Reflections

International Catholic Family Newsletter
APRIL 2026

Jesus crucified on the cross, traditional Catholic depiction of the Passion.

Bringing Light Into a World of Darkness

The Essence of Life...
Padre Pio Gave Me Sight...
Christ Called Me Off the Minaret...
Easter in Nigeria..

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

March 18, 2026 Annual Message to Mirjana, Our Lady of Medjugorje

“Dear children, never forget how great is the love of God. Through that love I am with you. Do not forget how great is His mercy. Through that mercy I am showing you the way to true happiness and perfect peace. That is the way to my Son. Therefore, my children, with complete trust, abandon yourselves to my Son and do not be afraid. Do not be afraid of the future because it belongs entirely to the will of my Son. Therefore, my children, renounce everything that distances you from my Son: false happiness, false hope, false splendor. Trust my Son. Tell Him about your pains, sufferings, desires and hopes. You will feel His love and His blessing. Thank you!” (With ecclesiastical approval)
Be Not Afraid
By; John Michael Talbot
Be not afraid
I go before you always
Come follow me
And I will give you rest
You shall cross the barren desert
But you shall not die of thirst
You shall wander far in safety
Though you do not know the way
You shall speak your words in foreign lands
And all will understand
You shall see the face of God and live
Blessed are your poor
For the kingdom shall be theirs
Blessed are you that weep and mourn
For one day you shall laugh
And if wicked men insult and hate you all because of me
Blessed, blessed are you
By: Richard Pickard
Blessings to All:

The Essence of Life

The essence of our life defines what we are at our most basic level, distinct from our outward appearance. Our soul is our immortal core. Gifted to us by God, to give us the true source for what is good and bad. But we have all drifted away from God through our mistakes, sins against one another, and forgetting how important one human life is to Our Creator and His Son Jesus Christ.
Many of us spend more time on our iPhone or watching TV then we spend with our family. Our children need our direction in life more than ever. The devil has been let loose on the face of the earth. I believe we are in those days written about in Revelation.
Christ has already won through His cross, evil will not prevail, and those who persevere in faith will inherit eternal life with Him. Whether the most intense current events are the revealing of the future, the call to conversion is the same—stay faithful, worship truly, endure patiently, and live in light of the certain hope that “Behold, I am coming soon” (Rev 22:12, 20).
Renew your faith now. Go to Jesus directly and talk to Him about your goals, pains, sorrows, and to ask Him to watch over you and your family. Ask Jesus….He wants to hear from you. Don’t wait any longer about asking for His grace to be a better person. Start a journey today, towards increasing time with your family. Listening to them and love them, no matter how they are living their lives. Don’t judge them if they are not living a Christian lifestyle. Your prayers and sacrifices “do make a difference”.
Once you bring Jesus into life, your soul…your core….of what you really are, will find peace and trust in Jesus. We are not another species of animals, but truly different. Designed by God to be able to love. We see the example of what true love is, by the life of Jesus. A human like us who entered into human life through the Blessed Mother. Of whom the angel Gabriel announced to her…”Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” and he assured her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God”.
Mary was born without original sin. The same as Eve. But Mary, unlike Eve, became the Mother of Jesus and the Mother of all those who are called by God to eternal life, through the sacrifice of her Son, Jesus. He took the punishment meant for us, upon Himself. This act of sacrificial love, described in Isaiah 53:5 and 1 Peter 2:24, brought peace, healing, and reconciliation with God, allowing believers to be free from condemnation.
Isaiah 53:5 is a central Messianic prophecy detailing that Jesus was pierced for transgressions and crushed for our iniquities, bearing punishment to bring humanity peace and healing. It highlights that through his suffering (“stripes” or “wounds”), spiritual and physical healing is made available, reconciling people to God.
1 Peter 2:24 states: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”
For those who wonder if our prayers make a difference. This is a true story about St. Padre Pio praying for his grandfather who had died 20 years earlier…” Padre Pio explained that he could pray for his grandfather’s happy death 20 years after he died because God exists outside of time. God, in His mercy, knew at the moment of the grandfather’s death that Padre Pio would pray for him later, allowing the graces to be applied retroactively.”

Talk to Jesus tonight. Tell Him what is on your mind. What bothers
you. Forgive those who have hurt you. Jesus did it for You.

THE HEALING OF GEMMA DI GIORGI BORN BLIND WITH NO PUPILS

Giorgi
Among the many miracles of healing attributed to Padre Pio, some are so unusual and unique that they have been the subject of much attention and discussion. In these particular cases, the person who has been healed lives a completely normal life afterward, even though they continue to have all the physical symptoms of their illness. From a scientific viewpoint, they still suffer from the original condition. One such person is Gemma di
Gemma di Giorgi was born on Christmas day in 1939, in the Sicilian town of Ribera. Almost immediately, her mother realized that something was wrong with her eyes. The truth was, Gemma was blind. Her mother took her to a doctor who was unable to determine the gravity of her condition. She was then referred to two eye specialists in Palermo.
The specialists determined that Gemma had no pupils in her eyes, that nothing could be done for her blindness, and that her condition was inoperable. Gemma’s family was desperate, but there was nothing they could do. Her parents often took her to the Virgin Mary’s altar in the parish church in Ribera to pray because they felt it would take a miracle to heal her eyes. A relative who was a nun, advised the family to seek out Padre Pio. Her advice gave the family a ray of hope. Gemma’s grandmother asked the nun to write a letter to Padre Pio on Gemma’s behalf.
When the nun returned to her convent, she wrote to Padre Pio asking him to pray for Gemma. One night the nun saw him in a dream. Padre Pio asked her, “Where is this Gemma for whom so many prayers are being offered that they are almost deafening?’ In her dream she introduced Gemma to Padre Pio and he made the sign of the cross on her eyes. The next day the nun received a letter from Padre Pio in which he wrote, “Dear daughter, rest assured that I will pray for Gemma. I send you my best wishes.”
The nun was struck by the coincidence of the dream and the letter that followed so she wrote to the family and encouraged them to take Gemma to see Padre Pio. And so it was, that in 1947, the grandmother took 7 year old Gemma to San Giovanni Rotondo to see Padre Pio, praying and hoping all the while for a miracle.
On the trip from Sicily to San Giovanni Rotondo, Gemma’s eyesight began mysteriously functioning. About halfway to their destination, Gemma began to see the sea and a steamship and she told this to her grandmother. At Gemma’s words, her grandmother as well as other friends who were accompanying them, all began to pray. Nevertheless, the trip from Sicily to the monastery was very long and difficult. Gemma’s grandmother was still preoccupied with the idea of seeking Padre Pio’s intercession regarding Gemma’s eyesight.
At San Giovanni Rotondo, in the midst of a large group of people, Padre Pio singled Gemma out and called her by name. He heard her confession, and even though she made no mention of her blindness, he touched her eyes with the wounded part of his hand, tracing the sign of the cross. At the end of the confession, as he blessed her, he said, “Sii buona e santa” (Be good and be saintly).
The grandmother was upset that Gemma had forgotten to ask Padre Pio for the grace of a healing while she was in the confessional and so she began to cry.
Gemma became upset also and began to cry. The grandmother went to confession to Padre Pio and in her own words, “I asked the grace for Gemma and I told Padre Pio that Gemma was weeping because, in her confession with him she had forgotten to ask this grace. I will never forget his soft and tender voice as he answered me with these words, “Do you have faith, my daughter? The child must not weep and neither must you for the child sees, and you know she sees.” I understood then that Padre Pio was alluding to the sea and the ship Gemma had seen during the trip and that God had used Padre Pio to break through the darkness that covered Gemma’s eyes.” The same day, Padre Pio gave Gemma her first Holy Communion and again made the sign of the cross over each of her eyes.
When Gemma returned to Sicily her eyes were again examined by a specialist. The doctor, to test Gemma, held up various objects in front of her and she was able to see each one of them. She was able to count the doctor’s fingers at a distance of sixteen feet. Gemma, even though without pupils, had her eyesight; she could see. The doctor declared that it was impossible for Gemma to see and yet she was able to. There was no medical explanation for it.
Many doctors from all over Italy requested to examine Gemma’s eyes. This extraordinary cure, and the prophecy preceding it, aroused enormous interest in the Italian press during the summer of 1947. Gemma’s sight continued to improve and she was able to go to school and learn how to read and write. She was able to lead a perfectly normal life.
Clarice Bruno, author of the book, “Roads to Padre Pio” met Gemma in May of 1967. Clarice said that despite the fact that Gemma’s eyesight was functioning, she still had the appearance of a blind person. Clarice told Gemma that she was writing a book about Padre Pio and wanted to include in it the story of Gemma’s miracle. Gemma asked Padre Pio for permission to share her story and he gave his consent. Gemma, due to the sunny and very windy weather, was wearing sunglasses on the day she made the request of Padre Pio. He commented on this. “Why,” he said as he passed his hand over her eyes, “are you wearing glasses? You see very well.”
Father John Schug, who met Gemma and interviewed her, also testified, “She looks like a blind person. Her eyes are sallow and lusterless, but there is no doubt that she can see. I saw her reach for a phone book, check a number, and dial the number without groping.”
While the doctors could not all come to a consensus on the subject of Gemma di Giorgi’s medical condition, the facts that can be definitely established are these: (1) Gemma di Giorgi was born with a severe congenital defect of the eyes; (2) before the prayers of Padre Pio were enlisted, she was unable to see and (3) afterward, though the physical structure of her eyes remained unchanged, Gemma was able to see normally.
So, what must the conclusion be? Simply that while Gemma and her grandmother were traveling to San Giovanni Rotondo to ask for healing, the grace came to them through the intercession of Padre Pio’s prayers before they had even arrived at their destination. Gemma has since traveled the world telling her story.

Christ Called Me Off the Minaret

NABEEL QURESHI
Through investigations, dreams, and visions, Jesus asked me to forsake my Muslim family.

April 13, 1983 – September 16, 2017

THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 ISSUE OF CHRISTIANITY
TODAY. AS “CALLED OFF THE MINARET”.
Nabeel Qureshi is an itinerant speaker and author of Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim’s Journey to Christ (Zondervan).
“Allahu Akbar. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah. I bear witness
that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”
These are the first words of the Muslim call to prayer. They were also the first words ever spoken to me. Moments after I was born, I have been told, my father softly recited them in my ear, as his father had done for him, and as all my forefathers had done for their sons since the time of Muhammad.An Islamic militant group known as Al-Shabab is committed to eradicating Christianity from Somalia. This means that those who are believed to be Christians could face house arrest, forced marriage, or death. Being Muslim is strongly tied to Somali identity. Since most Christians in Somalia are formerly Muslims, their conversion is seen as a betrayal of what it means to be Somali.
We are Qureshis, descendants of the Quresh tribe—Muhammad’s tribe. Our family stood sentinel over Islamic tradition.
The words my ancestors passed down to me were more than ritual: they came to define my life as a Muslim in the West. Every day I sat next to my mother as she taught me to recite the Qur’an in Arabic. Five times a day, I stood behind my father as he led our family in congregational prayer.
By age 5, I had recited the entire Qur’an in Arabic and memorized the last seven chapters. By age 15, I had committed the last 15 chapters of the Qur’an to memory in both English and Arabic. Every day I recited countless prayers in Arabic, thanking Allah for another day upon waking, invoking his name before falling asleep.
But it is one thing to be steeped in remembrance, and it is quite another to bear witness. My grandfather and great-grandfather were Muslim missionaries, spending their lives preaching Islam to unbelievers in Indonesia and Uganda. My genes carried their zeal. By middle school, I had learned how to challenge Christians, whose theology I could break down just by asking questions. Focusing on the identity of Jesus, I would ask, “Jesus worshiped God, so why do you worship Jesus?” or, “Jesus said, ‘the Father is greater than I.’ How could he be God?” If I really wanted to throw Christians for a loop, I would ask them to explain the Trinity. They usually responded, “It’s a mystery.” In my heart I mocked their ignorance, saying, “The only mystery here is how you could believe in something as ridiculous as Christianity.”
Bolstered by every conversation I had with Christians, I felt confident in the truth of Islam. It gave me discipline, purpose, morals, family values, and clear direction for worship. Islam was the lifeblood that coursed through my veins. Islam was my identity, and I loved it. I boldly issued the call of Islam to anyone and everyone who would listen, proclaiming that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger.
And it was there, atop the minaret of Islamic life, that Jesus called to me.

Not the Man I Thought…

As a freshman at Old Dominion University in Virginia, I was befriended by a sophomore, David Wood. Soon after he extended a helping hand, I found him reading a Bible. Incredulous that someone as clearly intelligent as he would actually read Christians’ sacred text, I launched a barrage of apologetic attacks, from questioning the reliability of Scripture to denying Jesus’ crucifixion to, of course, challenging the Trinity and the deity of Christ.
David didn’t react like other Christians I had challenged. He did not waver in his witness, nor did he waver in his friendship with me. Far from it—he became even more engaged, answering the questions he could respond to, investigating the questions he couldn’t respond to, and spending time with me through it all.
Even though he was a Christian, his zeal for God was something I understood and respected. We quickly became best friends, signing up for events together, going to classes together, and studying for exams together. All the while we argued about the historical foundations of Christianity. Some classes we signed up for just to argue some more.
After three years of investigating the origins of Christianity, I concluded that the case for Christianity was strong—that the Bible could be trusted and that Jesus died on the cross, rose from the dead, and claimed to be God.
Then David challenged me to study Islam as critically as I had studied Christianity. I had learned about Muhammad from imams and my parents, not from the historical sources themselves. When I finally read the sources, I found that Muhammad was not the man I had thought. Violence and sensuality dripped from the pages of his earliest biographies, the life stories of the man I revered as the holiest in history.
Shocked by what I learned, I began to lean on the Qur’an as my defense. But when I turned an eye there, that foundation crumbled just as quickly. I relied on its miraculous knowledge and perfect preservation as a sign that it was inspired by God, but both beliefs faltered.
Overwhelmed and confused by the evidence for Christianity and the weakness of the Islamic case, I began seeking Allah for help. Or was he Jesus? I didn’t know any longer. I needed to hear from God himself who he was. Thankfully, growing up in a Muslim community, I had seen others implore Allah for guidance. The way that Muslims expect to hear from God is through dreams and visions.

1 Vision, 3 Dreams…

In the summer after graduating from Old Dominion, I began imploring God daily. “Tell me who you are! If you are Allah, show me how to believe in you. If you are Jesus, tell me! Whoever you are, I will follow you, no matter the cost.”
By the end of my first year in medical school, God had given me a vision and three dreams, the second of which was the most powerful. In it I was standing at the threshold of a strikingly narrow door, watching people take their seats at a wedding feast. I desperately wanted to get in, but I was not able to enter, because I had yet to accept my friend David’s invitation to the wedding. When I awoke, I knew what God was telling me, but I sought further verification. It was then that I found the parable of the narrow door, in Luke 13:22–30. God was showing me where I stood.
But I still couldn’t walk through the door. How could I betray my family after all they had done for me? By becoming a Christian, not only would I lose all connection with the Muslim community around me, my family would lose their honor as well. My decision would not only destroy me, it would also destroy my family, the ones who loved me most and sacrificed so much for me.
For Muslims, following the gospel is more than a call to prayer. It is a call to die.
I began mourning the impact of the decision I knew I had to make. On the first day of my second year of medical school, it became too much to bear. Yearning for comfort, I decided to skip school. Returning to my apartment, I placed the Qur’an and the Bible in front of me. I turned to the Qur’an, but there was no comfort there. For the first time, the book seemed utterly irrelevant to my suffering. Irrelevant to my life. It felt like a dead book.
With nowhere left to go, I opened up the New Testament and started reading. Very quickly, I came to the passage that said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
Electric, the words leapt off the page and jump-started my heart. I could not put the Bible down. I began reading fervently, reaching Matthew 10:37, which taught me that I must love God more than my mother and father.
“But Jesus,” I said, “accepting you would be like dying. I will have to give up everything.”
The next verses spoke to me, saying, “He who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for my sake will find it” (NASB). Jesus was being very blunt: For Muslims, following the gospel is more than a call to prayer. It is a call to die.

Betrayal…

I knelt at the foot of my bed and gave up my life. A few days later, the two people I loved most in this world were shattered by my betrayal. To this day my family is broken by the decision I made, and it is excruciating every time I see the cost I had to pay.
But Jesus is the God of reversal and redemption. He redeemed sinners to life by his death, and he redeemed a symbol of execution by repurposing it for salvation. He redeemed my suffering by making me rely upon him for my every moment, bending my heart toward him. It was there in my pain that I knew him intimately. He reached me through investigations, dreams, and visions, and called me to prayer in my suffering. It was there that I found Jesus. To follow him is worth giving up everything.

St Jude the Apostle of the Impossible

The apostle St. Jude is distinguished from the Iscariot by the surname of Thaddaus, which signifies in Syriac praising or confession (being of the same import with the Hebrew word Judas), also by that of Lebbaeus, which is given him in the Greek text of St. Matthew. St. Jude was brother to St. James the Less, as he styles himself in his epistle; likewise of St. Simeon of Jerusalem, and of one Joses, who are styled the brethren of our Lord, and were sons of Cleophas and Mary, sister to the Blessed Virgin.
This apostle’s kindred and relation to our Saviour exalted him not so much in his Master’s eyes as his contempt of the world the ardour of his holy zeal and love, and his sufferings for his sake.
It is not known when and by what means he became a disciple of Christ, nothing having been said of him in the gospels before we find him enumerated in the catalogue of the apostles. After the last supper, when Christ promised to manifest himself to everyone who should love him, St. Jude asked him why he did not manifest himself to the world? By which question he seems to have expressed his expectation of a secular kingdom of the Messias. Christ by his answer satisfied him that the world is unqualified for divine manifestations, being a stranger and an enemy to what must fit souls for a fellowship with heaven; but that he would honour those who truly love him with his familiar converse and would admit them to intimate communications of grace and favour. The sheer number of Christians and moderate Muslims killed or displaced has sent chills down the spines of many, including Andrew Boyd, spokesman for Release International, which serves the persecuted church in some 30 countries. He described the report’s finding as “a staggering death toll.”
After our Lord’s ascension and the descent of the Holy Ghost, St. Jude set out, with the other great conquerors of the world and hell, to pull down the prince of darkness from his usurped throne; which this little troop undertook to effect armed only with the word of God and his Spirit. Nicephorus, Isidore, and the Martyrologies tell us that St. Jude preached up and down Judea, Samaria, Idumaa, and Syria; especially in Mesopotamia. St. Paulinus says that St. Jude planted the faith in Libya. This apostle returned from his missions to Jerusalem in the year 62, after the martyrdom of his brother, St. James, and assisted at the election of St. Simeon, who was likewise his brother. He wrote a catholic or general epistle to all the churches of the East, particularly addressing himself to the Jewish converts, amongst whom he had principally laboured. St. Peter had written to the same two epistles before this, and in the second had chiefly in view to caution the faithful against the errors of the Simonians, Nicholaits, and Gnostics. The havoc which these heresies continued to make among souls stirred up the zeal of St. Jude, who sometimes copied certain expressions of St. Peter, and seems to refer to the epistles of SS. Peter and Paul as if the authors were then no more. The heretics he describes by many strong epithets and similes and calls them wandering meteors which seem to blaze for a while but set in eternal darkness. The source of their fall he points out by saying they are murmurers and walk after their own lusts. The apostle puts us in mind to have always before our eyes the great obligation we lie under of incessantly building up our spiritual edifice of charity, by praying in the Holy Ghost, growing in the love of God, and imploring his mercy through Christ. From Mesopotamia St. Jude travelled into Persia. Fortunatus and the western Martyrologists tell us that the apostle St. Jude suffered martyrdom in Persia; the Menology of the Emperor Basil and some other Greeks say at Arat or Ararat, in Armenia, which at that time was subject to the Parthian empire, and consequently esteemed part of Persia. Many Greeks say he was shot to death with arrows: some add whilst he was tied on across. The Armenians at this day venerate him and St. Bartholomew for the first planters of the faith among them.

How we celebrate
Easter in the Nigerian
Catholic Community

By Dr Chuka Oham and Stella Nwosu… Dr Chuka Oham is the Chairman of the Chaplaincy Council and Stella Nwosu is the Liturgy Coordinator of the Diocese’s Nigerian Catholic Community.
Easter Vigil opens the Easter celebration for us, and for most Catholics. It begins with the service of light, the Exsultet, the numerous readings from old and new testaments, the great Alleluia, the Gloria with the ringing of the church bells again, the liturgy of the Eucharist, and the exclamations and exchanges of Paschal greetings, and gifts. All these are ways the Church announces that the tomb of Jesus is now empty, and that a new chapter has begun in the life of the Church.
Nigerian Catholic communities at home and abroad rejoice at the celebration of Easter because they believe that Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the powers of darkness, has given us new life and destroyed our old self.
Days before Easter, we go to the local markets to purchase food for the celebration. We buy new clothes for our children to be worn on Easter Day. Adults are also adorned in their best outfits for the Easter celebration.
The celebration on Easter Day traditionally begins with attending Mass. You’ll normally see families together going to church and sitting together in church, after which pleasantries and Easter wishes are exchanged.
During this period, we would normally visit extended families to celebrate the Risen Lord with them. In celebrating Easter with family and friends, we also would engage in multiple activities including a display of masquerades and feasting.
Easter season is also a wonderful opportunity for our people to gather and raise funds for certain community projects. It is also a good time for family meetings to solve problems, and to commemorate recent funerals.
Why these traditions are special
These traditions remind us that we are one people of the community and it’s a time that brings everyone home to commune as a people.
Families come together to profess their faith in the one God, and Risen Lord Jesus Christ. Families also through their celebrations acknowledge the redemption/salvation of humankind. Family reunions also give the opportunity to reconnect spiritually and socially. Such reunions strengthen family bonds, and it is often a way to mend broken relationships and restore peace.
Members of the Nigerian Catholic Community sing during Mass.

Our Easter delicacies

Some of our special Easter food includes rice and stew, with assorted meats including beef, chicken, turkey and fish. There is also pounded yam or cassava, with melon soup, vegetable soup, and okra soup; pepper soup with goat meat or chicken meat; jollof rice with assorted meat; and plantain porridge with dry fish.

The most important part of Easter

Good Friday, an essential part of Easter, is a day of sober reflection and thanksgiving for the community as we join the global Catholic family in commemorating the passion, crucifixion, and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. We appreciate that on this sorrowful yet joyful day, we are reconciled to the love of God the Almighty Father.
The Exsultet is another important part of Easter when the light in the Church is extinguished and the Easter proclamation, which announces the victory of the Risen Lord, is sung. The people hold their lit candles, singing and dancing, especially when the traditional Igbo-Abu-Oma-Exsultet is used.

How we say: Happy Easter!

We would normally hug each other and recount “ha-a-appy-y-y Easte-e-er”. In our ‘WaZoBia’ languages of Nigeria we may say: “Baraka da Easter” in Hausa, or “Eku odun Ajinde” in Yoruba, and “Anuri Mbilite na-onwu Christi” in Igbo.
Preaching the word of God at Mass, on Easter in Nigeria…He Is Risen

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