Thanks to the Works of Mercy Fund from Word on Fire, Glenmary received two pallets of prayer resources, totaling about 5,000 pounds of hundreds of books and media resources that have been very beneficial to our mission.

While other religious communities may serve foreign missions, we serve areas of the United States that typically have never had a Catholic church before and often have high levels of poverty, and folks who do not attend a church of any kind.

So, the resources we have received from Word on Fire play a critical role in our part of the new evangelization movement with folks who may have had little catechesis or have never really encountered a faith tradition before.

Catechesis in the missions

For example, some of the books we received were given out as First Communion and Confirmation gifts in our North Carolina mission parishes. Each young person or adult who celebrated that sacrament was able to receive a gift of a Bible or an adoration prayer book.

Some of our other missions have populations that are both primarily English speaking and Spanish speaking. The resources we received that were published in both languages provided the opportunity for the parishioners to read the same book, but in their native language, and then share together across the parish the different things they learned from that spiritual resource.

Reaching Latino parishioners

The materials that were published in Spanish, particularly, have been invaluable because many of our Spanish speaking parishioners have had very little catechesis in their native language and have not completed all of their sacraments and may not be able to catechize their children effectively due to that language barrier. And so the resources that Word on Fire has provided in Spanish has been very, very helpful to our parishioners in our mission parishes.

We also do a lot of work with farm workers, and those in other industries who travel a lot throughout the year, working at different farms and other projects. They often have extremely limited access to the Mass and the sacraments and other faith resources in English or Spanish. The resources Word on Fire were able to provide, being nice and small and in the different languages, have been very, very helpful to us as we visit those farms and other locations and bring access to the sacraments, faith formation, and the Mass.

Sharing across faiths

All of this is so critical because Glenmary is often the first and only Catholic full time ministry presence in the mission counties that we go to in Appalachia and the Deep South of the United States.

Without this partnership from Word on Fire, we wouldn’t be able to provide the kind of catechesis and prayer resources to our parishioners.

It’s also very helpful for our work in ecumenism because we’re often working in areas that are predominantly have other Christian traditions present but have never met a Catholic before, have certainly never met a priest or a religious brother before.

The Word on Fire resources provide a great way to be able to share a book or a media resource that the person can look at on their own time, but have a non-threatening interaction, with our priests or brothers or lay evangelizers. We very much appreciate the availability of the Word on Fire resources in that regard, as we continue to build relationships with our fellow Christian brothers and sisters.

Strengthening formation

And internally within Glenmary, the resources have been very helpful to our priests and brothers—those who are in formation as seminarians or brother candidates—or our vowed members that have been with Glenmary for a long time. Each of our chapels that Glenmarians attend have received the adoration prayer book to pray with or other resources that the Glenmarian wanted for ongoing formation.

It’s been great to see our youngest members at the beginning of their journey being able to have access to these resources, as well as our older members who may be in their 80’s or 90’s enjoying praying with the prayer resources or continuing their intellectual formation.

Thank you, Word on Fire, for providing these high-quality resources to us! We look forward to using them for the years to come.

—Julia Sauter

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