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Saints
of Virtue
They’re
big, they’re bad, and they’re ugly: Worldliness. Pride.
Fear. Vanity. They stalk the dark corridors of your
soul, looking for a chance to rule your heart. So
how do you fight them?
Just click the mouse, silly, and zap ’em with the
Sword of the Spirit. Then collect a few power boosters
for your Shield of Faith. You too can be one of the
Saints of Virtue.
This way-cool 3-D computer game on CD-ROM puts the
“virtue” in “virtual reality.” Virtues are the allies
and vices the enemies as you seek out scriptural truths
to help you overcome your fallen nature and reclaim
your heart for Christ. Donning the “full armor of
God” (see Eph. 6:11-17), battle your way through the
Amphitheater of Apathy, the Labyrinths of Legalism,
and the New Age Nirvana, pushing past the Worldly
Wisdoms that block your way. And when things get bad,
just dodge, duck, and look for a “prayer altar.”
The evangelical Protestant jargon of the game may
at times sound strange to Catholic ears, but the general
landscape of the virtue-al universe it presents should
nonetheless be familiar to all Christians — and a
whole lot of fun to navigate.
CD-ROM, $29.99 from Cactus Game Design; available
in Christian bookstores; website: www.saintsofvirtue.com.
The
Responsibility of Being Catholic
As
Catholic convert stories multiply, we’re hearing as
well from their cradle-Catholic counterparts who left
the Church and came back: the “reverts.” Thomas Rutkowski,
a former TV journalist who was away from the Church
for twenty-five years, offers a powerful testimony
to the divine perseverance that turned him around.
His account takes him from Jerusalem to Lourdes to
Fatima to Med-jugorje as God melts his heart, heals
him of rheumatoid arthritis, sends him back to Christ
in the sacraments, and makes him a Catholic evangelist.
Rutkowski’s account on audiocassette, entitled “The
Responsibility of Being Catholic,” is one of several
effective resources distributed free of charge by
The Children of the Father Foundation, a non-profit
lay apostolate devoted exclusively to evangelization.
The group seeks volunteers and financial support to
help them put literature in the hands of “those laypersons
who yearn to help evangelize, but who do not have
the financial means to purchase good literature.”
In the twenty-five years he was away from the Church,
Rutkowski says, “No one ever came for me.” Now, he
says, it’s time for those God Himself tracked down
to go out looking for the prodigals.
For more information, write The Children of the Father
Foundation, Inc., 222 South Manoa Road, Suite 250,
Havertown, PA 19083; phone 610-853-9801.
Catechism
Tabs
As
kids in Protestant Sunday School, we used to have
“sword drill”: Armed with “the sword of the Spirit”
(our Bibles — see Eph. 6:17), we competed to see who
could be first to locate a scriptural text announced
by the teacher. (Sometimes she threw in “Hezekiah
3:17” just for fun.) The kid who won the most times
got a Hershey bar.
Finding that passage in Habakkuk took awhile — unless
you were the smarty-pants who used “cheaters.” That’s
what we called those little stick-on index tabs you
add to the pages so you can turn right away to a particular
book. If the teacher found you’d been using “cheaters,”
you didn’t get the chocolate.
Do you spend lots of time searching the Catechism
of the Catholic Church (you should), getting frustrated
(you shouldn’t), because it takes so long to find
what you’re looking for? Well, have we got some “cheaters”
for you! The Coming Home Network has created a set
of twenty-six tabs for the CCC, easily mounted to
take you instantly to the major divisions of the text.
You won’t get a Hershey bar for speed, but with less
time spent searching, you’ll have more time to study.
Available for $4.00 + S/H from The Coming Home Network,
P.O. Box 4100, Steubenville, OH 43952-8100; phone
800-664-5110.
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