October 29, 2022

For you this week:

• Reflection for Saturday: How to magnify Christ when it’s difficult
• Inside the Ministry: I’m back!
• This week’s WordBytes faith-builder: Are you taking the time you need for personal renewal?

This week’s Trivia Challenge: When the Blessed Mother Mary sang, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…,” which woman in the Old Testament was she quoting? (Check your answer at the end of this newsletter.)

Saturday October 29, 2022

Philippians 1:18b-26
Ps 42:2,3,5
Luke 14:1,7-11
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102922.cfm
Podcast:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/2022-10-29-usccb-daily-mass-readings

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

Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me life is Christ, and death is gain. (From Saturday’s first reading)

Reflection for Saturday:
How to magnify Christ when it’s difficult

This is the first Saturday reflection that I’ve written in four weeks. During this personal outage, disabled by illness, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on how to glorify the Lord when life makes it difficult.

For the past two months, I’ve suffered the worst and longest ailment of my life, cryptosporidiosis disease (microscopic parasites in the gut). In fact, the past twelve months have been one major difficulty after another, all of which greatly reduced my work hours. Throughout it all, I prayed for healing and relief; many others prayed for me too. I did all the right spiritual warfare prayers. I put everything into God’s super-capable hands. But the prayers didn’t improve anything.

I offered up my sufferings to Jesus, uniting myself to his cross for the salvation of sinners, but I felt sure that I could do more good by getting back to work in Good News Ministries.

I want to serve Jesus every day and glorify him even with my dying breath. However, these past several weeks have challenged me: How can Christ be magnified when I’m bedridden, miserable, isolated, brain-fogged, and too weak to open the computer or talk on the phone?

I can never do enough for the Lord. He has done so much for us, and what I do for him seems atom-size tiny in comparison. Plus, the need is so great for the Good News to get out ever more widely, now more than ever. This is why I don’t understand why Abba Father has allowed so much to happen that reduced and even halted my work hours for so long.

But — and this is the important thing — God understands. He knows what he’s doing. Surely my misery will be used as seeds for a crop that we cannot yet imagine.

My prayer life changed drastically, especially during the parasitic infection. I didn’t have the energy or strength to do anything but rest in the Lord’s lap. It’s the prayer of wordless trust.

Wordless trust is a prayer that magnifies the Lord in your heart. If you need help with this kind of prayer relationship with God, you can learn it from my book 30 Days to the Father’s Heart @ 30daystothefathersheart.com.

Wordless trust grows into faith sharing that magnifies the Lord in the hearts of others. We are called to make every earthly moment count for the Kingdom of God — even when we don’t understand why Abba Father allows us to suffer. Eventually, when we pass away from earthly difficulties, we will glorify the Lord fully and unceasingly.

And, in honor of All Souls Day, which we soon celebrate, let me add here the reminder that your loved ones who have passed away resting in the Lord’s lap are now glorifying him more than you can imagine. Even if they are still in Purgatory, they are glorifying Christ every moment. Whenever you glorify Christ, you are united to your loved ones in a very special way. Ask them to pray for your faith growth.

Inside the Ministry: I’m back!

As described in the above reflection for this Saturday, I’ve been so ill for the past several weeks that I couldn’t work. We have a wonderful staff who kept GNM running smoothly. I am eternally grateful to the Lord for them. Graciela (Assistant Administrator) did some of my tasks while keeping up with her own — with an outstanding spirit, even though she had gall bladder surgery in the middle of my illness.

Kathy (Office Assistant) and Tina (Bookkeeper) brilliantly figured out the new donor management software that replaced our account at Stewardship Technology. This change was forced upon us the day I was helping Ralph prepare our house for Hurricane Ian (which happened between my hospitalizations). I took a quick look that day at the new software and realized it was hard to use. There was no way, in my condition, that I could help Kathy and Tina learn it. As I said, they brilliantly figured it out themselves.

One of my top priorities now as I get back to work is to find a better, Christian-based donations tool. The one that took over Stewardship Tech is quite unsatisfactory. If your parish uses an online donations tool that you can recommend, please let me know about it.

Another top priority is to set up live workshops on 30 Days to the Father’s Heart. Now would be a good time for you to order my book. (30daystothefathersheart.com)

Please keep me and my husband Ralph in prayer, more than ever, as we try to get back to normal life. Pray that we have reached the end of the unusual string of difficulties. We have endured one hardship after another, starting when my mom was hospitalized last November, interrupting our much-needed vacation.

The stress of caring for my mom caused disabling back pain due to scoliosis and two collapsing disks. When I recovered, Mom needed to be hospitalized again. While she was in rehab to regain her strength, Ralph was hospitalized. Two weeks after coming home, he was hospitalized again. He brought COVID home and gave it to me, which led to months of fatigue due to the immunosuppressant drugs I was on for rheumatoid arthritis.

When I began to feel better, I had a much-delayed procedure done in my back; recovery from that was very painful and required four weeks of physical therapy, three times a week. And as soon as that healed, intestinal parasites infected me. Because of my compromised immune system, the parasites multiplied and caused severe problems that sent me to the emergency room three times (first two visits did not diagnose parasites). The second time, I stayed a few days.

Then came Hurricane Ian. We evacuated with our dog to Ralph’s sister’s house where it became obvious that I needed to return to the hospital for another few days.

There is only one medicine that kills these parasites, a very strong antibiotic that had side effects similar to the symptoms of the parasites. Ugh! I was bedridden for three more weeks. But now I’m finally getting over all of that.

Throughout it all, there were miracles. Since Ralph and I could no longer take care of Mom, the Lord led her to a wonderful retirement facility where she is thriving even better than she did at our house. Hurricane Ian didn’t do as much damage as predicted, We did have to replace our air conditioner and some roof shingles. We also had to hire help for the yard cleanup because Ralph couldn’t do it and take care of me at the same time. There is more to be done (I’m asking the Lord to send helper angels), and we still feel very overwhelmed, but we don’t complain as we remember those who lost their homes and businesses.

Like I said, please keep praying for us. Evil has been given so much freedom in our world that it’s more aggressive in attacking those who spread the Kingdom of Christ. For example, when I started to have enough energy in the morning to catch up on some emails, my computer wouldn’t start. I looked at Ralph with an expression of, “What next?!” as my heart called out to Jesus. Then the computer started. Last weekend, the washing machine stopped working. We prayed the blood of Jesus over it, and it began to work fine.

Praise the Lord Jesus Christ!

If you’d like to receive notifications of what we need in prayer support, join the Prayer Network (daily) @ elists.gogoodnews.net/dada/mail.cgi/list/prayernetwork or the 7 Warriors of the Cross (weekly) @ gnm.org/7-warriors-of-the-cross.

This week’s recommended faith-builder:
Are you taking the time you need for personal renewal?

The word “retreat” often is used when an enemy is winning and pushing us backward. I prefer to go away on a “restoration” so that I can return home ready to win spiritual battles. That’s what I call real renewal! When was the last time you went on a “restoration”? Jesus wants to restore you! What do you need restored in your tired soul? Or in your wounded heart?

For more on this, visit wordbytes.org/suffering/personal-renewal/.

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

Answer to this week’s Trivia Challenge:
When the Blessed Mother Mary sang, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…,” which woman in the Old Testament was she quoting? Hannah, the mother of Samuel who would grow up to become a great prophet and choose David to become King; and it was from David’s line that Jesus was born (see 1 Samuel 2:1-10).

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.

Let’s connect in GNM’s own SmartCatholics community, called Good News Faith Builders. I’m available to interact with you there.

Thank you for reading this newsletter.

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

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