TALK TO ME. Love, Jesus

Song & LYRICS By Chuck Girard

Talk to Me
Talk to Me
I'm waiting in the morning, I wait throughout the day
How sweet it is for Me to hear, all the things you have to say
How lovely is the music of your heart
Talk to Me, My love

Talk to Me
Talk to Me
I've loved you forever and forever I will be
The one who will always love you, and when you are with Me
How lovely is the music of your heart
Talk to Me, My love

I love to hear your praises, I love to hear you pray
I love to hold You in My arms at night
And dry your tears away

So Talk to me
Talk to me
Talk to Me, My love
I love to sing your praises, love to sing your praises

Sing to me sing to me sing to me
My love, my love, sing to me, my love

Sing to me, open up your heart and sing to me

Your voice shall I hear in the morning, your voice shall I hear each day,

and I love to hear the sound of your voice, my love, my love, my love come and sit at my feet, come and talk talk talk to me










.

A Baptism Anniversary Celebration - PopeFrancis asks Christians to rediscover the meaning of the special grace of Baptism

Pope Francis asks Christians to rediscover the meaning of the special grace of Baptism - 8th Dec 2022

Celebrate your kids’ baptism anniversaries

 

You probably make a big deal out of your kids’ birthdays, so why not celebrate their baptism anniversaries, too? After all, baptism is “spiritual birth” into God’s family, giving your child a new identity, special powers and responsibilities, and a life mission. When it’s fully realized, baptism is a completely life-changing event.
The challenge, of course, is to fully realize the grace of baptism. And when it comes to infants and children, it’s the parents* who have the first responsibility for pulling that off, with the help of the faith community. Celebrating the anniversary of your kids’ baptisms is one way to emphasize its importance and teach them what it means.
 

A baptism anniversary celebration

Here are some of the materials you might want to gather for your celebration. All of these are optional:

• your child’s baptismal candle
• your child’s baptismal gown
• your child’s baptismal certificate
• photos or video of your child’s baptism
• holy water
• a white cloth or table runner
• fabric markers
• special foods and decorations for a party

With your child, mark his baptism anniversary date on your family calendar so that he’ll have something to look forward to, and briefly talk about why you’ll be having a special celebration.



On the big day, try one or more of the following ideas:


Tell the story of your child’s baptism. 

You can do this over a meal or during your family prayer time. Pull out photos and/or video of the big day to help tell the story. Walk through the basic elements of the baptism (“First, the priest/deacon asked what name we wanted to give you, and we said ___,” etc.), including any interesting or funny details.

Explain the significance of the baptism.

Explain to your child that her baptism was like a “second birth.” Like her biological birth, it involved water. And just as her biological birth made her a part of your family, baptism made her a child of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. As a child of God, she gained many “brothers and sisters” who were also made children of God through baptism, and she became a member of the family called the Church. Finally, in baptism she was given responsibility for participating in Christ’s saving mission in the world, as well as the priestly, prophetic, and kingly authority to carry out that mission. See the Talking Points section below for more background. Obviously, you’ll need to adapt this explanation for the age and ability of your child.

Display items from his/her baptism on your prayer table. 

Set out items from your child’s baptism on your prayer table or home oratory, if you have one. Include his baptismal gown and candle, if you kept them, as well as his baptismal certificate and photos.

Light her baptismal candle during family prayer. If you kept her baptismal candle, light it during family prayer.

Bless your child. 

Loyola Press offers this short family prayer service for a baptism anniversary, 

and Laura Kelly Fanucci at Mothering Spirit has written a beautiful blessing for the anniversary of a baptism. 

Otherwise, simply use holy water to bless your child’s forehead with the sign of the cross, praying words of your choosing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.


Make a prayer cloth remembering your child’s baptism. 

Using fabric markers, decorate a small white tablecloth or table runner (or a large handkerchief) with your child’s name, baptism date, and other symbols of baptism, such as water, a dove, a candle, etc, as well as words or phrases about your child’s baptismal identity. Set this out on your table or home oratory during the week of your child’s baptism.


Tell the story of the saint or person(s) your child is named for. 

Is your child named after a saint or a friend or relative? Tell him the significance of the name you chose for him.


Let her choose a special food for the day. 

If choosing a special food is part of your birthday celebration routine, do the same on your child’s baptismal day. Children might also be interested in making decorations for the occasion. Challenge your child to come up with ideas for decorations that reflect the baptism theme.


Play act a baptism. 

If your younger children are interested, play act “baptizing” a favorite doll or stuffed animal. You can use the Rite of Baptism 

as a guide, but it’s probably enough to teach younger children the essence of the rite—saying, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” while immersing the person in water or pouring water over the person three times, once after the name of each person of the Trinity (Catechism #1278). Just as when you’re play acting “Mass,” you might want to explain that what you’re doing is pretend. Fun fact: While only an ordained minister can validly baptize under normal circumstances, lay people may perform a baptism when someone who wants to be baptized is in imminent danger of death and an ordained minister is not available (Catechism #1256).

Other ways to highlight your child’s baptism

To highlight the importance of your child’s baptism all year long, display a photo of the baptism in his or her room, or frame the baptismal certificate and display it on a wall.
If you’re a little more ambitious, create a work of art about your child’s baptism that emphasizes his or her new character in the grace of the sacrament, using phrases like “child of God,” “priest, prophet, king,” “on a mission for Christ,” etc. Some ideas:

• Using air dry clay, have your child make handprints in a disc of clay, then etch and/or paint his name underneath with the date of his baptism.

• Using glass paints, decorate a wide glass bowl with the name of your child and the date of her baptism, plus any other words or symbols that seem appropriate. On special occasions, put the bowl out on your prayer table with holy water in it.

 

Talking points: More about baptism

When celebrating the baptismal anniversary of older kids, take the opportunity to explain the meaning and significance of the sacrament to them. 

The following is not meant to be a comprehensive explanation of the sacrament; for that, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church 

or see Loyola Press’s The Sacrament of Baptism 

and What Happens at Baptism?

Here are some talking points to help:

• Baptism is the gateway to the sacramental life: It makes us children of God, members of the Body of Christ, and members of the Church. Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life (Catechism #1213).

• By the grace of baptism, all our sins are forgiven—both personal sins and original sin (Catechism #1263, 1264). Of course, infants are not capable of committing personal sins, but even infants are marked by original sin. Original sin is what we call the wounded human nature that was passed on to all human beings by the sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve (Catechism #417).

• Baptism gives us a new identity, making us children of God, a member of Christ’s body and a sharer in his divine nature, and the Temple of the Holy Spirit (Catechism #1265).

• Baptism gives us the power to believe in God, to act under the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and the ability to grow in goodness through the moral virtues (Catechism #1266).

• Baptism makes us members of the Body of Christ, and therefore members of the Church. As members of Christ, we share in his priestly, prophetic, and royal mission (Catechism #1268).

• Baptism gives us rights and responsibilities within the Church—the responsibility to carry on the mission of Christ in the world, and the right to receive the spiritual help of the Church (Catechism #1269).

• In baptism, we are forever marked as belonging to Christ; nothing, not even our own sin, can remove this mark (Catechism #1272).

* Right at the beginning of the Rite of Baptism, the priest says to the parents: “You have asked to have your child baptized. In doing so you are accepting the responsibility of training him (her) in the practice of the faith. It will be your duty to bring him (her) up to keep God’s commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbour. Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?” The parents are instructed to say, “We do,” although in retrospect, most of us probably didn’t fully understand the enormity of that responsibility.

><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><>

Celebrate your kids’ baptism anniversaries

https://teachingcatholickids.com/celebrate-your-kids-baptism-anniversaries/







.

From Catholic Evangelizer - WHEN EVERYTHING IS FALLING APART

 

When Everything Is Falling Apart

Posted on September 12, 2019 by Terry and John

   

Our friend, Lydia, is a nurse with five children who, as a child, had survived emotional and sexual abuse. Still, she worked long hours with much kindness, while raising her own four children. Then one day her husband developed a very serious heart condition. Lydia was overwhelmed. So, she turned to parish friends. They listened, babysat and prayed with her often, even daily, until two years later, when her husband died in surgery at the age of forty-two. More prayer and support was needed. Then after five more years, when Lydia had finally recovered, her teen-age son was murdered in a drug related incident. Lydia’s parish friends rose to the challenge again. They put into practice some of these suggestions for reaching out to someone experiencing life-altering needs, or difficult transitions.

 

1. Choose ONE such person in your circle of family and friends to pray for every day. Speak to God in a way that is beyond your normal routine; standing, kneeling, speaking aloud or singing.
2. Recall the ways Jesus reached out to someone in similar circumstances. Then picture Jesus beside this person.
3. Choose one concrete way to offer regular, long-term support; a weekly phone call, a bi-weekly greeting card, or a small act of ongoing service that is meaningful to him or her.
4. Realize your limits. It may take a whole small community to offer prayer-filled help together. Ask yourself if you are in a position to mobilize such a group.
5. Whatever you do, respond with gentle compassion, or as Scripture puts it, “Do not break a bruised reed.” Matthew 12:20

By the grace of God and through her small faith sharing group, Lydia was able to seek out and forgive her son’s murderer. She also became a public advocate for abolishing the death penalty. One of her favourite prayers became, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion… who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God.” (2 Cor. 1:3-4)

 “You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working, and just so, you learn to love by loving.... All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves." (St. Francis de Sales)



FROM Catholic Evangelizer - https://www.catholicevangelizer.com/?p=1175
&
https://www.facebook.com/HolySpiritCalling/








.

 

BLUEPRINTS by Chris D'Alfonso

Blueprints - with lyrics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvxlAnxVSy0

BLUEPRINTS

Master Creator of all
You hold the world in your hand
You’re greater than all the heavens
And you have a plan for me.

You formed the clouds and lift them up
You carved the oceans,
Made them move
From the dawn of creation
You had a plan for me.

Ref:
You hold the blueprints of life
You hold your hand in mine
All that I am is yours
Designer, Creator of life
You hold the plans
You hold the plans.

When I look at the stars
As I gaze at the sunrise
I can see your hand
I can smell your sweet perfume
You hold the plan,
YOU HOLD THE PLANS   

Ref:
You hold the blueprints of life
You hold your hand in mine
All that I am is yours
Designer, Creator of life

You hold the blueprints of life
You hold your hand in mine
All that I am is yours
Designer, Creator of life
You hold the plans
YOU HOLD THE PLANS.



Chris D'Alfonso © 1995 Chris D'Alfonso/
Shipwreck Sounds



THE ORIGINAL VIDEO by Chris D'Alfonso

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueaFxHxTy5M







.