It has been three years since I joined the Catholic Kingdom. Sadly, not long afterwards, satan began attacking us more viciously than ever. He wanted to put an end to the Catholic Kingdom and, for a while, it seemed that he had succeeded. But the Holy Family, Who is the Royal Family of the Catholic Kingdom, had other plans. And so, by the grace of God, here we are - almost two and a half years since we were nearly shut down for good.
And not only has the Kingdom survived, but it is bigger, better and even more beautiful than ever before! Thanks be to God and His most holy Mother!
We here at the Kingdom have indeed a lot to be grateful for, starting with members like you and your family and friends. On behalf of everyone here at the Catholic Kingdom, I want to thank you for your support, especially your prayers, during this most difficult time. Please keep it up, for satan never quits easily, and we need your continued help.
Lady Gwendolyn is currently running our Fourth Annual Tournament where we invite everyone to join and compete for prizes in Art, Writing and even answering questions about the Catholic Kingdom. This year, we are blessed to have some very special prizes - 3rd class relics that have been touched to many holy places, items and other relics in France and in Italy. There is a complete “touched” list that you can read at the Tournament field. If you haven’t already signed up, I hope you will. Everyone who enters will receive one of the very special 3rd class relics. So please join today! You do not have to win to obtain one of these sacramentals - which are a powerful source of grace.
Dominique is holding another ‘Procession to Paradise’ for the Poor Souls in Purgatory. She is asking everyone to pray the famous prayer that the Church has assured us came from God Himself. God promised St. Gertrude the Great that when anyone says the prayer, He will release at least 1,000 souls from Purgatory! One thousand souls! God is so generous, it is impossible to be as grateful to Him as we should, but let us try! And the best way to thank God for such a generous gift - is to use it! Dominique’s goal for the Catholic Kingdom members is to release at least 10,000,000 souls by Dec 31st, 2010. Ten million souls! It sounds like a lot, but we can do it if we all help.
God has told many Saints how happy He is when anyone on earth takes the time and trouble to pray for the Poor Souls. He is so grateful when we help pay the debt of their sins, helping them to be purified more quickly and released much sooner than if no one was helping them. And God will never be outdone in generosity. An extra special bonus is that every person that you help to release from Purgatory becomes your own personal saint in Heaven to pray to. These souls know exactly who has helped them get to Heaven and they are very grateful. They have a great love for those who helped them (even if they did not know the person when they were alive on earth).
So every time you say the Saint Gertrude prayer you will help release at least 1,000 souls. That’s 1,000 souls praying, right now, for you and all of your prayer intentions. If you say the prayer only once a day, by the end of a year you will have helped release 365,000 souls from Purgatory! To say the prayer slowly and reverently only takes twenty seconds. You can say the prayer three time well in about one minute (60 seconds). If you say the prayer just 3 times a day you will have well over one million powerful friends in Heaven - one million for one minute a day! Won’t you please join today? God will reward you very generously and the Poor Souls themselves will serve you faithfully from Heaven, obtaining graces for you and positive answers to your prayer requests. One minute a day - one million souls - every year! How can you afford not to join?
A recent and exciting development in the Kingdom has been the opening of the Royal Art Gallery. Sir Stephen, the appointed curator, has had it built into a spacious room that adjoins his chambers. He has worked hard to find good Catholic images that he can provide for free to members and friends of the Catholic Kingdom. He plans to place more artwork in the gallery frequently for you to enjoy and freely download for your personal use. You may not change the images in any way, nor use them to make any money. But you are free to download any or all of them. You can make as many copies of the pictures as you like. So please share them with your family and friends!
These images are truly beautiful. You can even use them to create backgrounds or screensavers for your computer. Some people like to look at them when they pray because it helps them to concentrate on the Mysteries of the Rosary or some other good and pious thought while they are praying. Distractions during prayer is a very common problem. God is not upset with us because we get distractions when we pray. He is only concerned about how we deal with the distractions when we get them. A number of Saints sometimes spent their whole time for prayer fighting distractions. When they were done, they were afraid that God was not pleased because they had had a hard time thinking about something holy while they prayed. But God explained to them that He was very pleased with the fact that they had tried hard to fight the distractions and did not just let the distractions become what they thought about while they prayed. So please visit Sir Stephen and the new Royal Art Gallery and start enjoying this beautiful Catholic art today!
Harold has been busy building new informational pages to help everyone who visits the Kingdom know about all the new (and old) wonderful things to see and do.
Finally, I am happy to announce the opening of the Monastery School! We have a number of plans for the school but for now we have established a community bulletin board and opened a library. The Bulletin Board contains announcements of interest about members and friends of the Catholic Kingdom. There you will find the names of those members who are celebrating birthdays or Baptism days for the current month. We plan on expanding this to include First Holy Communion and Confirmation anniversary dates. In fact we want to have a spot for any kind of announcements. Certainly, we all want to remember each other in all of our trials and joys. For example, Leighanne Herr wrote in to let us know that her mother is having a baby. We pray that all goes well for Mrs. Herr and their new baby. So let us know about your special dates or special announcements. If you are young, it is always good to check with your parents to make sure that whatever you would like to do is alright with them. I hope to hear from you soon at the Bulletin Board.
Lastly, I am excited to announce the opening of the School Library. We are working very hard to find good Catholic books to make available for you to either read at the library or download to your own computer and read it there whenever you like. These books are all free, out-of-print books. You may not change the contents of the books and you may not use them to make money in any way. But you are free (like with the new Art Gallery) to make as many copies of the books as you like, to share them with your family and friends. We will be making new books available frequently. We have made sure that all of the books are searchable when you use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software to view these books. That means if you have one of these books open you can search for any word or phrase and if the book contains what you are looking for, you will get a list of all the pages in the book where the words are. You can also copy words from the books and paste them into other documents (for example, a report for school). Be careful though and proof read what you have copied. The scanning process is good, but these books are old and sometimes the images are not quite clear and so the image of the word is not correctly translated. It does a very good job, but if you are copying text to paste into other documents always proof read what you have copied.
So again, all of us here at the Catholic Kingdom want to thank you for your prayers and support. Please keep it up, we need your help to stay in existence. The Catholic Kingdom is not ours alone. It is also yours, and truly belongs to all who desire to be a part of the Catholic Kingdom. It has been three years since I arrived at the Kingdom. During that time we have been through a lot. But through it all, we have grown much closer to God and Our Lady. Who knows what the next three years will bring for us, or for you, or for the whole world? But always remember that we were not created for this world. It is not our home. The purpose of this life on earth is to know, love and serve God in this life so that we can save our souls when we die and be happy in Heaven with God forever without end. When God permits us suffering in this life, He only does it so that good will come from it. There are many good things that can come from our suffering if we do not waste it. So beg Jesus everyday to fill you with every true peace, blessing, grace, strength and virtue of Almighty God, so that every day you will become closer and closer to Our One True God, The Most Holy Trinity. The closer you get, the stronger your relationship becomes, the more God can do with the prayers, sufferings and sacrifices you offer to Heaven; and the more quickly and completely He will answer your prayers for yourself and for others; indeed, the closer you will be to becoming a Saint !
… and the Church and the world have never been in greater need of prayers, of sacrifices or of Saints …
Thank you again for being a part of the Catholic Kingdom. We are blessed to have you with us.
Until we speak again …
I remain your friend in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate and Sorrowful Heart of Mary,
