The CatholiCity Message

Volume XX, Number 10 – November 22, 2016

Converting the Unconvertible

Dear CatholiCity Citizen,

My warmest Thanksgiving welcome to our new readers and my warmest thanks to our longtime readers. You are going to love the quotes and the prayer. And everything before that, starting with...

Converting A HUGE Number of People!
My next Message in early December will kick off our Annual Christmas Appeal and we have never needed your generous participation more for 2017. Here's why:

I've been traveling all over the country like a crazy man over the past few months lining up writers for a new series of books that I know will be the most affordable and effective tools for converting, reverting, inspiring, and evangelizing your relatives, friends, coworkers, and fellow parishioners.

Each book will be a conversion story—an autobiography under 100 pages. Even a slow reader (like me!) will be able start one after dinner and finish before bedtime.

What I find most exciting is that each book will be a true-life story that everyone (especially non-believers) can relate to: from party animals to atheists to older women to young hellions who discovered the supernatural beauty of the Catholic Church. There will not be one book by a nerdy Protestant minister who converted after reading a bunch of apologetics books and Bible passages (no offense if that is your story!).

There are enough books for people who are already devout Catholics.

Together you and I are going to give out hundreds of thousands, then millions, of these "conversion" books. We are going after the lost sheep, my friend! With financial sacrifice, work, prayers, fasting, and God's grace these amazing books are going to impact souls who will never, ever consider converting otherwise.

What Election? Are We Living in the End Times?
Okay, so I never write about elections. One reason: you do not need me to tell you who to vote for. Although I do not write about politics, I do follow what happens in the political realm very closely; I must do so because modern federal, state, and local governments are overbearingly intrusive and now have an immensely negative effect on religion, its practice, and its protections from tyranny. I've been telling you Christians are second class citizens and how this has been playing out for centuries because that is how my strange old mind works.

So yes, politics does matter. So yes, I am as relieved as I hope you are that an extreme pro-abortion candidate lost (if you take issue, please don't unsubscribe—everyone is welcome here, especially if you disagree with me—give me an earful!).

A friend who goes to Mass with me every day did point out that in the waning days of the Year of Mercy, the persecuted Little Sisters of the Poor might have found some relief, which made me smile.

Mostly, though (and I bet you longtime readers will nod along with me) I do not believe politics will solve any of the real problems in western society. The western world (the U.S., Europe, much of South America) is functionally godless. Its problems are moral. It is committing demographic suicide; I've documented this for you. And even though (with Aquinas) we can assert that "the law is a teacher," day-by-day politics lags behind and often manifests a preexisting and prevailing cultural morality (or immorality, or both). In short, we could have the best laws in the world, yet if the few children lucky enough to be born are introduced to pornography on "smart" (smut?) phones given to them by their own parents, then the fundamental disease destroying our culture is terminal.

Perhaps God gave us some time to turn things around. Yet at some point, Our Lady will no longer be able to hold back the terrible arm of God's justice. If you have no clue what I am referencing, please forgive me; three centuries ago and into our time Our Lady and Jesus have been directly warning us in approved apparitions that we live in extraordinary times. Please do not take my word for it. You can find out all you need to know by listening to the most popular Catholic recording of all time, Marian Apparitions Explained: Are We Living in the End Times? by my father, Bud Macfarlane Sr. Order your free CD or listen online.

Converting everyone to Catholicism is the answer. All true hope for mankind resides in Jesus and His Church. The Catholic Church is what it always is: the last bastion of repentance and mercy. The answer to the question nobody is asking is: You need to be holy. You need Him. Be holy, do His will, and the rest will play out according to a plan beyond my human understanding.

Some Upcoming Feastdays in December

• Sunday, November 27. First Sunday of Advent. That came fast.
• Saturday, December 3. Saint Francis Xavier, Co-Patron of the Missions (and my third son Xavier Aquinas's namesake. Xavier. Aquinas. No pressure. Xavier is a first year seminarian for the Diocese of Cleveland, so please pray for him).
• Tuesday, December 6. The original Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, Bishop.
• Thursday, December 8. Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Quote Saint John Paul the Great's full motto in English with me: "I am all yours Mary and all that I have is yours."
• Monday, December 12, Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
• Sunday, December 25. Merry Christmas—CatholiCity Citizens are the best!
• Monday, December 26. Saint Stephen, the first martyr.
• Tuesday, December 27. Saint John the Evangelist. Best friend of Jesus.
• Wednesday, December 28. (Normally, this is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. God is born and the first act of the government is an attempt to murder to Him through wholesale slaughter of innocent newborns.)

Catholic Quotations

Where the Church is, there is no death.
– Saint Ambrose

The Church is universal because she is born of God, all nations are at home in her, and the arms of her crucified Master are stretched above all races, above all civilizations. She does not bring nations the 'benefits of civilization,' but the blood of Christ and supernatural beatitude.
– Jacques Maritain

Christ and the Church are two in one flesh.
– Saint Augustine

Christian is my name and Catholic is my surname. The former qualifies me, the latter manifests me for what I am. The latter demonstrates what the former signifies. And, if finally I must explain the word Catholic and translate it from the Greek into the Roman idiom, Catholic means 'One, everywhere,' or, as the more learned think, 'obedience to all the commandments of God.'
– Saint Pacianus (4th Century)

The greatest thing about every Catholic is that he is one.
– John Ayscough

To be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school.
– G.K. Chesterton

No one can say in five words or five hundred what Chesterton said in fifty.
– Joseph Wood

How I Quit Smoking: Delayed
I promised I would share the miraculous story of how I quit smoking after decades of being a super addict, but the story I wrote is too long for this Message and not quite finished. I'll post it online and provide a link in my next Message.

Thanksgiving Prayer
Are you ready to pray? I composed the prayer to follow several years ago just for Thanksgiving. Please join me and tens of thousands of your fellow CatholiCity Citizens. Let us begin... "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...."

Our Father, please help calm the distracting thoughts swirling around our minds so we can pray peacefully. Remind us that words alone are not gratitude. We open our hearts...

...as we remember that You know us infinitely better than we can ever know ourselves. We are struck dumb, wordless, humbled, yet comforted by the faith you placed in our souls at our baptism, the friendship of your saints, the utterly reliable embrace of Mary, the protection of Joseph, the miracle of sacramental reconciliation and Holy Communion that allow us to be so close to your son...

...yet we have nothing to offer but our silence as we wait for your word. O Father, what should we pray? Our prayer of thanksgiving is one word, one way, one truth, one life, one priest, one king, one man carrying us in His arms, for each of us is His cross, bringing us into the very depths of the Holy Trinity...

Our word of thanksgiving is: Jesus.

Jesus–we whisper. Jesus–we long for You.

Jesus–the tears well in our eyes. Jesus.

You are our prayer this Thanksgiving. Thank you, Father. Amen.

End Time
This Thanksgiving I am going to thank God that Mary sent you to be a part of my life. This might sound odd, but thank God for me being in your life. I know I might not be the most important person in your life, but I do try my best and I want to do a better job of helping you in whatever way Jesus and Mary desire. I really do. I pray for you and your family every day at Mass.

So be safe if you are traveling. Ask your angels to help.

With Immaculate Mary,

Bud Macfarlane
Founder and Executive Director