The CatholiCity Message
Volume XVIII, Number 13 – November 26, 2014
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
Welcome new readers and warm Thanksgiving greetings to all CatholiCity Citizens, especially my longtime readers. Today I bring you an amazing, inspiring true story that will (hopefully) change your life and effect the lives of others, but first...
Looking Through Car Windows
I always associate Thanksgiving with the color brown—the brown turkey, the fallen leaves—you get it. In terms of vibe, it remains my favorite holiday because it gives glory to God, because my country “invented” it, and because it fundamentally mirrors the Mass with the practice of family and friends gathering together for a meal. Even non-Christians can't help but enjoy it.
Whenever I'm on the road to visit my own relatives, I always look into the other cars because on Thanksgiving Day, more than any other day, one can often see family members on their way to hang out with other family members. Even the solo drivers are on their way to connect with the people they love most.
You will be on my mind tomorrow, more than you realize, just as you were in my heart with Jesus at Mass today when I offered Holy Communion (which I received directly from the hand of my bishop) for your conversion and sanctification, for your spiritual and temporal needs, for your healing, perfect health, long life, and the same for your children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and their future spouses (if it applies). Tomorrow, on Thanksgiving Day, I will thank God for the gift of you being a part of my life, praying a special Rosary on the drive to my brother Joey's house. Please, pray for me.
Libation Soaked Mystery Wrapped in...Wrapping Paper
I confess: like most men, I don't enjoy shopping, but I do like buying stuff in a hunter-tracking-down-the-kill sort of way, especially when I can save big money on something my family needs. Ladies, I watch you shopping but I don't understand you. With nine sisters I learned early on to enjoy the mystery of your enigmas wrapped in gift boxes. By all means, enjoy Black Friday! (I still can't understand why they don't broadcast the football games on Friday instead of Thanksgiving so we dudes can revel in our own Beer-Soaked Mystery while you're out shopping.)
Soul Saving Gift Exchange
For my newer readers, CatholiCity.com cheerfully kicks off our annual Christmas Appeal in early December, which, if successful, will keep our doors open so we can keep reaching countless souls together in 2015. (Some of you may have already gotten my snail mail letter, which the always unpredictable Post Office decided to deliver very early.)
For us, the Christmas appeal has always been an exchange of gifts.
This year I'm emphasizing how much we need everyone to participate. If everyone who can pitch in, does pitch in, we'll be okay. And if you want to remember our little Catholic organization on Black Friday, this year's gorgeous, amazing gifts—powerful tools for protecting your family against demonic forces—are ready to ship.
Amazing True Story
A little while back my two younger son's "heard" a rough computerized English translation of a written Spanish testimony by a South American woman who was hit by lightning, survived, but later briefly "died" at the hospital while being treated for her injuries. Because so few people survive a lightning strike, her story was carried in newspapers all over her country.
While dead, this woman, a profoundly materialistic person who had spurned and ignored her Catholic faith her entire life, was shown astounding things on her way to eternal damnation. Before being cast into hell forever, Jesus came to her and showed her a bird's-eye view of her entire country marked by thousands of little flames. "These flames represent the people who read your story and have prayed you," he informed her.
The woman then saw a very large fire in one place on the map. Jesus showed her a simple man in a church who had been fervently praising and thanking God before the Blessed Sacrament. The man, who was so poor he habitually skipped eating so his wife and children could survive, decided to donate half of his money, around $5, as a sacrificial offering. He then left the church and walked to the local market to buy groceries using his remaining $5, knowing he would not be able eat any of it himself because he had donated the other $5. Among what he purchased was a loaf of bread—wrapped in a newspaper. The man noticed the headline about the woman who had been hit by lightning and immediately asked Jesus to save her life, promising that he would make a pilgrimage to a local Catholic shrine if she was saved.
According to the woman's testimony, this remarkable combination of selfless actions—thanking God in prayer, donating half of his small amount of money, forgoing food so his children might eat, praying for a dying woman, and promising to make a pilgrimage—all had resulted in Christ saving the woman from death and eternal damnation and pain.
The lesson for all of us should be obvious: the world and our godless culture thinks Catholics are ignorant and delusional while judging us failures by worldly standards of success, considering us weak and stupid with our saints and medals and rosary beads and sacraments and our babies and our fasting and seemingly irrational adherence to "impossible" moral standards. Like the poor man of humble faith in the true story above, through Jesus, we all share in the salvation of souls. We should never underestimate the enormous impact our simple prayers, financial sacrifices for our families, our charitable gifts, personal mortifications, and humility before God have on the eternal destinies of souls.
CatholiCity Citizens all, let this miracle change your life. Remember well this man and the woman he helped save the next time you are at Mass. Or saying morning prayers or the Rosary. Or struggling to pay the bills. Or dragging yourself to work. Or sacrificing to donate to a charity, or resisting temptation by saying a prayer for a priest or the soul who needs it the most. In the Mystical Body of Christ, you are more powerful than all the power in all the stars in all the universe.
Some Upcoming Feastdays in December
- Sunday, November 30. First Sunday of Advent. That came fast.
- Wednesday, December 3. Saint Francis Xavier, Co-Patron of the Missions (and my third son Xavier Aquinas's namesake. Xavier. Aquinas. No pressure there at all, kiddo).
- Saturday, December 6. The original Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, Bishop.
- Monday, December 8. Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Quote Saint John Paul the Great with me: "I am all yours Mary and all that I have is yours."
- Friday, December 12, Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
- Thursday, December 25. You know this one!
- Friday, December 26. Saint Stephen, the first martyr.
- Saturday, December 27. Saint John the Evangelist. Best friend of Jesus.
- Sunday, December 28. Feast of the Holy Family. JMJ! (Normally, this is the Feast of the Holy Innocents.)
Catholic Quotations
The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.
Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus, 1854, by Infallible Ex-Cathedra Declaration
The Blessed Virgin Mary was preserved from original sin in view of the merits of her Divine Son, and this privilege is called her Immaculate Conception. 'I will put enmities between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed; he shall crush your head, and you shall lie in wait his heel.' (Genesis 3:15)
The Baltimore Catechism
Because grace is not an object of experience but is known by faith, we cannot rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved (Council of Trent). However, God's blessing in our lives shows that grace is at work. Asked about being in the state of grace, Joan of Arc responded at her trial, 'If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there.'
The Catechism Simplified (2005)
Praying Together For Souls in Need
Let us now, tens of thousands of us together, with humble faith, join together in prayer, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...
Dear Jesus, open my eyes and let me perceive others the way you see them: as souls you love and ardently desire to obtain salvation. Even so, I thank you for my weaknesses, for my smallness, for all the times I have forgotten that through you all things are possible, and for not calling to mind often, as Saint Paul wrote, that I can make up in my own sufferings and sacrifices what was lacking on the Cross. Along with all the CatholiCity Citizens praying this prayer with me, I ask for your mercy and miraculous help for souls in our families, in our countries, and all over the world who need it most right now. Please tell Mary how much we love her. Amen.
Please, email me with your reaction and thoughts, even if it has nothing to do with this message. Happy Thanksgiving! Let's keep praying, working, and loving...
With the Immaculata,
Bud Macfarlane
