The CatholiCity Message
Volume XV, Number 9 – October 19, 2011
RE: Free Catholic Booklets
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
Today after receiving Communion, I begged God with all my heart to inspire me to convey precisely what you needed to know to give full consideration to distributing large numbers of our all-new, free Catholic booklets. I am also confident that you will gain insights into helping souls that will surprise and delight you, so please, keep reading.
WHAT GOD PROMPTED ME TO TELL YOU
During my prayer, I was very, very strongly prompted to ask you this: Imagine that you have died and God is showing you your life in heaven. I know it is hard to imagine heaven in a literal sense, but you can easily imagine heaven in the conceptual sense by asking yourself the following questions:
"How many people did I help bring here through my own actions in cooperation with God's grace?"
"How many people are not here because I declined to take certain actions despite God's prompting?"
What the Mary Foundation is offering you today is not only the best Catholic booklet ever for inspiring others to deepen their relationship with Jesus. What the Mary Foundation is really offering today--and in the realm of grace, what Our Lord is offering you today--is treasure in heaven: a uniquely low-cost opportunity for you to influence lots of people to change their lives, of their own free will, in a way that will place them on the path to heaven.
ORDER ONLINE: https://secure.catholicity.com/
ORDER BY MAIL: http://www.catholicity.com/orderform.pdf
THIS NEW BOOKLET IS NOT MAGIC
I believe that Jesus wants to remind us that we will meet these people--countless more people than we may realize--when we are in heaven. Our booklet, "Seven Daily Habits for Faithful Catholics" is not magic. It is comprised of 16 handsome pages with a full-color cover designed to stand out (in a friendly way) on the rack in the back of a church. (I've personally tested it. People absolutely will grab 'em and read 'em.)
A POLITE REQUEST
The contents are an adaptation of a very successful article by Fr. John McCloskey that contains a polite, extremely well-thought-out request to practice seven simple daily spiritual habits such as Morning Prayer, Examination of Conscience, etc. Father John wisely includes practical advice on how to go about integrating these habits amidst our stressful, distracting culture. We also know the booklet is powerfully effective because it has worked brilliantly for over a decade for thousands of people who read the original article. I know beyond doubt that it works because it changed my life by inspiring me to add three of the seven habits in 2002 (I'm too embarrassed to admit which ones).
GOD'S NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE
The booklet also works because of human nature. People who go to Church on Sunday (or shop at your grocery store) certainly will not mind a polite and direct request to grow closer to Jesus by spending more time with Him. Sometimes, it's just a matter of asking people to make a change. This booklet makes it easy to ask. We also know that this booklet works because God is actively seeking a closer relationship with every single person who might encounter it and will flood them with grace if you just give them a chance.
BETTER THAN ELECTRONIC MEDIA
Imagine a man picking up this 16-page booklet in the back of your parish or at the grocery store. In a matter of minutes, without needing to plug anything in or carve out a significant amount of time from his day, you have provided him with a polished, intelligent, and reasonable opportunity to change his life. He can finish reading the booklet in the pew (or in his car before he leaves the parking lot).
Evangelizing with CDs works because it appeals to a person's heart for an hour with all the inspiration a talented speaker provides. Evangelizing with novels works because you can immerse a person into a compelling "Catholic" world for 20 hours. This new booklet works because it makes a polite but direct challenge in a matter of minutes (while providing each reader with the opportunity to learn more through our free CDs, novels, and website).
https://secure.catholicity.com/
NO SUCH THING AS ONE CONVERT
If just one booklet out of a hundred you distribute inspires just one person to pray morning prayers, you have added 365 days of morning prayers to that person's life over the coming year--and have added grace to the lives of everyone that person interacts with, as well as downloaded real power into the grand economy of grace that is the Mystical Body of Christ. If that one person is a mom or dad (or later becomes one), his or her children will be taught to pray a lifetime of morning prayers.
You have added all those graces to my life and your life, too, because we are all connected in the Mystical Body. This is why I am always expressing my thanks for your participation in the work of the Mary Foundation. My heart is filled (and sometimes feels like bursting) with gratitude every time I pray for you. I have begged God and Our Lady to bring you to the Mary Foundation every single day at every daily Mass for two decades--years before many of you arrived.
INFLUENCING GENERATIONS
Imagine the spectacular ripple effect of inspiring just one couple to go to Mass every day for the rest of their lives--and that couple passing the habit down to the lives of dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so on? How many souls benefit from one worthily received Communion? From a lifetime of daily Communions? From generations of thousands of daily Communions? All because you left a ten-pack of booklets in the back of a church.
STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
We occasionally ask you politely and directly to help reach others. If you think it's a good idea, you respond. We give stuff to you, then you give it to others. In this sense, we are probably the simplest apostolate in America. This is surely because Our Lady gave me a very detailed plan to set it up that way on a cold October night in 1991, when I first pictured millions of people in my mind's eye being transformed by giving away free stuff.
It seemed crazy then. It still seems crazy. So be crazy. It will take a bit of your time (to distribute the booklets) and some sacrifice (financial and spiritual) but I know you can do it because you have done it.
STRETCHING A DOLLAR UNTIL IT SCREAMS
You wanna talk crazy? Now consider that you can order one thousand booklets for a ridiculously low minimum donation of a hundred bucks. I imagined you doing just that while we figured out how to do for booklets what we have already done with CDs and books. Believe me, I was shocked to find out that getting 50 one-page pamphlets typically costs at least $20 with shipping and handling! (We've all seen some of the wishy-washy stuff in the backs of our churches.) Multi-page booklets cost a lot more.
So we figured out how to send you up to 30 sixteen-page booklets for nothing, with free same-day shipping, no strings attached. Or as many ten-packs as you want for a buck each, whether you need 100 or 10,000. Wow. For the first time ever, it is within the means of virtually every single person reading this email to have these life-changing Catholic booklets inserted into your parish bulletin and reach your ENTIRE parish in one weekend for a staggeringly, laughably affordable donation.
https://secure.catholicity.com/
DON'T FORGET YOUR GROCERY STORE!
Just about every grocery store in your town has racks open to the general public--you can expect to reload ten or twenty booklets during your weekly shopping (at least that's what I've been finding at my suburban grocery store).
Virtually every CatholiCity Citizen reading my email has the ability and wherewithal to keep the racks of three to seven nearby parishes and grocery stores stocked all year long, silently but effectively evangelizing hundreds, if not thousands, of souls at locations you are already regularly visiting.
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD ONLINE
To help even more souls, in addition to making distribution of "Seven Daily Habits for Faithful Catholics" your personal apostolate, it is crucial that you forward this message to the folks in your address book and post links on your favorite blogs, Facebook, forums, Twitter, and so on. Since we started this Message in 1996, you, the Citizens of CatholiCity, have played a pivotal role in jump-starting online word-of-mouth for new free materials from the Mary Foundation. Here is the link to this Message on our website:
http://www.catholicity.com/message/2011-10-19.html
This email is already quite long (please don't nod too vigorously) but I am grateful that you took the time to read it (or skim it!). I know you will not regret giving these booklets a try--in a really big way, if you can. Keep imagining your arrival in heaven and having Jesus say to you, "Well done, my good and faithful servant. Come meet all the souls you have helped bring here!"
We will be back with a "regular" CatholiCity Message soon. Thank you for being a faithful part of our work, as always...
With Immaculate Mary,
Bud Macfarlane
and Your Friends at CatholiCity
