Dear Jake, Please, I beg of you, take a few moments out of your busy schedule today and go say a prayer for your poor, persecuted uncle in the Mother Church of the whole world.  If God has been so good as to allow you to spend this semester in Rome, the least you can do for an imprisoned uncle is afford me this small consolation.  It was there, in that ancient and magnificent building, in that prayer captured in stone, the cathedral of Rome, the first of the public basilicas erected after the first three centuries of the Church’s existence – it was there that I first began to fall in love with Catholicism, and there that I spent my afternoons during that fateful year when God called me to the mission I am still engaged in now.  I know, of course, that we do not need beautiful buildings in order to worship God – but they certainly can help!  And just thinking of the millions of pilgrims that have passed through the doors of that basilica – those front doors, those huge bronze doors that the Christians removed from the Roman Senate at Constantine’s behest, as if to mark the end of the ancient world and the beginning of the Christian age – just the thought of all those pilgrims makes my eyes water.  We have been given such a great gift, my dear nephew, to have inherited the one true faith.  I do hope you are taking time enough to soak your soul in the many monuments to that faith that decorate the Eternal City.  Don’t waste all your free time gamboling around the bars, as so many American college students do on their semester overseas.  Open the eyes of your heart to the beauties of this Church, which God supplies to carry us into his heavenly embrace.  Fall in love with the Church, and let that love fill you with enthusiasm for the eternal Kingdom… Well, I am getting a bit carried away.  Do forgive me – a passing spasm of self-pity and egoism.  Ugh.  Count on my prayers. God bless, Uncle Eddy

Dear Claude, Lovely reviews of your latest play – thanks for forwarding them to me.  Clearly, you have a real talent in things theatrical, seeing as you are able to please such divergent reviewers.  Keep up the good work – heaven knows how desperately we need a renaissance of Christian inspiration in the world of arts and entertainment.  Watch your back, though – few fields of endeavor are so ferociously beset by temptations.  I personally know of a dozen talented artists who involved themselves in dubious productions as a way to build up their contacts, and have ended up as moral and religious basket cases.  You may want to take today’s saints as personal patrons. There are conflicting legends about these four martyrs, but it seems that they were stone workers and sculptors involved in the grand building projects undertaken by the maniacal Emperor Diocletian.  He commissioned them a few jobs, which they completed so expertly that he granted them an exemption from having to carve statures of pagan gods, which they had refused to do.  It was a big exemption (which shows you how pleased the emperor was with their artistry), seeing as Christians throughout the empire were being cruelly tortured and executed for similar refusals.  The emperor even commended Christianity as the cause of their particularly inspired sculpting.  But it seems that some others working on the projects fell into the grips of envy or jealousy, and stirred up opposition to the Christian artists.  Claudius, Nicostratus, Symphorius, and Castratus were therefore jailed.  Diocletian continued to treat them leniently, until an official’s untimely death was superstitiously traced back to the Christians’ refusal to sacrifice to the Roman gods.  At that point, public outcry demanded “justice,” and after refusing to abandon their faith, the workmen were sealed inside lead boxes and thrown into the river to drown. Consider well their example, my dear nephew.  You may find yourself in an analogous situation some day, where success, fame, and wealth will be yours if you are willing to use your talents to please men at the expense of displeasing God.  Make up your mind now to stay faithful even if it’s tough, and you will save yourself moral agonies later. Affectionately yours, Uncle Eddy

Dear Willy, Courage, my timorous young nephew, you must drum up your courage!  No use sitting in the coffee house with likeminded Catholics and lamenting the horrid state of campus life over a steaming café latte.  Sit there and slurp as many cappuccinos as you like, but do so while making plans to attack the neo-paganism and reclaim your campus for Christ!  Jesus and his angels are chomping at the bit (so to speak), waiting for you to give them a chance to flood that little bastion of secularism with grace; all you need to do is step out.  Start with a letter to the editor of the newspaper every Thursday.  Keep it short, make it direct, insure that it’s counter cultural (i.e. controversial), and they’ll love to publish it.  Send a copy to the local city papers too, and to the bigger papers – make some waves!  Then invite a speaker, then organize a debate… Don’t be satisfied until everyone has heard and accepted the good news of Christ.  Work together, as a team, and God will guide you.  Take today’s saint as your patron. Willibrord was entrusted to some English monks when he was seven.  He learned the spiritual life well and headed to Ireland to deepen his knowledge and piety under the tutelage of the great Irish monks, together with his countrymen St Egbert and St Wigbert.  Various missionaries went from the Emerald Isle into the Netherlands in order to preach to the heathens there, but few returned, and those who did brought stories of dismal failure.  The challenge kindled a fire in Willibrord’s heart, and soon he and his buddy St Swithbert obtained permission to try their hand among the ferocious Frisians and their staunchly pagan leader, King Radbod.  They enlisted the support of the Frankish kings (Willibrord actually baptized Pepin the Short, Charlemagne’s father), and Willibrord went to Rome to request the Apostolic blessing for their work (he went again to Rome a few years later to be ordained bishop of the Frisians).  They spent the rest of their long lives (St Willibrord lived to the age of 82) spreading the Kingdom of Christ to and fro along the northwestern coast of Europe, complementing their gentle and cheerful charity with indomitable courage. Once when he was marooned on a “sacred” island where it was forbidden to kill any living creature, eat any plant, or draw any water out of the “sacred” well except in silence, Willibrord showed his stuff.  He trapped and roasted some rabbits for himself and his companions and baptized three of the inhabitants with water from the well, pronouncing the sacramental words in a booming voice.  When he and his accomplices neither went mad nor dropped down dead the inhabitants were shocked, and began inquiries into the Christian God.  Of course, not everyone was favorably impressed with this and similar antics, and King Radbod’s sword claimed the life of more than one martyr in those days.  But Willibrord lived longer, long enough indeed to see Friesland transformed into an ordered, almost civilized, and partly Christian country. That’s the kind of zeal and courage an apostle needs to have.  It’s exactly what the devil wants you not to have – he would much prefer a self-righteous passivity, a “fortress mentality” that kept you holed up and out of the fray, so he can continuing sapping life from the souls of your peers.  Please don’t give him the pleasure. Affectionately yours, Uncle Eddy