For you this week:
- Reflection for Saturday: How does God feel about the evils of today?
- Inside the Ministry: A miracle from Eucharistic Adoration
- Your input wanted: Do you need more faith-based community support?
- NEW episode! Footsteps to Heaven: Pray for the Glory of God to fill you
Saturday September 4, 2021
Colossians 1:21-23
Psalm 54:3-4, 6 and 8
Luke 6:1-5
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090421.cfm
Podcast:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/2021-09-04
Saints Calendar:
gnm.org/saints-find/saints-calendar
You once were alienated and hostile in mind because of evil deeds, but God has reconciled you in the fleshly Body of Christ through his death so you could be holy, without blemish, and irreproachable before him. But you must persevere in the faith and remain firmly grounded and stable, not shifting from the Gospel, which has been preached to every creature under heaven. (From Saturday’s first reading)
Reflection for Saturday:
How does God feel about the evils of today?
How does God feel about the evils of today? How do you think God feels about Christians who give in to the ways of the world (i.e., the lies of Satan), and who are thereby alienating themselves from him and from us his faithful ones? How do you think he feels about their hostility toward us because we choose to stand firm in the truths of the Faith?
If you feel upset by the evils that are happening in our world today, God has given you his own righteous anger. You are his child, after all, and you inherited his holiness genes.
If you feel upset about today’s evils, take a minute and ponder “how does God feel about the evils of today?” Just imagine God’s pain when confronted with our evils. Though we imitate him imperfectly, our feelings about the evil that has corrupted the world (even infiltrating our beloved Church) come from God’s own heart of love.
Recently God revealed his anger to me in a prophetic prayer experience. Jesus suffered terrible tortures and an excruciating death for the sake of everyone — everyone! Of course Father God is unhappy about every rejection of this gift and every snub by those who don’t care. Everyone who has not remained firmly grounded and stable in the Christian faith that they professed, everyone who has shifted from the True Gospel: These are the biggest snubbers of all because they had the truth in their hands.
In God’s pure love for them and for those who suffer because of them, he is taking action against the demons who are behind it all. God is very angry about the evil that has increasingly pervaded the US and the world and the Church. And he is doing something about it! He is saying, “Enough!” We see evidence of this in the how desperately the Enemy is fighting to do as much destruction as possible before it gets crushed by the hand of God.
Our Blessed Mother warned about this. For more on this, I recommend Father Mark Goring’s recent video on the “New World Order” @ youtu.be/kJFIXOZld6Y.
The reason why it’s taking so long for God to intervene with his ultimate plan is because he’s giving everyone who has not yet surrendered to him the opportunity — opportunity after opportunity — to repent and be saved from the strategies and soul-destroying plots of the enemy. He is saying loud and clear (although ears are closed): “Obey the law. Obey the law. Obey the law.”
What is the law? Jesus said it is to love God with our whole heart and our whole mind and our whole soul. And with that the second law: to love our neighbor as our self.
We all need to examine how well we are obeying these laws. Is there anything in our lives that are compromises or rejections or personalized interpretations of God’s commands? Is moral relativism infecting our thinking in any way, causing us to disobey the Law of God?
What is going on in our lives that is against the Law? For example, are we loving the enemies of God? Or do we prefer to see evil-doers die in their mortal sins?
Are we hostile toward those who are hostile to the Gospel and toward us who stand up for Divine Truth? Do we complain about the evil they are doing or will possibly do in the future without thinking about the incredibly sad state of their souls? Do we love them enough to feel like crying because they are dangerously on the path to hell? Include in your self-analysis your reactions over the ones who disappoint us the most, the ones who have been given positions of spiritual leadership (the priests and bishops who are wolves in shepherds clothing).
Remember, the extent to which we are not loving our enemies and sorrowing for their souls is the extent to which we are not loving God with our whole heart and our whole mind and our whole soul.
Run to confession, and the Lord will give you the grace to care about your enemies enough to pray for their salvation. Even if they never repent, your loving prayers for them are a victory that drives demons away from you and breaks the stronghold of division.
Inside the Ministry:
A miracle from Eucharistic Adoration
Ralph and I are caregivers for my mom. If you’ve been with Good News Ministries for a while, you know that she lives with us. Now she’s 90 and her needs are increasing. It’s been a challenge for Ralph and me to properly balance caregiving with taking care of ourselves and Good News Ministries.
We’ve been praying for months to find a home care companion who could relieve some of the demands on us, but the pandemic and free government money for the unemployed has made it impossible to find what we need; home health care agencies are very understaffed.
The stress and tiredness of our situation caused me to feel fatigued for a couple of weeks, and I knew this was endangering my physical health. After 1 and 1/2 years of avoiding covid-19, I didn’t want to allow my immune system to be weakened.
On Thursdays, Ralph and I have been going to Eucharistic Adoration at the end of the workday. We started doing this as soon as our priest provided it after our state’s governor ended the lockdown.
I like to think of it as a date with Jesus. After Benediction, Ralph and I go to a restaurant for a dinner date. I don’t want to miss out on either! Last week, though, I didn’t have enough energy for it. It had been a particularly hard day in caregiving, and I just wanted to curl up on the couch and do nothing. But I forced myself to go to church.
As I knelt in the front pew, I laid at the feet of Jesus, on the altar, all of my burdens, all of my concerns, all of my tiredness, and my prayer request for help. Eucharistic Adoration provides special graces. Churches that offer this opportunity always experience breakthroughs, increased unity, and a greater presence of the Holy Spirit. Churches that extend short adoration periods into longer ones always experience an increase of these blessings and more besides. So I hoped that I would personally experience extra help from the Lord because I had shown up despite my flesh screaming at me to stay on the couch.
That night, a turning point occurred. I woke up the next day full of joy and energy. The following Sunday after Mass, a friend introduced to me a delightful, faith-filled young lady who is now my mom’s home companion caregiver.
Praise the Lord!
I pray that my testimony will inspire more readers to add Eucharist Adoration to their prayer life and more priests to add it to their parish schedules.
Your input wanted:
Do you need more faith-based community support?
As the world gets more hostile toward Christ’s faithful ones, we need each other more. You’re probably one of many, many people who feel alone in their resistance against evil, a feeling that’s been reinforced by the pandemic’s lockdowns, social distancing, remote (virtual) meetings, and lack of community-building gatherings at church. Know what I mean?
On my heart for a long time is a desire to offer more community experiences at Good News Ministries. This can best be accomplished through live experiences. The problem facing us, though, is that GNM’s members live in many different countries around the world — different time zones. A Zoom meeting time that works well for me is someone else’s middle of the night.
Remember, as the world gets more hostile toward Christ’s faithful ones, we need each other more — to pray together and to unite with like-minded faith-filled Catholics who want to feel free and safe to speak the truth, in a place where everyone feels ministered to.
On SmartCatholics we’re already building community (members.smartcatholics.com/groups/3674922/feed). Our Faith Muscles Boot Camp, which began recently, is also becoming a community. The GNM team and I are discussing ways to take this even further, for example chat rooms on our websites where members post comments centered around important episodes of Footsteps to Heaven (you can do this even now on any episode — go to footstepstoheaven.com). Or easy-to-use chat rooms (such as app.toucan.events/good-news-ministries) where we could gather to pray and discuss what the Lord is doing during significant events in the Church or in the world. Or as part of workshops and courses.
When 9/11 happened, I opened a chat room specifically to minister to people during that tragedy. I sent an email about it to all GNM subscribers. It was well attended with people dropping in to pray during the next several days. One was Bertha who worked near the towers and saw the horrific destruction happen. She desperately needed a live connection to other Catholic believers. Our chat room ministered to her in such a huge way that she is still grateful for it.
If you’d like to have this available during terrible events in the future, let me know now. We’ll use the “All GNM Members (Special Notices)” elist to announce when the chat room is open.
I’m also wondering about setting up communities for a couple of special and very common needs: caregivers, and parents whose adult children have been seduced by the un-Christian and anti-Christian ways of the world. We could help one another by sharing what we’ve learned and by praying together. Tell me if you’re interested in this and whether or not you’d be willing to serve as a group leader, facilitator, or mentor.
I’m so passionate about improving how GNM serves as an online community that I’m committed to making myself personally available to the conversations.
Right now, I’d love to hear from you if you’re interested. I’m also interested in your ideas for support groups.
Pray for the Glory of God to fill you (podcast)
Need an antidote to stress, worry, and fear? Using Psalm 146 (which is the responsorial psalm for this Sunday) as a prayer and adapting it to your own situation, in this new episode I reveal the supernatural power that’s available when we glorify the Lord with our praises. It makes demons flee. It fills us with hope, peace and joy.
This is the message I’ve been hearing from God for the rough and scary times we’re all going through. My morning prayers now always include, “Fill this day with Your Glory, Lord!” Or “Fill this bad situation with Your Glory, Lord!” Or “Fill this strained relationship with Your Glory, Lord!” And “Fill me with Your Glory, Lord!”
Listen to this podcast @ gnm.org/footsteps89.
Or watch the video @ gnm-media.org/pray-for-the-glory-of-god-to-fill-you. Or if you prefer to read it, download the transcript at this link.
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!
Keep your eyes on Jesus!
And when you have to look at others, see them through his eyes.
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How to Win Victories in Spiritual Warfare
Knowing God’s Will and Doing it Well
Lessons from the Blessed Mother
Daily Prayers with the Saints