The CatholiCity Message
Volume VI, Number 1 – January 8, 2001
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
We're back! We always thinks it's better for all of us to take a breather from the CatholiCity Message during the Christmas Season, so we did. Did you miss us? Let's roll...
1. UNCLE MAX
Saint Maximilian Kolbe is more than just a favorite saint of ours. He's had a profound effect on our work here. We call him Uncle Max, and we've often celebrated 8 January (today would be his 107th birthday) with a party, inviting all our friends. The best part is ordering the cake at the local grocery store and having them put "Happy 107th Birthday, Uncle Max!" on it. "Wow," the ladies behind the counter exclaim, "your Uncle Max is still alive! How's he doing?" We always reply, with a smile, "He's still very active."
2. STICK YOUR HAND IN
Many of you have seen the newly redesigned CatholiCity, and we're enjoying your positive feedback. Our new Catholic Grab Bag page is up and running, and we encourage you to take a look at it. We've just added the Catholic Grout List to the new Grab Bag page, and we even posted the original (and goofy looking) CatholiCity homepage, circa 1996, among other odds and ends. You can take a look here:
http://www.catholicity.com/grabbag/
3. LAST YEAR'S PRAYER
Please join your 70,000 fellow CatholiCity Citizens in a prayer to Our Lord to start the New Year. We composed this prayer for the first CatholiCity Message of 2001, and it still works nicely. Let's take a breath, calm ourselves, and really concentrate on the words and not just read them, and begin in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...
"Dear Jesus, we see you in our mind's eye, walking toward us, dressed in your seamless white garment, your arms open, a peaceful calm in your brown eyes. We see the open wounds in your hands. We reach with our right hand and touch the wounds, then fall to our knees. You are our Lord and our God! We feel the warmth as you place your hands upon our heads; you listen in silence as we relay to you, in our hearts, the needs of our souls, our sorrow for our sins, the needs of our wives, husbands, our children, our parents, our neighbors, and our friends. Grant all these intentions! Give us the grace to be saints this year, Jesus. Give us the grace to go the extra mile for you, to not let our fear of humiliation stop us from showing and telling people about you, your mother, your Church, your pope, your truth, and your sacraments. You died for us and rose for us. Help us die for you so we can rise with you. Amen."
5. JOKE OF THE WEEK: PAPAL BUMPER STICKERS
Following our theme today of shamelessly and lazily cribbing stuff from previous CatholiCity Messages, and because there are literally tens of thousands of new Citizens who've joined us since we first did this, we humbly submit to you:
IS THE POPE CATHOLIC?
You bet he is. Our friend Dave called this morning after seeing a common bumper sticker and it struck him that this bumper sticker, if it were on the Popemobile, would take on a new meaning. The first is Dave's, and being creative geniuses and all, we've thought of a few more in the past couple of hours while cleaning out the chicken coop in our backyard this afternoon. (All right, we know, you didn't need details about the chicken coup.) This is one to copy to your friends:
BUMPER STICKERS SEEN ON THE POPEMOBILE:
"Question Authority. Ask Me Anything."
"Infallibility on Loan from God."
"God REALLY IS My Co-Pilot."
"Honk if You Pray the Rosary."
"Choose ETERNAL Life."
"Speak Softly and Carry a Big Cross"
"All Roads Lead to Rome."
"Say Mass, Not War."
"Give Me Confession or Give me Death."
"I Brake for Souls."
"Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss."
"Bible On Board."
"My Other Car is Also a Popemobile"
"From Poland With Love"
"I'll Never Get to Meet the Pope Because I Am the Pope."
"Livin' the Vida Papa!"
"Hang Up and Pray."
"Sin Happens."
"Make My Day. Kiss My Ring!"
"I'd Rather Be Saying Mass."
"Honor Student in the College of Cardinals"
6. WHY ARE WE CATHOLIC?
There are many answers to this question: because our parents had us baptized and at great sacrifice conveyed the Faith to us and siblings (if we have them). Because of God's pure grace. In all honesty, because we chose it and kept choosing it and kept going to Confession even when, in our younger years, some habitual sins seemed so strong as to tempt us to despair that we would ever overcome them.
But mostly, we're a Catholic because it's True. It's the only Truth that lines up with Reality. One time we asked a friend of ours what he had learned from his study of history, and he replied, "That original sin is real." In the same way, what we've accepted in all our years on earth is that God exists, that Jesus is God, and the Catholic Church is the only true Church of Jesus.
We can't deny it. It's true. Poke us with hot pokers, or put a gun to our heads, forbid us to eat pizza for the rest of our lives, and we still couldn't say otherwise. Perhaps oddly, we empathize for those who don't accept these truths; we know that 99.9% percent of the time, doubters are just being honest. They don't see what we see. They don't perceive the Reality of It All. Pope John Paul II wrote in Crossing the Threshold of Hope that "no man can be forced to accept the truth." This notion that our Holy Father expresses so succinctly is something that drives us to do what we do. It's therefore useless to try to force anybody to accept the truth, so what do we do?
We pray. We offer the Truth, directly and confidently.
End of Sermon.
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"In every triumph there's a lot of 'try'."
Frank Tyger
"I know I'm not dead, but am I alive?"
Frank Conroy
"...that I might not seek to be understood as to understand..."
Saint "Frank" of Assisi
RANDOM THOUGHTS...
Okay, so we were all over the place in the CatholiCity Message this week. Sorry. Sometimes that happens. There are two kinds of people in this world, and unfortunately, we're not one of them. We'll be all over the place this year, like every year. We've been skiing a lot lately, our children, who never skied before Christmas, are already much better than we are, which makes us proud. "Skiing" is a funny word. Just look at it: skiing. It was 10 degrees above zero, Fahrenheit, last night where we were. We don't know and we don't care what that is in Celsius, because we are Americans–Good Old U.S.A "Americans"--and that's just the way we are. We're getting on a plane to fly to Miami tomorrow to attend the Catholic Marketing Network tradeshow and we're going to see some alligators and an old friend during the trip, and if you knew him, you would rather wrestle with an alligator. Sometimes when one of our sons, who is six, looks up at us, our heart just melts. Our littlest son, now has a nickname that fits perfectly: Raptor Boy. And rightly so. Then there is our four-year-old, built like a tank. Built-thick like a brick house lovingly-designed by a second generation German Minnesota-guy paranoid about nuclear war. We can barely wait to find out just how big he'll be when he grows up. 6'6", 250, all muscle and bone? His nickname is Crazy Man of the North. Jesus is True God and True Man. Happy 107th Birthday, Uncle Max! We both love the Immaculata...and other realities...all connected–all true.
Until next time, we remain yours,
With Christ,
Your Friends at CatholiCity
