle holding the Blessed Sacrament.  He had previously told me about having coffee with Jesus every morning.  Not being the brightest bulb in the pack, it has taken me a while to take it all in.

Father Sam has a small monstrance in his kitchen, and he takes the Blessed Sacament out of the tabernacle he has each morning, and puts it in the monstrance in his kitchen, so that he does in fact, in the Catholic tradition, have coffee with Jesus every morning, in the form of bread, but in every sense present in the Eucharist.

The enormity of Father Sam's faith in the teachings of the Church, and the truth of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is manifest to me in this story and in seeing this glimpse of Father's prayer life.

All I can say is WOW, and I can hardly wait for the first Friday of February to go and pay a visit to my Saviour during the Adoration at Our Lady of Fatima.

Father Sam 25 Years

News Clipping from Ridgetown Paper on the Occasion

This was in Father Sam's personal files.  He has now been to Columbia 39 times, and is heading there in February again.  At the time of this article he had not been to Medjugorge.  He has visited there 4 times as well.

Article By Charles Stanley

Written in 1990

From Father Sam's files, I have this story attributed to the Evangelist Dr. Charles Stanley, of Atlanta Georgia.

We are the Church of Peter.  That's good news.  We are the Church of Peter, not the Church of Perfect, but the Church of Peter.  Listen to this:

He was there when Christ said," Follow me." He was no prize, but he was there.
At the sermon on the mount, he was no humble peace maker, but he was there.
At the revelation of the Messiah, he became proud, but he was there.
At the transfiguration, he spoke our of turn, but he was there.
In the upper room, he would not wash feet, but he was there.
In the garden, he went to sleep, but he was there.
When they came for Christ, he used his sword, but he was there.
At Christ's trial, he lied and denied: he cried and he cried, but he was there.
At the cross, he followed from afar, but he was there.
When Mary Magdalene told of the resurrection, he was surprised, but he was there.
At Galilee, when Christ appeared, it hurt to be questioned three times, but he was there.
At the Ascension and commissioning, he didn't fully understand, but he was there.
At Pentecost, he was drunk with power, but, Praise God, he was there.
At Cornelius' house, it was against all custom, but he was there.

Peter wasn't always right.  In fact, he was almost never right, but he wouldn't go away; he was always there.  Peter got there first, and he got it right later, but you will never get right if you never get there.  Because he got there at Cornelius' house he could say, "Now I understand."

You don't get there because you are always right, you get there because you are always willing.

You know, that is the story of Father Sam's life.  He never quit on God, and God has rewarded his faithfulness, just as he will reward yours and mine.

98 SAM

A Prophetic License Plate

Father Sam got a license plate for his car that read "98 SAM" a number of years ago, because that was the year he planned on retiring.  Through a number of circumstances, mainly obedience to God, he ended up staying on in St. Michael's Parish Ridgetown until 2005, which would make 98 SAM erroneous, or so I thought.

Each year, Father Sam would put his retirement to prayer, and each year between 1998 and 2004, he carried on.  It was not just a coin flip that caused him to stay on.  He did work at the discernment process.

As his actual and final retirement was coming up, he was concerned about where he would live.  He described for me and My Dear Wife his available options at the time, and his desire to not have to do THAT.  But, God had other plans for him.

A woman who he ministered to in his parish, passed away, and he had the opportunity to give her the Sacrament of the Sick before she died, and conducted her funeral.  He asked her son if, by any chance, her house was available for him to purchase.  He was thinking that it might be able to be had for about $115,000 and that possibly God had that house in store for him.

A few days later the son called to tell him that he had determined its worth as $103,000 and asked Father if he would be prepared to pay $98,000 for it.  I do not know if Father Sam literally leapt for joy, but he was quite pleased about it.  The son then invited him over to the house, and made an additional proposition to him.  He offered him the contents of the house, and the two garages for an additional $1,500.  As you can well imagine, priests don't typically accumulate the assets required to have their own home, since they are moved about with a suitcase and a couple of cardboard boxes every few years during their parish ministry days.  This came as a blessing as well to Father, and he loves his new home.

The address "98" Victoria Street.  Coincidence.  I think not.

I Know My Sheep

And my Sheep Know Me - My Goats too

Here is a picture of Father Sam from a few years ago, when he was in Columbia.  It does not really need an explanation now, does it?

It’s All About Love

2010-01-12 

There shall be no jealousy among you.

You were created in My image and I am forming you into perfection.

Listen to My instruction through the voice of My servants, My ministers as they bring to you My words, for your eternity rests upon your obedience and humility in the compliance.

Keep in your heart’s vision My face, being mindful always and in everything, that occupies your day, a prayer of praise and thanksgiving.

You are a walking tabernacle and you have been forgetful of Me throughout your day in the world. Correct this today.

You will be able to accomplish this bit by bit as you offer your meager beginnings and repeat often “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

I will help you, for I desire very much, to keep you in this manner, from, not only sin but in order for you to acquire greater amounts of grace, than you have been receiving.

Your spirit will be predisposed to a holiness that has not as yet been accomplished.

There is so much that I wish for in the life I have gained for you.

Each of you has been specially chosen to be lights in your families.

You must overcome fear and shyness, in order for My purposes in using you.

Join Me as I cover you all with this blessing of peace and tranquility, a balm of healing for all your insecurities, and shortcomings.

Is there anything I will not do for you as you ask?

My love for you all, is poured out from the chalice I drank and am now offering to you.

Will you take the cup of uniting yourself to Me today?

As you close your eyes you will see My face and I will remain in your faith vision and in your heart always.