Forward, in His Light

Mark in concert with wife Lea

WARM Easter greetings! I wanted to take a moment during these celebrations of Christ’s Resurrection to update you on some important changes here and upcoming events.

NEW WEBSITE

When I began writing over ten years ago, I started with a website that has served us well. But the backbones have become outdated and were affecting some display options. With the professional graphic design skills of my daughter Tianna, we have completely rebuilt The Now Word. You’ll notice that the layout is wider; there are easy to access buttons on the top; links to other writings are now underlined; and crucially, the search engine (top right corner) is now working properly! There are two ways to search… simply start typing a word, and wait for a menu to pop up with titles where the search word appears in posts; or simply type a word, hit enter, and a list will come up. It now functions properly everywhere on the site!

Also, this new website works seamlessly now with your smaller portable devices. The display is more uniform and will automatically adjust to the width of your browser window or device display.

And last, we have had nothing but grief with our subscription service. I get letters almost every day asking why they have been unsubcribed or stopped receiving emails from me. Some of the reasons are that my emails suddenly end up in your junk or spam folder. Or if you go away on holidays, and your inbox gets filled up and goes over quota, emails like mine will “bounce” back and the mailing list will simply unsubscribe you.

But we have moved to a completely new platform where we hope these problems will mostly disappear for you. If you want to be subscribed to this site, just enter your email address on the sidebar.

FUNDRAISER

A few weeks ago, I wrote Ministry Clan to update you on my family and our ministries. I made an appeal to our readership to support my work here in what has now been seventeen years of full-time ministry. But perhaps it is a “sign of the times” that we only raised a mere fraction of what this ministry needs to operate each year. In fact, it is barely enough to cover half of one office staff salary. Those who donated, in fact, made up less than one percent of this readership.

I don’t doubt that the Lord continues to call me to write. At least today. Because in the past few months, I’ve continued to receive letters like these:

I have never written you before, but I have been following your blog for a number of years now and in those years I have learned so much and the Holy Spirit has spoken so powerfully to me through your writings. —V.F.

I just want to thank you. Your messages are the first messages I have been able to read about these times that have truly given me hope instead of fear and have ignited a fire within me for souls. I’m journeying through this Lent with your writings from last year and they are so very impactful. I pray for protection over you and your family and for your faithfulness and obedience to continue to set this world ablaze with the fire of the Holy Spirit. —Y.K.

I rarely miss a Now Word post. I’ve found your writing to be very balanced, well researched, and pointing each reader toward something very important: faithfulness to Christ and His Church. Over the course of this past year I’ve been experiencing (I can’t really explain it) a sense that we are living in the end times (I know you’ve been writing about this for awhile but it’s really only been the last year and half that it’s been hitting me). There are too many signs that seem to indicate that something is about to happen… —Fr. C.

Keep up your great work. You have a mission the world depends on, and your life has consequences that transcend time. —M.A

Well, as I say, what’s good is God’s—the rest is mine.

There are also other letters going back and forth with my readers, answering questions, praying for family members, counselling young men addicted to porn, and so forth. And then there is my public speaking ministry and music. How can I do these things without the support of the body of Christ? Someone once said to me, “Go get a real job.” When I mentioned this to my children, one of my daugther’s said, “What could be a more valuable job than saving souls, papa?”

And so, if you are able, please click the Donate button at the bottom and help me continue this work. Moreover, I want to make an appeal to successful Catholic businessmen: Please consider making an investment in souls. We dearly need a benefactor or two to step up and help leverage this ministry out of its constant debt (we have re-mortgaged our home to fund this ministry’s projects. As such, we have no savings or retired funds. But we do have lots of joy!)

Forward, then, in Christ’s providence and light…