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Local Effort Seeks One Million to Pray the Rosary

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The Mass of Thanksgiving for Archbishop Sheen was truly amazing, and I’m putting together several posts about the Mass itself, replete with photos and some fun stories.  I had hoped to have this up today, but there are too many great photos and stories right now, and I need to pare it down.

Today I’m digressing for a great cause.  

I want to share an ambitious new effort spearheaded by a small local group that has a mighty goal:  getting one million people to say the Rosary on  Sunday, October 7.

Coincidentally (providentially?), it was the inspiration of a longtime friend, Michelle Rebello, who is also a member of the women’s Sheen book group featured here on the blog last week.

Here’s the message from Michelle: 

We are asking you to join one million of your fellow Catholics in saying the Rosary for our country on Sunday, October 7, 2012 at 3 pm EST. (You can say it wherever you are, or can go to St. Vincent dePaul church in Peoria to pray it at 2:00pm right before the Life Chain.) We are praying for our country to return to God and His laws. 

Visit rosaryvictory.com to pledge your support and be counted. Please help spread the word through email, facebook, twitter, etc (you can  go to those at facebook.rosaryvictory.com and twitter.rosaryvictory.com) to help us reach our goal of one million people! 

Bishop Jenky has asked for people to consecrate themselves to Jesus through Mary on that day; it would be a great way to honor Our Lady and help our country to say the rosary all together on that day. 

Thank you for all of your help in spreading the word and in praying the rosary on Oct. 7th. Remember, we need people to go to the website and put their email address there and the number of people in their family that will say the rosary so that we can tally up all the pledged rosaries–to 1 million and beyond!

The CNMC "Following Along in Spirit" Edition

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Well, I still have the badge on the blog saying that “I’ll be there!” to the Catholic New Media Conference in Dallas this week, but this year, it’s just going to have to be in spirit, or on Twitter, or something.  A little more than a week ago, for far-too-long-to-explain-here reasons, I had to cancel all my reservations for my planned trip to this great conference.

Last year, when I followed along with several of the sessions that were streamed from Kansas City’s CNMC, I had determined that I would work hard to make it happen this year.  The plans did get made, but now it’s not going to work out this year.  Doubly sad, I was planning to see two young friends at The University of Dallas–a neice and a daughter of my best college friend.  Because I won’t be in Dallas, visiting them and seeing their college home won’t happen.

I’m super disappointed about all of it, especially since at the CNMC I was going to get to see friends that I know, and meet many others that I know only online.  The conference is going to coincide with both the Catholic Marketing Network and the Catholic Writers Guild.  It’s going to be a great experience for those who are going to network, learn about great books, movies and other Catholic media, and just in general soak up the atmosphere.  Attending a conference the first year is often a “lost” year, getting one’s bearings, etc., but I think with all the great topics and speakers and sessions, I would have gleaned a lot from attending even this first-for-me conference.

So, though I am Emily of Deep Valley sad about this (and you can read all about what that means here, in my literary pilgrimage to Betsy-Tacy land), I do hope to make the best of being at home.

The conference starts today, so if you are attending or en route, please do tweet and updating those of us at home about it.  I will be following along on Twitter and Facebook.  And have a great conference!

Not Far from the Kingdom of God?

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I have a Facebook friend (he’s the husband of a delightful local friend, both with terrific senses of humor), who has a guiltily funny meme going whenever a celebrity dies.  Here’s a basic example:  when Leslie Nielsen died, said friend posted a photo of Liam Neeson and writes as a caption, “Leslie Nielsen, you will be missed.”

The comments at first (and even now) can be part of the fun, as friends write, “Hey, I think you’ve got the wrong person.”  Etc.  Much silliness in the comments usually ensues, and some are much more guilty pleasures than others.

I happened to see the couple at a gathering late last week.  I confided in them that my first thought (instead of a prayer for the repose of her soul) when discovering that Helen Gurley Brown (HGB), the longtime editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, had died, was thinking, “I wonder whose photo for her will be on (friend’s) Facebook page.”

We laughed about it.  He mentioned how it has taken on a life of its own, with people messaging him whenever a celebrity dies.  I gave my mea culpa for the time last year when I myself did that, when some minor television celebrity I can’t now recall, had passed away.  I sent a message along the lines of, “You should know that (minor celebrity) has died. And will be missed.”  Mea culpa, indeed.

Fortunately for me and the state of my soul, I was driving at the time I learned of HGB’s death, and so couldn’t check Facebook.  (So, in fact, I did take a moment to pray for her; Facebook friend was unaware of her and didn’t “feature” her).  Later that night, I discovered via Twitter and Facebook that another famous woman, Nellie Gray, founder of the March for Life and stalwart pro-life activist, had died the same day.

And so despite my initial first guilty thoughts about Helen Gurley Brown, learning that she had died the same day as Nellie Gray, gave me a kind of comfort.   I can imagine, because God has an excellent sense of humor, that Nellie Gray may have been invited to help shepherd poor HGB through the pearly gates, or at least in purgatory.  Nellie Gray could be pretty strict about things, and knowing that this quality of hers would certainly be sloughed away, I can picture these two contemporaries (they were born just a few years apart) being together and important to each other in some unknown-to-us way.

Later, I discovered via Deacon Greg Kandra of The Deacon’s Bench blog that HGB had been a million-dollar contributor to Catholic schools in NYC, and Cardinal Dolan had “danced” with her.  (read about the story behind the photo here).  Another sweet image, and one that makes me think, actually more hope than believe, as I’ve said before and on other occasions, “Not far from the Kingdom of God.”