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Hello everyone,

Today, Sunday 10th November, we have 223 people from all over the world and from many Christian denominations joining together in prayer. We don't have a reflection from Bob and Debbie Gass this week but The Word for Today is a FREE quarterly Daily Reflections booklet and great to have at your bedside for morning and night reading. It sure makes me think!

The Weekly Intentions are included below and available on a plain page to be able to print off and kept to hand for your own prayer time.

"Father, bless all those who have requested prayers in whatever it is that you know they may be needing this day! Father, we ask You to heal the broken bodies, broken hearts, broken spirits and broken relationships and may all their lives be full of your peace, prosperity, and power as they seek to have a close relationship with you. Amen."

http://www.moytura.com/prayer/prayerbook.html
http://www.moytura.com/prayer/weekly-intentions.html

Don't forget the new section in the Circle of Prayer dedicated to LIFE

Thank You Jesus for answering our prayers because we know You hear every prayer and never refuse to answer. You are providing answers and healings from the prayers of all these wonderful people. Praise God!

I'll be sending out the text I need translated during the week, about 3-400 words in all. Still looking for French, Portuguese and some of the East European languages, particularly now that many of these countries will soon be in the EU, God Help Them!

God Bless you all and thanks a million for being part of the Circle of Prayer - the Prayer Warriors. Don't forget to make out your list of family names back the generations for the next few weeks reflections.

Mary Mullins in Galway, Ireland
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Please say the two wee prayers below as often as you can, particularly the first one to the Holy Spirit if you need to see things in a clearer perspective.

"O Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore You. Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me, tell me what I should do. Give me Your orders. I promise to submit myself to all that You desire of me and to accept all that You permit to happen to me. Let me only know Your will. Amen"

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"Dear Lord, I give you may hands to do Your work; I give You my feet to go Your way; I give You my eyes to see as You see; I give You my tongue to speak Your words; I give You my mind that You may think in me; I give You my spirit that You may pray in me. Above all, I give You my heart that You may love in me - love the Father and love all humankind. I give You my whole self, Lord, that You may grow in me, so that it is You who lives, works and prays in me. Amen."

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This week we discuss healing prayers back into the generations for our Family Tree. Perhaps it is fitting that November is the month we have reached in this stage of our healing prayers. For Catholics, November is the month dedicated to the Holy Souls and I can still remember as a child running in and out of the chapel on November 2nd, the feast day of the Holy Souls, reciting an 'Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be' each time. Our sole intention as innocent kids was to 'free as many Holy Souls' as we could and doubtless paid little heed to the actual prayers.

Purgatory is something that most of the other Christian denominations find difficult to understand in light of the fact that Jesus died for our sins and to set us free. But there is much written evidence of the need to remember our dead in prayer for both their release and our freedom, and many scriptural passages too:

"Our Fathers sinned and are no more, and we bear their punishment" Lamentations 5:7 (NIV)
"The fathers eat sour grapes, and the childrens' teeth are set on edge" Ezekial 18:2 (NIV)
" ...for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me ..." Exodus 20:5 (NIV)
"May the Lord grant Mercy to the household of Onesiphorus ..... may the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day!" 2 Timothy 16:18 (NIV)

My recent visit to Medugorje, and I make no apology whatsoever to anyone for speaking about this place of peace and prayer, saw me coming home with 5 copies of a great book on the Holy Souls, and another 10 arriving this weekend! It's called "Get Us Out of Here" by Nicky Eltz. We here on earth are the only ones who are able to help give a 'leg-up' to our deceased family or friends from their place of atonement, if they had a short period of reparation. Only our prayers and Masses can help them to join the loving Father in Heaven now rather than having to wait until the Last Day.

Looking a little deeper at those who have gone before us leads me onto this week's reflection. For years now I have had a little quotation that I just like to use: "I am what I am and all who went before me". Genetic coding sends inherent familial traits, mannerisms, resemblances, skills etc. down through the ages. The nastier traits travel too. We have a saying here in Ireland if someone does something good or bad: "Tisn't from the wind he/she gets it", meaning that the parents, grandparents or other family members had similar ways.

Some years ago I read a book called "Healing the Family Tree" by Dr. Kenneth McAll, an eminent Christian Scottish Psychiatrist, and everything made perfect sense. He came up against seemingly incurable psychiatric conditions and started to search through the family background for possible reasons. So convinced was he that the wrong-doing of someone in the ancestry was affecting the patient that he asked a Church Minister or Priest to work with him and pray for the ancestors as well as the patient. He had some amazing results and found the healings to be particularly powerful during the Consecration of the Sacrifice of Holy Mass.

Father Robert de Grandis discovered Dr. McAll's work and came to the same conclusions in his own Healing Ministry. His book, "Intergenerational Healing", gives some very powerful testimonials and examples of physical and mental illness being caused by a link to the deeds or actions of past generations. He also shows certain personality traits with links to the past.

Harking back to the month of November, I was trying to make up a family tree for both myself and my husband going back 4 generations. I didn't get very far but what I learned on that little bit of research made me sit up and think. I've always believed that there is a huge need for healing the family tree in order to free present and future generations but it was only with a comment from my sister that it struck home forcibly. I was asking the names of my mother's grandparents when she threw in the comment: "You know, there were 2 suicides on Mom's maternal side". I put 2 and 2 together and came up with 6! There is mental illness and depression on my maternal side of the family. On my father's side we have situations in the family where folk just got up and left home never to be heard of again - they just lost themselves in the crowds. Both me and my brother have tongues on us like sharp knives and like I said, tisn't from the wind we get it - daddy was the same. On Eamon's side we have severe alcoholism, with 2 young deaths, a sister and a brother, due to this addiction. His father used to make poiteen with Eamon as the 'brewer's mate', an Irish version of Moonshine, and I'm sure my husband's grandfather taught Eamon's dad the 'skills' too. There is a family history of division going back generations and it repeats itself in this generation as they all fight over my brother-in-law and mother-in-law's wills/estates!

I give these litle examples to create awareness I suppose. It's not easy opening the cupboards and looking those skeletons in the eye. But I want to do my very best to break the chains from the past and free my children and grandchildren and their children!

Some time ago I sent an email to Fr. de Grandis seeking his permission to use the prayers in his book but no reply. Please do try and get a copy of his book as the prayers are broad and inclusive of every situation. Here's a quote from chapter 5 where he speaks about a personal prayer for the family history:

"In the prayer I will cover many areas of unlove and negativity, including mariage relationships, hurt children, sexual sins, mental and physical illness, depression, fear, compulsiveness and addictions, criminal and violent behaviour, unloving, unmourned and violent deaths, patterns of separation, patterns of injustice, idolatries, traumas from being different, and communication disorders. Forgiveness opens the door to the whole healing process.
We will begin by renouncing the occult and psychic links in ourselves and our ancestors, and asking the Lord to come in with His Precious Blood and the waters of our baptism to fill us with His life and love."

Meanwhile we can pray the following short prayer over our ancestors, starting with a prayer to take authority over anything that is not of God:

"In the Name of Jesus, I take authority and I bind all powers and forces in the air, in the ground, in the water, in the underground, in nature and in fire. You are the Lord over the entire universe and I give you the Glory for Your creation. In Your name I bind all demonic forces that have come against me and my family and I seal all of us in the protection of Your Precious Blood that was shed for us on the Cross.
Mary our Mother, we seek your protection and intercession with the Sacred Heart of Jesus for me and my family, and surround us with your mantle of love to discourage the enemy.
Saint Michael the Archangel and our Guardian Angels come defend me and my family in battle against all the evil ones that roam the earth.
In the Name of Jesus, I bind and command all the powers and forces of evil to depart right now away from us, our homes and our lands. And we thank You Lord Jesus for You are a faithful and compassionate God Amen."

"Heavenly Father, I ask You now to go back though all in my bloodline, (my husband's bloodline, and in my children's and grandchildren's bloodlines) and forgive the wrongs, heal the illnesses, bind the evil deeds. I ask You Lord to break the chains, associations and links any of these may have to us here in the present. On their behalf Lord, I seek Your forgiveness, your healing and a pouring out of your Divine Love so that that Love may now pour forth through the years and touch us in the here and now. So that Your Divine and Healing Love will take the place of all the past hurts, angers, hates, unlove of You, destructive emotions or actions and evil ties of our ancestors. So that Your Divine Love and Healing will heal us of the residue we carry from our ancestors. In true faith I thank You Lord because You have said 'Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened to you'. Today Lord I knock, I seek, I ask. All praise and thanks to You my loving Father."