February 12, 2022

For you this week:

• Reflection for Saturday: How does Jesus multiply what you need?
• Inside the Ministry: Inspiring young adults to share their gifts for the Lord
• Faith Muscles Boot Camp: It’s now a Udemy course!
• The Father’s Heart: Recommended by Marge Steinhage Fenelon
• This week’s WordBytes faith-builder: God Has Gifted You for Ministry

Saturday February 12, 2022

1 Kings 12:26-32; 13:33-34
Psalm 106:6-7, 19-22
Mark 8:1-10
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021222.cfm
Podcast:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/2022-02-12

Saints Calendar:
gnm.org/saints-find/saints-calendar

They ate and were satisfied. (From Saturday’s Gospel reading)

Reflection for Saturday:
How does Jesus multiply what you need?

How does Jesus multiply what you need? In the miracle of the multiplication of loaves and fishes, Jesus made three gestures that can make our lives more fulfilling.

(1) He takes a little bread and fish.

Jesus doesn’t give us everything we need, by himself, with no effort from us. He says, “What can you give me? What do you have right now?” And he gladly accepts whatever we give him, no matter how small and seemingly insufficient.

He takes our offering very seriously, believing in its importance. Jesus knows its potential. He knows the good that can be done with it. He knows how he can build on it and multiply it.

(2) He blesses them.

After receiving from us what we offer to him, Jesus blesses our heavenly Father with it. With this gesture, which is also a prayer, he is saying that what we have offered to him is good enough — it is wonderful enough to please the Father and to honor him with it.

Furthermore, because every good thing we have — every good thought, every good desire, every good deed — originally came from God, Jesus is saying that we are blessed by the gifts the Father has given to us.

We participate in the miracle power of God by giving to Jesus what we have and letting him do with it whatever he knows is best.

(3) He gives them to his disciples to share with others.

Jesus never takes from us without blessing what we give him, and he never blesses it without multiplying it into something much bigger than we need.

Love is the power that multiplies small blessings into big ones. Love begins with God, bears fruit in us, and becomes a gift for others. This is why children are a sign that we are open to God’s power to multiply a little into a lot: A love between a husband and wife becomes love shared with a family.

Whatever we offer to God, in the hands of Jesus it will multiply. God never neglects our needs; quite the opposite — he makes everything multiply. In abundance. Overflowing. But why do we need the overflow? We don’t, but others do. Blessings always come with a purpose that’s bigger than us. Jesus takes what we give him, blesses it, and gives it back to us in abundance so that we have something to share with others.

The Miracle of Multiplication in the Catholic Mass:

During the Offertory, we are offering back to God the gifts and blessings that he has given to us. In thanksgiving, we give God the gift of money to help the Church do the works of Jesus. We give the gift of the fruits of our labors. What has he given you? What are your personality traits, the good ones, which God designed you to have? These are gifts from the God – you were made in his image – and at this point in the Mass, now is the time to thank him for what makes you the wonderful you that you are.

You can supernaturally place any of the giftedness of your life on the altar when the priest accepts (when Jesus accepts) the monetary collection. Now is the time to thank God for the blessings in your life by offering them back to him for his use. And thus the gifts are multiplied! How does Jesus multiply what you need? Well, it starts by you offering him what you have!

For more on this, listen to Part 6 of the podcast series entitled Go Deeper into Holy Mass @ gnm.org/FtoH/HolyMass.

Inside the Ministry:
Inspiring young adults to share their gifts for the Lord

At Good News Ministries, we’ve always believed that it’s important to encourage the faith of young adults by inspiring them to share their giftedness.

Lucía Ramos is the 24-year-old daughter of our Assistant Director, Graciela. While studying biology in college, she gives 5 spare hours a week to schedule our social media and Telegram posts, prepare prayer graphics, and help her mama with updating the Saint Quotes.

When asked why she likes sharing her giftedness with Good News Ministries, she said:

Mother Teresa of Calcutta said: “Sometimes what we do is like a drop in the sea, but the sea would not be the same without that drop.”

God has given me the gifts of joy and organization (among other talents that I am so grateful for). This is not arrogance. To recognize what God has given us is to give glory to Him, that is to say, we recognize that the good we have comes from Him and, therefore is to be shared.

I have been working at GNM for 2 years and I do it with joy. I know that my work is helping more people receive the message that God wants to give them: encouragement, strength, joy, peace. What we do is never little if we do it with love, and love is what I put into my work.

A place for your gifts

I’m especially in need of two types of help:

(1) Researcher: If you believe my books should get into the hands of many, and if you have an hour or so a day to serve the Lord with, you can find the email addresses of the producers of radio and TV show shows that might want to interview me. I have the invitation ready to send to them but no time to research who to send it to.

(2) Website Assistance. This could even be paid work, depending on your level of knowledge and competence. Must know how to work in WordPress. We also need help with SEO. Skills in PHP and MySQL would earn the most. Hours are flexible.

Our long-time web developer is no longer available. I’m now doing work I shouldn’t have to do, and I’m not capable of doing the PHP and MySQL work. We’re in trouble unless the Lord provides us with the technical help that keeps everything running.

If you’re interested in joining the GNM team, visit gnm.org/about-join. Good News Ministries has always been a place where we treasure our volunteers and give them an outlet for their talents.

Faith Muscles Boot Camp: It’s now a Udemy course!

Our Faith Muscles Boot Camp has been accepted on the highly respected platform Udemy! This is big news! Udemy has millions of subscribers.

The Faith Muscles Boot Camp was a huge success last year. We had planned to re-run the 21-week program on the Locals.com platform, but this is a small outlet. Udemy is probably the top site for online courses.

The Udemy cost of the course at is US$19.99, but I can give you a coupon to get it free: GNM2022BOOTCAMP. This is limited to the first 100 people to claim it, and it expires March 12. Click this link: udemy.com/course/faith-muscles-boot-camp/?couponCode=GNM2022BOOTCAMP.

Each lesson is a short video with a new spiritual exercise to do throughout the week. They start easy and get a little harder each week. Find out more and preview the first lesson @ udemy.com/course/faith-muscles-boot-camp/learn/lecture/30769368#overview.

Get your free ticket before it expires. Register today and get started right away!

The Father’s Heart:
Recommended by Marge Steinhage Fenelon

Popular radio personality and award-winning author and journalist, Marge Steinhage Fenelon, interviewed me for her blog. To read it, visit margefenelon.com/9484/terry-modia-30-days-to-the-fathers-heart.

This week’s recommended faith-builder:
God Has Gifted You for Ministry

The question of our calling is not: “What should I do to take God to others?” Rather, the question is: “What should I take of God to others? What has He given me to share?”

When God does something for us, we should not be satisfied with just a “Thank You, Lord” — because God wants more. It’s important to add, “Lord, what do You want me to do with this gift now?”

For more on this, visit wordbytes.org/master-needs-you/gifted-for-ministry.

WordBytes is a library of Catholic faith-building articles by Good News Ministries. Come on in and explore! Visit WordBytes.org today.

God bless you!

Every morning, I lift up in prayer everyone who helps Good News Ministries in any way (donors, volunteers, prayer supporters, etc.) and all the prayer requests posted on our site. What can I cover in prayer for you? Post your prayer request.

How else can the team and I serve you today? Visit our homepage.

Thank you for reading this newsletter.

Your servant in Christ,
Terry Modica, Executive Director
Good News Ministries
gnm.org

Let’s connect in GNM’s community: See you there!