Two Crucial New Catholic Webpages
Volume XXIV, Number 21 – August 21, 2020
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
Whew. It's taken me a week to recover from the seemingly endless Mantle of Mary Mass travel and to catch up on the backlogged "desk work" required to keep this joint open!
I have a our group prayer, two wonderful new webpages, an ancient joke, a surprise, and a Last Chance CDs offer.
Because I'm depositing my youngest son at Hillsdale College tomorrow, there simply was not enough time to do a good job writing my diary of the project (so if you were not planning to read it, that's a good thing, right?). You're gonna love the photos.
And now...
Too Long? Try This.If you find my CatholiCity Messages a bit long, I don't mind if you prefer to pray a quick prayer to Holy Spirit and then browse the headlines for items that appeal to you.
October: Mantle of Mary Thanksgiving MassFather John Anthony Boughton is offering a final Mass in his friary in the South Bronx to thank Our Father for answering our bold plea for a supernatural religious awakening in America as well as in anticipation for granting our many thousands of personal intentions offered at all four Masses at the extreme borders of the USA.
This special Mass will take place, appropriately, on October 19th, Feast of Saints Isaac Jogues, Jean Brebeuf, and the North American Martyrs.
And yes, Father John Anthony will "pin down Our Lady's mantle" with holy salt blocks as he did in Washington State, California, Florida and Maine while permanently placing your intentions on an encrypted flash drive nearby.
Remember, God is not a bureaucrat; there is no "late" in the fullness of time! If you missed out or were unable to submit intentions before the Mantle of Mary Masses, you can still submit them or make an offering for this special Thanksgiving Mass.We are proud to announce the "grand opening" of our Archbishop Viganò Archive webpage containing the Internet's only comprehensive, chronological listing of all his public letters and interviews (and featuring streaming commentaries by Dr. Taylor Marshall).
Long after we have all passed away, I believe history will remember brave Carlo Maria Viganò as a heroic leader during an era of profound corruption in the Catholic Church, just as Saint Athanasius suffered exile to lead a handful of faithful bishops in defense of the divinity of Jesus during the early fourth century while an estimated 85% of bishops embraced an ugly heresy.
Personally, I also just enjoy the way Viganò expresses his ideas with economy and force while displaying a theological perspective grounded in two thousand years of Catholic intellectual tradition.
After exposing the Vatican cover-up of the criminal sex offender, then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, while humbly repenting for his own role, Archbishop Viganò was forced into hiding. Since then he has continued a public discourse on numerous topics, from the problems of Vatican II, to what he calls a diabolical "deep church" cabal undermining the One True Church.
So I invite you to read His Eminence Carlo Maria Viganò. Listen carefully to Dr. Marshall's analysis. Link this important resource in your social media platforms. Get the facts. Decide for yourself.
Our TLM Page is Online!I recently sang the praises of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), and now I invite you to visit our brand-new webpage: The Traditional Latin Mass Explained.
It has links to prominent TLM websites, helpful articles, Latin-English prayer translations, how to find a Latin Mass near you, and much more. Let me know what you think.
We occasionally "retire" certain talks for various reasons. We will stop offering the following three recordings in CD format as soon as we run out (there are fewer than 1000 left):
- "Healing and Holiness" by Vinny Flynn
- "Bringing Catholics Home" by Tom Peterson
- "Knowing Jesus" by Father John Riccardo
As long as supplies last, you can still order them online in small quantities (for a next-to-nothing donation) or in bulk (100 CDs for less than next to nothing). If these titles are listed on our online order page, they're still available as CDs.
As far I know a Mantle of Mary Mass has been or will be offered in the following states and provinces:
- Alaska
- California
- Florida
- Maine
- New Hampshire
- New York
- Washington State
- Ontario (Canada)
Let's "pin down Our Lady's mantle" in all the states and provinces before the election! If your state is not on the above list, please let me know if you have already arranged for a Mass to be offered in your state, or if you plan to ask your local pastor to offer a Mass for the intention of a Great Religious Awakening. Thanks!
Easy for Me to Say!Here's how to be a saint: do all that stuff you already know you should do and stop doing all that stuff you know you shouldn't do.
All Jesus Book All the TimeIn March came the Coronavirus and our "unplanned" Relic Prayer Medals, which you have distributed by the tens of thousands! Then came our "emergency" four-corners Mantle of Mary Masses.
Next comes the Jesus book, the ultimate tool for evangelizing the lukewarm, the fallen away, and non-believers.
I need your prayers, my friend. In order to avoid any more delays in publication, I am discerning whether we should release it this fall before Christmas, which might require delaying our annual appeal to Lent 2021. Which do you prefer?
Also, please pray my son, Xavier, who is co-authoring the Jesus book with me.
Pinning Down Our Lady's Mantle on the Whole World!Based on your overwhelming support and participation in the Mantle of Mary Mass project, I have been kanoodling an even bolder plan to "pin down Our Lady's mantle" on the entire planet sometime next year. It would involve offering two Masses and permanently planting blocks of exorcised holy salt at two spiritual poles on either end of the earth.
I shall keep you posted.
Twenty-Year-Old CatholiCity Joke
Here's a joke I found in the CatholiCity Message archives from April, 2000:
Many years ago a man walked into his local barber shop. "It's been three weeks since you came in, where have you been?" the barber asks.
"I went to Rome with my wife."
"Italy?" the barber scoffs. "It costs a fortune to fly there, and the seats are so cramped."
"So true, but in fact," replied the man, "we got $250 round-trip fares off the Internet, and got bumped up to First Class because they overbooked coach."
"Well," said the barber, "what hotel did you stay in?"
"The Rome Excelsior," said the man.
"What a dump!" the barber cried. "Lousy service and the food is worse."
"As a matter of fact," replied the man, "it had just been renovated for ten million dollars. The service and meals were four-star, and they upgraded us to the presidential suite because of a minor computer glitch at no extra cost."
"Hmmpph," the barber grunted. "I guess you tried to see the pope, too. With those big crowds, he probably looked like a tiny speck."
"Well you'll find this hard to believe," said the man, "but while we were walking in Saint Peter's Square, a Swiss Guard tapped me on the shoulder, and said the Holy Father wanted to treat us to lunch. Apparently, the pope likes to do this with pilgrims every once in a while. We got a whole tour of the Vatican, including his private apartment, and of course, the lunch with the Holy Father was simply wonderful."
The barber laughed. "Incredible. You lucky dog. I bet there were a lot of other pilgrims there."
"Just me and the wife and a few bishops visiting Rome," the man replied.
"Well, the pope didn't actually have a conversation with you, did he?" the barber said doubtfully. "What would the pope have to say to a guy like you."
"In fact, he did talk to me, in English," said the man. "As we were leaving, he shook my hand, thanked me for our company, and then he asked me something I will never forget for as long as I live."
"And what was that?" asked the barber.
"He wanted to know where I got such a lousy haircut."
Let's Pray TogetherPerhaps, because He loves you, the Holy Spirit inspired you to skip that joke?
In all seriousness, this prayer came to me after something humble and honest one of my sons told me last night. It's the kind of prayer that involves a commitment, so I recommend strongly that you read it first before praying it.
If you're in, then please join me and tens of thousands of your fellow CatholiCity Citizens, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...
O my Jesus, I have to tell the truth!
Who can hide the truth from you?
Please forgive me for not being a saint.
I promise to take a pen to paper
on this very day (or tomorrow)
and to honestly write down
the things I do that lead me away from sanctity
as well as the things I fail to do every day
that I know would lead me to sanctity.
I also promise to address you with intimate confidence,
as my Lord, from now on, every night,
in a meaningful examination of conscience.
I ask this through the intercession of your mother,
and through the intercession of all my relatives in heaven,
and their guardian angels,
going back to the time of the apostles.
Amen.
Thank you for reading whatever you decided to read, and for clicking on whatever "action buttons" the Holy Spirit inspired you to click on (perchance, consider a quick scan up and down to click on another!).
Here's another button--in case you missed last week's Message, I recommended ordering Saint Benedict Exorcism Medals for yourself and your relatives to bury on the corners of your property for protection during these dark times:
That's me and Xavier in Toronto for a friend's ordination in 2017, making our "mean soldier faces," Timmy Horton coffee in hand.
With Saint Jude,
Bud Macfarlane
