Computer Woes---Again

My computer (which is 7 + years old) is acting up... again. 

I installed a new hard drive about 3 weeks or so ago, and reinstalled the operating system, but....alas, poor Compaq.....I knew it well.

Anyway, it is essentially on life support as I type this. How much longer it will last, I am not sure, but I don't think it will be too much longer. It has more wrong with it than is worth repairing.

So, tomorrow, my day off from work will be spent scheduling as many posts for the Daily Mass Readings blog as I possibly can. If it survives, and allows me to, I will also schedule as many posts for the Saint Quote of the Day blog too.

So, please keep me in your prayers, and if you can, please make a donation by clicking the "Donate" button on the upper right sidebar of the blog. It will help me with my living expenses, and hopefully enable me to buy a new computer so I can keep the Faith of the Fathers blogs all up and running.

And just for those who have wondered, my internet service is free, as my landlady allows me to connect to her ISP wirelessly.

Also, if anyone has any information about assistance for individuals needing cataract surgery in North Carolina, I would greatly appreciate it if you would pass any information my way. You can email me at faithofthefathers@gmail.com

Thanks for all of your much needed prayers and support!

May God bless you and Our Lady keep you in her care!

A Personal Request

As many regular readers know, due to my employment changes, the last several months have been a financial burden on me, as well as many of you.

I have gone from 40 hours a week to about 28 a week (on a good week) and, as is the case for many of us, I end up with far too much month left at the end of the money. In fact, the day after my computer went down, I also had the experience of having my electric power shut off for the first time in my life. I had gotten paid that day, but it took all the money that I had to get the power turned back on later that night. The power company is requiring that I pay an additional amount as a “deposit” by my next pay day on May 24 (which is kind of funny as that is two days after my birthday).

So, I have added a “Tip Jar” over on the top right hand sidebar of each blog if anyone would like to give me a hand. The “Donate” button utilizes PayPal, which is familiar to most internet users. I appreciate what you can do, and I would especially appreciate your prayers more than anything!

Once again, I would like to thank all of you who have clicked the various ads that appear on these blogs, and for using my links to purchase Mystic Monk Coffee, and the products I have from Zazzle. If it hadn't been for the purchases of Mystic Monk Coffee that literally poured in after Christmas through March, I would not have been able to have made it through the winter.

Let me say, that I am embarrassed to post this, but I am to the point of not knowing what else I can do, except rely on God, who has seen me through many storms. God has been good to me, and has helped me out with so many trials that I can not begin to recount them all.

So, please keep me in your prayers. I appreciate that more than you could ever know!

May God Bless you and Our Lady keep you in her care!

A Minor Change Or Two

I made a couple of changes to the blogs (most have the changes) and wanted to let "Faith of the Fathers" readers know about them.

First of all, I have taken the Welcome Page, Privacy Policy, etc., from the sidebar and moved them to the top of page as tabs located just under the title header of each blog. You can click the picture to enlarge it if you like.

I think it makes them more noticeable, especially since some advertisers whose ads appear on these blogs require a  "Privacy Policy" on websites and blogs where their ads appear.

The second change was for the "blogroll" or bloglists for Faith of the Fathers Blogs and My Favorite Catholic blogs, etc.. The list of favorite blogs was getting longer and longer, and as a result the load times for the blogs was also getting longer and longer.

This is the new "look" for the blogs lists and for the links for Faith of the Fathers blogs as well. Yes, just a good old fashioned scroll bar. The most  recently updated blogs appear first in the list, which means a blog showing listed first now, may not be a few minutes later. No blogs have been removed from the list, you just have to scroll down to find them.

This has made the pages load a bit faster (or so it seems to me, anyway), and prevents a l-o-n-g list taking up an entire sidebar.

I hope this makes the blogs better, and I appreciate all the subscribers and regular readers of Faith of the Fathers blogs.

One last thing, we now have a Facebook Page for "Faith of the Fathers" blogs, which you can go to here, and click the "Like" button. We still have our Group on Facebook here as well. Both get regular "updates" for new posts on all of our blogs, so if you are on Facebook you might want to join the group or "Like" our new page.

Once again, thank you to all of our readers and subscribers. We appreciate your support.

Just To Let You Know

I have been busy making a few needed changes on the Faith of the Fathers blogs.

Primarily the changes are to both of the sidebars of all the blogs. No longer will the first things a visitor sees be the advertisments and promotions on these blogs. They are still there, just located at the bottom of each sidebar. That way it's not so "in your face" with those items anymore. They have never been of the primary importance to these blogs in the first place.

On top of the left sidebar of each blog is a link to the Welcome page, and a link to our Privacy Policy. I instituted a Privacy Policy as the Google Ads program required one, and so I complied. Below that are some links to some important sites, such as Priests for Life, and 2 Catholic Charitable organizations.

As you scroll on down the left sidebar I have added an area called "Faith of the Fathers Blogs Recent Posts". These link to the most popular Faith of the Fathers blogs, and give the title of the most recent post on each blog. The most recently updated blog will be listed first in that section. Just below that is "More Faith of the Fathers Blogs" with text links to all of our blogs, and then below that are links to (in my opinion) "Some Great Catholic Blogs".

On the right hand sidebar, I kept the language translation tool, BabelFish at the top of the sidebar, with the profile block just below that. There now is a section called "My Blog List" which is a list of the blogs I visit most often. The blogs are listed alphabetically. Below that is a section called "Some Great Catholic Sites" that all Catholics might be interested in.

Speaking of sites, there are two that I want to call your attention to. The first actually only appears on two of the blogs, "Favorite Prayers and Scripture" and "Prayer Requests". The site linked to there is called "Virtual Rosary". Virtual Rosary calls itself "The Original Free Multimedia Rosary and Prayer Network". The program there is free, and it is a big help to anyone wanting to learn to pray the rosary . It also will give you the option of a daily reminder to pray the rosary on the startup of your computer. There are different modules you can add (also free) that you can use such as Saint Louis de Montfort Meditations, a scriptural rosary from Workers of Our Lady of Moint Carmel among others, and modules available for different languages such as Spanish, Chinese, German and Hungarian.

The second site I want to direct your attention to, especially the women readers of these blogs, is a site called "Women for Faith and Family". After all the talk (once again) of the ordination of women, it is wonderful  to find a site for orthodox Catholic women who follow the teachings, Traditions and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, and who are loyal to the Pope. Their about page says in part:

• To assist orthodox Catholic women in their effort to provide witness to their faith, both to their families and to the world.
• To aid women in their efforts to deepen their understanding of the Catholic Faith.
• To aid faithful Catholic women in their desire for fellowship with others who share their faith and commitment.
• To serve as a channel through which questions from Catholic women seeking guidance or information can be directed.

I hope these changes are helpful, and I hope you do visit all the sites and blogs that we link to on Faith of the Fathers blogs.

Current Posts

We have a few posts that you might want to take a look at, if you haven't already.

First, on Daily Mass Readings, the Mass Readings for Saturday, April 24 are posted, and the Mass Readings for Sunday, April 25 as well.

While we are talking about Mass Readings, go to Spiritual Warfare, and click the link post there for this article:  "Predestination, Free Will, Faith and Grace: Do You Hear My Voice?" by Marcellino D'Ambrosio. It goes with Sunday's Mass Readings, but I felt belonged in a post for Spiritual Warfare as well.

Let's not forget Saint Quote of the Day, where there is a quote from Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen, who's Feast Day is Saturday.

Finally, go to the Pope Benedict XVI blog, and read the news from the Vatican Information Service. Particularly note the "Declaration of U.S. Lawyer Concerning Sex Abuse Case".

About Commenting On All 24 of Faith of the Fathers Blogs

Regular readers of these blogs, may recall that we recently implemented some changes in the layout of these blogs, and that we also started using a new comments managing system from Disqus.

We are very pleased with the disqus system, but we are forced to make a change in the way we utilize it. There have been some attempts by some individuals to post comments that have included profanity, obscene jokes, and links to "questionable" sites. We were fortunate enough to catch these comments before they made it to the posts they were attached to. The individuals leaving these comments must think it funny. We don't.

There have also been some recent comments from folks who just couldn't resist the "opportunity" to attack and condemn the Catholic Church, and Catholics in general. There was one individual tonight who had left 2 comments of condemnation that was 14 long paragraphs in the first, followed by 2 paragraphs in the second. They were deleted for the following reasons:

  1. They were far too long for a comment
  2. The purpose of these blogs is to share our faith and to encourage all Christians.
  3. We are not here to engage in debate over our faith.
  4. We do not, and will not go to blogs of any other belief system and attack or condemn them

We suggest you begin your own blog and share what your faith is if you are so inclined to write such long diatribes.

Now for those who left comments on our blogs in the past, you may have noticed that your comments have disappeared. When we switched over to disqus, the former comments management system we used was so poorly designed, that it failed to export over 95% of the comments that existed at the time, and the comments were lost. So, in other words, due to one of those wonderful internet and computer glitches that we are all far too familiar with, they are gone, and we did not delete them. We would love it in fact if they were still here.

Now, to get on with what changes are now in place for all future commenting on these blogs. All comments will now be moderated. If you make a comment, don't get upset when you don't see it right away. The comment will come to us for approval before it will be published. It may take us one to two days to get them approved, as we do have to work our public job like everyone else. So please, we ask you for your patience and indulgence. 

This will also make it a bit more secure for our readers to read the comments here, as no one will be able to place any comments with links, until those links have been checked for safety and appropriate content. You also won't have to worry about your children reading an inappropriate comment, clicking an uunsuitable link, etc.

The only way one can comment without moderation, is if they and their blog or site are registered with disqus. Rest assured, if we get any comments from registered users that are inappropriate, confrontational, abusive, etc., we can then moderate all comments, and will do so if it becomes necessary.

Finished (for now)

Well, 6 days and eighteen blogs later, I finally finished switching over the templates for the "Faith of the Fathers" blogs. Including the "Kid's Corner" blogs in the change, a total of 24 blogs were switched over.

I never got any input pro or con regarding the change, and maybe most people just didn't notice. The background color is the same, it is just a three column template now as opposed to the two column standard available from Blogger.

As I stated in my previous post, I switched the comments management to disqus, and I also added another language translation tool, Google Translate. The Google Translate gives more language options for those visitors who have a primary language other than english. You can get Google Translate for all languages or you can choose what languages you want available for your blog or website.

Also, please click on the Hunger Site whenever you get the opportunity to do so. When you get to their site click the big yellow button. Each click on that button results in their sponsors donating 1.1 cups of food for each click. The graphic link for their site is included on each of our blog pages, and there is a text link at the footer of each post on our feeds.

I also implemented a custom google search in the sidebar for each blog page. The searches are Catholic related, and should help you do a search without having to open a new tab or window.

I hope you like the "different" look.

Your brother in Christ,

Steve