The CatholiCity Message
Volume III, Number 16 – June 14, 1999
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
There will be two CatholiCity Messages this week, this one and the next one, in a few days. This one is last week's CatholiCity Message, and the next one will be this week's. We couldn't do last week's last week because we were offline during the Catholic Marketing Network tradeshow in Philadelphia. Now that you're thoroughly confused, let's begin! High-powered Catholic media force that we are, after attending the trade exhibition during the day, we were up until 3 am most nights in the hotel bar (downing cola and smoking cigarettes), entertaining other high-powered Catholic media figures, fostering relationships and cutting deals that will affect the direction of things for years to come (for our Citizens in Rio Linda, we're kidding about the high-powered media stuff. Mostly, we were just having a blast hanging out with all our friends). Alas, we weren't able to fire up the old laptop one single time. Let's go...
1. MURDER IN STEUBENVILLE
We have two intentions to pray for this week. As many of you know, two students of Franciscan University of Steubenville were murdered off-campus. Please join us:
"Dear Immaculate Mary, intercede for the souls of the two Steubenville students, and procure from your Son the graces and consolations for their family and friends who have been hit so hard by this loss and injustice. Amen."
For the sake of privacy, we have not used their names. You can find out more details about what happened at this address:
http://pages.prodigy.net/jimts/memorial.htm
2. COME ON, IRENE
Now for the reason behind a second prayer intention below. We have been corresponding with a woman named Irene. Raised Catholic, she is a staunch atheist, and has been pounding us with the usual arguments against belief in God and belief in the Catholic faith. We're not apologists by trade, and we conduct so much email correspondence that we simply don't have the time to do the research and write the proper responses. Besides, We've never talked anybody into being a Catholic in our lives. Not one person. Still, Irene had a certain spark in her writing. She's funny. We admire her sincerity and intellectual honestly, which we do not doubt. She truly believes that religious people are irrational (just we as believe that atheists are irrational). She actually read one of our novels in order to do "research" on believers. We think she was a bit surprised when we wrote back to her, though our counter-arguments failed to convince her of anything. Despite her bravado, we also sensed a certain bitterness and hopelessness in her soul. It must be bizarre being so certain there is no God in a world filled with billions of believers. We truly appear foolish and irrational to unbelievers. In our final email, we told Irene that wwe would do something special for her, but not what that special thing would be. Well, it's simple. Together, we are going to pray for her to receive the gift of faith. Let's do it...
"Holy Spirit. We pray for You to descend upon the home and heart of Irene. We beg You to explode in her heart. Show her the Reason betwixt and between Your Mystery. Jesus promised He would send us You, the Paraclete. If Jesus is Truly God, then His Word is Perfect, and we can pray in confidence that You will enter into Irene, and hound her, until the only thing that stands between Irene and belief is her will. For those suffering souls among us who are willing, we offer our sufferings and crosses on this day for Irene's conversion. We love You, and we love her, and we love and pray for all the Irenes in our families and friendships. Saint Jude, help of the hopeless, pray for Irene. Saint Anthony, Miracle Worker of Padua, pray for Irene. Immaculate Mary, Sweet Mother of God, touch the soul of Irene. Saint Philomena, pure and chaste virgin, pray for Irene. Saint Paul, formerly known as Saul, knock Irene off her horse. Amen."
3. MORE ABOUT MARY
Recently, we mentioned that we have no problem focusing on Our Lady at CatholiCity. For those of you who are wondering what Catholics really believe (and why) about the Mother of God, there is a free recording from the Mary Foundation called "The Truth About Mary," featuring two of the premier Catholic apologists of our times, Marcus Grodi (Coming Home Network and EWTN's Journey Home) and Patrick Madrid (Envoy Magazine and Surprised by Truth). U.S. Residents can get a free copy by writing a note to the Mary Foundation, PO Box 26101, Fairview Park OH 44126. A donation is optional. Order online through the CatholiCity homepage.
4. EIGHT AND A HALF FEET
Many thousands of copies of Bud Macfarlane's third novel, House of Gold, started shipping last week, and we've already received several wonderful emails from CatholiCity Citizen readers who (despite themselves) stayed up all night reading it. On top of the spectacular online response from CatholiCity Citizens, who were able to request the first copies a couple weeks ago, our direct mail campaign to tens of thousands of Catholic homes in the U.S. and Canada is under way. Usually, we measure the letters by number, but during these peak periods, we measure by "feet,"--that is, how tall the request envelopes are when stacked on top of each other. Today, in the biggest mail day in the history of the Mary Foundation or Saint Jude Media, we received 8.5 feet of mail (the previous record was a little over 6 feet of mail). Our dedicated workers are laboring feverously and working long hours to keep up with the avalanche. Please pray for our workers, because next week is supposed to be the "heavy" response week for the direct mail.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"I saw a great multitude of them go by, as though they were being thrown down a precipice. There are so many times that these cursed creatures torment me, and so little is the fear I have of them, seeing that they cannot stir unless the Lord allows them..."
From the Doctor the Church, Saint Teresa of Avila, on demons
5. STAR WARS REVIEW
We finally got a chance to see the new one a couple weeks back. Besides a few good special effects (par for the course in movies nowadays compared to Starship Troopers or The Matrix), it was pretty boring. We found the reference to the virgin birth stupid and offensive. We laughed at what should have been the serious parts and (literally) slept during what should have been the edge-of-your-seat parts. The Scythian-Guy with the double Jedi Light Sword had the worst make-up job in recent movie memory.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"Having a family is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain." Martin Mull
Your Friends at CatholiCity
