Dean's 74 Year Search for Christ

Over the past several years, I’ve had a number of challenges that have turned out to be tremendous blessings. After learning about a decade ago that I had diabetes, I turned to my Faith in Christ to help me deal with this difficult disease that affects millions of Americans. In just the last three years, I’ve also been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and heart disease. Needless to say, at age 74 and a family history of heart, kidney, and liver disease, I have decided to get my spiritual bags in order. In the process, I have deepened my Faith and learned that there are a number of outstanding, traditional individuals and organizations left in this world today. That’s why I consider the health issues to actually be blessings, not burdens. It is my hope now to meet, and perhaps build friendships with, as many people as possible who are interested in also finding a prayer partner. Along the way, if anyone is interested, I’d be happy to share my own prayer program, with the hope of being able to help fulfill Jesus’ request to love Him and our neighbors in every possible way, reaching the ultimate goal for all of us: To make it to heaven to be with Jesus for all Eternity.

Father John Corapi:

Perhaps the most influential person on my most recent journey in Faith has been Father John Corapi. His own personal testimony is fascinating, and he is a living example of the Power of God’s Forgiveness, Love, & Grace in our lives. It saddens me to see so many turning away from Christ in the 21st century, but I also find great hope in a person like Father Corapi, who’s tapes and speeches make a compelling case of the need for Christ in every person’s life. I sincerely believe that Jesus Christ died for all of us & wants every human being to be with Him in Heaven some day. Because of Fr. Corapi's powerful meditation prayers that he says before the Joyful , Sorrowful , & Glorious Mysteries, ( 15 inspiring meditations on the life of Christ & His Blessed Mother ), I try to pray along with him each day for various petition prayers & for the conversion of the world to Christ especially to end the pro-abortionists holocaust. I have found a renewed understanding & appreciation for these wonderful Rosary prayers. I discovered Fr. Corapi on the EWTN TV network& I used a series of his programs to supplement with my other catholic books while teaching CCD classes to 80 students & 2 RICA adults from 1997 to 2003 If interested, I encourage you to see for yourself if Father Corapi inspires you to grow in your Faith as much as he inspires others. Visit www.fathercorapi.com and if you are interested in hearing any of his tapes, please feel free to contact me, as I now have a library of Father Corapi’s tapes and regularly loan out various tapes and programs to interested people all over Nashville & around the country. (See list below.)

Fr. John Corapi has 5 University degrees with the highest grades possible and one of his degrees is a doctorate in Theology. He has published his thesis entitled "The Theology of Suffering." He was ordained a Catholic Priest in 1991 by Pope John Paul 11 & has given thousands of powerful & dynamic speeches nationwide & has reached hundred of thousands of individuals by appearing on cable networks EWTN , DISH , & Direct TV.

Learn about Fr. Corapi by borrowing one of our cassette tapes or CDs:

1. The Power of the Rosary: Fr. Corapi meditates with his listeners on the gospel meanings of the Our Father & Hail Mary prayers and much more.
2. Personal Testimony/ Fr. Corapi conversion story.
3. The Eucharist: the Source & Summit of Our Life.
4. How to make a good confession.
5. The Reality of this Spiritual Combat
6. Healing & Deliverance
7. Humility: Spiritual Nuclear Weapon
8. The Role of the Sacraments
9. The Role of the Sacramental
10. Our Angels, Saints, Souls in Purgatory
11. The Power of the Cross of Christ
12. Wake Up America
13. Special Weekly Wisdom Program

Fr. Corapi creates a weekly talk & delivers it to your computer for $10.00 per month.

We tape & watch Fr. Corapi every week on Channel 291 on the EWTN international TV network in Nashville.

You can contact Fr. Corapi by calling him at 1-888-800-7084 or visiting his website at: www.fathercrorapi.com

My personal daily prayer routine also focuses on the forgiveness & conversion of Abortionists who are responsible for the killing Holocaust of over 40 million babies since 1973, with an on-going yearly 1.5 million being killed & 4,000 per day. Planned Parenthood alone kills over 265 million children yearly in their clinics nationwide. I also pray each day for all Catholic priests & Bishops that they will live & teach the Catholic Catechism of Catholic Church & enforce Pope Benedict's Canon Law 915 stopping the on-going scandal of the so-called catholic pro-abortion politicians from going to communion at Catholic masses. The American Life League is leading the fight to end the horror of abortion, and through daily prayer and activism, we can stop this practice & return to Christ.

To learn more about the American Life League, visit http://www.all.org/
List of active Bishops that said they would enforce Canon Law 915.

Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, MO
Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, Lincoln, Neb.
Bishop Joseph Galante Camden N.J.
Bishop John Smith, Trenton N. J.
Bishop Michael Sheridan, Colorado Springs, CO.
Bishop Robert Vasa, Baker, OR.
Bishop Gerald Gettefinger, Evansville, IN.
Bishop Robert J. Baker, Chaleston SC.
Bishop Peter Jugis, Charlotte, NC
Bishop John Yanta,
Bishop Samual Aquila, Fargo, ND
Bishop Thomas Olmsted, Phoenix, AZ.
Bishop Gregory Aymond, Austin, TX.

Please pray the Rosary & Holy Spirit prayers for these 13 Bishops and for the additional approximately 171 Bishops that they will enforce Canon Law 915 in their dioceses.

Source: Google on Amerian Life League click on Pro-Life & Information from American Life League, The Power of Prayer, Click on Crusade (The defense of the Catholic Church) & Judie Brown’s up-to-date blog.

EWTN & More about my personal prayer program!!
The EWTN nuns & our 5 children, & others were asked to pray for my wife when she had her 3rd stage cancer & a stem cell & a stem cell transplant near death experience in 1997. By the grace of God & great doctors & nurses and the many prayer persons involved, she has survived & has been cancer free for 10 years now. That is just one example of several critical times in my life when I had to rely on prayer and the Grace of God, and it’s these experiences that have helped to develop and form my own personal prayer program, along with outstanding witnesses to Christ like Father John Corapi, Judy Brown, and Pope John Paul II. These are a just a few of the people who helped provide me with the inspiration to grow in my own personal relationship with Christ through a prayer program which includes:
Daily Mass & Communion (my wife & I use the "Magnificat” Prayer book at each Mass), Rosaries, Holy Spirit Prayers (attached), Holy Hours Exposed and or Adoration of Jesus in a Tabernacle & a weekly Confession.

If you are interested in perhaps becoming a prayer partner, learning more about other various priests, organizations, and activities that helped my own personal development of Faith in Christ, from my years at Notre Dame to a fascinating trip to Fatima, to my experiences in teaching the Catholic Faith to others, please feel free to call me at 615-353-0420 or drop me an e-mail at dean_richards@comcast.net Likewise, if you simply would like to hear one or more of Father Corapi’s tapes, again, I have an extensive library and will happily loan those out free of charge.

Fr. Corapi gives a great Holy Spirit meditation on the Descent of the Holy Spirit and then I say the Rosary prayer with Fr. Corapi on his tape. Following the Rosary prayers, I say the Holy Spirit prayers listed below. I agree with Fr. Corapi that we need another individual Rosary & Pentecost crusade to convert the world back to Christ.

Source for the following prayers:

EWTN’s, Holy Spirit consecration prayer by the Holy Ghost Fathers. EWTN.com, archives.

The daily Holy Spirit prayer asking for the seven gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit to convert all individuals on earth to Jesus Sacred Heart and The Immaculate Heart of Mary can be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Act of Consecration to the Holy Spirit

On my knees before the great multitude of heavenly witness I offer myself, soul, & body to you, eternal spirit of God. I adore the brightness of you purity, the unerring keenness of your justice and the might of you love. You are the strength & light of my soul. In you I live & move and am. I desire never to grieve you by unfaithfulness to grace and I pray with all my heart to be kept from the smallest sin against you. Mercifully guard my every thought and grant that I may always watch for your light and listen to your voice & follow your gracious inspirations. I cling to you and give myself to you and ask you by your compassion to watch over me in my weakness. Holding the pierced feet of Jesus and looking at his five wounds and trusting in his precious blood and adoring his open side and stricken heart, I implore you adorable Spirit helper of my infirmity, so to keep me in your grace that I may never sin against you, give me grace O Holy Ghost, Spirit of The Father and The Son to say to you always and everywhere “speak Lord your servant is listening.” Amen


Prayers asking for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit

Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of the faithful with your seven gifts:
The Spirit of fear of sinning against the lord
The Spirit of Wisdom
The Spirit of Knowledge
The Spirit of Understanding
The Spirit of Counsel
The Spirit of Fortitude
The Spirit of Piety
Enkindle in them thy love,

(v) Send forth thy spirit and they shall renew the face of the earth.

Let us pray:

O God who didst instruct the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us the same spirit to be truly wise and ever to rejoice in his consolation through Christ our Lord. Amen

Your Prayer Partner in Christ,Dean Richards

The Cure of Ars

Then there are those individuals that are born with very little natural talent in certain areas but have a big heart that is able to genearate a strong will power drive to succeed in a particular area in life. An example of this might be a Saint in the Catholic Church named St. John Vianney, or as he was better known, "The Cure of Ars". This priest started out flunking out of a seminary because he could not learn latin and his grades were below average, but finally through sheer persaverence and hard work and with the grace of god and kind leaders who saw something character wise in this young man, ordained him and eventually he became a great spiritual leader in his parish leading thousands of individuals to Christ. (for a true story about this priest you might like to read his autobiography, "The Cure of Ars".

Review from Pope John Paul II, August 22, 2002 By A Customer
"In the span of nearly 50 years of priesthood, what is still the most important and most sacred moment for me is the celebration of the Eucharist. My awareness of celebrating in persona Christi at the altar prevails. Never in the course of these years have I failed to celebrate the Most Holy Sacrifice. If this has occurred, it has been due entirely to reasons independent of my will. Holy Mass is the absolute center of my life and of every day of my life. It is at the heart of the theology of the priesthood, a theology I learned not so much from text books as from living examples of holy priests. First and foremost, from the holy Cure of Ars, Jean Marie Vianney. Still today I remember his biography written by Fr. Trochu, which literally overwhelmed me." (English text of the address given at the International Symposium on the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Promulgation of the Conciliar Decree Presbyterorum Ordinis on Friday, October 27, 1995. Text acquired from L'Osservatore Romano, Weekly English Edition.) Text can also be viewed at the Vatican web site: www.vatican.va