April 2, 2022

For you this week:

• Reflection for Saturday: How to heal from the sting of rejection
• Inside the Ministry: Zoom meetings for healing hearts
• Do you have a story about Saint Joseph?
• Next Event: “My Soul Shall Be Healed” live study group
• This week’s WordBytes faith-builders: Healing from Suffering
• Footsteps to Heaven podcast: Prayers for Your Lost Loved Ones

This week’s Trivia Challenge: Who was the high priest of Jerusalem that put Jesus on trial?
(Check your answer at the end of this newsletter.)

Saturday April 2, 2022

Jeremiah 11:18-20
Ps 7:2-3,9bc-12
John 7:40-53
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040222.cfm
Podcast:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/usccb-daily-readings-2022-04-02

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

So a division occurred in the crowd because of him. (From Saturday’s Gospel reading)

Reflection for Saturday:
How to heal from the sting of rejection

One of the sacrifices we make for Christ is rejection by friends and family and co-workers due to our faith. Can we learn to deal with it the way Jesus did? How to heal from the sting of rejection is one of the toughest lessons we must learn as Christians.

To be “holy” means to be different from the world. Counter-cultural. Making no compromises in the moral teachings of the Church. Being bold and daring enough, and confident in Christ enough, and in love with God enough to stand firm in what is right and true regardless of the consequences.

This is not easy. No sacrifice is easy or else it is not truly sacrificial. Learning how to heal from the sting of rejection is never any easy act. And today’s world preaches that sacrifices are a bad thing, that instead of making sacrifices we should cater to ourselves, our desires, and our ideas of what’s right and what’s wrong. Because of this, making sacrifices today is more distasteful than ever! It takes a lot of self-discipline to make sacrifices without complaining and grumbling.

But even when we learn to stand strong in the truth regardless of the sacrifices this requires, the rejection by loved ones is heartbreaking. And that heartache cannot heal until we see Christ’s victory in their lives. And yet, God is bigger than that. He can heal our hearts.

I learned how to heal from the sting of rejection years ago when God miraculously took away the pain I felt from the complete rejection of my son: my son, who had helped build Good News Ministries while he was a teenager. In 2004, he announced, while I was in the middle of teaching a week-long school of evangelization in a seminary in Malawi, that he would never speak to us again.

For the first several years of his rejection, God the Father allowed me to suffer the pain of it keenly, showing me that this is a tiny, little bit of how he feels about every child on the earth who is rejecting him. He allowed me to unite to him in this suffering. It increased my determination to be a faith-builder, to help others avoid the traps of Satan’s lies. And it’s given me a strong compassion for other parents who are being rejected (it happens in so many good Catholic families that it’s a spiritual pandemic).

What have the sufferings of your sacrifices motivated you to do?

One morning to my prayer time, while I was moaning and crying to the Father, begging to know why prayers for my son’s rescue have not produced results yet, God took my pain away. In one instant, it was gone. It’s weird! Ever since then (about 10 years now), I’ve continued to feel sorrow for my son’s (and now my daughter’s, too) loss of faith and the demonic traps they’re caught in. I grieve over the wrongness of their rejection of Christ and their rejection of my husband, Ralph, and me, but my heart does not feel broken. I grieve without mourning — does that make sense?

What’s the Lord cooking up?

Who are you grieving for? Remember this: Your prayers for them are like the heat of a stove. Before we begin to pray for something, God already has all the ingredients together, waiting for us to turn on the stove. The moment we begin to pray, he begins to cook up the answer.

The ingredients include our lives, the hardships we are undergoing, the various people involved, the hardships they need to endure, our trust in God, our faith growth and purification, etc.

Before you started praying, he already knew what the end result is going to be. He already knew the recipe and how to prepare the ingredients. He even already began dicing the vegetables and seasoning the meat. And he knows how long to cook each part of the recipe so that when everything is all put together, we will be able to dine with him enjoying a most scrumptious meal.

Who is the lost loved one for whom you’ve been praying the longest? What is the healing you’ve been asking for that has not yet occurred? Remember this: The yummiest foods are those that have marinated the longest!

Sacrifices conquer the devil when we unite them to the Passion of Christ. Keep your eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of your faith (Hebrews 12:2-3). He understood the joy of enduring the cross, scorning its shame, because he knew it meant victory. Keep your eyes on him who endured tremendous opposition from sinners, and you will not grow weary and lose heart.

And ask Father God to give you a great big hug, like he did for me. His hug will heal you from the sting of rejection. Repeat this prayer meditation as often as needed.

Inside the Ministry: Zoom meetings for healing hearts

It’s been my desire for a long time to host Zoom meetings for ministering face to face. Because the subject of many prayer requests* coming into Good News Ministries is for the rescue of teenage and adult children who have accepted the lies of the world, this is the first topic that I want to address.

Of course, the Good News Prayer Network** prays for them, but I hope we will do more than that. After the GNM.org website is finished being updated for current code, and after Ralph has recovered from heart surgery, I’d like to start monthly Zoom meetings to give group spiritual direction and to pray together. Each month will have its own special purpose.

Please keep this endeavor in your prayers! So far, it’s only been a dream as other time commitments have taken priority. Watch this newsletter for updates. And I’d appreciate your feedback.

Do you have a story about Saint Joseph?

We’re going to host another Novena Consecration to Saint Joseph in April, ending on May 1st, the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. Our novena includes nine little stories about apparitions of Joseph and a prayer for each meditation. With this novena, we will consecrate to Joseph’s fatherhood those who are not following Christ, especially our own family members, because his desire in heaven is that all of his children will love his son, Jesus, and follow him to everlasting life.

In this year’s consecration, to increase hope and faith, I’d like to add to each day’s meditation a testimony from our readers. We need nine stories. We have three so far. The Holy Spirit inspired this idea when John from Cebu City, Philippines, told me the miracle his family received after they finished the consecration last December. If you can you contribute something, please do!

To join us for April’s novena sign up before before April 22 @ elists.gogoodnews.net/dada/mail.cgi/list/stjoseph.

See our selection of Prayers for Parents @ gnm.org/prayers/prayers-for-parents.

* To post your own prayer requests, go to gnm.org/prayers/post-a-prayer.

** To join the Good News Prayer Network, go to elists.gogoodnews.net/dada/mail.cgi/list/prayernetwork (for daily emails) or join our prayer groups at t.me/joinchat/Oi-csVE7Dklv7ggGP2XxuQ (Telegram app) or facebook.com/groups/gnmprayers (Facebook).

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.

Download the ebook version NOW 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 copy.)

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 recommended faith-builders:
Healing from Suffering

We have a good selection of WordBytes on Healing from Suffering that you can choose from to meet the needs of your circumstances. They include “Dealing with the Doubters Around Us”, “Why Do You Condemn Yourself?”, “Turning the Suffering of Waiting into a Giggle”, and more.

Visit wordbytes.org/suffering-and-healing.

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

Prayers for Your Lost Loved Ones (popular podcast)

In Matthew 18:12-14, Jesus says that your Father in heaven is not willing that any of your lost loved ones should perish. Your prayers will be answered! In this episode, I share with you some prayers for your lost loved ones while providing hope and reassurance that your prayers do make a difference.

Listen to this podcast @ gnm.org/footsteps56.

Or watch the video @ gnm-media.org/prayers-for-your-lost-loved-ones. Or if you prefer to read it, download the transcript at this link.

Answer to this week’s Trivia Challenge:
Who was the high priest of Jerusalem that put Jesus on trial?
Answer: Caiaphas. As high priest, he served as the Jewish people’s representative to God. Once a year, he entered the Holy of Holies in the temple to offer sacrifices to Yahweh. He was the most powerful Jewish leader of his day. His father-in-law, Annas, had this job before him and got five of his relatives appointed to that office. In John 18:13, we see Annas playing a major part in Jesus’ trial, an indication that he advised or perhaps even controlled Caiaphas. As a member of the Sadducees, Caiaphas did not believe in the resurrection. It must have been a shock to him when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. He preferred to destroy this challenge to his beliefs rather than learn from it.

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!