The CatholiCity Message

Volume VII, Number 12 – August 21, 2003

Dear CatholiCity Citizen,

Got lots of stuff for you today. Lots, including brushes with greatness, travelog, Madrid Makes Fun of Macfarlane, and a promise kept.

1. HE ASKED FOR PRAYERS
At a Right-to-Life Luncheon in Cleveland recently, we had the honor of meeting Jim Caveizel, the actor who plays Jesus in Mel Gibson's "The Passion." We lent him our relic of the True Cross to carry for the afternoon, but didn't have much chance to talk with him. Our impression: he is a sincere man, a holy son of Mary, battling to remain true to his faith in the difficult world of Hollywood. During his emotional talk, about the real sufferings he enduring while filming The Passion, he asked for your prayers. Will you pray for him daily through Easter 2004?

On a side note, Mr. Caveizel shared that his dream growing up was to play professional basketball. Ours was to be the catcher for the Boston Red Sox–a dream dashed on the rocks of not being able to hit the fastball (or the curve ball, for that matter) but we remain a decent hoops player.

Think you can take this old man from New Jersey, Jim? 21 by one. Best two out of three. Make it, take it. Call your own fouls (like a man). Just name the court. After, we'll buy the beer (or the bug juice).

2. HOPELESSLY
We're sure we were all saddened to hear of the passing of Bob Hope. There was little mention in the secular press of his conversion late in life to Catholicism, which surely was an answer to the lifetime prayers of his beloved wife, Dolores. We heard a story about Mr. Hope on the radio once. On his first days of school in Cleveland (his family emigrated from England in 1907), he introduced himself in the manner of the British Isles, saying his last name first, a la "Bond, James Bond." It came out, Hope, Leslie (hopelessly); he was soon derided as "Hopeless." So he changed his name to Robert. A friend of ours who works for EWTN, the intrepid Art Piretti, who visited Dolores on occasion, gave Mr. Hope a Miraculous Medal not long before his conversion to Catholicism. "Thank you," the nonagenarian entertainer replied, touched, as Art tells the story. And thank you, Mr. Hope. We'll pray for his soul, Mrs. Hope.

3. LONDON CALLING
We recently sojourned with a group of young American and Canadian apostolic friends to visit with Catholic leaders in London, England. Our goal was to pray and receive Communion together, begin friendships, and find ways to help each other during the New Evangelization in the coming decade. We were welcomed with open arms and warm hearts. At one point, our friends met a brilliant, young, sharply dressed Ukrainian Rite Catholic priest whose church happened to be right beside our hotel. Father Gregory was born in Saskatoon, Canada, and spoke perfect Russian. We met his bishop, as well. We remember him standing on the street with our friends. The first thing he said as we walked up to greet him was, "You look like a Catholic!" Although flattered, we're not sure what that means.

What does a Catholic look like? Content, we think, to be awake, and have a chance to do God's will for one more day. At least that's how we felt this morning, and pretty much every morning since we can remember. Content, regardless of the toll paid, the suffering required, even the joys given by Our Lady as gifts. Anticipating God's unfathomable plan for just one more day.

4. AS PROMISED
We promised last time to tell you about Saint Joseph, Terror of Demons. We were prompted to ponder this title while visiting the Oratory of Saint Joseph in Montreal, Quebec. There is a fresco (a carved stone tablet) there portraying Joseph holding his hand up, a family behind him, as he keeps a cowering, ugly, simpering, petrified group of demons at bay. "Why is Joseph so calm? Why are the demons terrified?" we asked in prayer.

Our first clue is Mary. In Genesis 3:15, Yahweh promises to put enmity (total separation) between mother of the promised messiah and the serpent. This separation is complete because of Mary's Immaculate Conception–she is not subject to Original Sin in any way. Joseph is her husband, her beloved groom, and their marital union and his virtue places him apart from demonic influence. It is part of Sacred Tradition that Joseph, although born into Original Sin, led a sinless life.

But evil shrinks from Joseph for a related reason. He is pure. Joseph is pure of body. Pure of heart. Pure of intention. Pure and sinless because he battled Original Sin. This is just our armchair theologicial speculation, (as usual) but we're coming to believe that demons cannot "see" a man who is pure. All demons know is force, lies, degradation, and filth. That is their world, and they want to make our lives just as ugly. Their sin blinds them, just as sin blinds us mortals.

We are afraid not of the dark, actually, but rather the dangers which the darkness does not allow us to see. The demons can't "see" Joseph because he is pure. Purity makes him invisible, just as pure water is perfectly clear. Evil spirits don't know when, how, or from which direction Joseph is going to hammer them. Joseph's job, when Christ was a child and up to this very day, is to protect the Holy Family, and through our baptisms, we are part of his family. So Joseph protects us. He will calmly raise his hand and keep the demons away, if you but ask him.

So let's. All 70,000 of us, together...

"Dear Saint Joseph, just as you brought Jesus and Mary to safety in Egypt, please bring the soul of Bob Hope to heaven. Just as you taught Mary's son, Jesus, please teach her son Jim Caveizel, during his trials in Hollywood. Just as you provided for your family, please provide for the impoverished Ukrainian Catholics in Father Gregory's flock in London. Just as you protected Mary and Jesus from evil through your courageous purity, ask the Holy Trinity to give us the grace needed to make contrite Confessions for our impure actions–and then embrace meaningful penances. Hold up your hand, Brave Joseph! Serenely stand athwart our demons, literal or figurative, as we grow to adulthood in the Catholic Faith. Ask your beloved bride, Mary, to hold our souls in her motherly embrace. Amen."

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"What conversations! What vulgarity and what dirt! And you have to associate with them, in the office, in the university, in the operating room...in the world. If you ask them kindly to shut up, they laugh at you. If you look annoyed, they persist. If you leave them, they continue. The solution is this: first, pray for them and offer up some sacrifice; then face them like a man and make use of the 'strong-language apostolate.' When I see I'll tell you–privately-- some useful expressions." Saint Josemaria Escriva

MORE STRONG LANGUAGE
We got a kick out of Pat Madrid's "Top Ten Least Popular Books by Bud Macfarlane," recently published in Envoy Magazine, which makes light of our house author's penchant for having a good time. For over thirteen years, we are told Mr. Macfarlane has worked long hours, at hundreds of conferences, staying up into the wee hours in hotel lounges and restaurants with his fellow apostles and faithful benefactors, across the globe downing glass after glass of alcohol-free soda water with lemon tricked up to look like Gin and Tonics, methodically establishing his repute as the Work-Hard Play-Hard Pray-Hard writer-slash-whatever. A rosary-wielding albeit untalented Catholic Hemingway, if you will. We're shocked, shocked, that Mr. Madrid could be so...accurate.

PAT'S TOP TEN LEAST POPULAR
BOOKS BY BUD MACFARLANE

10. War and Peace and Bud

9. House of Stucco

8. Pierced by a Piercing Booth Clerk

7. This Bud's For You: A Novel About Beer
and the Men who Love Beer

6. Men are from Mars,
Women are from Venus,
Bud is from Cleveland

5. The Bible (King Bud Version)

4. The Buds of Wrath

3. You're a Heretic, Charlie Brown,
and You Will Burn in Hell

2. Bud and the Giant Bottle
of Peach Schnapps

1. Bud Potter and the Goblet of Booze

Thanks, Mr. Madrid. For more of Pat's hilarious Top Ten Lists, go here:

http://www.envoymagazine.com/topten/secrets.htm

See you in September, friends.

With Christ,

Your Guys at CatholiCity