The CatholiCity Message

Volume IV, Number 19 – August 25, 2000

Dear CatholiCity Citizen,

Please forgive the delay in getting back to you with an update for the Tax Drive. Since last Monday, when our appeal began, it's been one unending roller coaster ride. We've got great news, bad news, then more great news. Based on the success of our recent messages containing little nuggets like asking your guardian angel to be the Alarm Clock of Last Recourse, we're also going do stuff like that more often. And now...

1. THE GREAT NEWS
The response to our short "Apology" last week was simply, beautifully wonderful! In poured hundreds and hundreds of mail-in and online donations, dozens of new Monthly Heros–and along with estimates based on your responses promising mail-in donations when your paychecks and budgets enable it next month–it should add up to over $90,000! This means that CatholiCity will be expanding services and hiring new workers in the coming weeks and months. We willgo to the next level of online evangelization, and we will reach hundreds of thousands of new souls we otherwise would not have reached. All Glory to God! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You're the best.

We would only ask that if you were considering a donation or promised a donation, please follow through in the coming weeks. We're counting on you–literally. If you keep it coming and we go past $100,000, we might be able to squeeze in another full-time worker. In the meantime, we've directed our webmaster to take our "Tax Drive" info off the CatholiCity homepage and replace it with a page announcing the new free Rosary CD, but you can still make a donation by sending a check made out to "CatholiCity" to CatholiCity, PO Box 26101, Fairview Park OH 44126 or make an online donation here:

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

2. THE BAD NEWS
On Friday morning of last week our operations manager for the Mary Foundation and Saint Jude Media, resigned to take a teaching job which started on Thursday of this week. It was all bang-bang last-minute stuff: he received the offer two days earlier and felt it was best for his family. We can't tell you what a blow this was, especially with 70,000 letters scheduled to go out announcing our new Rosary CD to the non-Internet world next week. On Saturday, the future looked pretty bleak. We were anticipating weeks of scrambling to find a replacement, lots of extra hours of work, and postponing important plans. Sure, we've seen Our Lord part the clouds and make the sun shine before, but we're human beings, and we're subject to the natural emotional dejection we are sure many of you have felt when your hopes and dreams are suddenly dashed. We was especially bummed because we have a Big Secret Thing planned for early next year and that Big Giant Mystery New Thing has a window of opportunity that is closing fast, and might stay closed for years.

3. MORE GREAT NEWS
But by Monday morning, without doing anything more than ask Our Lady for help in prayer, we've "run into" two qualified candidates to fill the position. We've been interviewing them all week–and we've hired both–one for operations and one to work at CatholiCity. Your tax dollars at work, as they say. That's why this update is so late. The Big Giant Secret Mystery Thing is back on the front burner, too.

4. RULE NUMBER BOTH
These next two items are about effective principles for intercessory prayer. True Story: We had three marvelous things happen to us this past Sunday at a parish picnic. First, we found one of the guys who we're going to hire. Second, we were decisive victors in both the water balloon toss and the potato sack race. Third, we bumped into a lovely woman we had met only one time before, at a party several years ago. She was holding a baby. The first thing she said to us was, "Yeah, I remember you from the party. You promised to pray one of those really long novenas for me because my life was in a shambles." Turns out the prayers were answered. After an annulment, she met and married a good Catholic man, the father of the child in her arms. A happy ending.

Rule Number 1: You may never know if your prayers are answered. Pray anyway. (Water Balloon Rule: Pick a balloon that is not filled all the way with water so if you drop it, it doesn't burst.)

5. PERSISTENCE IS COURAGE
Another definition of the virtue of courage is the ability to persevere while suffering. Catholics used to use the term "long-suffering." Persistence is Courage. Repeat that to yourself. Persistence is Courage. Write it on an index card and tape it to your refrigerator. So instead of just praying once or twice for your wayward uncle to convert, or for a friend's marriage to get straightened out, or for the infertile couple you know to adopt a baby, begin praying for your intention every day, day-in and day-out, year-in and year-out, with the resolve that you're going to pray for them until the prayer is answered or until you die, whichever comes first. There is nothing like the joy of finding out your prayers have been answered after ten or fifteen solid years of persistent daily intercessory prayer. The other benefit of persistent prayer is that it changes you. You'll find yourself taking the responsibility of praying daily more seriously. You'll skip your prayers less often. Then, in that mysterious way of grace, you'll become addicted to goodness. A duty is transformed into a pleasure. A comforting callus forms on the shoulder carrying the cross.

Rule Number Two:
Intercede Every Day Until the Day You Stop Breathing.

6. WHY FULTON SHEEN MAY BE CANONIZED SOMEDAY
Because he said stuff like this: "The man who thinks only of himself says prayers of petition. He who thinks of his neighbor says prayers of intercession. He who thinks only of loving and serving God says prayers of abandonment to God's will, and that is the prayer of the saints."

7. ALL TOGETHER NOW
Please join 22,000 CatholiCity Citizens around the world in this prayer of thanks for another successful CatholiCity Tax Drive. "Dear God from Whom all blessings flow, we thank you for the generosity in prayer and material sacrifice of all who participated in this year's appeal. Bless them, Father. Multiply their gifts into an overflowing explosion of grace, healing, love, and spiritual prosperity. Please guide CatholiCity in prudence during this coming year to use these sacrificial funds to benefit the most number of souls, in time and through eternity. Immaculate Mary, Queen of CatholiCity, Pray for Us! Dear Jesus, not our wills, but Yours. Amen!"

JOKE OF THE WEEK
Two elderly men were walking along the beach; their wives were walking behind them. One man says, "Eddie, did you know I've been taking these new memory pills? They're tremendous." "What are they called?" Eddie asks. The first man scruntches his forehead, embarrassed that he can't remember the name of the memory pills. "Wait!" he exclaims. "Petals. Red Petals! Name a flower, Eddie, the one with red petals. You know, it has a long green stem. With thorns..." "A rose?" Eddie guesses. "Yes, that's right!" says the first man, smiling brightly, as he turns around to address his wife, "Rose! What was the name of those memory pills?"

Until next time, we remain yours...

Yours with Our Lady,

Your Buddies at CatholiCity