February 26, 2022
For you this week:
- Reflection for Saturday: Will we see more supernatural healings?
- Inside the Ministry: Due to unforeseen circumstances…
- Thank God for my life (it’s my birthday!)
- This week’s WordBytes faith-builder: Now is the time to supercharge your faith
- Recommended video series: God’s Amazing Word for Miracles
This week’s Trivia Challenge: Paul was shipwrecked on what island?
(Check your answer at the end of this newsletter.)
Saturday February 26, 2022
James 5:13-20
Psalm 141:1-3, 8
Mark 10:13-16
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022622.cfm
Podcast:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/2022-02-26
Saints Calendar:
gnm.org/saints-find/saints-calendar
Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the Church, and they should pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven. (From Saturday’s first reading)
Reflection for Saturday:
Will we see more supernatural healings?
Will we see more supernatural healings? While we often think of supernatural healings as things of the Old Testament, that simply isn’t true.
This Saturday’s first reading contains Christ’s initiation of the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. I wonder if every priest has the faith in Jesus to work actual miracles through this sacrament.
Saint Paul also said, “Pray for one another, that you may be healed.” He wasn’t giving a workshop to priests. He was speaking to the clergy and laity of all Christian communities. As the inspired word of God, this is timeless: It’s meant for all clergy and laity today too.
And he continued: “The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful.”
Will we see more supernatural healings? Just because we don’t see the immediate fruits of our prayers doesn’t mean the answer is “no.”
Several years ago at a Catholic Charismatic healing service, I prayed fervently with everyone else for my own healing and the healing of others, and yet very few people received any noticeable healing. This has been the case at every Catholic healing service that I’ve attended for the past many years. At this particular event, I asked the Lord, “Why so few healings? Isn’t it Your desire for all to be healed like when you, Jesus, walked the Earth?”
I heard his answer loud and clear in my heart, and it was no doubt that Jesus was the source of the answer. He said: “Because my people do not repent.” In that very moment I was filled with the knowledge of how very important a penance service would have been as the foundation of the healing service. And I also deeply realized that the penance service would have to be preceded by a powerful speaker motivating hearts to change.
Afterwards, the call to repentance became a theme in more of my writings and podcasts. And it is going to be the theme of the first episode of this year’s Lenten series, “Be Made Whole”. If you want to have a Lent that makes a real difference, if you have been praying for healing, then you won’t want to miss this Lenten series.
Will we see more supernatural healings? Not all supernatural healings are physical! In examining my own conscience lately, the Holy Spirit has shown me that I need to repent from the disbelief that has been a major part of the culture I grew up in. I have been calling God a liar!
Most of the Christian world that I experienced in both my Protestant upbringing and Catholic adulthood has believed Satan’s lie about miracles being a thing of the past. The “age of miracles” has been widely equated with the “Age of the Apostles”, i.e., for the start of the Church but not for today.
This lie is utter nonsense! It is the devil making the Church (myself included) impotent and our evangelization efforts much less effective than they could be. God has not changed. And Jesus did not lie when he said in John 14:12, “Those who believe in me will do the same works that I do and even greater ones.”
To bring our evil world to Christ and disbelievers to faith, we absolutely must and need to be a Church that doesn’t just tell people about Christ. We need to show them Christ. And this does not mean simply to show them love and other nice things, because even atheists love and do nice things. People are not converted by hearing about Christ. They are brought to the true Faith by hearing Christ himself, meeting Christ through a miraculous encounter.
So, for Lent this year I invite you to zero in on anything in scripture that you do not believe wholeheartedly. Choose any scripture that you are not personally living, any scripture that speaks a truth you do not believe, any scripture that you do not witness in your own life as true. Repent of your disbelief. Spend all of Lent asking Holy Spirit to teach you the truth and fill you with the gift of faith. Renounce, in the name of Jesus Christ, the lies you believe. Repeatedly, like a mantra, speak out loud the verses in the Bible that you want to take deeper into your heart — the verses you want to come alive in.
We need to hear something six times in order to retain 25% of it in long-term memory. That means that for truth to sink into our brains deeply enough to affect our souls and become influential in our lives, we need to hear it 24 times. But at the same time, Satan is trying to rob us of this. Demons and the world and even voices within the Church have been repeatedly programming our brains (and therefore our souls, too) with ideas and teachings that contradict the Spirit of Truth (the Holy Spirit). Will we see more supernatural healings? Well, we need to spend more time dwelling on the Word of God than anything else.
When asking “will we see more supernatural healings,” realize this: A truth believed in but not shared is a truth that easily fades away. If you have access to a prayer group or any small study group where you can share and witness the supernatural, make attendance your Lenten sacrifice. If you’re already attending, bring others as your Lenten sacrifice. This precedes the supernatural healing that we desire.
Note: Good News Ministries has a web page where online prayer groups are listed, and if you belong to such a group, please add your prayer group to our site. Visit gnm.org/prayers/find-a-prayer-group-to-join.
If you know anyone who believes God when he says that we are to lay hands on the sick and they will recover, make it your Lenten practice to get together with that person regularly to discuss matters of faith and help each other grow spiritually. And please feel free to share with me your faith-building journey so that I, too, can grow and so that I can pass it on to others; visit wordbytes.org/holy-spirit/.
Inside the Ministry: Due to unforeseen circumstances…
Last week I announced a new podcast series for Lent (“Be Made Whole”). As eager as I am to get back into making weekly podcasts, it’s become apparent that this was more my desire than God’s. My husband Ralph has been diagnosed with a leaking heart valve and is going to need surgery and a period of recovery during Lent. It seems that the Lord will be taking us on quite a Lenten pilgrimage!
We greatly appreciate your prayers. God will use for great blessings what appears to be a scary ordeal.
Meanwhile, you might have noticed that our main websites have undergone a revitalization with a new design. They’ve been limping along on 10-year-old code; it no longer works well. The last — and most difficult — sites to change are GNM.org and the Spanish site, GNM-es.org.
Because our long-time webmaster quit, the work fell onto my plate. He had custom-designed the important daily reflections, saint quotes, and this Insider’s View newsletter. They run off of our databases using PHP code. And I am not fluent in the PHP language. So, through a lot of trial and error and thinking up new ways to make things work, slowly the GNM.org site is being updated to a new design — while I keep praying for and seeking a PHP expert to bring onto the team.
When GNM.org is finally finished, I’ll update the Spanish site (GNM-es). Based on the rate of slowness that the GNM site is taking, I won’t have time for new podcasts. Ralph is a higher priority than all of it. And my own emotions need tending to as well. Therefore, I’m easing up pressure where I can.
Thank you for your prayers and support!
Thank God for my life (it’s my birthday!)
My birthday is on Sunday (February 27). Please join me in giving thanks to God for the life he has given me and the calling to bring Jesus to you and to countless others.
“The Work is God’s; I am His worker; God began it. For God I shall continue it. God wanted this Work done. He obliged me to do it. God will provide.” (Blessed Alfonso Maria Fusco; download it from gnm.org/SaintQuotes/?searchNew=yes&saintname=Fusco)
This quote speaks the truth — a truth that gets me out of bed each morning in the happiness of knowing that I get to serve Jesus another day.
Because of this, Good News Ministries has been thriving for 27 years and I’ve been involved in evangelization and faith-building ministry for more than 40 years — and I look forward to continuing until I can do it far better from Heaven.
I think of you when I get up in the morning. And I talk to the Lord about all those other people who could benefit from what you and I do together to help them come alive in Christ.
Although Happy Birthday messages are fun, they don’t do anything for anyone other than me. The most appreciated way to celebrate my birthday is to boost my calling to bring Jesus to more people and to support my desire to produce more faith-building resources with the help of a dedicated team of staff and volunteers. It’s an everlasting birthday gift.
Your prayer support means a lot to me. We’re in a battle against evil forces.
Secondly, the most helpful birthday gift is a donation that honors God our Father who gave me life, Jesus Christ who redeemed me from a life of demonic entrapment in the occult, and the Holy Spirit who empowers me to serve you, all through the Immaculate Heart of our Blessed Mother Mary and the devotion of Saint Joseph.
Oh Holy Spirit, in the holy name of Jesus Christ, pour out Your Spirit on all GNM members and renew the face of the Earth. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God who crushes the head of the serpent, and Saint Joseph, Terror of Demons, bring to Good News Ministries the spiritually starving and lost souls. Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our deaths. Amen.
To give an everlasting gift that specifically honors the day that our Lord brought me into this world, please go to https://secure.egsnetwork.com/donate/E86CFF649611471 or send a check or bank draft to:
Good News Ministries
11705 Boyette Road, Suite 277
Riverview, Florida 33569 USA
And write “Happy Birthday, Terry” in the memo. For wire transfers, contact me for the info.
Thank you!
This week’s recommended faith-builder:
Now is the time to supercharge your faith
Have you been feeling, deep in your gut, frustrated because the Church doesn’t look much different than the rest of the world when it comes to dealing with the coronavirus pandemic or politics or other crises? Are you ready to supercharge your faith so that you can look and be different than the world?
As scripture points out, there is much, much more that Jesus did than what we read about in the Bible (see John 21:20-25) — more miracles, more proof that he loves us, more teachings that help us understand what God wants to do in us and through us. And Jesus knew this would be so. This is why he told us that the Holy Spirit will teach us everything we need to know (see John 14:26).
For more on this, visit wordbytes.org/holyspirit/now-is-the-time-to-supercharge-your-faith.
WordBytes is a library of Catholic faith-building articles by Good News Ministries. Come on in and explore! Visit WordBytes.org today.
Explore our Catholic Video Library for Faith Growth
Do you want to grow your faith today? Watch the series God’s Amazing Word for Miracles @ gnm-media.org/category/gods-amazing-word-for-miracles.
Answer to this week’s Trivia Challenge:
Paul was shipwrecked on the island of Malta. Good News Ministries has many readers in Malta. (A big hello to my Malta friends!)
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!
