The CatholiCity Message

Volume III, Number 8 – March 17, 1999

Dear CatholiCity Citizen,

We're baa-aack! Bigger and better than ever before–with something different this week–Classic Movie Reviews, Lotsa Quotes, but first...

1. OUR LADY OF POMPEII
Huh? Never heard of her, you say? Neither did we until a writer friend of ours who knew what a big fan we are of 54 Day Rosary Novenas told us the story of Fortuna Agrelli, daughter of a military commander in Naples. On March 3rd, in 1884, Mary appeared to Fortuna, who had been suffering from incurable, severe cramps for thirteen months. Our Lady appeared on a throne with the Christ Child on her lap. Saints Dominic and Catherine of Siena were at her side. She told Fortuna that the title Our Lady of the Rosary was very pleasing to her, and taught the young girl to pray the 54 Day Rosary Novena. At the end of Fortuna's 54 Day Novena, she was healed, and the novena spread quickly around the world. The miracle deeply affected Pope Leo XIII, who is well known for having composed the Saint Michael Prayer after seeing a vision where satan would be given great power over the 20th Century. He also wrote many encyclicals urging Catholics to pray the Rosary.

Some of us here have been praying 54 Day Novenas for many years and part of the mission of the Mary Foundation and CatholiCity is to rekindle this powerful devotion. Now Catholics all over the world pray 54 Day Rosary Novenas together five times a year. For more info, go here:

http://www.catholicity.com/support/praywithus.html

The next Novena starts this Friday, March 19th, on the Feast of Saint Joseph the Husband of Mary, and ends on May 11th. Won't you join us? And won't you copy this message to others and ask them to join you? If you already pray a daily Rosary–that's great. Just add the intentions of all of the rest of us to your prayers.

2. A SIMPLE PRAYER
Let's all 10,000 of us pray this simple prayer: "Holy Spirit, explode in my heart and in the hearts of all who pray with me! Amen."

3. FAVORITE MOVIES

HIGH NOON. Black and White. It begins with Gary Cooper as Will Cane, the marshall of a small western town, on the day he marries a beautiful Quaker girl, Amy Fowler, who abhors gunfighting and violence (played by Grace Kelly in her first movie role). The marshall is all set to retire and leave town with her to start a new life as a storekeeper when word comes in that Frank Miller, who Marshall Cane put away five years earlier, has been pardoned and is coming in on the noon train. Most of the movie consists of Cane being abandoned by first his wife and then all his friends to fight Miller and his evil band of thugs all alone. One of the fascinating aspects of this movie is it's simplicity, starkness, and perfection of timing. The events in the movie take place in "real time," that is, the movie begins with less than two hours before Frank Miller's train is scheduled to arrive. You follow Cooper around town as the clock ticks on screen and in your living room; the tension mounts as noon draws closer and closer, and Cane becomes more and more alone, realizing his death is minutes away. It is a perfectly executed story, with insights into the dark side of human nature, what true courage is, and what it means to be married.

OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS:
Another western (color), "Shane," starring Alan Ladd (who has one of the best voices in Hollywood history) as an aging, reluctant gunfighter who takes up with a homesteading family which is holding out against a rancher trying to drive them off their land. Your children will relate to the young boy who idolizes Shane, and there is an understated attraction between Shane and the homesteader's wife which reinforces the virtue of chastity.

We also recently saw "Love in the Afternoon," (black and white) a romantic comedy filmed in Paris. It stars Gary Cooper as a rich playboy who falls for a young cellist, played by Audrey Hepburn. She uses fanciful stories gleaned from the files of her father, a detective to the rich and famous, to convince Cooper she is a worldly, jaded jetsetter. This is the kind of movie that would be impossible to watch if made today, because Cooper's immoral relationships would likely be shown too explicitly by a modern film maker. As it is, the movie illustrates the depravity of "temporary" relationships, and without giving away the surprise ending, affirms marriage.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"If religion were small enough for our intellects, it could not be great enough for our soul's aspirations."
Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson

"The crown of marriage, then, is the chastity of procreation and faithfulness in rendering the carnal debt."
Saint Augustine

"A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon."
G.K. Chesterton

"The last suitor wins the maid."
Langland

"When you go forth to find a wife, leave your eyes at home but take both ears with you."
Seumas MacManus

"Whose wit, in the combat, as gentle as bright, ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade."
Thomas Moore

Have a great week!

Yours in Christ,

Your Friends at CatholiCity