It's Simple and Stark
Volume XXII, Number 10 – December 3, 2018
From Bud Macfarlane, Founder
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
I only ask you once a year.
It's both simple and stark: we need every person reading this message to participate in our annual Christmas Appeal or CatholiCity will cease to exist.
As I say every year, please don't leave it up to "everybody else." You are everybody else.
I make the same promise to you every Christmas: no apostolate in America reaches more fallen-away Catholics per dollar. Everything we give away is designed to appeal to the lukewarm and fallen-away.
Your gift will go toward absolute necessities such as office rent, shipping packages, web development, and manufacturing powerful tools for evangelization.
Every Feast of the Immaculate Conception, I pray for you during a heartfelt, often tearful holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament. I implore 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 or stream our free CDs, booklets, and books in 2019 and beyond...
...including new releases such as Roy Schoeman's powerful conversion story, which is already impacting tens of thousands of souls. The initial manufacturing costs a lot of money but his free CD will help convert souls no one else can reach, especially atheists and agnostics.
Exchange of Gifts – Holy Sepulchre RosaryOur Christmas Appeal has always been a heart-warming Exchange of Gifts, and our special gift this year is a unique jeweler-quality Holy Sepulchre Rosary with a leather tie I personally carried to the most spiritually potent sites in the Holy Land and Rome (including Calvary where Jesus was crucified, the Holy Sepulchre itself where He rose from the dead, and St. Peter's tomb in the Vatican). Each one is hand-made by the Ghirelli family in Italy especially for you in limited quantities.
These unique blood-glass rosaries will never be made again.
As you can see below, it's beautiful. I also want you to have an inspirational Madonna and Child art-house print (and fridge magnet) in your home. (All three can make a thoughtful Christmas gift for someone you care about.)
Will you take a few moments to make an online donation today?
You will receive this beautiful Madonna and Child 8x10 Art-House print when you make a gift of $33 or more. Ready for framing with integrated double matting on premium-grade stock.
For your gift of $77 or more, you'll receive the limited-edition Holy Sepulchre Rosary with the leather tie I carried to several sites in the Holy Land and Rome. For unique spiritual impact, I have touched each rosary to my genuine relic of the True Cross and first class relics of Saints Joseph, Anthony, Jude, Therese, Maximilian and Francis Xavier. Blessed on location in Israel by Fr. John O'Brien.
For $222 or more, you'll receive two Holy Sepulchre Rosaries and a wood-framed Madonna and Child print.
$555: Olivewood Holy Land RosaryIn addition to the wood-framed print and three Holy Sepulchre Rosaries, we'll send this Bethlehem Olivewood Jerusalem Rosary (with Holy Land soil in the centerpiece) that I personally carried to Calvary, the tombs of David in Israel and St. Peter in Rome, the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Holy Sepulchre where Our Lord rose from the dead—among other holy sites. Blessed on location by our pilgrimage spiritual director, Fr. John O'Brien.
Every donor, regardless of amount, will receive a beautiful 3x4 Madonna and Child fridge magnet as a powerful daily reminder to pray every time your family members grab a snack or prepare a meal.
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 2014-2018 than in 2010-2014 and we expect a lot more in 2019. (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, autobiographies, booklets, streaming talks, CatholiCity Messages, commentary, links, resources, and online prayers.
And don't forget about my annual "one-man" pilgrimages to Fatima, Rome, the Shrines in Canada, and the Holy Land to bring tens of thousands of your prayer intentions to the holiest places on earth. Miracles, conversions, and healings have occurred!
Monthly Help: the BackboneIncluding 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, this is still only a fraction of what it costs other charities or secular companies.
Can you sacrifice $20 or a multiple of $10 a month to form the "backbone" of our operation? Please consider becoming a monthly credit card donor:
I warmly implore you to ask yourself, "Does God even want me 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 donating. 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 circumstances, I understand that giving a large gift requires a real sacrifice. "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 numerous real people come back to Confession next year.
So please pray and discuss making a big gift with your loved ones. Ask Our Lady to guide you.
Of course even a modest gift of $5, $10, or $20 will help us reach our goal and prevent us from being forced to shut down everything.
Prayer DonationsIf you cannot afford to help financially, I understand. Please, pray one Rosary or make one Holy Hour or offer Communion for the success of this year's appeal and for the salvation of every unique visitor to our website and all those who hear or read our materials.
May you and your family have a blessed Advent, a holy Christmas, and a grace-filled 2019. All for Immaculate Mary!
With Jesus the Messiah,
Bud Macfarlane
Founder and President
Artists have a way of opening what Saint Paul calls "the eyes of our heart." I believe past, present, and future combine in this year's Art Print.
I warmly invite you to gaze upon this truly lovely, lush painting of Mary and the Christ Child for a few moments and take in its tranquility. Look at her looking at him as your mother once looked upon you. A mother's love!
Yet, in an oddly surprising way, Mary is also holding a baby lamb, its eyes open, serene, and foreshadowing this Christmas baby's future mission: to suffer torture and shed blood for our redemption. Decades later, when Saint John the Baptist saw Jesus, he cried out, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!" Now we hear the priest proclaim these words at every Mass just before we receive our Eucharistic Lord.
Now imagine this holy image adorning your kitchen, office, or your child's or grandchild's bedroom as a daily reminder to pray, and, to remember. I want you to cherish this gift.
Thank you for supporting CatholiCity's annual Christmas appeal.