KEPHA

From Fr. John Zuhlsdorf of the What Does the Prayer Really Say? blog:

Think of the great cares the Holy Father bears in his heavy mandate as Vicar of Christ. He has need of our prayers to help him be strong and to guard him from his enemies.

I propose to all readers here a Spiritual Bouquet for Pope Benedict with a ending date of 19 March, the Feast of St. Joseph, which is the Holy Father’s baptismal “name day”. Since we are beginning on 19 February we have about a month.

Will you participate?

You are able to check more than one of the options below. I have it set so that you can participate once per 24 hour period (24 hours from the last time you voted).

Many of these works also gain an indulgence under the usual conditions.

Click to submit your spiritual bouquet

Online registration now available for upcoming Kepha St. Peter Chapter retreat on the The Eucharist: The Real Thing!  Saturday, March 12th - Sunday March, 13th at the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth in Grand Prairie, Texas. 

APOLOGETICS -  Learn to defend the Truth of the REAL Presence of Jesus Christ through a series of Eucharistic talks.

BROTHERHOOD  - Sports Games and Skits especially KEPHA’s Unique Style of politically incorrect Dodgeball.

CHARITY - Visit and bring KEPHA’s Charism of its Big 3 Saints to the Elderly Residents of a Nursing Home.

MORTIFICATION - Learn how Men sacrifice to be close to the Eucharistic Jesus with the examples of the Saints, especially St. Tarcisius, the boy martyr of the Eucharist.

PRAYER - with your KEPHA Brothers at 2:00 am Yawns for Christ and Celebrating Mass.

Come experience Dynamic Orthodoxy and Infectious Joy with a brotherhood of fathers and sons that push each other Towards the Top!

Register online now at www.kepharocks.org/northtexas. 

Event flier

Check out the pictures from our last retreat, the Mother Teresa Service Day.  We helped to rake the lawn and clean up around the Maternity Home run by the Missionaries of Charity and visited two Pregnancy Resource Centers.  

The boys raised $1,000.00 for pro-life charities and gave each center $500.00!

Click here to see the pictures on our website or on Facebook. 

It's not too late to join the almost 40 fathers and sons who will be with us this weekend at Holy Name Catholic Church in Chickasha, Oklahoma for Kepha's "Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Saint?" retreat. 

Join us for War Games, a special Ceremony of the Cross for 1-year Kepha members, dodgeball, prayer and dynamic orthodoxy and infectious joy!  Retreat begins Friday evening at 7:00 pm and goes to Sunday at 12:00 noon. 

More information here.

Register online here. 

On Saturday, November 27th at St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate a “Vigil for All Nascent Human Life” coinciding with first vespers of the First Sunday of Advent. The Holy Father has also requested that “all Diocesan Bishops (and their equivalent) of every particular church preside in analogous celebrations involving the faithful in their respective parishes, religious communities, associations and movements.”

An outline for the Vigil was provided from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and the Pontifical Council for the Family. Given the importance of the Holy Father’s request, the USCCB Secretariat of Divine Worship and the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities have collaborated in developing Vigil prayer aids for dioceses and parishes.

Click to read the rest..

Ninth Day
Holiness is Jesus Living and Acting in Me

Our works of charity are nothing but the overflow of God from within us.  Therefore, the one who is most united to Him loves her neighbor the most.

Our activity is truly apostolic only in so far as we permit Him to work in us and through us with His power, with His desire, with His love.  We must become holy not because we want to feel holy, but because Christ must be able to live His life fully in us.  Let us spend ourselves with Him and for Him.  Let Him see with your eyes, speak with your tongues, work with your hands, walk with your feet, think with your head and love with your heart.  Is this not perfect union, a continual loving prayer?

God is our loving Father Let your light of love so shine before man that seeing your good works (the washing, sweeping, cooking, and loving your husband and the children) they may glorify the Father.  Be holy.  Holiness is the easiest was to satiate Jesus thirst, His for you and yours for Him. 

Thought for the day: Charity for each other is the surest way to great holiness

Ask for the grace to become a saint

Prayer to Blessed Teresa of Calcutta:

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, you allowed the thirsting love of Jesus on the Cross to become a living flame within you, and so became the light of his love to all.  Obtain from the Heart of Jesus the grace to become a saint through our commitments to Kepha, our daily prayers, monthly retreats, our anchors,   verse reviews and by obeying our parents.    Teach me to allow Jesus to penetrate and possess my whole being so completely that my life, too, may radiate his light and love to others.  Amen.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, Cause of Our Joy, pray for us.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us.

Please add to your prayers:

For the healing of Melissa Savoie and Bonnie Nelson all those who suffer from tumors and cancer or recovering from surgery.

Seventh Day
God Loves a Cheerful Giver

To bring joy into our very soul the good God has given Himself to us.  Joy is not simply a matter of temperament.  In the service of God and souls, it is always hard - all the more reason why we should try to acquire it and make it grow in our hearts.  Joy is prayer.  Joy is strength.  Joy is love.  Joy is a net of love by which you can catch many souls.  God loves a cheerful giver.  He gives most who gives with joy.  If in the work you have difficulties and you accept them with joy, with a big smile, in this like in any other things others will see your good work and glorify the Father. 

The best way to show your gratitude to God and people is to accept everything with joy.  A joyful heart is the normal result of a heart burning with love.

Without joy there is no love and love without joy is not true love.  And so we need to bring that love and that joy into the world of today. 

Joy was the strength of Our Lady, too.  Our Lady was the first Missionary of Charity.  She was the first one to receive Jesus physically and to carry Jesus to others; and she went in haste.  Only joy could give her this strength and swiftness to go and do the work of a handmaid. 

Thought for the day: Joy is the sign of union with God, of God's presence.  Joy is love, the normal result of a heart burning with love. 

Ask for the grace to find joy in loving and to share this joy with everyone you meet.

Prayer to Blessed Teresa of Calcutta:

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, you allowed the thirsting love of Jesus on the Cross to become a living flame within you, and so became the light of his love to all.  Obtain from the Heart of Jesus the grace to joyfully carry out my duties and to reflect the love of God in my joyful acceptance of everything He sends to me.  Teach me to allow Jesus to penetrate and possess my whole being so completely that my life, too, may radiate his light and love to others.  Amen.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, Cause of Our Joy, pray for us.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us.

Please add to your prayers:

For the healing of Melissa Savoie and Bonnie Nelson all those who suffer from tumors and cancer or recovering from surgery.

Fifth Day        
Trust Jesus Blindly

Trust in the good God who loves us, who cares for us, who sees all, knows all, can do all things for my good and the good of souls. 

Love Him trustfully without looking back, without fear.  Give yourself fully to Jesus.  He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your weakness.  Believe in Him with blind and absolute confidence because he is Jesus. 

Jesus never changes.  Trust him lovingly, trust Him with a big smile, always believing He is the way to the Father, He is in the light in the world of darkness.

In all sincerity we must be able to look up and say "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me."  Because of this assertion of St. Paul, you must have a certain confidence in doing your work - or rather God's work - well, efficiently, even perfectly, with Jesus and for Jesus.  Be also convinced that you by yourself can do nothing, have nothing but sin, weakness and misery; that all gifts of nature and of grace which you have, you have them from God. 

Mary, too, showed that complete trust in God by accepting to be used for his plan of salvation in spite of her nothingness; for she knew that He who is mighty can do great things in her and through her.  She trusted once she said "yes" to Him.  She never doubted. 

Thought for the day: Confidence in God can do all things.  It is our emptiness and lowliness that God needs and not our plenitude.

Ask for the grace to have an unshakable trust in God's power and love for you and for all.

Prayer to Blessed Teresa of Calcutta:

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, you allowed the thirsting love of Jesus on the Cross to become a living flame within you, and so became the light of his love to all.  Obtain from the Heart of Jesus the grace trust in Jesus blindly through our efforts in Kepha in bringing dynamic orthodoxy and infectious joy to as many fathers and sons as possible.  Teach me to allow Jesus to penetrate and possess my whole being so completely that my life, too, may radiate his light and love to others.  Amen.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, Cause of Our Joy, pray for us. 

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us.

Third Day
Hear Him Say to You: "I Thirst"

In His agony, in His pain, in His loneliness He said clearly, "Why have you forsaken Me?"   He was so terribly lonely and forsaken and suffering on the Cross.  At this most difficult time, He proclaimed: 'I Thirst'... and the people thought he was thirsty in an ordinary way and they gave Him vinegar straight away; but it was not what He thirsted for - it was for our love, our affection, that intimate attachment to Him, and that sharing of His passion.

And it is strange that he used such a word.  He used 'I Thirst' instead of "give Me your love'. The thirst of Jesus on the Cross is not imagination.  It was a word: 'I thirst.'  Let us hear Him saying it to me and saying it to you.  It is really a gift of God.

If you listen with your heart, you will hear, you will understand. Until you know deep inside that Jesus thirsts for you, you can't begin to know who he wants to be for you.  Or who he wants you to be for him.

Follow his footsteps in search of souls.  Carry Him and His light into the homes of the poor, especially to the souls most in need.  Spread the charity of His Heart wherever you go and so satiate His thirst for souls.

Thought for the day:  Just think! God is thirsting for you and me to come forward to satiate his thirst.

Ask for the grace to understand Jesus' cry of thirst.

Prayer to Blessed Teresa of Calcutta:

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, you allowed the thirsting love of Jesus on the Cross to become a living flame within you, and so became the light of his love to all.  Obtain from the Heart of Jesus the grace to satiate the thirst of Christ through the people we meet today and to do small things with great love.  Teach me to allow Jesus to penetrate and possess my whole being so completely that my life, too, may radiate his light and love to others.  Amen.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, Cause of Our Joy, pray for us.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us.