Kevin McCaughey

Marketing & Sales solutions to reach your goals. Marketing Operations. Sales Training. Sales Manager Coaching. Love your neighbor. Make the world better.

[Mike Netter @nettermike]

Why would anyone disagree with this ?

[John A. Monaco @johnamonaco]

If you want to revitalize a Roman Catholic parish, here’s what you have to do:

Priests (and when applicable, deacons):

1) Offer frequent times for Confession, and no, not just “by appointment”.

“But why would I offer more confession times when people barely come to our Saturday half hour slot?” Just offer it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen priests increase the opportunities for Confession even when it wasn’t in response to a demand, and somehow, people not only started filling up the Saturday time slot, but the others, as well!

2) Offer the traditional Latin Mass, if possible. If not, offer the Novus Ordo as reverently as possible, by following the GIRM and infusing within it any traditional elements, as allowed. The Mass is the most important part of a priest’s life, and its worthy celebration will pay dividends for the life of your local parish. Move away from the 4-hymn sandwich. Prioritize a schola cantorum and the organ. If you can’t yet sing the Propers in Latin, sing them in English!

3) Offer perpetual Eucharistic adoration, if possible. If not, offer Eucharistic adoration frequently. Many people think that the key to fixing a parish is by implementing programs, doing all sorts of activities. There is no pastoral plan greater than the worship and praise of the LORD in the Blessed Sacrament. Put that first, and watch everything fall into place.

4) Preach brief, often, and well. The brevity of homilies allows for people to grasp 1-2 concepts clearly. Info-dumping everything you learned in seminary is not going to result in a successful take-home message. But preach whenever possible: at baptisms, funerals, daily Mass, parish Vespers. Work on your Sunday homily throughout the week. Pray on it. Consult secondary literature, such as biblical commentaries. Don’t avoid preaching on controversial topics.

5) Offer opportunities for parish fellowship. In between Sunday Masses, have coffee and social time. Be present for it. Promote it! In an era dominated by the digital, these sorts of in-person experiences allow authentic community to develop. Young adult (18-30) groups are great. Think also of marriage & family apostolates.

For laity:

1) Show up. Obviously, go to Sunday Mass. But as your schedule allows, attend parish lectures, Bible study, Lauds/Vespers, bazaars and festivals, etc. The American Catholic’s social life was once dominated by the parish. I think it’s time we bring that back.

2) Tithe, donate money, time, and your talents. As appropriate to your current situation, make financial sacrifices to allow the parish to continue its work. Don’t just throw $5 in the basket if you’re driving a Tesla Model X. A good rule of thumb: if you’re spending more money on fast food every month than you are in the collection basket, it’s time to reevaluate your discretionary income.

3) Join parish organizations, like the Knights of Columbus, choir, CCD/Faith formation. Many of the Millennial generation grew up thinking “eh that’s the stuff for the older people.” That’s how these things die (also, we’re starting to become those “older people”). Ask your pastor where your talents meet the parish’s needs.

4) Love your priest (even if you don’t like him!) Do not treat your priest like a sacramental dispenser. Find out his birthday, interests, favorite food. Invite him over for a family dinner or take him out to lunch. While respecting proper boundaries, invite him into your life as an important person. Thank him, and pray for him!

5) Invite someone to Mass with you: a friend, coworker, or even a stranger. You are the primary agent by which the parish engages the world. “Come and see”
___

Certainly, there are more ways to revitalize a Roman Catholic parish, so feel free to list them below. But in every healthy parish I’ve seen, these elements were present. As our Western culture continues to decline and fragment, the parish might be one of the few places we can rebuild it.

📍 Mission San Rafael Arcángel, California

[I love Tesla 🔋🚀 @JC70769]

"A guy looked at my airplane the other day and said I wonder how many people I could have fed for the price of that airplane...

I replied I am not sure, it fed a lot of families at the Dassault factory where it was built. I’m sure it fed a bunch of families that rolled the aluminum at the Alcoa factory. It surely fed a lot of people at the Honeywell factory where the experts built the turbines. It fed a whole company for a few weeks when I had them build me a new interior. It feeds the families of the linemen that fuel it.

That’s the difference between capitalism and a welfare mentality. When you buy something, you put money in people's pockets, and give them dignity for their skills.

When you give someone something for nothing, you rob them of their dignity and self worth.

Capitalism is freely giving your money in exchange for something of value.

Socialism is taking your money against your will and shoving something down your throat that you never asked for."

[Kevin McCaughey @kfmccaughey]

@father_rmv This is the first time I’ve seen this Act of Reparation. It is both rich in reverence and simple in humility. Thanks be to God for His generous mercy.

[Yogi @Houseofyogi]

Chicago lost the Bears this week. A team that's been in the city since 1921.

They didn't lose them to a bigger market or a better deal. The Bears decided they'd rather be a tenant in Indiana than deal with Illinois for one more year.

Think about how badly you have to run a place for that to be the smart move.

They lost them for two reasons.

The people running Illinois would rather villainize a builder than keep one. And they're bad at their jobs.

In 2021 the Bears spent $197M on the old Arlington Park racetrack.

Before they could break ground, Cook County valued the empty lot at $192M (Bears said $60M). They were salivating at the chance to extort a building that didn't even exist yet.

That fight dragged on for years.

The Bears were ready to put $2B into the stadium. All they wanted was a promise the county wouldn't reassess them into oblivion, plus $855M for infrastructure everyone uses. Roads, transit, utilities. A $3B project, two thirds of it private money pouring into Illinois.

Springfield had since 2021 to get this done. They dragged it to the final night of session, passed it through the Senate at 3:39AM, and the House went home without voting.

So now it's all gone.

The funniest part? This started because Cook County tried to grab the tax early. They knew a built stadium would pay $53M a year. Now they get under $4M on a vacant lot. No jobs, no buildout, no new anything.

Congrats on fighting for scraps and losing the whole prize.

Pritzker: they're "an $8.5B valued business" that doesn't need propping up.

But be smart for a second. Almost every NFL city throws in public money for a stadium. Not charity. The return is real. Tourism, hotels, restaurants, jobs, game days, property tax on a huge development. The math works.

Indiana did the math. While Illinois sat on it for years, Indiana passed a bill in months, put up $1B, and took the team.

And the Bears took a worse deal to get there. In Illinois they were going to own their stadium. In Indiana they rent it from the state. A team that wanted to build its own home gave up ownership just to escape Chicago.

Nobody won but Indiana. The Bears lost their stadium. Illinois lost the team, the $2B, and $53M a year in taxes.

Pritzker after they left: "I wasn't willing to give up billions of dollars of taxpayer money to give it to a billionaire-owned family or team."

There it is. "Billionaire-owned."

That's how Democrats talk about any business right before they run it out of town. Call them a billionaire, act like you're saving working families, take a victory lap while the tax base drives across the state line.

Meanwhile they're running the whole state into the ground. And you already know how this ends. You're living in it.

Pensions are $143B in the hole, worst in the country and not close. You pay $6,285 a year in property taxes, double the $2,969 national average, for a city that's $1.15B in the red. The mayor called its finances "the point of no return."

When you run things this badly, you sell what's left.

They leased the parking meters for 75 years to Morgan Stanley and a sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi. Took $1.15B and burned through it in two years. The investors already made it all back, with 58 years left to collect.

Sold the Skyway. Sold the downtown garages. Every asset that made money, gone for one check.

But a fixed property tax rate for a team that's been here 106 years? That's "propping up billionaires."

Companies are leaving. Boeing for Virginia. Caterpillar for Texas. Citadel for Miami. In 2023 alone Illinois lost 56,000 people and $6B in income to other states. The ones who left earned a third more than the ones who moved in.

Indiana didn't outbid anyone. AAA credit, 16 years straight. A $676M surplus. Fourth-lowest debt per person in the country. They just weren't a disaster.

Illinois could have collected $53M a year. It chose zero. Ignore all the bad management but make sure to stick it to those evil, pesky billionaires.

[🇺🇸RealRobert🇺🇸 @Real_RobN]

This is:

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard DROPS ANOTHER 🔥🔥 BOMB:

“I’ve got a long list of things that we are investigating. We have the best of the best going after this, election integrity being one of them.”

— There is now evidence that electronic voting machines have been tampered with to manipulate election outcomes in the United States — as we witnessed the overthrow of the U.S. government on November 3, 2020.

@DNIGabbard “We have evidence of how these electronic voting systems have been vulnerable to hackers for a very long time and vulnerable to exploitation to manipulate the results of the votes being cast, which further drives forward your mandate to bring about paper ballots across the country so that voters can have faith in the integrity of our elections."

REPORT: DOMINION DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE.

DATA ANALYSIS FINDS 221,000 PENNSYLVANIA VOTES SWITCHED FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP TO BIDEN.

941,000 TRUMP VOTES DELETED.
STATES USING DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS SWITCHED 435,000 VOTES FROM TRUMP TO BIDEN.

📝 19.958 VOTES FOR TRUMP SWITCHED TO BIDEN. Live on CNN👇👇

[Kevin McCaughey @kfmccaughey]

Awesome!

[☩ 𝕁𝕄𝕋 ☩ @SecretFire79]

Passion of The Christ🇻🇦🩸

“Mel Gibson warned actor Jim Caviezel that playing the character of Christ was going to be very difficult and that if he accepted, he most likely would be marginalized by Hollywood.

Caviezel asked for a day to think about it and his response to Mel who was funding and directing the movie was: "I think we have to make it, even if it is difficult." And something else, my initials are J.C., and I am 33 years old. "I didn't realize that until now."
Mel responded with “You're really scaring me you know.”

During filming, Jim Caviezel who plays the part of Jesus lost 45 pounds, he was struck by lightning, he was accidentally struck twice during the scourging scene leaving a deep 14-inch scar, he dislocated his shoulder when the cross was dropped into the hole with him on the cross. He then suffered pneumonia and hypothermia from being nearly naked with only a loin cloth on the cross for endless hours. The crucifixion scene alone took 5 weeks of the 2 months of shooting.

His body was so stressed and exhausted from playing the role that he had to undergo two open heart surgeries after the filming production.

Jim explained, “I didn’t want people to see me. I just want them to see Jesus. Conversions will happen through that.”

Almost like a clairvoyant prediction many amazing things happened.

Pedro Sarubbi, who played Barabbas, felt that it was not Caviezel who was looking at him, but Jesus Christ himself, as he played that role he said of Caviezel, “His eyes had no hatred or resentment towards me, only mercy and love."

Luca Lionello, the artist who played Judas, was an avowed atheist before shooting began. He eventually converted, and baptized his children.

One of the main technicians working on the film was a Muslim converted to Christianity.

Some producers said they saw actors dressed in white they didn’t recognize during one of the filming sessions, and when they reviewed the recordings they realized they couldn’t see them in that footage.

The Passion of the Christ is the highest grossing US religious as well as the highest R-rated film of all time, with $370.8 million! Worldwide, it grossed $611 million.

More importantly, it has reached 100’s of millions of people around the world.

Mel Gibson paid $30 million out of his own pocket for the production of the film because no studio would take on the project.

Today Jim Caviezel simply and boldly proclaims his faith in Christ, and the miracle it was for him to represent Christ as an actor and a greater believer of Christ because of this experience.

[Chris Stefanick @ChrisStefanick]

I’ve stood inside the tomb of Jesus.

It’s not a symbol. It’s not a legend. It’s real.

And it’s empty.

Outside, the world is still chaotic. Still broken. Still searching.

But inside that tomb? There’s nothing there.

And that’s the point. Because everything changed when Jesus walked out of it.

We still live the same kinds of lives.
We struggle. We love. We work. We suffer.

But we don’t do it without hope anymore.

“From his death, life has sprung forth…” (St. John Paul II)

Life entered the rocky tomb of human existence, and LIFE won, once, and for all time.

So whatever you’re carrying today… remember this:

You’re not fighting for victory.
You’re living from it.

HE IS RISEN! Happy Easter, friends!

[America @america]

Go VOTE Brad Schimel for Supreme Court:

https://t.co/cstFOkENfM

[Kevin McCaughey @kfmccaughey]

@trackingdonald @libsoftiktok The Word is truth and God is love. Through all trials and calamity, only God will stand by you to the end. He will stand by even those who are misinformed, such as to see the truth as misinformation.

[Kevin McCaughey @kfmccaughey]

@embracelovetv @stoolpresidente 100% agree but it will never happen. How does a thief self-regulate?

[Dr. Abby Johnson @AbbyJohnson]

A woman should not have the choice to kill another body. “My body my choice” isn’t an argument since an abortion kills a separate human being.

A baby’s body isn’t a woman’s body. It’s a completely different person that deserves to have its life protected.

[Illinois Policy @illinoispolicy]

“My husband and I have been homeschooling for 18 years. The first day I dropped my oldest daughter off at school, I felt an overwhelming conviction from God – go back and get her.”

“For me and my husband, we see this bill as religious persecution, because people homeschool for various reasons, but for us, we’re homeschooling because of our faith. It’s not just academic, it’s a life decision.”

“One of the most powerful statements from the current homeschooling movement is, ‘We don’t co-parent with the government.’ This bill is a direct attack on that idea. It’s the government saying, ‘Yes you will. Even at home.’”

“We will be forced to register with our local school districts. For us, on the South Side of Chicago, that’s the Chicago Public Schools system.”

“The provision of the bill that says we would have to satisfy their standard is illogical, because those schools are failing. Yet data from across the country shows that homeschoolers excel.”

“One reason homeschooling is so prevalent now is COVID opened a lot of eyes – not only to some of the educational shortcomings in public schools, but also to the idea that you can actually do it – you can homeschool.”

“This bill is a direct attack on people recognizing that. It’s an attempt to say, ‘You can never really leave. We’re still in charge of your kids.’”

“They’re losing bodies, and bodies bring money. But children are not political footballs. Their lives are not to be played with."

Latasha Fields
Founder, Christian Home Educators Support System
Chicago, Illinois

[Kevin McCaughey @kfmccaughey]

@MorningAnswer @zeynep If you willingly ignored logic and reason, then you were not misled, but, rather, part of the problem.

[Kevin McCaughey @kfmccaughey]

@BishopBarron The “justice of heaven to this world.” That’s exactly what this world needs. Peace.

[Kevin McCaughey @kfmccaughey]

The man speaks the truth.

[Kevin McCaughey @kfmccaughey]

@ChrisMurphyCT When you start your post with MAGA, that’s a clue that you aren’t all that serious. It’s a tell that what follows is hyperbole.

[Kevin McCaughey @kfmccaughey]

@Phillip96207244 @VDHanson Cleanup our internal mess? Wouldn’t that be nice. BTW, that starts with a return to our Judeo-Christian roots. I’m all in.

Pull back and seal it tight? That would leave a vacuum that China would fill and where would we be then?

[Kevin McCaughey @kfmccaughey]

@JeanneIves Already bought a dozen! 😀

[Kevin McCaughey @kfmccaughey]

@TRUMP_ARMY_ 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍