Volume XXIX, Number 7
March 20, 2025
My Secret Pilgrimage with a Mystic
Hello Friends,
I can't seem to get to sleep before 4:30 am and I have some kind of bug, but I just wanted to check in because I have a unique gift for you.
Today is the first day of spring—and it was a rough winter for me. I hope your Lent is off to a better start than mine.
It's funny, because I'm the guy who is always urging others to have the Best Lent Ever, but I've been barely scraping by with the minimum.
Today I have the perfect Lenten book for you—and it's not from the Mary Foundation (even though it sorta is).
Miracle After Miracle in Michigan
Here's the backstory. Just a few months after I finished the historic Operation True Cross walking pilgrimage in May of 2023, I drove my Relic of the True Cross all the way to northern Michigan for a two-day, 25-mile "secret" walking pilgrimage with an extraordinary man named Ed Jozsa—a bonafide mystical suffering soul.
Our first stop was an impressive national shrine in Indian River called the Cross in the Woods.
As for Ed Jozsa, he should have died in a brutal car accident six years earlier. Instead, he had a direct and dramatic encounter with the Holy Spirit. After dozens of surgeries and endless physical suffering, by September of 2023, it had become impossible for him to stumble along for even a single mile without collapsing.
I barely knew him. We bunked overnight in the spartan Operation True Cross van.
From Indian River we drove all the way across the massive Upper Peninsula to the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Wisconsin to commemorate the first anniversary of my taking the first steps with the other Cyrenes from there to begin that grueling 4,500-mile spiritual warfare journey on September 14th, 2022—the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross.
My goal was to deliver your intentions and to personally thank Our Lady for the successful completion of the impossible, penitential Operation True Cross pilgrimage.
Read Ed's Riveting Account
Ed recently released a short but potent book he wrote about the multiple miracles that occurred during our two days together.
Bud invites you to join him through Ed Josza's account of their miraculous True Cross walking pilgrimage.
Perfect for Lent
Only 17 Pages
• Order a Free Copy
It includes Ed's mystical experience, in the fullness of time, of carrying the True Cross with Jesus Christ on Calvary, Ed being brought back to the Garden of Eden, and supernatural encounters with people God placed in our path.
I was there and can still barely believe what happened.
Ed Jozsa is an anointed writer. He told me that his account of our secret pilgrimage is already leaving readers speechless and stunned.
The Holy Spirit revealed things about me to Ed along the way.
Ed joining me was not planned. How our hidden pilgrimage came to be began just as I was starting the brutal California "beam" earlier in the year, months before I met him. Ed's story moves to Cleveland and then Cincinnati before culminating in Michigan and Wisconsin.
You will feel like you are right there with us. I want you to experience what we experienced.
So head over to Ed's website to order your copies of Triumph of the Cross online.
The suggested donation is only $5 each, but if you are struggling financially, Ed will send you one copy free-of-charge (along with his original book, The Mystic Next Door) at the special link provided.
• Order a Free Copy
Let's finish with some quotes, jokes, and a prayer.
I'll try to get back to you next week when I'm feeling better. I made up the jokes just now and it shows.
I'm offering my lousy day up for you. You can offer those jokes up for me.
Quotations
"Because each of us, our families, as well as our warm inner circles of Catholic friendship comprise the sanctuary of the Holy Trinity, who Himself scorched the face of Moses, we must endeavor (with the care and skill of devout medieval artisans) to fashion our characters through pure grace in such a way that to the eyes of evil men or evil spirits, we appear as gargoyles guarding tabernacles housing unfathomable spiritual wealth. We must appear so good that we are repulsive to evil. We must appear so ugly to evil that the good is more than just true, it is beautiful."
- G.K. MacBrien
"Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals... except the weasel."
- Homer Simpson
"Calculation never made a hero."
Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman
"Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth, the Blessed Sacrament. There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the one true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that."
- J.R.R. Tolkien
Bud Makes a Funny
Question: How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Answer: Three. One to hold the giraffe, one to fill the bathtub with brightly colored industrial valves, and one to tell Bud that this joke was truly awful.
Question: How many Buds does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Answer: I dunno. Why don't we wake him up and find out?
Question: How many boxers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Answer: Two. One to "sock it" and one to go, "Lights out!"
Please join me and tens of thousands of your fellow readers in praying the Memorare of Saint Joseph, beginning in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...
Remember, O most chaste spouse of the Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who implored your help and sought your intercession were left unassisted. Full of confidence in your power I fly unto you and beg your protection. Despise not, O Guardian of the Redeemer, my humble supplication, but in your bounty, hear and answer me. Amen.
Look, my friends, I'm plum tuckered out, and all I'm doing is sitting in front of a computer and typing!
Joke composer. World class photographer (obviously).
I'm headed for the nearest warm bed, pronto, Tonto.
You guys are the best. Fear nothing. When you fall, get up.
With Saint Joseph,
Bud Macfarlane
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