Sharing the Real Presence
This newsletter features three articles from the missionaries and Fr Rafael about the ministry. We invite you to get involved in some of our upcoming events. We will also be including items and ways that you can financially help with the mission at the end of the newsletter. Please continue keeping us and those we are ministering to in your prayers. We hope these newsletters can encourage you and our readers to grow in faith and in zeal for the work of the salvation of souls that is so needed in our church.
In this newsletter
The Lepers of Today
Miraculous Healing
The Mystery of Communion with The Other Awaits Us
Upcoming Events
Needed Items
The Lepers of today by Griffin Rain
Recently, while we were evangelizing one day, every person who we met immediately went to shake our hands. Almost every person we met had very dirty hands, hands with cuts or burns from their crack pipes. They had visible open wounds and my natural reaction was disgust and asking myself, why do they want to shake hands, don’t they know how disgusting their hands are? After praying about how this made me feel, I realized that these were the modern day lepers. They are reaching out as the lepers did to Jesus. I was just not being very Christ-like in my thoughts.
As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us! Lk 17:12-13
While I was going to them, it still was making me uncomfortable. Most of them while living in the center of the city are very lonely and people avoid them like they were lepers. Their reaching out to shake hands and share their life is a crying out for pity.
A leper came to him and kneeling down begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.” The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean. Mark 1:40-42
It has become clear to me in working with the modern lepers, that God loves each person beyond our comprehension. People that seem to be so far gone and beyond help are healed in our sight. People stuck in so much sin that it seems impossible to get out of are given so much grace from God to be healed. I find Romans 5:20 over and over again. Where sin abounds, Grace abounds all the more! God loves them and he will give more grace to overcome sin. There was one lady we talked to who was as close to dead as one can be. She was unresponsive, tripping out on drugs and crouched over on herself. I usually try to share at least something with those who are very clearly out of it, and I saw no way of communicating with her in her state. Giving up, I asked if she would like us to say a prayer for her. With no response, I thought to say a Hail Mary for her. Immediately after concluding the prayer, she stood up and was slightly responsive. We all shared with her how much God loved her and afterwards she asked us if she could give us a hug. We each gave her a hug and then afterwards she was fully responsive and we had about a 30 minute conversation about faith. Robert wrote more details about the story in his newsletter below. This healing made me realize that some people who are the modern lepers seem to be so far gone to us and if they are going to be reached, God will work a miracle to show them his love much like Jesus curing the lepers.
Nobody is too far gone, but often we treat those in our life as if they are. We have in effect made them lepers. Each of us know of a leper in our life. Will you go where you don't want to go so to be an instrument of Christ healing love? You may be surprised of what God can work through you!
Miraculous Healing by Robert Pauly
There was a woman who was unresponsive from drugs and bent over on the side of a building. We were unable to get through to her and so decided to move along. As we prepared to walk away from her, the Lord inspired us to pray the "Hail Mary" for her. Shortly after finishing the prayer, the woman immediately stood erect and became understandable in speech. We talked to her for nearly thirty minutes. Part way through the conversation, I was inspired to give the woman the Rosary that I wear on my belt loop. The Lord brought another couple into the situation who walked by. The woman pushed a man in a wheelchair. The woman with the wheelchair noticed the cross the woman I was conversing with had just received, asked, "Can I have the cross?" The woman who was healed ran to them and joyfully gave it to her. They shared some words but I could not hear them. When she came back, I gave her a big hug because she gave the other woman the cross. I said, "That was very beautiful and generous. Thank you for blessing her with the blessing you received." Very soon after that she asked me, "Do you have to go?" That day, I had to head back home early while Griffin and another volunteer were staying out to evangelize longer. I said, "Yes, you will always be in remembered in my prayer." Immediately, she prayed a beautiful thanksgiving to God for what had occurred. As I headed back to St. Anthony, I was inspired to pray the Rosary for the people we had met earlier that day, especially the woman who received God's help in that moment of helplessness. I was told by Griffin that around the time I was praying for her driving home, she caught back up to them and joyfully ran after them asking for another Rosary and continued prayer.
The Mystery of Communion with The Other Awaits Us by Fr Rafael Rodriguez
As Father José Manuel Horcajo relates in his Book “Across the Bridge”: testimonies of a church open to all, “the poor is always a little far away from us. We can theorize about poverty, its causes, and its solutions, but the poor bother us. However, the saints did not see them that way, they reached out to the poor and stayed there with them.' How happy we are,' said the holy Cure of Ars, ‘that the poor come to us! If they don't come, we would have to go and look for them.’ How sad would a parish be without the poor; it would be a sick parish, or it would just be a museum.
The worst discrimination suffered by the poor is the lack of spiritual care. The vast majority of the poor have a special openness to faith. Without hesitation they acknowledge their need for God. We have to offer them the Lord’s friendship, His grace, His word, and the blessing of His sacraments.”
If you are open to it, the Lord will help you navigate outside of your comfort zone. He will take you to situations you can’t imagine. Many situations in the poor inner-city areas can easily overwhelm you. And when you are confronted with the cruel reality, or you place everything in God’s hands, or you will be exhausted and depressed.
So, prayer comes first: Lord, this is way too much for me, you do your work! And he does His saving work! And we are to cooperate with God’s providential grace doing the work of faith: to love beyond our comfort zone!
God invites us to cross the bridge that separates but that can also unite us with others, especially with those we feel distant, those we find difficult to deal with, those our sensitivity rejects, those who seem lost to us, those we would not like to see coming into our homes, those who we feel sorry for but for whom we do nothing when we pass by them, those is the poor inner cities of the world.
For different reasons many Catholic churches have been closed in the poor areas of our big cities. And the few churches that are still there hardly open their doors. Churches should be open because they can be an oasis of peace for all in distress and for those who are broken by the many facets of poverty, neglect, and indifference.
Through the centuries, Catholic churches have been places of presence, of Real Eucharistic and human presence. The church is a place for all experiencing profound wounds of the soul; especially for those wounds yet to be discovered, understood, and healed. As Pope Francis has described them, Churches should become field hospitals where we can be treated by the wounded healer, the crucified Christ who is eager to cure our spiritual and corporal infirmities. This is the time to go back to the front!
We are at war! And it is not the Third World War; it is the war that began with the fall of man and created the great abysm between us and God, and among us. This is why the great commandment is a battle cry to close the chasm created by disobedience: "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22: 36-40) With the wood of the cross, the Lord built the bridge of the New Covenant, and there He waits for us to cross it, to be reunited with Him.
Crossing the bridge of indifference that segregates us in the urban areas is the response the Missionaries of the Real Presence offer to the Church of Milwaukee today. It is a humbling effort to restore communion with God, with others, and with self beyond the social and racial divide. Their mission is a call to true spiritual action! Because in the words of Pope Saint John Paul II, “communion leads to mission, and mission itself to communion."
To be in Holy Communion with the Lord should be our goal in the battle against evil. “If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” (Mark 3: 25)
God longs to meet us and to love us in our deepest need. Jesus came to reveal the ultimate truth to us, and for this He continues to pray… “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me, and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:20-22)
Upcoming Events
Come and See – We are encouraging men who are interested in our way of life to visit for a come and see. We encourage longer visits such as a week long visit. We are open to having visitors most weeks so if you have a week that will work for you, contact us and we can have you for a visit. To set up a visit call/text (414) 235-7307 or e-mail vocations@realpresencemissionaries.org
Missionary Associates – Join us for our next Missionary Associates dinner on Thursday, April 18th for this month's meeting of the Missionary Associates. This is for people who volunteer with the missionaries or are interested in volunteering/supporting our work. We hope that this continues building up the community around the missionaries, getting to know others and energizing more people to start working for the salvation of souls here in Milwaukee. This normally occurs on the 3rd Thursday of every month at St. Anthony Catholic Church at 1711 S. 9th St. Milwaukee, WI 53204. The schedule for the event is as follows:
● Evening Prayer in the Church 5:30 pm - 5:45 pm
● Short talk by one of the missionaries 5:50 pm - 6:10 pm
● Dinner and socializing 6:15 pm onward
Needed Items
Many people have been asking what kind of items that we are in need of to support us in a specific way. We will now have at the bottom of our monthly newsletter some items that we are in need of as well as some specific things we will need funding for.
Financial Donations needed much more at the moment for Missionary Formation
wood 2x4's
plain white letter sized printer paper
About the Missionaries of the Real Presence
The Missionaries of the Real Presence are a group of lay men who live in common at St Anthony Parish in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as they discern a charism for a new religious community to be Contemplative Missionaries for Urban Evangelization. We are dedicated to prayer through daily Eucharistic Adoration and chanted Liturgy of the Hours in the church open to the public and evangelization to the inner-city areas where the Catholic Church is not very present.
Support the Mission, Join the Mission
If you appreciate the work we are doing, consider supporting our mission financially Here.
Volunteer with us with our street ministry and house visits Here
If reading about some of our stories inspires you, come and see what life as a missionary is like and visit us for a day or longer for prayer and ministry as you discern Here.
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