Heartwarming Photo Gallery
Volume XXV, Number 17 – October 8, 2021
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
I have a happy message today: angel "advice," stimulating Quotes, a satisfying photo-gallery of our most recent Colebrook Society event, and my worst joke ever (because you've heard it before). Please forgive me: I'm gonna delay my photo-diary of our Wisconsin pilgrimage until next time...
But first, I bring you a month of great saints!
October is for Celebrating!From my heart, I want to thank everyone who participated in our 18 Days to Save America initiative by joining me and Father John Anthony Boughton of the CFRs in prayer and self-denial. I answered hundreds of your emails (representing countless more "silent" participants), including those courageous souls who jumped in after my stirring Cracks in the Devil's Dam message! We did some damage.
In the meantime, let's keep praying (and sharing) the three Daily Prayers to Save America until our next Mantle of Mary initiative (probably early next year).
I received no special revelations after my own seemingly endless 18-day fast, other than to encourage you to enjoy this month, your families, and the many wonderful October feast days. Let's let our spiritual wounds heal, build up our strength for future battles, and enjoy our families and whatever freedoms we have left (while we still have them!).
Besides, October is stacked:
October 4th: Saint Francis of Assisi. This apostolate would not exist without Francis, because our patron and model, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, was himself a fruit of the holiness of Francis, whose manifestation of Jesus is ever-renewing throughout the centuries. Saint Francis, dear friend, pray for us!
October 7th: Our Lady of the Rosary, commemorating the miraculous Catholic triumph over Islam in the sea battle of Lepanto in 1571.
October 16th: Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, to whom Jesus gave the Sacred Heart devotion in the late 1600s. Recall I personally and permanently placed your intentions on a flash drive very, very close to her still-incorrupt body on the very Feast of the Sacred Heart in France during our 2019 pilgrimage with Father John O'Brien SJ.
October 19th: Saint Jean Brebeuf, the supremely holy Jesuit missionary and one of my greatest heroes. Recall that Father John O'Brien hiked three hours into the Quebec wilderness with some young Catholics to bury your intentions, plant exorcised salt blocks, and offer Holy Mass (on the very spot where Brebeuf shed his blood) to "pin the Mantle of Mary" over Canada last year.
October 28th: Saint Jude, Apostle. For over a century, the Help of the Hopeless has been answering Macfarlane prayers with miracles great and small. I named my brilliant first son after him. My mother lost a perfectly healthy son in a childbirth tragedy when I was a little boy ("the other Saint Jude" in our family). You can read my lost brother Jude's story here (which I wrote over twenty years ago).
Off with His Head!And let's not forget Pope Saint John Paul II on the 22nd and Saint Denis of France on October 9th. At his martyrdom in the year 250, the pagans decapitated him, but Denis did not die. He picked up his own head and then walked up a big hill outside Paris, with awestruck onlookers following. Denis stopped, then proclaimed, "Build the church here," before expiring.
I took your intentions to that church as well, where Saint Ignatius, Saint Francis Xavier, and a few friends started the Society of Jesus in 1534.
I encourage you to reflect on the pattern: what happened in the year 250 impacted Ignatius in 1534, and then Jean Brebeuf on our continent in 1649, which impacted our particular roles in 2021 through our prayers and fasting last month.
God plays the long game. You're in it.
Let Angels Finish Your Rosaries!Here is some great news. (And yes, kids, try this at home.) As a boy, my parents taught me that if you fall asleep praying a Rosary, your guardian angel will finish it for you. Surely this also applies to the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Have you heard about this?
Even if you have already prayed a Rosary before bed, it can't hurt to start another one as your weary head hits the pillow in order to get in an easy "extra" Rosary for a special intention. Is this official Catholic teaching? Nope. Does it make sense based on other infallible Catholic teaching? Yup.
The way I figure it (and you all know my mind works in strange ways, just read or reread any one of my novels...), if this is true, my angel does a much better job of praying the Rosary than I ever will.
Spread it Like ManureIf God has helped, taught, inspired, or in any way changed your life through my endless fevered drivel in this Message, please consider forwarding it to as many as you can in your own email address book with a personal note asking them to sign up here:
Related, my computer guy wanted me to remind you that those wily email filters and ISP gnomes have a nasty habit of permanently relegating this Message into your Trash or Spam folder.
After 25 years, if you stop getting my emails for more than a few weeks, it probably ain't because I'm dead or forgot how to type, so check your Spam or Trash and mark the CatholiCity Message as "Not Spam" or "Not Trash" to teach the algorithm to let it through.
Quotations
"Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can, in every place you can, at all the times you can, with all the zeal you can, for as long as ever you can."
-John Wesley
"Whoever possesses God is happy."
-Saint Augustine
"The sight of an effect rouses a natural desire to know the cause. The human mind can view the whole range of things, and therefore instinctively craves to know their cause, which, ultimately, is God alone. Happiness is not attained until this natural appetite is at rest. Only knowing God will produce a state where restlessness is stilled."
-Saint Thomas Aquinas
"Ask me if am I happy and I become confused, because I have learned to no longer even wonder if I am happy. What does it matter if I am happy by the superficial standards of this insane world, which does not really know what happiness is, given its rejection of Christ? Yet, after the Catholic priest absolves my sins, and I am thus free from mortal sin, that is the unique goodness. That is contentment, a much greater possession than happiness, because it is not really a possession or an emotion, but a way of being. The Holy Trinity in my soul with my certain future in heaven amidst my present messy concerns and struggles, well, that, that is the one worthy goal, and an easily attainable one, because it is free if you don't count the cost of contrition."
-Joseph Wood
"The past and present are only our means; the future is always our end. Thus we never truly live, but only hope to live. Always looking forward to being happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so."
-Blaise Pascal
"Happiness is a mystery like religion, and should never be rationalized."
-G.K. Chesterton
"Seek ye first my kingship over you..."
-Jesus Christ
...along with thousands around the world, so join me in changing the world through grace in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost...
Holy Apostle Saint Jude,
cousin and lifetime friend of Jesus,
the Church honors you as the aide of hopeless cases,
please pray for me, for I am so alone.
Ask God to bring immediate help
where His divine power is most needed.
Come to my assistance in my hour of distress
that I may receive the help of heaven
in all my present necessities, challenges, and sufferings,
particularly for (State Your Request),
and so that I may praise God
with you and all the saints forever!
I promise, my dear friend, to remember
this great gift granted by God and
to always honor you as my beloved and powerful ally,
and to gratefully encourage devotion to you.
Amen.
A quick joke. Why did the man throw the clock? Because he wanted to see time fly. But it hit the wall instead. And broke. Ouch.
First Cleveland, Then the NationFinally, if you missed my announcement about our new Colebrook Society "tool for evangelization" to reach young Catholic adults nationwide, our Cleveland "pilot program" is expanding fast.
Because of your generosity, our events are growing fast! Plus we've already connected leaders among two dozen local Catholic young adult groups; they grow as we grow. There's a heart-warming photo gallery of our latest Gathering at the bottom of this page. We're planning to expand to our second metro area early next year. (If you live in the Cleveland/Akron area, please share the new Colebrook Society website with all the under-30 Catholics you know.)You guys are the best! Back soon. Enjoy October!
With Saint Jude,
Bud Macfarlane
Founder
