Chicago, IL.

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The following report comes to us from virtual school student Roberta in Chicago, IL:

As a St. Paul School of Evangelization online student, I’ve been thinking about how I can do my homework to go out and evangelize when I’ve been on lockdown in my nursing home for nine months. Sure, I can evangelize Facebook friends online, the nursing home staff, and the other patients here, but I continued to think about how else I can evangelize where I’m at.

One day in class, one of my small group members Gary shared that his granddaughter Tara was in the hospital. She needed a lot of healing in mind and body and she was also very far away from God. Each week we’d ask for updates on Tara, since we’ve all been praying for her. I’d suddenly thought of my friend and fellow parishioner Diane while in class and listening to Gary talk about Tara. Every time I was hospitalized, the Holy Spirit would prompt Diane to send me a get-well card. They always came during the moments when I was undergoing intense suffering and I needed to be comforted. The reason I know it was the Holy Spirit was because each time, Diane had no idea I was even in the hospital! I told her about it afterwards and she said she’d loved receiving handwritten greeting cards in the mail ever since she was a kid and had saved them all. Because she loved getting them, she understood the joy and comfort it might bring others, so now she regularly sends them to friends and family. I told her it’s as if God had given her a special “Greeting Card Ministry!” I asked Gary if I could send Tara a Christmas card while she was in the hospital. He said “yes”. All of my other classmates agreed it was a great idea!

I wrote a letter to Tara and put it in my Christmas card. (I also included a rosary, a how-to-pray-the-rosary pamphlet, a Divine Mercy image card, a Miraculous Medal, and praying a verbal “Hail Mary” along with every card.) After I wrote the letter, the Holy Spirit was telling me that this was going to be my very first letter to the sick, suffering, and dying in a possible new ministry in which I write to strangers in the hospital and the homebound in order to share the Gospel. I can do this to evangelize year-round! Had I not been on lockdown in the nursing home and attending classes at SPSE, this ministry may not have been born! I pray that Tara will receive my gifts and that God will use them to help bring healing to her in mind, body, and soul!

Praised be Jesus Christ!