The CatholiCity Message
Volume VII, Number 21 – December 16, 2003
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
Before moving on to a truly heartfelt message about the movie, The Passion, here are the estimated results for the 2003 Christmas Tax Drive as of last night:
TOTAL TAX DRIVE DONATIONS = (FINANCIAL GOAL REACHED)
Like we always say, you guys are the best. We can't recall a more easy-going Tax Drive. Thank you.
Yes, we're still a bit short of our goal, and we would be grateful for another 10 or 15 "monthly" donors, but your regular-mail gifts are still coming in. Feel free to "pile on" to put us over the top:
https://secure.catholicity.com/monthly.html
Feel good you are part of a "city" where "taxation" is voluntary, service is supreme, 100% of us pray, and fewer than 3% pay the bills once a year.
And now, from our heart:
1. THE FIRST MILLION
Stay with us on this one. What follows is a reason why we just had a "tax drive," and why Our Lord sent you to be a part of CatholiCity. You can help convert the world.
We do not write that flippantly. You can play your part in converting the world.
There are 70,000 of us, and God has been lining us up for this for a long time–by my spiritual reckoning, since CatholiCity went online in February 1996.
A few months ago, we mentioned how we met Jim Caviezel, the actor who plays Jesus in Mel Gibson's "The Passion," at a prolife luncheon. We told you how he carried our relic of the True Cross that afternoon. We had believed for some time before then such a meeting was inevitable.
We have just been contacted by a friend we trust who has been working personally with Mr. Gibson. You were the main topic of this conversation. We agreed that you could help make or break this movie. This has nothing to do with money. It has to do with souls.
The Passion is coming. It will be released in 2500 theatres on February 25, 2004, Ash Wednesday. We'll spare you the details about the movie business (which we do follow closely), but the fact this movie will play in 2500 theaters is a miracle.
The first 72 hours of release in theaters makes or breaks a movie. Period. Between one and three million people go to see major hits like "Pirates of the Caribbean" during those first crucial 72 hours. If they don't go, the movie dies.
Your calling, your vocation as a CatholiCity Citizen, is to "walk" those first million viewers to the theater in the first 72 hours of the release of The Passion. Here's how:
We're going to send you a short email in a few days. This email will contain a website and an 800 number where you and anyone you know can buy tickets to The Passion in advance and find out where it will be playing in your area. We assume you'll purchase your own tickets, but--
We will not be sending this email primarily to ask you to buy your own tickets. We will send it for one reason:
So all 70,000 of us can forward this email to everyone in our address books.
If we all take up our cross (actually, spend a few minutes clicking on our "Send" buttons), we will reach 1,000,000 people through our address books. Those 1,000,000 could reach another 10,000,000 before Christmas.
In short we have an opportunity to achieve something that has never been done in the history of the movies: sell out the crucial first 72 hours before a movie is released. This will have huge repercussions which will dramatically alter the fate of this movie.
Do you remember how, after 9-11, someone wrote an email asking folks to go outside and light a candle or flashlight to honor the victims of the attack? That email was forwarded to tens of millions of folks in a matter of hours.
You've been given a great responsibility.
We invite you to reflect on this fact about Jesus' Passion: the only two who stayed with Him during his crucifixion were Mary and John. Everyone else abandoned Him.
Jesus even cried out that his own Father had abandoned Him. John stayed. Mary stayed.
Jesus needs 70,000 Marys and Johns.
Will you be his Mary? Will you be his John?
So please, when you receive The Passion email in a few days, forward it to everyone. Everyone. Every soul. Make this your humble Christmas gift to the baby Jesus.
We first heard about The Passion some time ago. We've been silent about it, waiting, waiting, waiting–for your sakes. We believe it will be the most viewed, most important, most watched movie ever made. As only a masterwork of art can do, it will transcend "normal" human experience.
It will reveal hearts. It will convert.
We've felt from the very first moment that this movie was planned by God before Mr. Gibson and Mr. Caviezel were born. We suspect they have suffered intensely for it, as have many others. None of us will ever know the suffering each endured to bring this to film.
You, too, were born to play your part in helping bring the first million souls to The Passion. 72 hours. Three days in Lent 2004.
Many years from now, you'll be able to tell your loved ones that you played your role in The Passion, and that it began when you gave the Christ Child a Christmas gift.
Let's pray together:
"Dear Father in Heaven. I will do what You ask. Whatever it is, I will do Your will. Please, Father, help me do Your will. Amen."
2. DROP DEADLINE
Finally, if you would like to give Mary Foundation tapes/CDs or Saint Jude Media novels as Christmas gifts, please make your request online by Thursday night, December 18, and we'll get them to your doorstep by Christmas Eve. Please include the extra gift for UPS shipping where indicated, and mention you need it by Christmas:
http://www.catholicity.com/maryfoundation/
http://www.catholicity.com/saintjude/
Thanks again. In the meantime, meet us in the Eucharist.
With Christ,
Your Johns and Marys at CatholiCity
