Can You Outwalk a Snowstorm?
Volume XXVII, Number 5
February 17, 2023
Can you believe Ash Wednesday is almost here? Here's my famous Ultimate Lent List if you need something (or a few things) to give up or take up:
One Quick Note: My team back in Ohio has finally secured a large number of Benedictine Icon Crucifixes—identical to the one we're carrying around our shoulders as the reliquary for Operation True Cross.
See a picture of it at the bottom of this message or order it here:
Operation True Cross Update
By the time you read this, I'll be a walking into the famous little town of Roswell, New Mexico—roughly 1,300 miles from the California coast where we started in late December—and halfway to completing this arduous third "beam" to the Lourdes Grotto at Notre Dame, Indiana.
We're okay. Battered but getting physically stronger. Sore, always. Spiritually—at peace. Embracing the reparation.
Buoyed by your penitential support and prayers.
Vain AttemptTwo days ago I climbed steep, curving roads in freezing temperatures for several miles to conquer a 7,000-foot mountain pass in a vain attempt to "out-walk" a forecasted snowstorm that blasted the Capitan Mountains in southern New Mexico on Wednesday.
Turns out you can't out-walk a snowstorm. Now I know.
My bum knee, although not technically healed, has been getting better—keep those prayers coming! Only 7,000,000 steps to go.
Veins UnkemptMy sixty-year-old calves, however, are doing quite well. Despite protests from my editor at headquarters back in Ohio, I insisted on including a photo-update on these crucial propulsive sinews...
Thank you, Scottish genetics.
With the complex logistical challenges, desolate dirt roads, horrible Internet access, and significant weather challenges, I just haven't had a spare minute to write this update until that snowstorm forced me to stop walking for most of a day.
Hot and ColdSnow—drat! I detest not being able to walk. For all my new readers, these updates have chronicled how we walk seven days a week, from sunrise to sunset, without regard for rain, wind, cold, or terrain—but snow-covered roads are impossibly dangerous for reasons I hardly need to explain.
By contrast, just a few days ago we blitzed the famous and expansive White Sands Missile Range east of Las Cruces.
That challenge featured one extremely straight (and safe) state highway, not a single gas station or business, numerous encounters with curious DHS border agents (uniformly friendly and often Christians), relentlessly lip-chapping sun exposure, and temps that climbed from bone-chilling mid-20s at sunrise into sweaty mid-60s by sunset.
Gabe went over a pass in these mountains to get there.
I started my first 3-hour walk one day in a winter coat, ski gloves, and balaclava—and completed my second 3-hour walk in cargo shorts and a short-sleeved shirt!
Poor Gabe has not been genetically blessed for battling UV rays—despite applying every known sunscreen and healing skin balm.
Here he is in front of our spartan home, which we nicknamed the Van Helsing:
I'm 100% Italian on my mother's side (and I wear a hat, kid), so the sun is always my loving and welcome friend, helping carve my rugged and manly crows-feet deeper around my eyes as the months and miles wear on:
Go figure.
Halfway to Direct Divine InterventionAdditionally, going back to September of last year, Roswell also marks the halfway point of the 4,700 miles needed to fully complete the entire project.
We're planning to depart from Florida in May to join the fourth and final "beam" of our geographical Crucifix of Reparation.
Do you remember my spiritual sense that a major, high-level principality oppressing America is cast down every time we complete a beam? Keep praying Father Ripperger's exorcism prayers in the Daily Prayers to Save America. God is going to answer them.
There should be copies in every Catholic church in the country!
One More Soul"Ashes and Easter" people are coming to your parishes this Lent. None of us can ever know (until heaven) who the Holy Spirit will guide to the materials only you can make available in your personal sphere of influence.
For example, last week I spoke with Steve Hegarty, who, by God's grace, had a dramatic conversion twenty-seven years ago after reading my first novel, Pierced by a Sword.
Over the past few decades he has been instrumental in bringing Eucharistic Adoration in various forms to over 150 parishes in the Chicagoland area, including many 24/7 chapels.
Just imagine the souls transformed starting humbly from one book or medal or booklet you took the time and effort to make available in the back of a church, or bring to a family, religious, or social gathering.
I want to thank Mark, Gary, Leo (along with lady cop Georgina Holderness, not pictured), and the other Knights of Columbus volunteers who walked almost 40 miles in and out of Phoenix a couple weeks ago to give Gabe a much needed two-day break. (As part of my personal self-denial for the entire project, I walk on every day that can be walked.)
Here's the septuagenarian crew at the historic downtown Saint Mary's Basilica:
Mark (far left) organized and recruited. Gary, an adult convert from agnosticism (far right), cracked me up with his corny boomer humor.
Leo, Gary's best friend who happened to be visiting from Reno, Nevada, and who knew nothing about Operation True Cross until the night before, was my favorite.
In his late-seventies, this tall drink of water decked out in Mantle of Mary blue, walked twelve miles on his first day—including three miles with me—and sported hellacious blisters the following morning to prove his devotion.
Man in FullGabe Newberry, only 23 years old, has been an amazing Cyrene since joining me. We laugh our heads off, pray, and work together like sugar and spice (I'm the spice, and it's definitely fiery habanero).
He actually runs for stretches of his three-to-five hour "walks." And he looks like the Terminator when he sprints full-speed towards the van to end his shifts.
On February 24th, when he ends his stint somewhere in northern Texas, Gabe will have helped me carry the True Cross nearly nine hundred miles (after yours truly, the Cyrene Record).
Gabe Got Me ThinkingGabe exclaimed to me after one of his long walks about how perfectly God matches the colors we see in nature. This got me thinking.
Here's an example from southeastern Arizona (and my photo does not do it justice). The shadows below the snowy peaks reminded me of Charlie Brown's shirt:
Thus my young companion prompted me to look at the world, after sixty years on this planet, from a different perspective.
All of us have described certain people we know as "colorful," and by this we mean they are lively, spirited, unique, unpredictable, or surprising.
God is all kinds of "all." He is all-powerful. He is all-merciful, and so on.
It's been striking me that Our Lord, as Creator of the Universe, has his own unique, expressive personality—and it includes possessing a particular genius for complementary hypercomplex palettes of hues, pigment, stains, light, shadows, and shapes—whether in a vast vista or in the tiniest object.
Holy Trinity RocksEnjoy these three little rocks I saw on a sidewalk near sunset last week, near the end of my final hour of walking...
I can see the Holy Trinity—can you? Can you discern blood flowing from our King's crown of thorns?
I also see you and me and Mary—we can cast a long shadow with His light. These baby mountains also comprised a trinitarian sundial literally foreshadowing the third Angelus Prayer which Gabe and I would offer at 6:00 pm just minutes later.
If you look closely, you can see specks of blue and red. And just one sharp little guy like this in my shoe (which has actually happened hundreds of times) can stop Operation True Cross' progress until I remove it!
"The rocks and stones themselves" actually do "sing" in visual silence as I pass them by...
...because God is all-colorful.
Changing the Whole World
I'm not an emotional person, which does not mean I'm not passionate.
From sunrise to sunset, and sunset to sleep, I ruthlessly and dispassionately focus on my responsibility to fulfill the physical requirements of this mission. In short, to carry the 2000-year-old relic upon which Jesus shed his blood to the Lourdes Grotto at Notre Dame—now from California, and next from Florida.
For me, it is a covert military operation. Spiritual war.
Baby Wipes and Forced StepsOverall, for most of the day, most of the time, I do not enjoy the tedious task of walking. It is definitely not endlessly prayerful and peaceful communion with God through nature, although I have seen many beautiful landscapes and there have been moments of awe here and there.
I certainly would rather not wake up at 5:45 am by placing my feet onto an ice-cold van floor an hour before sunrise. Also, I would rather use an actual flushing toilet than—uh, let's see—the clever and hygienic alternatives we have devised.
And, like you, I love taking hot showers every day—it's one of the modern world's greatly under-appreciated luxuries. In the van, we take "field showers" every other day using baby wipes.
Ascending 7,000 foot mountain passes in ever-thinning oxygen (and often rain, sometimes in freezing cold) is truly unpleasant because it requires hours of mentally forcing one foot in front of the other using constant discipline of posture and form to avoid injury.
Just this morning it was 4 degrees above zero when I started walking—and my hip ligaments were singing the blues all day today because of that nasty mountain pass two days ago. (I'll be okay when things flatten out.)
My two best friends, without whom I simply could not go on, both feature names that begin with the letter I. Do some of you already know Mr. Ice Pack and Mr. Ibuprofen?
I was joking with Gabe the other day that I'm on the World's Dumbest Sabbatical.
Spartan is as Spartan DoesOur time, when we are not walking, consists of driving a huge van on treacherous roads and frustrating efforts to connect to the Internet or find other kinds of information to support the guy who is walking.
We share the duties of keeping the van interior swept, clean, well-organized, and well-provisioned, which is as crucial to morale and not going insane as anything else we do.
It takes a total of one hour a day to properly ice my knee two times. That's seven of my waking hours each week, immobile.
No breakfast. Gas station coffee if available. We grab meat and cheese from the cooler and wolf it down in spare moments. And nuts. Our only formal "meal" is dinner after sunset at a local dive or a Denny's if we can find one.
Once every week or two, if we're in a big enough town, one of us rushes to get to a laundromat to wash and dry our grimy clothes in under two hours before the other guys finishes his walk.
Visually scouting routes, buying provisions, vehicle maintenance, and transferring the cross from Cyrene to Cyrene requires five miles of driving for every mile of walking (typically well over 100 miles a day).
If this project consisted of walking a few miles a day, in nice weather, at a leisurely stroll, with no hills, weekends off, and a nice hot shower at the end, I would enjoy every minute.
Within God's Perfect WillDon't get me wrong: I am not complaining. Paradoxically, although I do not enjoy it, I love every minute. I am almost overwhelmed with the honor. I love the cross. I love the suffering. I love Our Lady and her trust in me—and yours.
I have never felt more within God the Father's perfect will. Never. Interiorly, I am utterly serene despite the chaotic challenges of any given day.
This is because I love the outcome. This is because you love the outcome.
Seeing with the Eyes of the SoulI see the divine-historical repercussions with "the eyes of my soul," as Saint Paul called it. In fact, I see it more clearly than the roads in the photos in this email message.
This reparation must be completed. Let the snowstorms come. Let mountains rise before us. We are getting out of New Mexico, just like we got out of the worst weather ever in California. Then Texas, then Oklahoma, then Missouri, then Illinois.
This will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Take My HandDivine intervention will ensue. America will become God's country, again. Souls, perhaps in the billions, who otherwise would have chosen hell, will choose heaven.
That is why I get up early, endure the elements, and push my particularly well-suited physique to a point just short of getting weaker. Halfway done, I am getting stronger.
Take my hand, Veronicas. Walk with me, spiritual Cyrenes, as we climb up Calvary hill with Jesus to the skull place and enter the rarified environs of the Sacred Heart, burning with love.
Here is your and my theological purpose, in a nutshell:
Although I understand all of the above from my own human perspective as the particular man Our Lady chose before I was born to lead this stone-cold spiritual warfare operation, I often ask her to show me God's perspective of Operation True Cross.
I know my personal "Why." I want my sons and everyone's sons and daughters to be able to raise their kids during the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary promised at Fatima...
...in a country filled with love and beauty and true Catholic community—not the current one defined by filth, hatred, perversion, murder, corruption, and satanic oppression.
I want to live in a world where everyone is in a state of sanctifying grace and from where everyone goes to heaven.
Tell me, my friends, what is your Why? Why are you participating and hoping and suffering during Operation True Cross?
There has never been an opportunity like this in all of salvation history.
Sometimes I think my purest emotions run so deep on this matter that it's a good thing they remain hidden from my consciousness or senses. I just walk. I carry the True Cross. I fast.
I invited a hidden army of the willing, now tens of thousands strong, to join me. It is simple. Simple is do-able.
Simple will get it done.
A Future with Hope
"For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for your harm—to give you a future with hope."
- Jeremiah 29:11
And yet... and yet, a few days ago, something happened to me while I was walking. I asked Our Lord (if I could put my question into words) to show me the Father's perspective on Operation True Cross.
Suddenly the words, "It's for the whole world," came into my mind and out of my mouth simultaneously.
...and for a brief few moments, my entire body and mind, head to toe, was engulfed in a profoundly powerful and overwhelming emotional state. It's like my entire soul was exposed through the pores of my skin.
Tears of joy burst from my eyes! To the heavens, I cried out incoherently and raised my arms into the air in triumph and glory!
If anyone had seen me on that empty road, I must have appeared crazy. But I was not crazy. I was perfectly, well, just me.
Revelation Beyond WordsI understood what it meant. This initiative, Operation True Cross, is much bigger and has worldwide ramifications beyond the imaginings of any one person who participates in it.
It will impact the entire world.
Hundreds of millions in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and central America—and billions of souls beyond our borders.
That's the best I can do to offer mere words to describe what is beyond words—to convey those few moments of revelation and glory.
An overwhelming "Holy Spirit" emotional episode has happened to me before, twice, including during the very first Mary Foundation pilgrimage to bring your intentions to Fatima in 2015. (I also describe my first time, when I was a seventeen-year-old freshman at Notre Dame, in the Fatima link below.)
Here's me back then, before walking on my knees over a hundred yards with my then teenage son Clete to the very spot where Our Lady appeared in 1917:
Both mystical experiences bore the character of prophecy. Here is my classic Fatima Photo-Diary, which touched many readers deeply:
The Archbishop of Truth-Telling
Viganò KnowsFinally, as many of you know, CatholiCity.com hosts the most complete archive of interviews, letters, and commentary from the intrepid truth-teller of our age, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.
I have believed for a long time that this brave man is the Saint Athanasius of our era—and his recent homily was a bracing doozy. And for me, it was consoling. We are not wrong to believe what we believe.
As always, he writes beautifully, with a profound classical depth of understanding of sacred tradition and Holy Scripture combined with an almost American sense of lovely bluntness.
If you skipped down to this section, or are just skimming, this is the one thing you should read today. Viganò tells the truth about the age we live in. He is a consecrated voice crying out in the wilderness.
QUOTATIONS
"Take up your cross and follow me."
- Jesus
"We are all very simple. It is when we forget that, that we go wrong."
- Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson
"Let us allow ourselves to be 'infected' by the silence of Saint Joseph! We have much need of it in a world which is often too noisy, which does not encourage reflection and listening to the voice of God."
- Pope Benedict XVI
"We arrive at truth not by reason only, but also by the heart."
- Blase Pascal
"Elected silence, sing to me,
and beat upon my whorled ear,
pipe me pastures still and be
the music that I care to hear."
- Gerard Manly Hopkins
Please join me and CatholiCity Message readers from the world over, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for our dear country.
Our Lady of Fatima, sanctify our clergy.
Our Lady of Fatima, make our Catholics more fervent.
Our Lady of Fatima, guide and inspire those who govern us.
Our Lady of Fatima, cure the sick who confide in you.
Our Lady of Fatima, console the sorrowful who trust in you.
Our Lady of Fatima, help those who invoke your aid.
Our Lady of Fatima, deliver us from all dangers.
Our Lady of Fatima, help us to resist temptation.
Our Lady of Fatima, obtain for us all that we lovingly ask of you.
Our Lady of Fatima, help those who are dear to us.
Our Lady of Fatima, bring back to the right road our erring brothers.
Our Lady of Fatima, give us back our ancient fervor.
Our Lady of Fatima, obtain for us pardon of our manifold sins and offenses.
Our Lady of Fatima, bring all men to the feet of your Divine Child.
Our Lady of Fatima, obtain peace for the world.
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death. O God of infinite goodness and mercy, fill our hearts with a great confidence in your dear mother, whom we invoke under the title of Our Lady of the Rosary and our Lady of Fatima, and grant us by her powerful intercession all the graces, spiritual and temporal, which we need, through Christ our Lord, amen.
And amen. Thank you for being a part of it all.
In an upcoming message, I'm going to tell you about the nearly-invisible thorn bushes that keep scratching up our legs, drawing blood right through our pants.
And, the story of the complete-arch rainbow we saw north of Las Cruces right out of the story of Noah's Ark!
You, and your most-longed-for intentions, are in my heart, every step. I carry you, as you carry me, as the Cross carries us.
Hey, let me know what you're giving up for Lent.
With Our Lady of Sorrows,
Bud Macfarlane
Founder
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