The CatholiCity Message
Volume XIX, Number 14 – December 23, 2015
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
Ho ho ho! Just a few items before Christmas, including a sober (yet still calm and upbeat) update on our annual appeal, a Miraculous Medal group prayer, a cool fact about three women saints, and an observation about a Particular Guy which will hopefully deepen your experience of praying the Rosary.
Juussssst a Little Bit...
The good news is we are past halfway toward our annual Christmas Appeal goal to keep our doors open in 2016. Not as good news: we are falling behind last year. Many of your fellow CatholiCity citizens have already chipped in; we are truly grateful. Surely some of you have mailed in a gift that has yet to arrive.
CatholiCity exists because devout Catholics like you care about souls and sacrifice financially to be a part of our work. Your participation, even if all you can afford to offer is prayer, matters more than any amount. This is a cheerful exchange of gifts. These have been my unchanging and zero-gimmick themes for every appeal, every year, once a year. Am I right, longtime readers?
The Fruits of Supernatural Generosity of Parents
Some of you longed to conceive and raise children but for various reasons cannot do so. This is a cross in our godless culture which so often views the unborn and born as impediments to self-fulfillment or leisurely pursuits.
Others of you have sacrificed greatly to welcome children into your life, often enjoying a satisfaction unlike any this world offers. As a dad, I'm right there beside you.
And some of you "reverted" or converted later in life, and have experienced profound regret and contrition in this area—a very modern kind of cross; brother and sister, I love you so much. God is Mercy.
Others of you are just getting started. Little fingers grasping your thumb; planning and dreaming for their futures. Plus the spit-up. Often I think being a mom or dad is measured primarily in hours of lost sleep—right on through college graduation and beyond. Yet all those older folks were right (again): it goes by fast!
With that introduction, consider there are thirty-seven Doctors of the Church, a title given by tradition or conferred directly by the pope to theologians, uniformly canonized saints, who are regarded as especially authoritative and inspired in their teachings. Thomas Aquinas, for example, is known as the Angelic Doctor, a nod to his teachings about angels. Three amazing women have merited this honor: Catherine of Sienna (1300s), Teresa of Avila (1500s), and Therese of Lisieux (1800s). As a tiny and extremely modest example, if you have ever benefited from anything I have written, you are indebted to these women, whose brilliant writings have profoundly shaped my intellectual and spiritual development.
How are the Lady Saint Doctors related to parents being generous with God regarding welcoming children? St. Teresa of Avila was one of twelve children (like me!). Louis and Zelie Martin, recently canonized saints, were not expecting to marry at all until their spiritual director, well, strongly advised them to marry each other. The Martin family consisted of nine children, included their (and our) Little Flower. Perhaps most astounding of all, the sacramental love of Giacomo and Lapa Benincasa exploded into the world in the form of twenty-six children. That history-changing spitfire they christened Catherine was their twenty-fifth.
As a buddy of mine, an exemplary Catholic father of a very large clan once told me: "No one ever regrets having another child." Thank you for being open to life.
Hey, That Guy, Yeah Him, John
Early in 2016 I'm going to make a bold announcement about a new initiative by CatholiCity and the Mary Foundation that will help bring God's healing forgiveness to countless people—inspired, I am convinced, by Holy Spirit and St. John the Baptist. As part of my discernment, I have been praying to John and have become transfixed by how he is directly or indirectly involved in the mysteries of the Rosary.
For example, Sunday's Gospel recounted how he leapt in the womb of St. Elizabeth toward Jesus in the womb of Mary. Consider the other Joyful Mysteries: just a few months before the Annunciation, St. Elizabeth, who was barren, experienced the miracle of conceiving John. Born just before Jesus, John also escaped Herod's bloody murder spree of newborn sons. Was his father Zachariah also given a warning dream—or did Joseph get word to him—and did he hide his bride and baby John deeper into the "hill country" where Mary had traveled for her famous visit?
Likewise, the presentation of Jesus at the Temple was surely followed by a party—and it is a safe bet that Joseph and Mary had recently attended John's presentation and after party, and vice-versa for Zachariah and Elizabeth for Jesus' presentation. The Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple? Back then extended families typically traveled together. Crouching beside a wagon of the caravan, whispering, did Jesus consult with his best friend John before heading off to the temple? Did John cover for his cousin after Jesus slipped away, as young boys tend to do? "Dunno, Aunt Mary, he was, uh, just here."
John is obviously in the Luminous Mysteries at the Baptism in the Jordan, yet as a first cousin, John also likely attended the wedding at Cana and drank the wine that flowed from Jesus' first public miracle. Did John hear the Sermon on the Mount with his own ears, the third Luminous Mystery? Did that sermon gird John to speak out against Herod's illicit marriage, which ultimately led to his beheading? John had surely been murdered before the Transfiguration, but was he there as a silent heavenly witness, alongside his Uncle Joseph, in the light of the beatific vision?
So the next time you pray a Rosary (and if you're out of the habit, we'd love to send you our free Rosary CD), keep an eye out for John the Baptist, and also consider, during our apocalyptic era, that Jesus' first cousin will, once again, be a voice or inspire voices crying out in the wilderness. Repent!
Christmas Quotations
To us Christians, the first Christmas Day is the solstice or bottleneck of history. Things got worse till then, ever since we had lost paradise; things are getting better since then, till we reach paradise once more. History is shaped like an X.
– Ronald Knox
Lacking samite and sable
Lacking silver and gold
The prince Jesus in the poor stable
Slept and was three hours old
As doves by the fair water
Mary, not touched by sin
Sat by Him, the King's daughter
All glorious within
– May Probyn
With each Holy Communion you receive Christmas and Easter.
– G.K. MacBrien
Let us therefore be happy and celebrate the day on which Mary gave birth to the Savior—she, given in marriage, to the Creator of marriage; she a virgin, to the Prince of virgins; espoused to a husband, but a mother not by her husband; a virgin before marriage, a virgin in marriage—a virgin with child, a virgin nursing her child!
– Saint Augustine
Ho, ho, but no matter. Christmas was on its way. Lovely, glorious, beautiful Christmas, upon which the entire kid year revolved.
– Ralphie, As Adult Narrator, A Christmas Story (Movie)
Tens of Thousands Praying the Miraculous Medal Prayer
Please join me, along with tens of thousands of your fellow CatholiCity Citizens, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...
O Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of Our Lord Jesus and our Mother, penetrated with the most lively confidence in your all-powerful and never-failing intercession, manifested so often through the Miraculous Medal, we your loving and trustful children implore you to obtain for us the graces and favors we ask during this novena if they be beneficial to our immortal souls and the souls for whom we pray (State Your Request). You know, O Mary, how often our souls have been the sanctuaries of your Son who hates iniquity. Obtain for us then a deep hatred of sin and that purity of heart which will attach us to God alone so that our every thought, word and deed may tend to his greater glory. Obtain for us also a spirit of prayer and self denial that we may recover by penance what we have lost by sin and at length attain to that blessed abode where you are the Queen of angels and of men. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, I shall write you again next year and that first message will mark the twentieth (!!!!) anniversary of the CatholiCity Message, the "grandaddy" of all Catholic email newsletters. I typed that first one before 90% of people even had email. Only forty more years to go!
I will pray for you to have a happy and holy Christmas and a grace-filled 2016, every day at Mass and with every Rosary, as always. Please pray daily for me and my loved ones and for all who hear and read our materials. All the good in this world begins with grace.
Thank you for participating in our Christmas appeal and for being a part of our work and our lives in 2015.
With Saint Joseph, the Man in the Christmas Story,
Bud Macfarlane
Executive Director
