No Way! Really?
Dear Friends,
Do you ever see a news story or hear a broadcast and your first response is “No Way!” followed by, “Really?” I do. All the time. “No way did that really happen! No way did someone really do that!”
Social Media and communication platforms are inundated with anti-Christian sentiment, promotion of groups that desecrate sacred spaces, make fun of religious sisters and promote public hate of Christians who respect the inherent dignity of each human person and do not condone behaviors that victimize others.
The current media outlets boldly highlight this reality, and a Christian like me might be asking, “Lord, why don’t you do something? Do something to protect your faithful children who are being persecuted, murdered, imprisoned, aborted. Do something to protect your churches and sacred institutions. Show the world your power.”
The reality is, God is doing something! He is doing what he has always done, inspiring humble holy people to live as witnesses to the Gospel. This past May, in the small town of Gower Missouri, the body of a Benedictine nun was found to be incorrupt (her body supernaturally preserved) four years after her death. Thousands of pilgrims are descending on this monastery to see the wonders God has done and ask for her intercession. Whether the Church declares Sr. Wilhelmina a saint in the future remains to be seen, but the African American nun lived 75 of her 95 years on this earth as a quiet religious.
I am reminded once again that God’s ways are not our ways. Although he could choose to demonstrate his power—hurl the moon into the sea to get humanity’s attention—he does not. Instead, he asks simple people like you and me to love him with all our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Only love has enough power to change the hearts and minds of men. “No way! Really? Is it that simple?” “Yes. It is not easy, but it is that simple.”
We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love. Mother Teresa
Yours in the Heart of Jesus,
Donna
Originally from County Clare, Ireland, Fr. Eamon joined the Dublin Novitiate in 1974 and was ordained a priest in 1987. From 1898 – 1999, he worked to found Legionaries of Christ communities in Germany, Austria, and Hungary, and up until 2007, when he moved to the Holy Land, Fr. Eamon served in various positions in New York and as chaplain at Northern Kentucky University. In 2007, the Vatican Secretary of State assigned him to Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center as vice chargé of the Pontifical Institute, where he served until late 2017. For the past seven years, Fr. Eamon has been living and serving in Magdala as the Vice Director, accompanying pilgrims, assisting with pilgrimages, welcoming the many visitors from a vast diversity of faiths that the Magdala Center attracts each year and helping them discover the blessings waiting for them there.![""]("https://www.regnumchristi.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/sunrise-stroll-4.jpeg")
The best part of Mary’s job as a teacher of religion to 5th and 6th graders is the opportunity she has to share her own faith and help her students build a relationship of trust and confidence with Christ. During her own middle school education, Mary often tired of “just following the rules,” and she desires to be an instrument of the Holy Spirit to inspire her students in their faith and help to share with them what the Catholic faith truly is:
Mary is currently pursuing her master’s degree in psychology, with a focus on marriage and family studies, through 
When Jacquie Lustig, a Consecrated Woman of Regnum Christi living and serving in Cincinnati, first discovered the writings of St. Ignatius of Loyola during her early years of formation, a dream began to grow inside of her. Once she began her role as the ECYD Girls Director in the Ohio Valley, spending most of her time mentoring junior high and high school girls, that dream – to translate the Rules of Discernment of St. Ignatius into everyday language that everyone can appreciate and understand – only became stronger the more she listened to young women talk about their experiences of seeking God.
A bit about Margarita Martínez 
Where did the idea come from? What is your goal? 
Links to the platforms.
This Virtual Pilgrimage of Healing and Hope will be led by Kathleen Nichols, Magdala Inspiration Director and Consecrated Woman of Regnum Christi. On site visits will be transmitted Mondays through Saturdays at 3:30pm Israel Daylight Time (1:30pm London, 8:30am New York, 5:30am Los Angeles, 8:30pm Manila, 10:30pm Melbourne, 12:30 midnight Auckland). Kathleen has directed two previous virtual pilgrimages through the Holy Land, 
It started a year ago as a simple text. Helen Yalbir had always found encouragement and consolation in the inspirational quotes and images she came across in her spiritual reading, and while she’d been collecting them for years to use in talks and meditations, she longed to share them on a more regular basis with her family, friends, and the people she serves, as a Consecrated Woman of Regnum Christi, in Washington, DC. “I love to share exciting, amazing things that I’ve learned, and it gives me so much joy to share that with others. I realized I had all these really pretty inspirational quotes and pictures,” says Helen, who began to send a daily inspirational text to a group of about twenty contacts. “I called it a little ‘spiritual cup of coffee’.”
One of those people was Helen’s own sister. “I was accompanying my sister through a really difficult time, and it pained me not to be able to be physically with her.” Helen realized that her daily texting apostolate allowed her to be present to people, even when she wasn’t able to be with them in person. “So many people suffer in this world, and if we can’t be physically present to them, then at least the greatest gift we can give them is to help them grow in their trust in God, so that, no matter what they face, they have the tools to trust in God.” 
In a time when in-person evangelization and accompaniment is complicated and often impossible, Helen’s texting apostolate is providing much-needed inspiration and encouragement to those her community serves. “There have been so many people who have shared feedback from these text messages,” says Helen. One recipient was experiencing serious depression, and through the inspiring quotes sent to her by text, God was able to open up pathways towards healing and restoration. Many people have shared with Helen how receiving her texts have made a real impact on them, whether it’s through the daily reflection questions that have helped them go deeper in their faith, the daily challenges that have produced tangible change in their lives, or the resources that have proved valuable in their spiritual journey. “It was incredible how so many women would share how a quote they received on a particular day was exactly what they needed to hear in that moment,” says Helen. “I am just so blown away by how a simple quote can really rock someone’s world, how God can use a simple phrase to penetrate a person’s soul and infuse it with his grace.”
“Gudelia is in charge of a lot of the young women, so this is a great way for her to connect with them,” says Anna “Buding” Aquino-Dee, who is the Communications Head for Regnum Christi in the Philippines. “She showed some of the episodes to me and I thought that she was such a natural, so along with the social media team which I head, we just decided to produce a show.” That show is “Anything Gude,” (a play-on-words with Gudelia’s nickname, “Gude”) and is a series of twenty-minute live videos on Facebook and Instagram; in each weekly episode, Gudelia presents an aspect of the Catholic faith in a fresh and relatable way, and discusses how that relates to every day life. “Aside from giving you information, it’s something that you can look forward to regularly and even have some sort of entertainment while you’re being educated,” says Buding. “So it was really such a spirit-filled and very creative initiative.”
In fact, Buding calls their social media department, which was formed in response to the sudden physical isolation that occurred, “one of the tangible fruits of the quarantine.” “During this time when we’re called to isolate ourselves, we do what’s countercultural out of love for each other and the community,” explains Buding. “Instead of isolating ourselves, we really started uniting instead – I thought that was a really beautiful thing that has happened in the past few months.”
