The CatholiCity Message

Volume X, Number 2 – May 31, 2006

Dear CatholiCity Citizen,

1. THE WILD TRUTH
Record temperatures besot the Midwestern states of America as the evening sun lingers high in the summer heavens, while millions of Polish citizens flock to see a German pope. A German pope visiting a non-Communist Poland? Most of us are old enough to realize that these words would have been madness less than two decades ago. "Surprise", dear Citizen, is a foundational element in the composition of human history.

For example, in every politically correct circle in the West, it was once thought, as recently as the 1990s, that the abortion issue would fade from importance as legalization and the calendar wore down opposition, just as most historians and intelligentsia in the 1930s would have bet the western world was inexorably moving toward communism or socialism. Communists believed that capitalism was too corrupting for the U.S. to outlast the Soviet Union. Yet despite house money bet on evil empires, the Red Sox won the World Series and the United States won the Cold War.

And U.S. presidents are still elected or not depending on who will be nominated to the Supreme Court.

We suppose a German pope is just as unlikely as a Polish one, just as a Japanese electronics company, Sony, is now in the business of slandering Jesus and the Catholic Church by bankrolling the Da Vinci Code.

How to make sense of these wild truths?

Our editorial philosophy here being that we are rarely able to tell you anything that hasn't been explained better by someone else, let us start with a meditative reading from a passage by the master Catholic thinker of our age, Gilbert Keith (G.K.) Chesterton:

"The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse; yet it is utterly unhistoric to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like vulgar fanaticism. She swerved left and right, so exactly as to avoid enormous obstacles. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been whirling adventure, and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect."

2. THE WORLD KNEELS
If we read Pope Benedict XVI correctly, the reason why the civilization of the West is so ill is because a secular philosophy of mushy moral relativism has replaced the rock-ribbed truths of Christianity–to the point where the European Union refuses to acknowledge God in its constitution. Benedict has written his first encyclical about love. "The world kneels before love," says an idealistic character in the recent movie The Village (which stars, ironically, the daughter of the director of the Da Vinci Code).

Yes, the world does kneel before love. God is love. The world is His creation. Of course it kneels before its creator. Perhaps the air is hot because the afterburners of G.K.'s heavenly chariot are what raises temperatures?

3. #1 CHRISTIAN SELF-HELP BOOK OF ALL-TIME
The best-selling book of all time is the Bible, to no surprise. The best-selling non-Bible Christian book is thought to be "Imitation of Christ," by Thomas a Kempis, written mainly as a manual for monks and nuns (and it must be read by laymen in that context). Number three on the list, however, is a self-help book written explicitly for layman by Saint Francis De Sales called "Introduction to the Devout Life." It's easy to read, spiritually challenging, and very practical.

A few months ago we put the entire text of this treasure online, in an easy-to-search format, for your benefit. You can check it out here:

http://www.catholicity.com/devoutlife/

4. DEPARTMENT OF CHANGING THE WORLD
Let us, all 60,000 of us, pray this simple prayer together, beginning In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...

"Dear Father in Heaven,
Help us to love everyone we live with, work with, and meet in our day-to-day life with a sincere heart. Amen."

QUOTE FROM THE MAN HIMSELF
"Everyone argues in favor of the virtue he practices easily, and exaggerates the difficulties of the virtues which are contrary to it." Saint Francis De Sales

5. FOR OUR NEWEST READERS
And for our first readers, too–here is something fun from a CatholiCity Message we sent out seven years ago called the Yeah Rights (the Joke is good too):

http://www.catholicity.com/catholicitymessage/archives/wm1999-04-23.html

Enjoy your summer of love. You remain in our daily prayers and we remember you always at Holy Communion.

With Christ,

Your Friends at CatholiCity