Unbroken Are We
Saturday, June 14, 2025
Outpouring of the Holy Spirit onto an unwanted infant and a brave teenage mother
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Recognizing the need to maintain one's spiritual health.
Here at Casa de Santa Maria Magdalena, Gabriel and I have
been blessed to have the opportunity to serve some of our ministry leaders of
the Catholic Diocese. We held two different retreats focused on the Spiritual Exercises
of Saint Ingnatius.
Our prayers and desires of holding the two retreats were to
give an opportunity to those who are in ministry roles in more populated areas
of our diocese recognize the need to maintain their spiritual health. We were
blessed to have Padre Niño Vásquez SJ who journeyed from Lima who is an expert
in St Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercise’s lead the retreats.
The 1st retreat we welcomed 27 women and, on the
2nd, retreat we received 14 men and 7 women join us for three days. Though it
was not the common 8 day or 30-day retreat that most people make it was most definitely
a great introduction for those who attended, and it gave them the most
important tools associated with Saint Ignatius’s spiritual exercises which are attended
to deepen one’s relationship with God through mediations, prayer and contemplative
practices. With the goal to deepen one’s
relationship with Jesus Christ, to help them become free from disorders, and attachments
so they may discover their identity, and mission.
We are so thankful to everyone who partners with us through
prayer and by their financial sacrifices. Without you this retreat would not
have been possible.
If you are interested in learning more about Saint Ignatian spirituality
and his spiritual exercises, than I encourage you to follow the proceeding link
to learn more. https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-spiritual-exercises/
Monday, April 21, 2025
Understanding the cost of loving God
Blessings to you my
brothers and sisters in Christ.
We have been raised to life with Christ,
and we must now seek the things that are above, Alleluia!
I pray your Lenten season was a
blessed one, full of conversions both big and small. We are indeed called to
conversions not just during the Lenten season but throughout the year. And with
that said if we allow Jesus to make small changes within our hearts each day
than we are on the right path. We just need to have an open and docile heart and
Jesus will do the rest. With Jesus’s merciful love and his forgiveness, we can
be made new again.
Now with the Easter season upon us
we now must respond to the love which we have received. I often tell the poor
here that Jesus was not kept on the cross by the three nails piercing his
hands and feet but rather it was his love for us that kept him on the cross.
With this in mind, we must respond, we must become his hands and feet here on
earth, we must imitate his love, generosity and immense mercifulness to all those
who cross our paths.
Though many approach the Easter season
as if there is nothing more Christians need to do because Jesus paid the debt
on the cross in full for us, believing there is nothing more required of us. Or
even worse many people take on the approach or belief that that somehow Jesus
owes us something or that we have a right to what he has to offer without
paying a price for what we want! However,
this is so contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church and the examples we
find in the lives of the Saints. They understood just as in the secular world,
that in the world of the divine “You get nothing, for nothing”, that there is a
“cost of loving God”. Just like a true friendship or true love between
spouses there is a demanding price one must pay, and this is no different when
speaking of our relationship with Jesus.
More so, “God loves us so much that
He expects us to love Him in return. And the price of being loved by the almighty
is high, as also is the price of growing in His love. The more precious
the commodity the higher the price, the most precious possession in the world
is the love of God. You don’t get this, I don’t say for nothing or cheaply;
you pay, and you pay dearly”. So, the question remains what is the cost of
Loving God? What is the recompense for His prior goodness to us and as the
wages so to speak? Father John Hardon S.J. wrote that God expects just two
things from us. The first is the willingness to give up whatever pleasant
things He may want us to surrender. The second is the willingness to take
whatever painful things He may want to send to us!” In other words, this Easter season we should focused
on what the price is to love God! We should focus our attention and studies to
the importance of what it means to pick up our own cross, and to embrace not
only what it means to suffer, but the JOY of suffering, of redemptive suffering,
in other words we should focus on the Cost of Loving God!
Saint Ignatius wrote “If God
gives you an abundant harvest of trials, it is a sign of the great holiness to
which He desires you to attain. Do you want to become a great saint? Ask God to
send you many sufferings… All pleasures of the world are nothing compared
with the sweetness found in the gall and vinegar offered to Jesus Christ- that is,
hard and painful things endured for Jesus Christ and with Jesus Christ.”
With that said we should reflect on Pope
John Paul II’s words in where he wrote that “suffering" seems to be
particularly essential to the nature of man… Suffering seems to belong to man's
transcendence: it is one of those points in which man is in a certain sense
"destined" to go beyond himself, and he is called to this in a
mysterious way.”
In conclusion we should reflect on
the words spoken from St. Philip Neri as he has been credited with saying that “The
cross is a gift God gives to his friends.”
My friends in Christ, may we except
the mission at hand to pick up our crosses, our sufferings, and hardships with Joy!
May we recognize that because God loved us first there is a great response required
on our behalf and to embrace the great cost of loving God! Between the
sacrifices and the cross we must pay, lies the whole price of DIVINE LOVE!
Though I am writing this letter to
you I feel that it is also a lesson I need to remind myself of. My heart and soul
have been reflecting a lot on my sufferings lately, on the loneliness of the mission
field, and the hardships of life in foreign missions in general. And now with the
Easter season upon us, I was eager to find myself in a new season, perhaps with
less suffering. And yet here on the first Monday of the Easter season, it is as
if I am still in the season of many trials and suffering, feeling almost guilty
for feeling this way as many are in a season of rejoicing, I remain close to our
Lord and know that he loves me dearly and through the gift of the crosses that I bear I am not alone in my sufferings as he
draws near me every day and night helping me bare their weight. I desire to
hold fast, to remain in his word and to make a plea asking for even more suffering!
Please pray for Gabriel and I and please
be confident that we are praying for each one of you by name.
Below, I have attached pictures from the
mission field, from the different Lenten activities that we celebrated with our
community here. I pray that you will enjoy
them.
Gabriel and I thank each one of you
for your love and support! The mission here would not exist without you!
After the Celebration of the word and distribution of Holy Communion everyone in our community participated in the washing of the feet!
Quotes used are taken from the following sources:
John A. Hardon S.J., Joy in Suffering, (Inter Mirifica, 25 January 2014)
Pope John Paul II. Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris (11 February 1984).
Friday, February 21, 2025
"Suffering" seems to be particularly essential to the nature of man.” - JP II
Have you ever heard the quote “The more we are afflicted in this world, the greater is our assurance in the next; the more sorrow in the present, the greater will be our joy in the future” by St. Isidore of Seville
I have found a lot of comfort in his words, and I must believe the words of Saint John Paul II when he wrote "suffering" seems to be particularly essential to the nature of man.”
As suffering has really been a theme of mine and Gabriel’s life and of so many of the poor we live among here lately. With that said I have been reflecting on the book of Job for the last couple of months of the theme it contains of suffering and the salvific and divine meaning it has for us if we dare to embrace it.
You may be asking what prompted such writing. And all I can say it is where Jesus has me at the moment. As well as I feel that the theme of living in solidarity with the poor just continues to beg for more of us as our years in the mission field increase. Let me explain to you a bit more, you see on January the 1st my friend Paula left this world, the world that inflicted so much pain on her. However, she was very much like Job. She accepted the will of God, and she never quivered, hid from it or cursed God for her suffering. Her journey on this earth was not kind to her by any means. She was mute, she had been abandoned by her husband, her daughter was born with down syndrome, her sister that was in charge of taking care of her was in many ways like the wicked stepmother, a villain that took advantage of her in more ways than one.
It was hard for me to journey with Paula, to see her suffering and her last few weeks on earth were even more harsh than her 57 years of life had been. One Friday morning I had received a call saying that she was in the hospital, so I had rushed down the mountain to find out what was wrong. Her toes had turned purple. The doctors said that she must have had a cut, and it got infected. And due to her undiagnosed and not controlled diabetes she was going to lose her toes. This is all despite the Sunday before she seemed totally healthy at Church. I prayed with her and then stepped out to talk with her sister about treatment and asked how I could help. To my horrific surprise I was told that she would not give consent to the doctors to operate on her sister. I pleaded, I prayed, I involved the parish priest, and despite my pleas, Paula was sent home to die a very slow and painful death.
The rotten flesh grew quickly, within a week it moved from her toes to her ankle, the next week to her knee and by the next to her thigh, and next to her organs. Her skin was swollen and areas that had busted open were full of maggots feeding on my friends’ flesh. I felt so much anger and sadness and each time I was visiting her, I could not understand why she had to die without trying to save her. For me I found it to be cruel, but that is the reality of where I serve. Due to an undiagnosed disease, uneducated family members, and the tolerance of pain and suffering that the poor deal with on a daily basis this situation that my poor fiend Paula was in, activity dying in such a gruesome way was to be expected and viewed as being normal.
But what was not normal, was the fact that despite all the suffering Paula reminded me of Job, she was confident and her actions reflected the words of Job in a real and concrete way for me when he stated “I know my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side”. (Job 19:25-27, RSV)
Gabriel and I visited her throughout her final journey, Gabriel played her guitar, we sang songs, and we read the promises of her inheritance in God’s Kingdom made in Scripture to her. I was able to bring her communion during each visit and she never cried, nor did she ever shed a tear, during her final journey she remained smiling and full of confidence.
My heart was so happy when I received the call early on January the 1st that she had just passed away because I knew that she would now find the most perfect peace and love that she searched for her entire life for here on earth.
I ask you to please pray for Gabriel and I, as we are still mourning our loss of a dear friend and please pray for the poor here and all of the world that somehow Jesus can relieve their sufferings on this side of heaven. Please pray for Paula's daughter Maribi who we have journeyed with for the last 6 years as we have lost her aswell, due to the fact that she has been sent away to live with another aunt 6 hours away despite our pleas made for her to live with us.
Please pray that we may we learn how to love like Jesus!
Christ's Servants
Karen and Gabriel Del Castillo
Mission Post: Casa De Santa Maria Magdalena: Caserio Santa Clara, Amazonas, Peru
We thank you for your prayers and your support.
Without the sacrifices made by each of you this work would be impossible.
Prayer request
Email: karendelcastillo@familymissionscompany.com
Donations Web Site: delcastillo.familymissionscompany.com
Sainta Maria Magdalena's list of current needs and opportunities to help the poor!
Please prayerfully consider making a one-time donation to Santa Maria Magdalena’s home!
Or you can partner with us by becoming a monthly donor and help us maintain our current ministries, as well as the following new ways in which Gabriel and I have felt called to serve the poor here in 2025.
· Maintaining our current monthly ministry expenses at $4000.00 per month
· Dirt to cement floor project- We would like to lay cement floors in approximately 15 homes in our small town. Each home would roughly cost 1,000 so a total of $15,000.00. (update- we only need $13, 000.00 more to complete this project)
· Purchase of a used truck for our Parish Priests. The cost is estimated at $15,000.00 - $20,000.00
· Repair of the chapel in Buenos Aires, a town we visit each week. Which remains closed because of the danger of it collapsing. The estimated cost $8,000.00.
· College Tuition for a young lady (Karina) who we have been so blessed to walk with. Housing, food, and studies per month will cost $200.00 a month so $2400.00 a year.
· Television for Santa Maria Magdalena’s home to be used for teaching $500.00
· Purchase of a Generator for the home $1500.00
(if you are interested in donating for a certain project or ministry, please make a note in the comment section on the donation page)
To make a donation please follow the link https://www.familymissionscompany.com/donate-maria-magdalena/
Monday, November 11, 2024
Grace, Mercy, and Peace to you my Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ!
We have been praying often for each of you and
give thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ for your docile hearts and your desire to
serve Jesus’s beloved poor.
We are so eager to share with you what Jesus has
been doing here at Santa Maria Magdalena’s home. There are so many glorious and
holy things that have taken place because of your love for Jesus, for us, and
for those, the home supports, it is safe to say that we are excited about this
newsletter.
With that being said, we would like to take a
moment to honor just exactly what Jesus has been doing here because of you.
The Gift to Serve: The Priest Retreat
Thank you to those who helped with prayers and
donations for the 3rd annual Priest retreat. It was such an honor to
be allowed once again to serve the Priests of the Chachapoyas Dioceses along
with our current Bishop and as well as our Bishop of Moyobamba Dioceses where
we served our 1st year in Missions. Having both the bishops together
was a blessing for Gabriel and I.
Please pray for our Priests who desperately need
reinforcements, and please pray for an increase of Priestly Vocations in our
dioceses. But more so please pray for our current Priests that they may be
protected by attacks from the Devil. That they will be committed to prayer,
rest, and renewal. They are in a lot of danger spiritually speaking as they are
very overworked. Some say up to 6 masses a day with at least an hour's drive or
more between communities, which is not at all a schedule that allows for intimate
personal prayer.
Please join us in asking the saintly women, Maria
Magdalena, Joanna, Susanna, and all the other women who provided prayers and
financial support to Jesus and his disciples to intercede for us on our behalf.
Join us in our pleas, that these brave and generous women intercede for us for
an outpouring of wisdom on how we as lay missionaries can help our priests find
rest and renewal through Jesus Christ.
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Not all of the Priest could attend because of a mudslide |
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The last day of the retreat |
All Saints
Once again, this year we celebrated All Saints as
a community together. We began the evening with the celebration of the word,
and then after we had a costume contest. The children dressed up and presented
their Saint’s history to us. They all did such a wonderful job. And of course,
we broke bread together and shared a meal with the community.
Check out some of these great saint costumes.
Sacrament of Confirmation
On November 4th our community of Santa
Clara traveled down the mountain together to attend the Confirmation mass. 9
people from our community received the sacrament of confirmation on this
remarkably blessed day for our little Catholic family.
Gabriel’s Confirmation
Gabriel received his sacrament of
Confirmation in Chachapoyas at a stunningly beautiful Church. Gabriel was so
blessed to have Father Robert as his padrino for confirmation and he was also delighted to be surrounded by so many
wonderful priests who have watched him grow in his faith over the years.
The Priests even had a special private lunch with Gabriel's favorite
Peruvian dish called Lomo Saltado waiting for him after mass.
Pastoral Visit
One of the most incredible things occurred this
past October for Gabriel and I. We were blessed to receive Sarah Granger and
Teresa Reardon to our mission post. To receive the Director of Family Missions
Company was such an honor and so life-giving. To be able to share with them our
little community and the home’s mission was more than we could have ever
dreamed of. They both were able to meet those we serve and to see in person the
miracle that Santa Maria Magdalena’s home is. On top of that, they came loaded
down with supplies that we needed from the USA.
Teresa blessed Gabriel and I so much with her
ability to take pictures for us while we served throughout the week they were
here. It is a challenge for Gabriel and I to take pictures because we are
always on the front lines, Gab with a guitar in his hands and I often times in
front of those we serve leading or praying with them making it nearly
impossible to discreetly take pictures. So the photos she took are such a gift
for us.
Here is a short testimony that Sarah Granger
wrote about her visit here.
Felicita is Not Forgotten
By Sarah Granger
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Felicita |
Eighty-eight year old Felicita
feels forgotten. She wakes up every morning up in the mountains of Peru next
door to a locked Catholic chapel. As the number of Catholics in town dwindle,
the catechist has given up opening it for a liturgy of the Word every week as
he once did.
In the evenings, as she carefully
walks down the mountain from her farm, she hears joyful singing from the
Seventh Day Adventist church up the road. Almost all of her friends and
neighbors have joined that church, or the Evangelical church around the corner,
and they have invited her many times.
As much as she longs for community,
longs to hear the Gospel preached, she can’t bear to leave her Catholic faith.
Her parents baptized her Catholic, made sure she received her sacraments, and
when the priest from a town hours away comes once a year to say Mass, she
rejoices to receive the Eucharist.
She doesn’t blame Father for coming
so rarely, after all, he has 250 towns like hers to attend to, and an
unreliable car.
She feels heartbroken about her 12
children, though. Each of them were lovingly baptized when she and her husband
were younger, and the Catholic Church was the only one in town. Fewer priests
and newer protestant churches led to them leaving the Church, one by one. Now
she is the only practicing Catholic in her family. She loves her children, and
though they have moved away, they occasionally visit. They ask her why she
doesn’t join their church. She can’t, she says, she loves her Catholic faith.
Though she agrees with her friend Luisa, people get hungry for the Word of God.
Who can blame them for leaving when the chapel is locked up?
One day, an American lady named
Karen with a big smile and two beautiful kids comes all the way up to her town.
Karen’s family gathers children in the center of town and plays games, teaches
them praise songs, and then visits Felicita. She’s a Catholic missionary! Karen
and her kids share the word of God and visit. They listen to Felicita say how,
although she feels lonely in her faith, she’s never alone.
“My kids tell me not to walk alone
to my farm,” Felicita smiles, “but I’m not alone. I talk to God all the time.
They say ‘What if you fall?’ I do fall, but God helps me up. He’s always with
me.”
Karen gets permission to bring the
Eucharist to Felicita. Felicita and Karen rejoice. They have a communion
service on a little bench outside of the locked church. Jesus is palpably
present.
Felicita is not alone, not
forgotten.
--
Sarah Granger
Executive Director
Family Missions Company
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Watching our special guest to get off the plane |
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1st picture taken after tons of hugs |
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Everyone in Santa Clara came to great Sarah and Teresa |
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After a Mass in one of our pueblos |
Healing Retreat
Though we were extremely blessed by a pastoral
visit, I cannot help but believe that the women who the home serves received
the largest gift. FMC’s director Sarah Granger led a two-day healing retreat.
It was so life-giving for all those who attended. It was so remarkable to watch
Jesus and the Holy Spirit in action. The women who attended were set free from
so many lies that the world had told them. They encountered love, mercy, and
forgiveness during the retreat, and for many, it was their first time to experience
Jesus in such a real way. Please join me in praying for each of these beautiful
women, I also ask you personally for prayers for myself as I continue to
journey with each of them. Lastly, please join me in prayers of thanksgiving
for the incredible gift that the retreat was for this community, and in lifting
up Sarah Granger and her servant’s heart for leading the retreat. And for
Tereasa Reardon who so humbly served during the retreat.
I feel my director’s testimony that she shares is so beautifully written and worth sharing with you all.
A God Who Heals
By Sarah Granger
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The group of women who attended the retreat |
Over twenty years ago, God called
me into foreign missions.
I came with a lot of woundedness.
My difficult marriage had ended, leaving me to raise three beautiful children
alone. I felt shame and fear as I faced the future. In that place, God led me
to an awesome counselor, walked with me to healing, and called me to serve Him
as a lay missionary with my kids.
I felt certain that my wounds would
hinder my ability to serve the people of Mexico, but I was wrong.
When women saw that I was a single
mom, they immediately knew there must be some pain in my past, and felt drawn
to share their brokenness with me. Many, like I had been, were in abusive
relationships, many were raising kids alone, so many were hurting.
Talking to my counselor after my
first year, I felt overwhelmed by the pain that I was encountering. “I think I
need to come back to the US and get a counseling degree,” I shared, “I have no
idea what to say or do with all of the mess that these amazing women are
dealing with. All I can do is hold their hands, and cry with them, and share
with them how Jesus has saved me. Sometimes they let me help them in other
ways, but usually crying and praying is all I can do.” “I think that’s all you
should do,” he told me, “I think they need a missionary. Therapy is great, but
it takes years of commitment from them. You meet them where they are, and lead
them to a God who heals.”
I returned to my mission
post, determined to keep leading as many of my friends as possible to Jesus,
the God who heals. In my current role as director of FMC, I always keep that
goal in mind.
Last week I had a chance to
lead 20 women in a Healing of Emotions retreat in the mountains of Peru. We
only had two days together, and I wondered if they would feel safe opening up
and receiving healing from God.
I was blown away. Thanks to
the trust that Karen, the full time missionary in that place, had built with
each of the women there, they came ready to share their hearts and receive
God’s mercy, grace, and love.
I told them of my brokenness,
and they opened up about theirs.
So many of their stories were
much darker and harder than mine - one sweet older lady had been abandoned as a
baby in a small town where no one took her in for months as she crawled from
house to house to beg for food; one had been beaten regularly by both parents
and then by her husband; one had been married to a witch doctor for 18 years
who abused her and their children; many had to leave home at 9 or 10 years old
to work full time to help support their families.
One beautiful lady wept as she recalled the
joy she felt as a seven-year-old when she was told she would be able to go to
school and learn to read, only to be pulled out of school soon after to care
for her younger siblings because both parents had to work full time.
“I have never felt loved,”
another heroic woman shared, “not by my parents, not by the father of my
children, never.”
The brokenness was
overwhelming. It was hard to understand what God could do with my little words
over two short days.
Part of the retreat is to
introduce the women to “safe space” prayer, a type of Ignatian imaginative
prayer where we invite Jesus to come to us in a place where we feel safe, share
our hearts with him, and listen to what he has to say. After this prayer time,
one of the ladies said, “I never knew prayer could be like that. Jesus really
loves me and comes to me. I can’t wait to tell my children and husband!”
“I feel like a huge weight
that I didn’t even know I was carrying has been lifted,” another woman shared,
“I can’t wait to tell everyone I know about what Jesus can do.”
Jesus heals, he meets us in
our darkest and most broken places. He lifts our burdens.
Even after more than twenty years
of sharing, I can’t wait to tell everyone I know about what my God who heals
can do!
--
Sarah Granger
Executive Director
Family Missions Company
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These women are priceless |
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The 1st night we had a celebration of the word and many received the body of Christ |
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Sarah giving a talk |
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Preparing Dinner for the retreat |
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I
truly desire to share so much more with you about what Jesus is doing here, but
I know you all have so many tasks at hand each day, and do not desire to keep
you from them. I am grateful for the time you have allowed me to share with
you.
However, I would like to ask you to
pray for the following
Please
pray for Gabriel and I, to decrease so that Jesus can increase within us.
Please
Pray for my two oldest sons as both of their wives are expecting their second
child.
Please
pray for my daughter Julianna
Please
pray for our Priests here
Also
please pray for the upcoming mission trip planned for March 1-8, 2025. That it
will become a reality and that those who Jesus invites to give a week of their
lives to the poor will truly encounter Jesus in a real way through those they
meet.
Please send us your prayer request,
it would be a blessing to pray for your intentions.
May we learn how to love like Jesus!
Karen and Gabriel Del Castillo
Mission Post: Casa De Santa Maria Magdalena: Caserio Santa Clara, Amazonas, Peru