The CatholiCity Message
Volume XVII, Number 1 – January 10, 2013
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
Welcome, new readers and old friends to Volume 17 of the CatholiCity Message! Unfortunately, we are falling a bit short on our annual Christmas appeal, and after a brief update, we'll have some quotes, and...something on Thomas Aquinas College and Notre Dame at the end.
ALMOST ALMOST THERE
We are truly grateful for every person who has contributed to our annual appeal so far. Your sacrifice during hard times has gotten us 75% to our goal of $100,000, and we are only a bit behind last year. If you are one of tens of thousands "citizens" who has not taken part before, will you consider taking a few minutes to put us over the top? We still need hundreds of heroes. Please pray, consider, and decide.
Like last year, I will personally match every gift with a dollar, and so will Tim Harrison, our managing director, so please, hammer us!
I ask this one final time for the sake of the souls of the huge number of real people we can reach in 2013. Imagine meeting souls in heaven whose destiny was changed by the powerful free materials you helped pay for, or found the truth via our tremendous search-engine placement, or unknowingly received the grace of conversion through our unique group prayer in this monthly message. You can donate online or send a check, and we still have plenty of beautiful Child Jesus lapel pins, framable art-house prints, and fridge magnets to go around:
http://www.catholicity.com/support/donation.html
Thanks again. CatholiCity Citizens are the best!
QUOTATIONS
"Because grace is not an object of experience but is known by faith, we cannot rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved (Council of Trent). However, God's blessing in our lives shows that grace is at work. Asked about being in the state of grace, Joan of Arc responded at her trial, 'If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there.'"
The Catechism Simplified (2005)
"Many Christians miss out on priceless gifts from heaven because they do not take Jesus seriously about Ask and You Shall Receive."
Joseph Wood
"In a world where there is so much noise, so much bewilderment, there is a need for silent adoration of Jesus concealed in the Host. Be assiduous in the prayer of adoration and teach it to the faithful. It is a source of comfort and light, particularly to those who are suffering."
Pope Benedict XVI, 2006
"What does the poor man do at the rich man's door, the sick man in the presence of his physician, the thirsty man at a limpid stream? What they do, I do before the Eucharistic God. I pray. I adore. I love."
Saint Francis of Assisi
"This changed my life: during a Confession, the Holy Spirit, speaking through the priest, who happened to be my bishop, asked me to keep in mind that Jesus is always with me. Every day since then, several times a day, I tell myself, 'Jesus is with me.' Try it."
G.K. MacBrien
"Give me more Jesus! Through prayer. Through adoration. Through Communion. Through Confession. More more more more!"
Porter Mann
JUST ONE PAGE
Did you know that CatholiCity is the #1 Google-ranked Catholic Baby Name website in the world? We're also ranked #1 to #5 in dozens of other major search engine categories, including the Baltimore Catechism, the Catholic Encyclopedia, Catholic Novels, Catholic Church Teaching, and Catholic Links. These are just a few of the many ways random "surfers" get a chance to receive the life-changing free Catholic materials you help provide. We have other great resources you may not know about listed on just one page here:
http://www.catholicity.com/resources/
BOOMERANGS OF THE WEEK
Q: What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back?
A: A stick.
Q: What did Mrs. Boomerang say to Mr. Boomerang as he walked out the door, his bags packed, after a big argument?
A: You'll come back! You always do!
NEW YEAR WITH MARY: TENS OF THOUSANDS PRAYING
Long ago I adopted Pope John Paul II's official motto, which my sons and I pray every morning. You probably already know the short Latin form: Totus Tuus. The full English translation makes for a beautiful act of consecration, and we invite you to join in praying it with CatholiCity Citizens throughout the world in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...
"I am all yours, Mary, and all that I have is yours. Amen."
PRAYED FOR YOU AT MASS TODAY, AGAIN
I pray for you every day, usually after receiving Holy Communion, using the prayer below I composed and memorized over twenty years ago:
"Dear Jesus, I pray for the spiritual and temporal needs, conversion and sanctification, healing, perfect health, long life, and freedom from all evil of all Mary Foundation benefactors, great and small, past present and future, especially those who've asked us to pray for them today, including their children and grandchildren and their future spouses. Continue to send us generous benefactors and angels and graces from heaven to guide, guard, govern, and protect our decisions, families, workers, locations, and projects, Amen."
My prayers are always answered (eventually), so don't be shy about asking Jesus to honor them in your life.
4. WORLDWIDE DEATH CULT
Your strong reaction to my comments in this message after the presidential election convinced us to reformat it as an article so you can forward it as a link to your friends, or read it now in case you missed it:
http://www.catholicity.com/commentary/macfarlane/election.html
SOME BIG FEAST DAYS COMING
Tuesday, January 22. Dark anniversary of Roe v Wade. Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children (U.S. Bishops)
Thursday, January 24. Saint Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church (his masterwork, Introduction of the Devout Life, remains one of the top three Catholic books of all time, and a complete version is online at CatholiCity.com)
Monday, January 28. Saint Thomas Aquinas (wins hypothetical Catholic prize for his maximum combination of holiness and intellectual brilliance)
Thursday, January 31. Saint John Bosco. After Saint Joseph, one of the greatest dads who never had kids.
Monday, February 11. Our Lady of Lourdes ("I am the Immaculate Conception." Enough said.)
February 13, Ash Wednesday. Once again, it falls on a Wednesday (I never tire of saying that, for reasons little related to maturity). Comes pretty early this year, and boy does the whole world need it, so start "mentally" preparing now.
SPEAKING OF AQUINAS: MY SON AT COLLEGE
My eldest son Jude is an upper classmen at Thomas Aquinas College (TAC) in Santa Paula, California. High IQ skips a generation on my side of the family, so he's an especially intelligent young man and is thriving. TAC's rigorous and unique great books program (no textbooks, no lectures, relatively few tests and papers) masks its very "uncollege"–ish vibe of peacefulness, prayerful traditional spirituality, and a wonderfully, and brilliantly conceived, wholesome and satisfying social life. It is a surprising financial bargain, even compared to many state schools, and as you can see, nestled in the bowl of a mountain, it might just be the prettiest college campus on the planet (check out the chapel):
http://www.thomasaquinas.edu/admission/360%C2%B0-tour
http://www.thomasaquinas.edu/sites/default/files/campus-h.jpg
Most impressive, in my opinion, are the individual students and alumni, with whom I have spent much time over the decades, and who hail from (and have started) some of the most decent Catholic families in the country.
Even so, I really wanted to contrast something about my alma mater, the University of Notre Dame, which is far down the scale compared TAC, Franciscan University of Steubenville (OH), Belmont Abby College (NC), Christendom (VA), Thomas More (NH) and a dozen other well-known "faithful" Catholic colleges in terms of fidelity to Rome, (and ND fails not just in terms of orthodoxy, but also social atmosphere). Despite its flaws, a good Catholic kid can still navigate around the liberal goo at ND and find like-minded friends and a few great priests and professors. It remains a serious, if not pricey and elitist, academic institution with an amazing campus and even laudable vestiges of Catholic moral sensibilities (including exclusively single-sex dorms with no overnight visitation for the opposite sex). Mass is celebrated in most dorms on most days of the week.
To the contrast: no college is more famous for its football program than Notre Dame, which returned to prominence this year. Notre Dame's football program is a money-generating machine and publicity tsunami. Few people know, however, that the majority of colleges lose money on their football programs and virtually all other athletic programs, yet consider these essential for attracting top students, and perhaps more crucially, a financial investment for keeping alumni connected and donating.
I supplied details about TAC for those of you unfamiliar with it, but I wanted to point out that it was recently ranked #2 in the country for Alumni Giving Rate by U.S. News and World Report, which is extraordinary:
http://www.thomasaquinas.edu/news/us-news-ranks-college-second-nation-alumni-giving
This ranking is even more intriguing when one realizes that Thomas Aquinas College has no varsity or club athletic teams. There are some informal, student-organized athletics such as ultimate Frisbee and basketball, often co-ed, but there are no teams that play other colleges.
Finally, as an aside, I know some of our readers believe Notre Dame will never win a national championship in football as long as it remains so profoundly liberal. Bad karma and all that. This belies the fact that it won national titles in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s while taking great pride in its defiance and undermining of the Magisterium. Her leaders, by and large, have embraced prideful heterodoxy as not only central to its identity, but crucial to its goal of matching the prestige and gaining the cultural acceptance of Ivy League elites, as silly and absurd as that sounds. Culture of Death types will never accept Catholics as peers, no matter how liberal. So I can't help but root for the team even as I ache over the tragedy of what the institution had been and ceases to be and could be. I love my alma mater, flaws and all, unlike her flawless namesake, and pray diligently and with hope against all hope for her return to true glory. I found Mary there, despite everything, or maybe she found me. Someday, I'll tell you the story.
Last chance to help put our annual appeal over the top:
http://www.catholicity.com/support/donation.html
Thanks for being such a faithful part of our work. I remain yours...
With Saint Joseph,
Bud Macfarlane
Founder
