The CatholiCity Message
Volume XX, Number 11 – December 8, 2016
A Personal Request from Bud Macfarlane
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
We need your help. I only ask once a year.
It's simple: we need every person reading this message to participate in our annual Christmas Appeal or CatholiCity will cease to exist. And that's okay because your decision to participate is the concrete way God shows us He wants us to keep going.
Please don't leave it up to "everybody else." You are everybody else. As always, I'm matching every gift with a dollar, so the Macfarlanes will be happily sacrificing along with your family. (Please make it hurt: it's my favorite charity!)
https://www.catholicity.com/support/donation.html
I make the same promise to you every Christmas: no apostolate in America reaches more fallen away Catholics per dollar. Except for my monthly Message, which I write for dedicated Catholics like you, everything we give away is designed to appeal to the lukewarm and fallen away.
Together we influenced nearly twice as many more people over the last four years than ever before, which, combined with years of economic doldrums, is part of the reason why we're facing a big deficit. Your gift will go toward absolute necessities such as shipping packages, office rent, and manufacturing those powerful tools for evangelization.
Today is this amazing Feast of the Immaculate Conception and I just prayed for you during a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament. I implored Jesus and his perfect mother to inspire your heart for the sake of the millions of souls who will surf into CatholiCity.com and receive our free CDs, booklets, and novels in 2017 and beyond...
...including the new line of powerful 90-page Catholic Conversion autobiographies I told you about my last CatholiCity Message. The initial print-run will cost a lot of money but these free books will help you convert souls noboby else can reach.
Exchange of Gifts – The Fatima Medal
Our Christmas Appeal has always been a lovely Exchange of Gifts, and our gift this year is a unique medal I picked out especially for you celebrating the 100-Year Anniversary of Fatima.
As you can see below, it's quite striking, even mesmerizing. I want you to have the art-house print and medal in your home and on your person. They also make great Christmas gifts for someone you care about.
Can you take a few minutes to make an online donation today?
https://www.catholicity.com/support/donation.html
This year we are offering these wonderful gift sets to show our heartfelt gratitude for your sacrifice:
Art-House Print with Your $30 Gift
You will receive an elegant one-of-a-kind 8x10 art-house print of the Fatima Medal (pictured at bottom) when you make a donation of only $30 or more. Ready for framing with integrated double matting on premium-grade stock, I know there is a special place for this image in your home – perhaps in the room of someone who needs to return to the Sacraments?
Fatima Medal with Your $60 Gift
With your donation of $60 or more, we'll also send you this truly unique Fatima Medal. Blessed by a priest at the cathedral in downtown Cleveland where I pray for you every day at Mass, I have personally touched each one to my Relic of the True Cross and first class relics (!!!) of Saints Joseph, Anthony, Jude, Therese, Maximilian, and Francis Xavier:
Magnet Collection and Two Medals with Your $100 Gift
In addition to the magnet, art-house print and two medals, we'll send a complete set of five "Jesus and Mary" fridge magnets when you make a donation of $100 or more, also touched to the True Cross and saints relics:
Framed Print & Autographed Novels with Your $500 Gift
If you're able to make the sacrifice, we'll send you five medals, a wood-framed print, the magnet set, and personalized autographed copies of all three of my novels when you when you make a donation of $500 or more.
Fridge Magnet with Every Donation
Every donor, regardless of amount, will receive a beautiful 3x4 Fatima Medal "fridge" magnet as a powerful daily reminder to pray every time your family members grab a snack or prepare a meal.
Make Your Tax-Deductible Christmas Gift Online or By Mail
https://www.catholicity.com/support/donation.html
24 Hour Conversion Tool for Millions
CatholiCity is always there for you, your family, friends, and most importantly, for anyone searching online for the truth -- every minute of every day since 1996. Twice as many people (many millions) visited our website in 2014-2016 than in 2011-2013 and we expect a lot more in 2017. (They find us through excellent search-engine placement of over 18,000 individual webpages. As just one example: Did you know we have the #1 Catholic Baby Name site in the world?)
Your generosity will ensure that huge numbers of potential converts and fallen-away Catholics will continue to have the opportunity to receive our free life-changing CDs, novels, booklets, audio downloads, newsletter, commentary, links, resources, and online prayers.
(And don't forget about my annual "on-the-cheap" one-man pilgrimages to Fatima and Rome to bring your prayer intentions to the holiest places. Miracles, conversions, and healings have occurred. Next year? Lourdes or Guadalupe. Or both!)
17 for '17: Becoming a Monthly Benefactor
Including overhead (such as rent for our shipping center) it costs around $2 to manufacture, process, package and ship a CD, book, or 10-pack of booklets. Because of our large volumes and unmatched operational efficiency, that is still only a fraction of what it costs other charities and even secular companies.
Can you sacrifice $17 or a multiple of $17 a month to form the "backbone" of our operation? Please consider becoming a monthly credit card donor:
https://www.catholicity.com/support/monthly.html
Should You Make a Donation and How Much?
Every year I ask: Does God even want you to make a donation? I certainly don't assume He does. I do know this: there is a tendency to assume that everybody else is making a donation. This is simply not true.
I believe some of you are called to make an especially large gift of hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Whether it's $500 or $5,000, whatever your individual situation is, I understand that giving a large gift will require a real sacrifice on your part. "The grace that saves souls never comes cheap," a holy nun once wrote to me. Every $100 lets us print 1,100 Returning to Confession booklets. Your gift will help a lot of real people come back to Confession next year.
So please pray and discuss it with your loved ones. In these four days between the Feasts of the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe, please ask Mary if she wants you to make a particularly generous donation to help bring souls to our beloved Catholic Faith.
Of course even a modest gift of $5, $10, or $25 will help us reach our goal.
If you cannot afford to help financially, I understand. I've been there. Please, pray one Rosary or make one Holy Hour and offer Communion for the success of this year's appeal and for the spiritual and temporal needs of your fellow CatholiCity Citizens, every unique visitor to our website, and for the salvation of every person who hears or reads our materials.
May you and your family have a blessed Advent, a holy Christmas, and a grace-filled 2017. All for Immaculate Mary!
With Saint Joseph,
Bud Macfarlane
Founder and Executive Director
P.S. Here's why the Fatima Anniversary medal is so powerful:
"Souls Are Falling into Hell Like Snowflakes!"
Our Lady of Fatima in 1917
In 1917 Mary appeared to three little children in a backwater village in Portugal. In addition to God performing the most astounding public miracle in the history of the world (the famous Miracle of the Sun), it was the most important visit by the Mother of God ever because she warned the world of the extraordinary evils we experienced over the past century, from predicting World War II to the scourge of godless Communist Russia (which at that time was a backwards monarchy--not the nuclear superpower it would become during the Cold War).
Sadly, because of problems of scale or lack of expertise, the images on most medals are often quite crude; it's almost impossible to see a distinct human face. I personally chose this medal to commemorate the crucial 100-Year Anniversary of Fatima (where I brought you personal intentions last year) because I wanted to give you a moving piece of art this Christmas as well as a powerful spiritual tool. I was deeply moved by the maternal concern on Our Lady's brow. Take a closer look: you will feel her sorrow. There is definitely a room in your home (or a place on your person or in your wallet or purse) for this image. God bless you always and Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception! --Bud.
