Rays of Merciful Love Newsletter Fall/Winter_2018

2 C E N A C L E S U P D A T E Cenacle facilitators: Please register your cenacle with the EADM office and send in the names and addresses of members so all members receive our newsletter. Mail to: EADM, 10016 Park Place Avenue, Riverview, Florida, 33578. Our EADM “Deacon Joe Fugere Cenacle” was formally introduced to Prince of Peace Parish in Flowery Branch, Georgia, in January 2015. Deacon Joe Fugere was a devotee of Divine Mercy, St. Faustina, and the importance of living the Divine Mercy message. He was in the process of beginning an EADM cenacle at Prince of Peace when he sadly passed away. We chose to name our cenacle in his honor. Our members live out the Divine Mercy message by doing corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Many are extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, lectors, prayer warriors, Eucharistic Adoration devotees, and volunteers for various church ministries. You can certainly feel the Divine Mercy spirit in our members. This year, we hosted an “awareness weekend” in our parish. At many Masses several weeks before Divine Mercy Sunday, we provided infor- mation about this feast, handed out pictures of the Divine Mercy Image, and passed out pamphlets on how to say the Divine Mercy Chaplet and Novena. As a result, the attendance for the Feast of Divine Mercy more than doubled in number. This has become a critical mission for us — to spread the message and grand promises of Divine Mercy, particularly of Divine Mercy Sunday. We are committed to living and sharing this message with everyone we meet. We began 33 Days to Merciful Love by Fr. Michael Gaitley, MIC, on March 21, with the consecration taking place on April 23 — Divine Mercy Sunday. We also began 33 Days to Morning Glory on Sept. 10 and consecrated ourselves to Our Lady on Oct. 13 in honor of the 100 th Anniversary of Fatima. On Oct. 9, 22 people were formally inducted as members of EADM with Deacon Dr. Bob Perri, our spiritual advisor, as celebrant. All of these occasions provided us with spiritual growth and great joy, increasing our resolve that, as we experience the mercy of God, we will share that same mercy with all we meet in our daily lives. FLOWERY BRANCH, G eorgia Maureen Peterson wrote and told us: What joy we felt when our pastor sent us the email below from the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy! After going through the process of petitioning to have a first-class relic for our parish, we received the wonderful news we were all praying for: Ave Maria! ... We are glad to send you the official letter containing our positive response to your request for a first-class relic of St. Faustina for your parish. We need to arrange when you can come to the Shrine here in Cracow-Lagiewniki to collect St. Faustina’s relic. The Divine Mercy Ministry at St. Thomas the Apostle in West Hempstead, New York, has been gathering for the past 10 years every third Friday of the month. We have a Holy Hour, which includes Eucharistic Adoration, along with a prayer service that is under the guidance of our spiritual directors, Fr. Marcellus Gorleku and Deacon Jacques Philippeaux. Both men have been dedicated to helping us spread the message of Divine Mercy. Currently, we have about 50 people who participate in this monthly prayer service. In addition to our Divine Mercy Holy Hour and Prayer Service, we also conduct a Divine Mercy Cenacle that meets on the third Saturday of each month. We use the Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy’s Cenacle Formation Manuel by Bryan & Susan Thatcher as our guide. Each lesson introduces us to a theme that incorporates the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, the Holy Bible, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church . We read, reflect, and pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, as we strive to bring our friends and families closer to the Lord. In July, we are heading to Vilnius, Lithuania, to see the original Divine Mercy Image. We will be staying with the nuns of St. Faustina’s order. They have welcomed us to stay in their convent for the time we are in Vilnius. We are so excited to see the original Image commissioned by our Lord to St. Faustina and to walk in her footsteps. We will then head to Warsaw to take a train to Bialystok, Poland, to see the area where Blessed Fr. Michael Sopocko resided. We were ini- tially scheduled to pick up his first-class relic but through the kindness of Msgr. Zieziula from the Archdiocese of Bialystok, he brought the relic to a nearby parish he was visiting in New Jersey, and we picked it up there. We are so excited to be able to visit Bialystok and walk in the footsteps of Blessed Fr. Michael Sopocko who was chosen to promote the message of Divine Mercy. WEST HEMPSTEAD, N ew Y ork Debbie Nieves wrote and told us: After these two stops, we begin a pilgrimage that will take us to Warsaw, Niepokalanow, (the monastery founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe), Czestochowa (to see the icon of the Black Madonna), and then to Krakow to visit the Shrine of The Divine Mercy. There we will pick up the relic of St. Faustina. We are so excited to meet the sisters at another convent that St. Faustina lived in. Our efforts to obtain the relics culminated in an extraordinary wel- coming Mass for them at St. Thomas the Apostle Church, presided by Bishop John Barres on Sept. 16 at 3 p.m. The relics will be permanently housed at St. Thomas, which is also home to our first-class relic of St. Therese of Lisieux. Jesus, I Trust in You!

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI2Mw==