The CatholiCity Message
Volume XVI, Number 5 – June 5, 2012
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
Welcome. It is hard for me to judge whether I am doing a good job writing these messages. I took a few extra days to really put myself into this month's message, and I believe strongly that it will help you, especially the comments on faith.
THE HARVEST IS GREAT, THE WORKERS ARE FEW
Pretty much the only way you ended up reading this (the oldest and most popular Catholic e-letter ever) is because at one point you ordered our CDs, pamphlets or novels and decided to join our work by making them available to others in your circle of influence, by praying with us, and by helping support us financially. I know there is an ebb and flow to your zeal for souls as the years go by, because I experience it myself. Which brings me to my favorite Bible quote, from Jesus, of course:
"Ask, and you shall receive."
If your efforts have ebbed rather than flowed in recent months or years, I am cheerfully asking you, hopefully with the Holy Spirit gently blowing on your soul, to rekindle your zeal for souls by returning to the soul-saving work of distributing our materials as part of your regular routine.
Real people with immortal souls, most of whom you may not know personally but live in nearby parishes and shop at local grocery stores near you, will, of their own free will, choose heaven over the alternative, by God's grace, as a result. Pray. Decide. Click:
http://www.catholicity.com/gifts/
KINDLE ME THIS
I really stretched our budget to get one of my sons a Kindle (an electronic book device from Amazon, around $80) for Christmas. A tall, brilliant young man with the seeds of a vocation, he loves to read, and uses it constantly. I borrowed it recently and found I enjoyed reading with it more than paper books in some respects, and recommend it if you can afford one. You can even "borrow" library books on it free-of-charge. If you have a Kindle, you can even read my three novels on it for a (ridiculously) minimal cost of two bucks a pop:
FAITH FALLACIES
Modern men, and even our Protestant brothers, tend to make two mistakes about the nature of religious faith. First, they consider it an emotional feeling about God. In fact, faith is a highly rational act, defined by Saint Thomas Aquinas as an intellectual acceptance (or assent) of truths about God. Most of these otherwise unattainable truths have been revealed by God through the prophets, through the Holy Scripture, and of course, by Jesus himself. (Some truths about God, such as knowledge of His existence, can be deduced using reason apart from revelation.) Sometimes we "feel" our faith; often we do not. The important thing is that faith allows us to accept truths about God.
Moderns also mistakenly think of faith as something one can obtain, and there are valid ways to regard faith this way, but paradoxically, the Church teaches that faith cannot be obtained like material possessions or intellectual prowess, but rather, that faith is a freely given gift from God that gives our will the ability to accept religious truth. This permanent, ongoing gift began at our baptisms. If a person has been baptized, they have the gift of faith. Our job as Catholics who care about the souls of others is not necessarily to help people find or attain faith, but to enflame the faith they have already been given at baptism, no matter how dormant it may seem to be.
If faith is a gift and already present in the baptized, it is not some far-away treasure on a mountaintop requiring our friends to take a long, arduous journey to obtain, but rather it is something very, very close to them--inside their hearts. Faith for them is a highly combustible fuel, and needs the spark of our love, our prayers, our fasting, and our willingness to strike a flint in close proximity, to burst into flames.
You were baptized. You have faith.
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"Faith is a habit of mind, which begins eternal life in us, and induces a reasonable assent to things unseen."
Saint Thomas Aquinas
"The author of faith is he who produces the believer's assent to the truth declared. Mere hearing is not a sufficient cause. The assent is caused by the will, not by any reason of necessity. And therefore a preacher or herald cannot produce faith. God is the cause of faith, for He alone can alter our wills."
Saint Thomas Aquinas
"By faith the Christian soul enters, as it were, into marriage with God."
Saint Thomas Aquinas
"Human reason is weak, and can be deceived, but true faith cannot be deceived."
Thomas a Kempis
"A man may firmly believe his religion historically, and yet have no part nor portion therein practically and savingly. He must not only believe his faith, he must believe IN his faith."
Saint Thomas More
"A feint faith is better than a strong heresy."
Saint Thomas More
"Faith is illuminative, not operative. It does not force obedience, though it increases responsibility. It heightens guilt, but it does not prevent sin."
Blessed Cardinal Newman
"Ultimately faith is the only key to the universe. The final meaning of human existence, and the answers to the questions on which all our happiness depends cannot be found in any other way."
Thomas Merton
"For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe: that unless I believe, I will not understand."
Saint Anselm
JUNE: MARK YOUR CALENDARS
June is packed with powerful feast days, including a slew of bishop-martyrs, something for our own bishops to keep in mind as they fight for religious freedom. We also promote five 54-Day Rosary Novenas every year, and the next one begins on June 22 (Saints and Martyrs, Thomas More, John Fisher, and Bishop Paulinus). This is an extremely powerful devotion and a great way to get into the habit of praying the daily Rosary. Here is the link:
http://www.catholicity.com/prayer/novena.html
You can get a free copy of America's #1 Rosary CD or download the audio to your computer or smartphone here:
http://www.catholicity.com/cds/rosary.html
Also in June:
June 10, Corpus Christi (Body and Blood of Christ) Sunday
June 13, Saint Anthony of Padua, the WD-40 of saints. Start your 9-day novena today, June 5, Feast of Saint and Martyr Boniface
June 15, Sacred Heart of Jesus, Friday
June 16, Immaculate Heart of Mary, Saturday
June 28, Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr
June 29, Pope Saint Peter, Martyr, Saint Paul, Apostle
June 30, First Holy Martyrs of the Church
June 14, Flag Day, marks my parents' fifty-second wedding anniversary. I happened to grow up in Verona, New Jersey, worldwide corporate headquarters for the famous Annin Flagmakers (since moved to Roseland, New Jersey, where I was baptized), which made the flags that are on the moon, among a gazillion other iconic flags.
Thanks for being a part of our work. Like most of the fathers reading this, I was a good Catholic boy who grew up wanting to be a dad above all other ambitions. We do not need a special day, but we do need your love and respect every day.
With Saint Joseph,
Bud Macfarlane
Founder
