The CatholiCity Message
Volume VII, Number 6 – April 16, 2003
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
Please forgive us. An emergency at our headquarters has delayed us for a few weeks so it took longer than usual to write to you. We have a life-changer, a real gut-puncher, for your Holy Week with today's message. It is a topic very close to our heart.
1. TWO OUT OF THREE
We concentrated on giving you two gifts so far during Lent by encouraging you in freedom to incorporate Fasting and Daily Prayer into your life as the world swirled around us with war and rumors of war.
2. THREE
What is the third gift? Prayer, Fasting...and What?
The third gift is Tithing. With prayer, we give our souls. With fasting, we give our bodies. With tithing, we give our worldly goods–money.
With each of these three gifts, we leap beyond mere lip service into real and concrete acts which demonstrate to God (and to ourselves) that every gift God gives us deserves to be returned freely to the Father. Each is an imitation of Christ Jesus, who prayed, fasted, and gave up every worldly good He possessed–unto death.
Jesus prayed until He sweat blood. He fasted always–often 40 days at a time. His only earthly possession–His seamless cloak–was stolen and gambled off at His crucifixion. On Good Friday, He gave all.
In short, Jesus tithed 100%.
DEFINITIONS
We write this on April 15th, the day Americans obey Jesus and give unto Caesar what is Caesar's by paying taxes. In terms of money, God asks less of us than Caesar asks: only 10% according to the Bible. The Catechism does not supply a particular percentage,
though it is required of every Catholic to financially support the Church. The tradition going back to Old Testament times is 10%--or the "first fruits."
The word "tithe" literally means "ten" and 10% is considered the minimum "full offering" in the Bible.
The Lord says, "Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, 'How are we robbing you?' In your tithes and offerings... Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and thereby you will put me to the test... if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing of blessing." (Malachi 3:6-10)
First Fruits (which refers to the harvest) means sacrificing to God the best we have to offer. Old Testament dudes literally sacrificed their best lambs by slaughtering them. They burned their finest wheat. We are not shepherds and few of us are farmers. Our lambs and wheat are digital dollars sitting in banks, yet these dollars represent our toil and sweat–our long hard hours of work.
God the Father offered His First Fruit, Jesus, as the Lamb of God, replacing the Old Testament sacrifices with His Son on the Cross and at Mass. Jesus upped the full offering to 100%. Priests, nuns, and brothers mirror Jesus' 100% by their religious vows.
Tithing is giving God the first dollar you earn out of ten–not the last dollar. You are literally committing a religious act of sacrifice by writing a check to your favorite charity. At the end of the book of Malachi, God literally dares us to "test" His generosity on this matter, promising blessings beyond our wildest imaginations.
BEFORE PRAYER AND FASTING
We can testify to all this. Tithing changed our life.
And by changing our life, it changed yours.
Years ago, we were a Sunday "buck in the basket" guys like most everybody else. In truth, we were stingy with God, Who had given us His best: a sure simple faith, loving parents, a happy childhood with a great siblings, excellent friends, athletic ability, intelligence, writing talent, energy, drive, and the finest education available.
Yet we knew nothing about tithing until we were in our late twenties.
Then a good Catholic woman named Mary Jo sat us down and showed us the key Bible passages about tithing. It blew us away. We had no excuse for our negligence because our own parents had always been so incredibly generous with their financial generosity to our parish, to charities, to their children–they were perfect examples, in fact. Our parents never "worried" about money either. Yet they were always so quick to give it away.
We were out of work and couldn't find a job for the first time ever. We had credit card debt up to our nostrils, and the repo guys were after the car.
When Mary Jo enlightened us, we had five hundred dollars left in the bank. We wrote a check for $500, sent it to a Catholic charity and never looked back. Found a great job soon thereafter.
BENEFITS
Unlike some Protestants, we don't believe that God necessarily "rewards" your tithe financially or materially, though that can and does happen.
After all, Jesus told us that we would have enough food, clothing, and shelter simply because Our Father loves us. How many of us have ever really missed a meal?
The primary rewards of tithing are spiritual. God returns our dollars with Grace. Health. Friends. Supernatural guidance for life's big decisions. We like to think that God rewards tithing 100-fold with whatever it is that we really need–even if we don't know what that happens to be.
We were so excited about tithing that we decided to tithe a portion of our free time as well as our money.
As a result, we volunteered to help organize a prolife conference in Ohio in 1991. At that conference we gave away our first free audio tapes almost as an afterthought–and used our tithing money to pay for the tapes, a Post Office box, and software.
The Mary Foundation, Saint Jude Media, CatholiCity were born because of tithing.
We took God up on His dare and He blew us away. To this day we write checks to the Mary Foundation just like many of you.
Have you enjoyed Saint Jude Media novels? It's because God taught us about tithing.
Have any of our recordings helped you? Every one of the millions of tapes and CDs you've distributed were paid for by free-will donations.
Has CatholiCity helped you? Thank God, literally, because of tithing.
Mary Jo taught us. We're just passing it along. Tithing starts things. In your life. In the lives of others. That's what we've learned.
Prayer. Fasting. Tithing.
The Spiritual Trifecta. Many of you already do all three. You know well what we're talking about. Some of you sometimes do some of all three, but you need to take bigger steps to advance spiritually.
Some of you simply need encouragement to get started, just like we needed Mary Jo. Don't wait. Leap. Test God on this. It's in the Bible.
On the other hand, as husbands and fathers, we know that money is important. It represents our work and the worldly goods we depend on every day. Because money is significant, all the more reason, we say, to make Jesus Lord of money in our lives.
We have to admit that we truly enjoy tithing now after all these years of watching it bear fruit in the lives of millions of souls around the world through the Mary Foundation. Writing those checks to our favorite charities and parish is enjoyable.
It's liberating.
Ultimately, tithing is like your honeymoon night. It's something that you can't delegate to somebody else to do for you. And until you actually do it–and do it without any reservation–you can't really understand it.
Our Easter Wish is for you to commit to tithing for Lent 2003, or step things up a major notch if you already tithe.
PRACTICAL TIPS
For best impact on your soul, give enough so you'll have to go without something. This way you'll know you're giving your first fruits. We also think that you should commit to giving regularly--
on a schedule, whether it's every month or every three months. Giving sporadically or rarely makes it too easy to forget this honorable duty. God takes care of you every minute of every day of every year. Taking care of His apostles once a month is more than reasonable. As with daily prayer and fasting, you need to make it a habit.
Commit to tithing for the next seventeen months and you'll tithe for seventy years.
CATHOLICITY'S TITHE
As a Citizen of CatholiCity, you are our most valuable resource. You are our "First Fruit." You 70,000 are "supernatural money" in the bank.
A few months ago we had the novel idea of "tithing" you to some of our favorite charities this Lent, but it has to be your decision. We can only offer the opportunity.
Below are three apostolates we love to support. It would be so cool if you chose this Lent to became lifetime benefactors to one, two, or all three of these apostolates. Consider giving each one an unusually generous sacrificial gift (and we know that for some of you a heroic gift would be just a few dollars–the actual amount varies from family to family) right now before Lent is over–and then become a regular benefactor to participate in the harvest of souls, through good times and bad, for the rest of your life. "Some are meant to be sent. Some are meant to send." You can send missionaries into the field.
SOULS FOR THE BUCK
What we aim for with our charitable giving is the biggest spiritual "bang for the buck." We value efficiency. Forgive us if that sounds odd.
We also have a rare perspective as workers at a charity. First, we have met many of the leaders of other charities. We also often have an insider's view of how much impact their work has on souls because we observe it firsthand. We consult and exchange advice with other leaders regularly.
Each apostolate we're going to recommend to you is run by its founder and started up less than five years ago. Each one reaches or will reach millions of souls on a global scale, yet approaches its work in a personal way, one soul at a time. They are all growing like crazy as a result and will grow even faster with more financial resources. Each one stretches every dollar for maximum effect on souls. In other words, you'll be getting in on the ground floor of promising spiritual investments.
Each in their own beautiful way focuses on the bringing the Culture of Life into reality in society and has its greatest impact on younger souls-- the next generation of Catholic adults. We consider each founder responsible in every sense of the word; they have offered their very lives for the Church we all love so much.
In fact, we consider each founder a potential saint (but then, aren't we all?). They inspire us with their virtue. They all have an excellent if not bizarre senses of humor, and none of them knew we were planning to recommend you to become their benefactor this Lent.
Finally, we believe strongly that all three apostolates must succeed if we are to hope to convert our society to the Culture of Life in our lifetime.
1. FELLOWSHIP OF CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
Curtis Martin is training hundreds of dedicated Catholic leaders as full-time missionaries on an ever growing number of college campuses. Thousands of students are being converted and then nurtured in the True Faith. Many then become FOCUS missionaries.
Curtis himself came to know Jesus through a Protestant campus mission group–and promptly left the Catholic Church. He became a Protestant minister before returning to the Catholic Faith several years ago. He knows that college is where most young Catholics lose their faith. FOCUS is turning that sad dynamic on its ear by forming an army of Catholic disciples who will become the saints of the next generation. FOCUS is the New Evangelization in action. Find out more about FOCUS here:
Or send your donation to:
FOCUS
"CatholiCity Tithe"
PO Box 1210
Greeley, CO 80632
2. WORLD YOUTH ALLIANCE
Anna Halpine is getting old. She's been running the most effective youth organization that lobbies the United Nations on prolife and profamily issues for a few years now and she's, like, 26. The WYA has over one million members from every continent and has trained over 500 young leaders to participate in conferences at the United Nations. The forces of the Culture of Death like Planned Parenthood are strong and well-funded in the UN to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
The bad guys are constantly trying to cram pro-abortion and other language harmful to families into official documents which are then forcefed as the basis for law in poor third world countries. Yet UN bylaws requires that the "youth" of the world must be consulted, and the WYA was formed to authentically represent young people–and young in the world want basic necessities like food, clean water, and reliable services–not abortion, condoms, and sterilization programs. With virtually no money yet plenty of guts, pluck, and a mission based on Catholic social teaching on the dignity of the human person, Anna's WYA has scored amazing victories to the delight of Third World delegates. This is David versus Goliath, and David is winning again. Find out more here:
Send a donation here:
World Youth Alliance
"CatholiCity Tithe"
847-A Second Avenue #502
New York, NY 10017
3. THE GIFT FOUNDATION
It is an understatement that Steve Habisohn, founder of the Gift Foundation (and E5 Men) has inspired us here. We share the same crazy idea that all of North America and much of the world can be converted to Catholicism in our lifetime. We both agree that this conversion has to begin in Catholic families first, and that the evil one frustrates God's plan in families by poisoning human sexuality.
Fortunately, Pope John Paul II has given us what his biographer, George Weigel, called the "theological time bomb" which will destroy the enemy: the Theology of the Body. The Gift Foundation teaches the Theology of the Body with conferences, low-cost tapes and CD series by Christopher West and other top experts. More cool stuff is in the pipeline. More info on the Gift Foundation here:
http://www.giftfoundation.org/
Send your donation here:
The Gift Foundation
"CatholiCity Tithe"
PO Box 95
Carpentersville, IL 60110
Whew. Thank you for hanging in there with us. Let's end with a simple prayer together, then a joke a friend sent us today, plus a quote we gave you in the last message.
"Dearest Mary, you followed Jesus all the way up Calvary Hill, then watched them torture and murder your innocent boy. Yet you did not encourage your son to come down from the cross even as your own heart, too, was pierced by a sword. We want to be with you. We want to be with Jesus. We want the Cross, too, because if we are his brothers and sisters, his friends, we do then long to be with Him where ever He goes."
"Give us the courage to fight and struggle up our bloody hills to the exclusive realm of suffering, and not count the Cross as scandal but glory-- the only doorway to life and resurrection. O, how you have suffered with Jesus, my sweet lady Saint Mary. Let us taste your tears. Let us drink the water and blood flowing from His side. Hear the cry of our hearts! Let us be with Jesus, forever and ever and ever and ever more! Amen."
QUOTE OF THE WEEK REDUX
"Fasting is better than prayer and almsgiving is better than both."
Saint Clement I
JOKE OF THE WEEK: A TRUE STORY
A friend of ours is an officer in the naval reserve.
A few weeks ago, he was attending a conference that included admirals in both the US and the French navies. At a cocktail reception, my friend found himself in a small group that included an admiral from each of the two navies. The French admiral started complaining that whereas Europeans learned many languages, Americans only learned English.
The French Admiral asked, "Why is it that we have to speak English in these conferences rather than you have to speak French?"
The American admiral replied, "Maybe because we arranged it so you did not have to learn to speak German."
Until next time. Happy Easter!
With Christ,
Your Friends at CatholiCity
