The CatholiCity Message
Volume IV, Number 14 – July 20, 2000
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
We hope you're enjoying your summer. We've got just some fun stuff, some serious stuff, our group prayer, plus a joke, a quote, and goldfish. Goldfish? Read on. The fourth item is of particular interest, because we tried to write it for a CatholiCity Message a couple months ago, and our computer crashed and we lost it. Then we forgot about it. This week, we remembered it, but our computer crashed again as soon as we finished writing the fourth item, so we had to rewrite this week's entire CatholiCity Message from memory. (We're hitting the Save button after every sentence now.) Let's all 22,000 of us begin with a prayer.
1. OPEN OUR EYES
"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Dear Father in heaven, when we open our eyes in the morning, Your holy will is before us. If we are husbands, our sanctity is how we serve our wife and children. If we are wives, our sanctity is how we serve our husband and children. If we are single, it is how faithful we are to our friends and family. If we are children, it is how we obey our parents, do our schoolwork, and love our brothers and sisters. If we are religious, it is how we live our vows. If we are workers, sanctity is how well we do our job. Help us be saints today! Help us be saints tomorrow! Amen."
2. DID YOU LIKE NOVELS?
Now you have an opportunity to tell others online. We recently refurbished our Saint Jude Media homepage, including a simple new feature which will allow you to post your own online reviews of all three of our novels. This way, potential readers, often fallen-away Catholics, can find out what "real people" are saying about the novels. Maybe your review will be the one to inspire someone to read the book and revert or convert? If you would like to help us out, just go to the page and click on the What Readers Say link to submit a review (and if you've never read our novels, or need to "stock up" for your summer and fall evangelization, you can get free copies of the novels, and large quantities of the novels for an insanely silly nominal donation here, too):
http://www.catholicity.com/saintjude/
By the way, you can also post reviews of all three Saint Jude Media novels at Amazon.com and the Barnes & Noble website.
3. TAX DRIVE UPDATE: SOMETHING NEW
If you're a CatholiCity regular, then you know that three years ago, at the request of our Citizens, we began a once-a-year tax drive to help pay for the salaries of our full-time workers, our T1 line and online services, etc. For our newer citizens, don't worry, the "Tax Drive" consists of one email from us, once a year (or less often) asking for a voluntary gift. It's not a PBS marathon. The first Tax Drive, in 1998, literally saved the City from going offline and gave us a chance to cut our costs and become more efficient. The second Tax Drive helped up "tread water" and just stay alive.
Now for the exciting part. We are planning to hold this year's Tax Drive later this summer, but because online requests for Mary Foundation audio tapes and Saint Jude Media novels and the accompanying donations have been growing steadily in recent months, we might finally be in a position to begin expanding online services once again. Earlier this year we hinted at a Goldfish Strategy: that is, if we reach a certain revenue level during the Tax Drive, one of our intrepid workers shall consume a live goldfish. But after thinking about it, we realized that such a blatant publicity stunt (which, sadly, is not beneath us) might prove too disgusting to some citizens, and could actually hurt the Tax Drive. So here's the kicker:
The Mary Foundation (CatholiCity's parent organization) is in the midst of preparing for a first in the Catholic world. We're going to start offering free CDs of Catholic audio recordings, starting with our most popular recording, the Mary Foundation Rosary. We're in the final stages of retooling our operations center and computer fulfillment systems right now. We'll be ready to ship free Rosary CDs to anyone who asks in a matter of weeks. With secular and Christian music CDs selling for $15 or $20, we'll be doing the impossible once again (at least, we hope to). So instead of the usual Tax Drive, we'll release the Rosary CD online in conjunction with the Tax Drive. If your response is big enough–and we don't see why it won't be considering that CatholiCity Citizens make up the most generous online community on the Internet–we'll be able to keep CatholiCity online, expand services, blow out many thousands of Rosary CDs during the Jubilee Year, and, we won't have to eat any goldfish.
4. ON THE TIP OF OUR TONGUES
Back in high school, like most of our peers, we received Communion in the hand. At college during Mass, we were once horrified to discover that crumbs of the Sacred Host were falling to the carpet during a dorm Mass (they were using the homemade crumbly bread). Jesus was trampled underfoot. The rector ignored our complaints. We often found ourselves on our hands and knees, tears in our eyes, picking up the crumbs of the Eucharist and consuming them. A few other students would see and they just didn't understand what the big deal was. We started receiving Communion on the tongue. We are reminded of two true stories.
A few years ago, directly after daily Mass at a parish in New Jersey, the father of one of our workers noticed crumbs of Holy Communion on the table in front of the tabernacle. When he pointed it out the priest, the priest insisted that Jesus was "no longer" present, and stormed off. So the man consumed the crumbs, then knelt to pray, his eyes closed. A little voice gently urged him to open his eyes and look at the floor under the tabernacle. To his horror, when he opened his eyes, he spied a large black ant with a crumb of the Sacred Host in his jaws, scurrying toward a crack in the wall. He deftly caught the ant, plied the crumb away, and consumed it.
Here's another story, this time from a friend who publishes a Catholic magazine. One time, while he was praying after receiving Holy Communion, his eyes closed, he heard an interior voice tell him to open his eyes. He looked up and saw a man take the Host into his hands, but not consume it. He left the pew and rushed to the back of the church and grabbed the man, who had already put the wafer into a small container. He wrestled for the container, but the man resisted strenuously. Frustrated and desperate, not knowing what to do next, he burst out the following words, which must have been inspired by the Holy Spirit, as they welled up from his soul: "I'm willing to die for the Eucharist, are you?!" The man released the container, and fled.
Consider receiving Holy Communion on your tongue.
JOKE OF THE WEEK
Two friends went scuba diving off the coast of Maine and one got pulled under by the current. Later that day, a grim-faced policeman met the survivor at his hotel room door. "We have some bad news, some good news, and some great news," said the policemen. "Give me the bad news first," said the friend. "I'm sorry to tell you, sir, but one hour ago we found your friend's body in the bay near the lighthouse." "That's terrible! I told him not to go near that cove!" said the friend, overcome by grief and sadness. "What's the good news?" "Well," said the policeman, "when we pulled him up, he had three six-pound lobsters and a half-dozen good-sized steamer clams on him." His face contorted with horror, the survivor demanded, "If that's the good news, then what's the great news?" The policeman replied, "We're going to pull him up again tomorrow morning."
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"Not only do the priests offer the sacrifice, but also all the faithful: for what the priest does personally by virtue of his ministry, the faithful do collectively by virtue of their intention."
Pope Innocent III (13th Century)
"The word of Christ could make out of nothing that which was not; can it then not change the things which are into that which they were not? For to give new natures to things is quite as wonderful as to change their natures."
Saint Ambrose (4th Century)
"A broken heart and God's will be done would be better than that God's will should be avoided."
Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson
Have a great weekend!
Yours in Christ,
Your Friends at CatholiCity
