For you this week:
- Reflection for Saturday: Saint Joseph as the Image of God’s Fatherhood
- Inside the Ministry: A Praise Report and a Prayer Request
- Next Event: “My Soul Shall Be Healed” live study group
- This week’s faith-builders: Saint Joseph for your home and family
- Footsteps to Heaven podcast: Feel the Father’s Love This Lent
This week’s Trivia Challenge: When was Saint Joseph named the “Patron of the Universal Church”? (Check your answer at the end of this newsletter.)
Saturday March 19, 2022
2 Samuel 7:4-5a,12-14a,16
Ps 89: 2-5,27,29
Romans 4:13,16-18,22
Matt 1:16,18-21,24a or Luke 2:41-51a
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031922.cfm
Podcast:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/usccb-daily-readings-2022-03-19-usccb-daily-mass-readings
Saints Calendar:
gnm.org/saints-find/saints-calendar
When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him. (From Saturday’s Gospel reading)
Reflection for Saturday:
Saint Joseph as the Image of God’s Fatherhood
Only one saint stands out as the best human model of God’s fatherhood. Saint Joseph is the best ally for men who want to be good husbands and fathers. And yet we know so little about him from the Bible. Only recently has devotion to this Saint become popular.
Why now? It’s because of all that Satan has done to destroy the image of fatherhood. Abba-Father is giving Saint Joseph to the world as a remedy for all of the demonic strategies against marriages and families.
Joseph is taking into his “home”—his fatherly care—anyone who asks for it. If Mary is our mother, then Joseph is our father representing God the Father. We who have been adopted through baptism to become children of the Divine Father are also adopted by the only human father who is perfect. How did your dad fail you? What did you seek but not get from the father-figures in your life? Joseph has all of the qualities you’ve longed for.
His job, however, is not to replace God as the father we need. His mission is to be the human image of Abba-Father, replacing the flawed image we’ve carried around since childhood. His greatest desire is to replace Satan, the father of lies who has tricked the world into rejecting God’s fatherhood.
Sometimes we mistakenly think that the Devil is the polar opposite of God. We think that Satan is the ultimate nemesis of God, and God is the ultimate nemesis of Satan. This is not true. God already won the battle—long before Jesus defeated Satan on the Cross. The war is being waged between the Devil and the children of God (all humans). Jesus died for us, to set us free from the captivity of evil.
The Devil’s true nemesis is the one who is nicknamed “The Terror of Demons”: Saint Joseph.
Excerpted from Day 26 of my book The Father’s Heart.
Saint Joseph points us to the Father
The Blessed Mother always directs us to Jesus. Who do you think Saint Joseph points to? God the Father! The Year of Saint Joseph was given to us by Pope Francis to show us what holy human fatherhood looks like. And Saint Joseph, in turn, gave us the Era of God’s Fatherhood.
Just like I prophesied back in December, we’re now hearing more and more about our Divine Abba-Daddy. He is coming to rescue his children and discipline the rebellious ones.
It’s become very clear that the timing of my book, The Father’s Heart, is the Lord’s. Our Father God wants to heal the wrong images that most people have about him. He wants to make his love better known to you and to everyone you know.
Find out more and order it from tothefathersheart.com. It’s also available on Amazon.
My prayer is that it will bless you beyond your deepest needs and greatest hopes.
Inside the Ministry: A Praise Report and a Prayer Request
Praise the Lord with me for the new PHP expert who has joined the GNM team to rescue our websites from out-dated code! We’ve contracted Robert Holland, who is generously giving us a good discount because he’s a Christian who is delighted to have a client who serves the Lord. He is the answer to our prayers!
Already he has fixed up our popular Saints Quotes page and search tool. It’s working much better now, with a sleeker design. Try it @ gnm.org/SaintQuotes.
Soon we’ll be able to announce a whole new GNM.org website. After that, Robert will do the same for the Spanish GNM-es.org website.
Pray with me for my husband, Ralph — for healing from a badly leaking heart valve. His cardiac surgeons will look at his heart in a hospital procedure on March 28th. Then we’ll find out what kind of surgery he’ll need and when. We are counting on your prayers! Thank you!!
Next Event: “My Soul Shall Be Healed” live study group
Here’s the opportunity to join a book discussion on my book “My Soul Shall Be Healed.” Joy and Patrick Campbell will host it live on Joyful Hope TV, discussing it with me and interacting with group participants through live chat. You can also watch it afterward.
This book study event will take place Sunday April 3 through Friday April 8 at 7pm Eastern US Time (unless it’s postponed due to Ralph’s surgery).
The event will take place on Facebook and Youtube using live chat.
Order your copy of the book NOW to be sure to get it in time for the event. Go to gnm.org/terry-modica-author/my-soul-shall-be-healed. (If you cannot buy it in your country, ask me for a free PDF of it.)
To participate in the study group, sign up for notifications on YouTube at youtube.com/c/JOYFULHOPETV or Facebook at facebook.com/patrickandjoy.
This week’s faith-builders:
Saint Joseph for your home and family
Visit our website for faith-building resources on Saint Joseph. You can download the Good News Novena Consecration to St. Joseph as a printable PDF booklet. With this consecration, we seal ourselves as his children. We place into his fatherly protection ourselves, our families, our jobs and ministries, and the Church. We also consecrate to his fatherhood those who are not following Christ, especially our own family members, because Joseph’s desire in heaven is that all of his children love his son, Jesus, and follow him to everlasting life. Each day contains a brief story about various apparitions of St. Joseph, with special prayers.
Download it from gnm.org/saints-find/saint-joseph-for-your-home-and-family.
You can also see it as a series of posts in our Telegram channel t.me/joinchat/Oi-csUmwZC96Qdg98ZJX7A.
And that’s not all!
We also give you a Prayer to St. Joseph to Obtain a Conversion, and Pope Leo XIII’s Prayer to St. Joseph after the Rosary, and more @ gnm.org/saints-find/saint-joseph-for-your-home-and-family.
Feel the Father’s Love This Lent (new podcast)
Lent is meant for growing in holiness by repenting of our sins, but many of us are reluctant to face our sins because we simply don’t know that God the Father is cheering us on, like a Doting Daddy who sees the best in us. This Lent, take a journey that leads to a wonderfully close relationship with God the Father. Learn to see him as he really is. Know the joy that he feels for you.
This episode is an edited recording of a live presentation to the Hearts on Fire prayer group, Springfield, Virginia, on March 1, 2022.
Listen to this podcast @ gnm.org/footsteps93.
Or watch the video @gnm-media.org/feel-god-the-fathers-love-this-lent. Or if you prefer to read it, download the transcript at this link.
Who else should hear this episode? Please share it!
Now you can sign up for early access to podcasts!
New episodes are published before this newsletter goes out. But you can get early access to both video and audio versions!
Subscribe at gnm-media.org for the podcast videos or at footstepstoheaven.com for the audio-only version.
Answer to this week’s Trivia Challenge:
When was Saint Joseph named the “Patron of the Universal Church”? Answer: In 1870. Two years earlier, Blessed Jean-Joseph Lataste, OP, had asked Blessed Pope Pius IX for this.
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!
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