Saturday August 12, 2023

For you this week:

• Reflection for Saturday: The surprising connection between extravagance and the Eucharist
• Inside the Ministry: How to have one-click access to Good News Ministries
• This week’s WordBytes faith-builder: The Nicene Creed: What Do You Really Believe?
• This week’s recommended video: “My Soul Shall Be Healed” live-streamed discussion

This week’s Trivia Challenge: What is the name commonly given to the first five books of the Old Testament? And can you name those books? (Check your answer at the end of this newsletter.)

Saturday August 12, 2023

Deuteronomy 6:4-13
Psalm 18:2-4, 47, 51
Matthew 17:14-20
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081223.cfm
Podcast:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/daily-mass-reading-podcast-august-12-2023

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

The LORD is our God, the LORD alone!
Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God,
with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your strength.
(From Saturday’s first reading)

Reflection for Saturday:
The surprising connection between extravagance and the Eucharist

Pope Saint John Paul II taught that one of the original influences that helped shape the way we celebrate our liturgies is the experience of the woman in the Bible who anointed Jesus with her expensive perfume. The gift was extravagant! (Ecclesia de Eucharistia paragraphs 47-48.)

Christ’s gift to us — his life sacrificed on the Cross — is the most extravagant gift. His gift deserves a response that is far from mediocre. Like the woman at Bethany, our gestures of love for Jesus should be outrageously extravagant. It’s quite impossible to over-do it when showing Jesus how much we love him.

In those days, people made their own perfumes using aromatic herbs. The longer a perfume fermented in the jar, the more valuable it became because of the cost of time. The gift of this anointing was the generous “wasting” of something that had taken a long time to make. Remember, she poured it on Jesus, she didn’t dab on a few drops. It was all gone in a few seconds.

Are we that extravagant in our love for Jesus? The world is full of Judases who try to make us feel guilty about being so enthusiastic in our faith: “Why spend so much money to buy a genuine gold tabernacle? That money would have been used more wisely on the poor!”

While the Church does have a responsibility to help the poor, it’s not extravagance that prevents us from coming to their aid, it’s stinginess. Far, far too many Catholics donate very little in the Church’s various collections.

If we truly are excited about the gift the Lord has given us, we should let nothing hold us back from being extravagant in our gifts to both the church’s building fund and to the needy and to the faraway mission fields. We should never force our pastors to choose between beautiful artwork for the church and food for the poor.

Read Ecclesia de Eucharistia (The Church of the Eucharist) to find more pearls of wisdom from Saint John Paul II. Download it from gnm.org/terry-modica-author/my-soul-shall-be-healed. To make it super-easy to understand and enjoy, I wrote the book My Soul Shall Be Healed. It’s designed for small study groups to unpack this important encyclical; what’s your parish doing to increase devotion to the Eucharist? I’m offering bulk discounts for parish orders. Please share this link with your Pastor or Director of Religious Education. (This book is also great for individual learners.)

Inside the Ministry:
How to have one-click access to Good News Ministries

Here’s how to give yourself one-click access to all of the resources at Good News Ministries. Add GNM.org to your phone’s home screen! Your favorite faith-builders will then be just one click away: today’s Good News Reflection, today’s Daily Saint Prayer, God’s Word for You Today (a random quote), the newest podcasts, the newest announcements, prayers, and more.

Instructions for iPhone users:

1. Open the Safari app, type in gnm.org, and hit “go” (or click here).
2. Locate at the bottom of your screen a small box with an arrow. Tap that button.
3. Scroll down and tap “Add to Home Screen.”
4. Tap the “Add” button in the upper right corner.

Instructions for Android users:

1. Open the Chrome (or other browser) app, type in gnm.org, and hit “go” (or click here).
2. Locate the 3-dot hamburger menu in the top right corner of the browser. Tap on it.
3. Scroll down to “Add to Home screen” and tap it.
4. Tap “Add”.

May you be blessed more than you need!

This week’s recommended faith-builder:
The Nicene Creed: What Do You Really Believe?

The Bible tells us to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Every Sunday in Mass, we utter the Nicene Creed, a summary of our Christian beliefs. When we pay attention to the words we recite, our faith can grow.

The depth of our faith is revealed by how we love, not by what we profess to believe. For example:

“I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.” If I truly believe that God is the Father of all, I respect and love every person as a brother or sister. I have no prejudices, I refuse kindness to no one, I remember that God loves even the most evil person as much as He loves the holiest person, and I feel secure knowing that He loves me as much as He loves others.

Want to be challenged? Visit wordbytes.org/spiritual-growth/creed. Reciting the Creed will become an entirely new experience.

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

This week’s recommended video:
“My Soul Shall Be Healed” live-streamed discussion (archived)

Look in on a lively discussion of my book My Soul Shall Be Healed. Joy and Patrick Campbell hosted it live on Joyful Hope TV in 2022. We had great fun discussing Pope Saint John Paul II’s encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia.

Watch it on YouTube @ youtu.be/9kwWtEGyWs8. This is the first of 5 episodes. Together they make an interesting video course on this encyclical using my book for a guide. To be blessed by the entire course, go to gnm.org/terry-modica-author/my-soul-shall-be-healed/#videos.

Answer to this week’s Trivia Challenge:
What is the name commonly given to the first five books of the Old Testament? The Pentateuch (in Greek) or the Torah (in Hebrew). They are: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

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

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