The CatholiCity Message

Volume IX, Number 10 – November 22, 2005

Dear CatholiCity Citizen,

On behalf of all the workers and volunteers at CatholiCity, the Mary Foundation, and Saint Jude Media, may you and your loved ones have a safe, happy and holy Thanksgiving.

You know what giving thanks means, so let us simply turn our hearts, along with all 60,000+ of our brothers and sisters, toward God in prayer together:

"Dear Father in Heaven, thank you for all the blessings you've bestowed upon us in 2005. For the warm homes, clean clothes, the sufficient food, our health–all the material gifts you give us.

Thank you for our parents, our spouses, our children, our brothers and sisters, our friends, and those who go to Mass with us: for the relationships that make life worth living.

Thank you for the saints, our angels, and your Son's mother, who constantly helps us and guides us, often despite ourselves. Thank you, Father, for the perfect father, Joseph, who loves us so serenely and respectfully.

Thank you for the Catholic Church, for the religious brothers and nuns of our lives, for our beloved pope, Benedict; for our parishes, and for the honor of receiving Jesus at Mass, and for your healing absolution in Confession.

Thank you, especially, for our priests, who have borne persecution, sacrificed all, and given all, to vouchsafe our hope in heaven. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Amen."

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

"Gratitude is not only the greatest virtue, but also the parent of all others."
Cicero

"Thou are not thankful-hearted?
Has thee n'er pondered one rose,
sought the maiden's downcast eye,
or sensed the first-fresh of spring
even as autumn's leaves descend
and winter's dark eves portend?
These dwell all in grateful hearts."
Sir John F. X. White

"One act of thanksgiving, when things go wrong with us, is worth a thousand thanksgivings when things are agreeable."
Blessed John of Avila

"Gratitude is the lover's response to beauty given, strength received."
Ben Fisk

FAINT YET PURSUING
(by Coventry Patmore)
Yea, though I sin each day times seven
And dare not lift the fearfullest eye to heaven
Thanks must I give
Because that seven times are not eight or nine
And that my darkness is all mine
And that I live within this oak shade
One more minute even
Hearing the winds their Maker magnify

Well then, turkey time. Thank you for being a part of our work in 2005. CatholiCity Citizens are ever the best!

With Warmest Affection from All of Us Here,

Your Friends at CatholiCity