The CatholiCity Message

Volume VI, Number 23 – November 18, 2002

Dear CatholiCity Citizen,

CatholiCity Lives! Before moving on to more reflective than usual CatholiCity Message items, here's a superlative update on the estimated results:

(INFORMATION REMOVED: OUTDATED)

Like we always say, you guys are the best. Your sacrifices and generosity exceeded our goal, and barring unforeseen expenses in 2003, we're hoping we can delay the next Tax Drive past twelve months from now.

Our heart is filled with gratitude, and our entire staff is dedicated to showing our gratitude with better service, more improvements, and more surprises. You just have to love a "city" where taxation is voluntary, where the trains run on time, and less than 4% of the citizens pay taxes to keep things going and growing. To all of you who prayed: thank you!

To the 4%: you are the true heroes of this work for souls. Again, our warmest thanks.

And now, on to the unusual stuff. We started out thinking we might write about Thanksgiving but ended up writing about humility. We are experts on neither, but we cannot resist exploring that which we do not comprehend...please join us...

JOKE OF THE WEEK
Question: What did one wall say to the other wall?
Answer: Meet me at the corner.

"There is no grace without humility."
Saint Bernard

1. LET'S TALK TURKEY
As Thanksgiving approaches this week in the United State, we know you don't need us to preach to you about the need for gratitude before God for all the blessings we've received as individuals and families. What has struck us recently, as we've pondered the nature of gratitude itself, is that we've been guilty of thinking that thankfulness is the kind of thing we "owe" to God. We're realizing more and more that we have it all backwards. Gratitude itself is a gift from God. It's really something we should be asking for, for we cannot give thanks unless thankfulness has already been received.

Okay, okay. We admit: if we had read that last line just a few years ago, we would have condemned it as "Chicken Soup for the Soul" mumbo jumbo. Forgive us. Gratitude is the fruit of another much more important virtue: humility. Humility, the saints teach, is the fruit of being in touch with reality. As we look at our friends, and try to understand those who are truly grateful, we notice that they are always the most humble people we know. Humble people know what reality is. Reality is this: everything we have–our life itself, our talents, our material blessings, and most of all, the very people who love us, are a gift from God.

This is reality: everything good, true, and beautiful on this planet comes from God. To accept this is humility.

But we also know that humility itself is impossible without grace. Without a certain sanctity that comes from living a sacramental life, real gratitude is impossible. If God didn't exist, Thanksgiving would be pretty meaningless. Who are we thanking? We need grace to "see" God. So gratitude results from the gift of grace, and therefore is not something we owe to God so much as offer back to Him after He gives us humility through grace. We hope we haven't botched this up too much. Even so, please join your fellow 70,000 CatholiCity Citizens in a prayer of thanks as we look forward to another year online:

"Dear Father in Heaven, as with Our Lady, the most humble woman ever, we are nothing but magnifying lenses of Your Good, Your Truth, and Your Beauty. Thank you for the people who love us. Thank you for every single thing. Thank you! Amen."

2. WHY WE LOVE CANADA
Beginning with World Youth Day, we've spent more time in Canada than usual–working with the faithful Canadian Catholics, expanding our distribution system, and so on. In fact, CatholiCity and the Mary Foundation have been blessed with many benefactors from our brothers and sisters above the border from the start. Our longtime right hand man and original operations manager is married to a lovely Canadian woman. The editor of the last two Saint Jude Media novels, John O'Brien, is a Canadian, and yes, the son of the famous Canadian Catholic novelist.

There are many reasons why we love this most beautiful nation. It's becoming clear to us that with Saint Joseph as your patron, there is a mystical "marriage" between Canada and the United States (which is itself consecrated to Immaculate Mary). Joseph and Mary "go together." We Americans have much to learn from Canada through Saint Joseph. Pope John Paul II came to Toronto for reasons we suspect only the Holy Trinity truly fathoms.

Mostly, though, we have fallen in love with Canada because to know devout Canadians is not only to love Canadians, but to be loved by Canadians. The Catholic cooperation between these brother and sister nations is a story that will continue to be written in the coming months and years as the New Springtime brings forth fruit. You'll read at least part of this developing story from our pen, we assure you.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

"True humility makes no pretence of being humble, and scarcely ever utters words of humility."
Saint Francis de Sales

"Humility: that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot."
Thomas Moore

"Humility is a descending charity and charity is an ascending humility."
Jean Pierre Camus

"Humility is the luxurious art of reducing ourselves to a point, not to a small thing or a large one, but to a thing with no size at all."
G.K. Chesterton

"Humily suffices."
David Peterson

"There is something in humility that strangely exalts the heart."
Saint Augustine

Until next time.

With Christ,

Your Friends at CatholiCity