Jesus, the Black Nazarene Ministry (Formerly Black Nazarene Prayer Group of Houston): April 2009

1st Friday Devotion Novena

to the Black Nazarene

Acevedo Residence
Lake Olympia, Missouri City

April 03, 2009

Every day should be a good day and you should live it like it's your last.

Some people live a life of anger, frustration, pain, jealousy, and / or dishonesty, but all of these things will come to pass when your time here is over. Just take a moment to think.

We will not be on this earth forever.

One day, we will not have to worry about going to work or how we will make payment to our loan.

We will not have to worry where our next meal will come from, or how we can buy a house or a car.

At anytime, God could take us off of this earth, so you should appreciate today and not worry about tomorrow, for nobody knows what tomorrow will bring.

When you wake up each morning, thank the Lord for waking you up......... When you lie down to sleep at night, thank the Lord for another day.

If you have a job, thank the Lord for your place of employment. Ask that he may bless you in everything that you do....... Ask him to give you the knowledge and the wisdom to do your job. If you don't have a job, thank him anyway.

Ask him to direct you to the job that is right for you. When you are eating breakfast, lunch or dinner, say a prayer. Thank the Lord for providing food and nourishment to your body.

If you are healthy, thank the Lord for the health and strength in your body. If you aren't, thank him anyway for life, and ask him to heal your body.

So the next time that you get mad, think twice.

The next time you complain about something at your job, think twice. The next time you say you wish you had steak instead of chicken, think twice.

Be thankful for what you have, and the life that God has given you.

Pray and ask the Lord for guidance. Be sincere, as God knows whether or not we mean it from the heart.

Help those in need as a gift from your heart, and not so you can get a pat on the back.

Put forth the extra effort in everything that you do. Go after what you want in life, and do whatever it takes to achieve your goals.

No matter how perfect you think you are, there is always room for improvement, and an opportunity for you to do better.

If you are depressed, don't cry, just hold your head up and the Lord will help you through. Pray and ask the Lord to deliver you from your state of depression. Whatever it is that you are depressed about, God will take that pain from your heart. It may not be at that moment, or that next hour, or maybe not even the next day, but He WILL do it if you just believe in Him...

God may not show up when YOU want Him to, but he's ALWAYS right on time. God will not give us more than we can bear.

Sometimes he will present us with issues that will test our faith, but you have to be strong enough to believe that God will do exactly what he says.

The message for today is to praise the Lord, have faith in the Lord, give thanks to the Lord, and live every day like it is your last.

Theoretically speaking, if the Lord never does anything else for us, other than wake us up each day, put food in our mouths and clothes on our backs, we should thank him anyway.

He died so that we could have life on this earth.

As the Bible says in Psalms 118:24 -- This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it! 118:1 and 29 -- Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good; For His love endures forever.

"A touch of Spirit"

As our membership grows and expand in numbers, the recent event has transpired our Black Nazarene Prayer Group elders and leaders to focus our goal to the next level of our existence and practice.

Traditionally this prayer group was founded to carry-on the old tradition of continuous devotion through a novena prayer to our beloved Black Nazarene as a cultural and traditional practice as Filipino Catholics living here in Houston, Texas.

"Renewed friendship"

But now we cannot deny that prayer alone can help our poor brothers we left in our country. We should also act with compassion and understanding that God has given us the opportunity to live and work fruitfully here in the "Land of Opportunity", while we see and hear a lot of our countrymen still live in a vast area of slums in the urban cities, deprived of decent housing and basic necessities for their families.

The concept of the "Gawad Kalinga", has given impetus to different Catholic groups and NGO's to focus their generosity and compassion to this project which our leaders want to paticipate with our very own "Black Nazarene Village", to be built somewhere in Metro-Manila.

"Welcome of friendship"

The plan is to built thirty (30) houses to comprise a small village with complete basic amenities such as water, sewerages, electricity etc., similar to those being built under the umbrella of the "Gawad Kalinga" concept. The land will be provided by the counter-part or partners in this project i.e. usually private companies, groups or organizations.

We are embarking a new era and change to our existence not only as a prayer group now but an organization of renewed vision and mission to actively participate in extending our resources and the spirit of Filipinism - "Bayanihan" (which I personally think has long been forgotten and placed in the archives of my vocabulary!), to this kind of noble project.

"Joy of camaraderie"

This worthy project can also give credence to our younger followers to see our generosity and compassion to our less fortunate countrymen and emulate our steps when they will take that leadership from us and guide our "Confraternity of Black Nazarene of Houston" to a new heights of his existence as worthy of recognition not only as a social organization but Catholic Christian organization!

"Preparing for the Songs of worship"

As we grow in numbers ........ so we grow in responsibilities! As we expand in membership ........ we organize ourselves to be governed in a new direction!

We are now asking all our members (old and new) to actively participate not only on our monthly Novena devotion but to a series of fund raising campaign for our oragnizational funds and to this noble project which we plan to undertake!

"Preparing for the Mass celebration"

"United we shall stand and accomplish what we strive for ....... but divided, we shall fall! Prayer alone cannot help alleviate our poor countrymen ........ We need to act now! Let us be leaders in our own selves and embark in this united noble project - "Black Nazarene Village"!