Welcome to all our new members today!  We are so glad you are here.  The people in this prayer group are great.  You’ve found wonderful prayer partners who will be praying with you for your prodigal’s return.

          So much going on that I don’t know where to begin.  Let us first give praise to God and thank Him that we are all finding each other and can pray together for the return of our beautiful, beloved prodigals to the practice of the Catholic Faith.

          We continue to hear from those who found us through the Saint Anthony Messenger.  I am amazed at how much interest that little letter to the editor continues to generate.  Jane Stucker’s taking the time from her already busy life to write and mail that letter has made a great impact on spreading the word about this organization. Jane is the coordinator for two prayer groups in Leavenworth. 

          If you have a suggestion as to a magazine that might be interested in an article about our organization—written by me or by you—please contact me.  If you are a writer and would like an interview, I’d be happy to oblige.

          Please pray for me tomorrow when I speak at Sanctuary of Hope, the inner-city/inter-faith retreat house where Bob and I volunteer.  I have been asked to explain our organization at the associates meeting tomorrow.  Many of those associates have been members of this group from the beginning.  They are always ready to help when we need them.

          I did contact our new Archbishop and asked for a meeting with him. I also mailed the document we had assembled, complete with the letters many of you wrote so he could have all the information ahead of time.  I received a beautiful letter from him on Wednesday in which he indicated his pleasure at our efforts.  Due to his full schedule we are meeting later in the summer to discuss it all.  I am so grateful to Archbishop Naumann for his prompt reply and for his consenting to see me.  Bob and I will meet with him and ask for his blessing and his guidance just as we did with Archbishop Keleher.

          Many. many things are happening all around.  New prayer groups are forming in several places.  Tentative plans are for the workshop to travel to Hutchinson, Kansas and Fairfield, California in the Fall and definitely to La Crosse, Wisconsin on March 11 of next year.

          Several of you have reported prayers being answered—I’ll try to include more of that in the next update.  I’m rushing to get this one out this evening.

          Work continues on the newsletter.  I remind you to send your postal mailing address if you wish to receive a copy.  There is no cost.  We are still in need of articles for it (and stamps, too).  If you would like to tell us in two or three paragraphs, what value you find in praying together for your prodigals, or if, again in 2 or 3 paragraphs, you would like to tell others about a saint that you ask to intercede for your prodigal’s return, please email it to me for the newsletter.  You can request that your name be withheld.

          Also, I am including a wish list in this update.  Often you ask if there is anything we need or anything you can do.  Right now there are several.  The wish list will follow this note from me.

          I’ve really been busy with all the activity with this group the past few weeks.  It seems to be increasing.  Please pray that God will send along one or two volunteers who will be able to give me a hand when necessary.  I know, as a good friend told me today, that God will never give me more than I can handle.  When I can’t handle it, He will send help.  I trust that He will do just that.  After all, He’s brought us farther than I ever dreamed this effort would reach.  Sometimes it’s a bit overwhelming for a farmer’s daughter from Iowa.  She just thanks God that her father farmer had a deep, deep faith!

          Let us continue to pray together and invite others to join us in prayer for the return of our children to the practice of the Catholic faith.  God will keep His promises! Trust!

Peace,

This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent. John 6:29