Focus on Jesus! Move On with the Mission!

Dear brothers and sisters in Couples for Christ,

We, the members of the International Council, thank you for the many expressions of support that continue to pour in, through text messages, email letters and, as we have been informed, even through the blog. We are humbled by your trust in our judgment and in our decision to forge ahead to protect and preserve our name.

We would like to ask all of you to brace for more challenging times ahead. Rumors will fly, text messages and emails will flood cyberspace, emotions will run high. We entreat everyone to keep calm, to always seek the truth and be anchored on the Lord.

Just today, we received disturbing news that the Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the petition of Frank Padilla and the Foundation for Family and Life to lift the revocation of the registration of Couples for Christ Foundation, Inc. This is especially disturbing because it was granted without giving us the opportunity to be heard and notwithstanding our several motions and manifestations seeking only elementary due process for our position to be considered.

Be assured that your International Council is committed to seek justice and that we will do what we have promised—to defend and protect our CFC name. Be assured also that we will always be on the side of truth, of honesty and of justice and that our lines of action will always be legal, moral and righteous.

What is the Lord asking us to do in these trying times? Even as we, your Council, carry on the good fight of faith, we ask that you do not allow yourselves to be distracted from what the Lord has brought us into community for.

Let our rallying cry be: Focus on Jesus! Move on with the Mission!

Focus on Jesus

He is the reason why we are all here, united in bonds of love and service. To remove our focus on Him is to betray our very existence as Couples FOR Christ. We look to Him to always be our guide, in good times and especially in bad times.

Continue to pray and to fast. And to bring our concerns to His loving Mother who, as our Mediatrix, is also our source of comfort.

Move on with the Mission

Whatever happens in the weeks and months ahead, we do what we have to do to fulfill our vision and mission to truly renew the face of this earth. Nothing should distract us from our evangelization work, from the work of witnessing that we are all called to do.

And even if the going gets really tough, nothing should deter us from continuing Jesus' mission to love the poor as we love ourselves. The poor must not be further victimized by our loss of focus, by our selfish insistence on looking out only for ourselves.

There are many issues that confront, and that will continue to confront us. Those issues are not for us to resolve. God will resolve them in His own perfect time and in the way that is best for us. After we have done what is demanded of us, we leave everything in His hands. And what powerful and loving Hands they are.

We pray that the Holy Spirit, even as He has come in tongues of fire to set our hearts ablaze, will also come with His calming grace of peace and love. We continue to draw strength from His Word, as best expressed in James 1:2-4—


 * "My brothers, consider yourselves fortunate when all kinds of trials come your way, for you know that when your faith succeeds in facing such trials, the result is the ability to endure. Make sure that your endurance carries you all the way without falling, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."

God bless us all.