The CatholiCity Message
Volume III, Number 17 – June 18, 1999
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
As promised, here is second installment of Two-for-One Week. Let's roll...
In just a few days, on June 22nd, thousands of Catholics around the world will be joining us in a 54 Day Rosary Novena that culminates on August 14th, the Feast of Saint Maximilian "Uncle Max" Kolbe. Won't you join us? There's more information on this super-mega-giga powerful novena here:
http://www.catholicity.com/support/praywithus.html
1. POPPED INTO OUR HEAD
For most dads nowadays, the pressure to work and provide for our children sometimes overwhelms our desire to just spend time with them. After months of working like a dog, today was one of those days wherein we got to hang out with the Wild Ones of the Next Generation. What a blast! They were out playing in a big pile of dirt (we're doing some construction this summer), getting filthy-dog-boy-dirty. One son fabricated a crucifix out of heavy foam insulation using nails and screwdriver. Another got so filthy that we had to give him a shower in mid-day. Snot, dirt, blood from scrapes, and smiles everywhere. What's the point? We think you dads know.
2. OUR BRUSH WITH GREATNESS
Last week, at the Catholic Marketing Network tradeshow in Philadelphia, we got to hang out with our favorite Catholic singer, Marie Bellet, and her husband, Bill. We ate cheese steaks. We downed adult beverages. We got misty (along with everybody else) when she sang on the final evening. Many of you may recall our surprise review of Marie's album, "What I Wanted to Say," in a CatholiCity Message last year. (Read about this in our November 13th, 1998 Archives, "Hidden Jewel of the City.)
At the time of the review, we had not met or had contact with the Bellets. Meeting someone you idolize can often be a letdown. Well, the Bellets were bigger and better and grittier and more real in real life than our sloppy idealized version of them. No wonder the music is so cool. Marie's husband Bill is a regular guy, sharp as a tack, and so obviously in love with the mother of his eight children, and so proud of her gift to touch souls. You too can meet the Bellets if you can manage to make it to Minnesota (we'll pause here while our overseas Citizens laugh) for the CatholiCity Men National Conference. We dig the Bellets. And now we know how to say their last name. Pronounce the "t."
3. 14,000 PRAYERS
Please join your fellow citizens in a little prayer to a little saint. "Dear Saint Theresa, help us love God the Father."
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"We do the works, but God works in us the doing of the works."
Saint Augustine
4. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME...
...you visited Father John McCloskey's page in CatholiCity? He's got some great articles, including some new ones in recent months. It's the kind of stuff that you read, and then, you're not the same. If you haven't read "Winning New Converts" or "Recovering Stray Catholics," you're really missing important stuff. If even 1% of the folks reading this CatholiCity Message took these two articles to heart, a year from now there would be countless new souls in the Catholic Church. Father John recently moved to the pit of hell, also known as Washington, DC, and is working on some converts himself right now. Say a prayer for their conversion tonight, before you go to sleep, when your head is on your pillow, and there's nothing between you and Our Lady but the silence. Here's the URL:
http://www.catholicity.com/mccloskey/
JOKE OF THE WEEK
A Scotsman was hurrying home late one evening and was carrying a glass flask of his favorite Scotch whiskey in the breast pocket of his coat when he tripped and fell on a rock and felt liquid in his coat and said, "Oh, I hope it's blood."
See you next week through the pixels of your screen.
With Immaculate Mary,
In Love with Her Son,
Your Friends at CatholiCity
