If one day God is merciful and I make it to heaven, there are many people who need to be given credit. But one of the chief vehicles for salvation in my life has been Fr. Larry Richards.
I have written about him at length here at this blog and at NewEvangelizers.com. I did not have a real relationship with Jesus Christ until Fr. Larry introduced me to Him. I separate my life into before and after the Teens Encounter Christ weekend I spent with Jesus and Fr. Larry (and where I met my beautiful wife).
And I know I am not alone in my gratitude towards him. He once said that if he stood before God in judgment, he hoped to point to the thousands of souls that he brought with him to heaven. I do not believe that to be an exaggeration. Thousands of people have had a profound experience of the Lord because of this one man.
He runs The Reason For Our Hope Foundation (the banner is at the top of my blog). They recently sent out an appeal for funds. I know Fr. Larry will use all of his funds wisely and for the building up of the Kingdom of God. Here are his words:
Praised Be to Jesus Christ!
Happy Thanksgiving! As we again reflect on this season of Thanksgiving I am so grateful to all of you who have prayed for me and the Foundation and so generously supported us, so that we can continue to help people encounter Jesus Christ and bring hope to the darkness! Thank you for all your help!
Next week is the First Sunday of Advent, and with Advent we begin a new Church year! So as we begin this new spiritual year, we need to take inventory of our spiritual life and see if we have grown spiritually this past year. How have we grown since this date last year? As I have reflected on many times, if we are not growing, we are dying! So let's begin by asking Jesus for His grace to grow more in love with Him and others this year by making a "spiritual New Year's resolution" - to spend more time with Jesus and become more and more generous with our lives, and thus love Jesus and be Jesus to the world!
On another note, have you seen our new website? It is the newest fruit of your financial and spiritual support. Check it out: www.thereasonforourhope.org. With your support, we were able to complete this project, and we will be moving forward with video-conferencing and live-streaming of my weekly Mass on our new website, as well.
Finally, this is our once-a-year request for your financial help with our Annual Appeal. This is something that I really hate doing, but, at the same time, I know that we are blessed when we are generous and when we share what He has given to us. This past year my Spiritual Director of the last 30 years, Msgr. Peterson, died, and his last request of me was that we continue his work in bringing people to Christ through his retreat house. So he gave to the Foundation the Avila House Retreat Center, and it is in terrible disrepair!
After doing my retreats these last 25 years, I know that the most effective way of bringing someone to Jesus is through a retreat experience. So this is something that is at the very core of The Reason for Our Hope Foundation. The problem is that we are going to have to put over $300,000 into this Center to bring it up to code and to make it a place where people can come to experience the Hope of Jesus Christ!
This year we really need some people to be extra generous to help us to do this! Please pray about it and ask Jesus what you should do, and then do it! You can be an instrument of His hope and salvation with your gift - please help! I know that I can count on you - Thank you!
Know that I pray for you twice a day and ask you to please pray for me. Remember I love you!
God Bless You+++
Fr. Larry Richards
Founder of The Reason For Our Hope Foundation
So click the link below and donate if you can this holiday season. The greatest gift Christmas gift we ever received was Christ Himself. Please help Fr. Larry give this Gift to others.
And as always, I will never ask of you anything I am not willing to do myself.
http://thereasonforourhope.org/donate/
No comments:
Post a Comment