Guess the best way to describe the events of this past week is that the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. Oh was it weak, so weak that yours truly was rushed to the hospital on Wednesday afternoon, May 31 just as we were trying to set up the Ascension Weekend Issue. Needless to say, it didn't get on-line in its original version and for that we apologize. But we were all concerned because my whole left side went numb and I was having shortness of breath. Cyndi called a consulting nurse who advised calling the paramedics. We did and they arrived immediately. Talk about prompt and thorough. I was in ER all evening undergoing tests, then admitted when a room became available shortly before midnight. After extensive x-rays, blood tests, doplars, and whatnot, the doctor in charge diagnosed my condition as severe arthritis of the lower spine and neck which was causing pinched nerves which prompted the left side to go numb. Because it was the left side we feared heart problems but the ol' ticker is as strong as ever despite the fact yours truly had a heart attack in 1988. Guess God wants us sticking around a while longer. Thank you, God.

    The doctor also indicated that I have vascular problems with varicose veins, causing the ankles to swell and circulation not getting to the feet. Therefore, by his diagnosis, I am pretty much disabled for the prescription is that I cannot sit in one position for more than ten minutes at a time and have to elevate my feet whenever possible. I need to walk every fifteen minutes for a few moments, then sit in another position and so on. This has forced us to obtain a special mobile desk that can hold the computer, monitor, scanner and printer and can be rolled from our new offices upstairs to the master bedroom when I need to put my legs up. It means chasing Kevin, our oldest son, out of his room upstairs to make that the upstairs DAILY CATHOLIC office and giving him the large family room downstairs where the office used to be. With the move he is gaining several hundred square feet more to spread out as teens are wont to do, and it forces us to sort and pitch files that we've kept for years and consolidate space. It truly is a blessing in disguise once we're all settled in by the end of the week.

    In the meantime we do with what we have in a makeshift office to the side of this editor's bed that is really cramped, but when you think of it, I don't think Joseph, Mary, or Jesus ever complained about close quarters in their Nazareth home, nor did Saint Francis or many of the other saints complain about their tiny cells. They all managed and so will we. It was also a blessing in disguise to be admitted to the hospital when I was so soon after our pilgrimage to Europe. If you recall I was diagnosed with blood clots and phlebitis in Rome on May 12th. Tests at Tri-City Medical Center the other day showed no sign of any more blood clots. We truly believe God healed those at Lourdes. Though we can't confirm medically, we are relatively convinced that He also healed this editor of his prostate cancer which had been at 6.8 on the PSA chart before leaving on the pilgrimage. At the hospital last week, my PSA count was down to a normal 2.6. Medical experts will attribute that to the Lupron shots but since I really only had one Lupron shot, we truly believe it was the healing waters of Lourdes through the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes. It may only be a reprieve, who knows, but whatever is to come about, we are extremely thankful. I'll continue to have my PSA closely monitored every three months with my urologist to make sure.

    The recent medical setbacks have rendered changes in plans we offered for the DAILY CATHOLIC in going global with six languages in addition to English. Because of the time constraints involved and the time lost while in the hospital, it is impossible at this time to immediately launch the other languages. Plus, the Russian issues that we have been publishing daily since April 10th are badly in need of polishing and we have heard from several Catholics in Russian that what is being translated is not in accordance with what we want from the DAILY CATHOLIC nor fully represents the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church we so dearly love and want to foster. While the software translation programs offered by Paul Knight and his wife Solveiga in England are a breakthrough and a start, the same problems crop up in translations by computers. It needs the human touch. Therefore, until we can find willing and able volunteers to translate into the appropriate languages we have planned, we are suspending all foreign issues.

    In addition, under Doctors' orders, I have been instructed to cut back, at least during the next few weeks, from five issues a week to three. Therefore we will be publishing a Monday-Tuesday issue each week, then a Wednesday-Thursday issue, and a weekend Friday-Saturday-Sunday issue. We hope to resume five full issues by the end of the month or early July at the latest. Today this issue will serve for Tuesday-Wednesday and Thursday. This weekend our three-issue policy will go into effect for the next few weeks. We thank you for your patience and understanding, and especially your prayers.

    As we mentioned in our May 30th column, we can't do it without you. We desperately need financial help and volunteer translation help for Russian, Spanish, Italian, French, German and Portuguese. To ease the burden on volunteer translators, we would like to do a "Best of the DAILY CATHOLIC" weekly where we consolidate the best articles and top news stories into a weekly edition in each language providing we can find translators for each language. We do have a willing soul in Russia ready to translate a weekly wrap-up issue, with the Liturgy for the coming week, so that's a start. Again, we need your prayers and financial help to keep this effort going. We also need to eventually hire a webmaster who can take over the regular duties of the DAILY CATHOLIC because of this editor's health and to enable yours truly to get back to writing more on the on-going series THE HISTORY OF THE MASS AND HOLY MOTHER CHURCH, THE 2000 YEAR VOYAGE ON THE BARQUE OF PETER, and WHERE THE CHURCH IS HEADING IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM! These three excellent series have been on the shelf for quite some time due to the mounting responsibilities of webmastering. In addition, Cyndi and I have begun writing a chronicle of our conversion experience over the past ten years that also incorporates the time leading up to it and would be beneficial to countless souls striving to cross the threshold of hope. It is called A JOURNEY OF TWO SOULS. Again, all that takes time and patience.

    What it boils down to, folks, is I'm not getting any younger and age and the nature of my sedentary work is catching up to me with the pinched nerves, spinal arthritis and vascular problems. Therefore I need, on doctors' orders, to modify my lifestyle in the work environment. We again plead with you for help both in volunteer typing, volunteer translating and financially. We had promised Father Robert J. Fox, head of the Fatima Family Apostolate, that we would be able to put his excellent quarterly magazine Immaculate Messenger on-line in Russian as well as promote it in English because we believe so strongly in what he is doing and the obedient way he has always gone about things in contrast to his counterpart at the Fatima Crusade who strives to stir things up rather than bring calm and peace as Fr. Fox does. Because of my current medical situation and the fact the computer translation software will not do his articles justice, we can't do it for him at this time unless we get more Russian translators as well as other languages. There has to be plenty of people out there who are versed in two languages and could easily volunteer their time and talent to translate from English into Russian, Spanish, Italian, French, German or Portuguese or polish the translation in the translation software final product so the reader is getting the truth with no possibility of heresy or mocking the language.

    You'll notice we are revamping the DAILY CATHOLIC to load quicker and conform more with other major secular publications on-line by providing sections. We are calling our sections by category. The first is INSPIRATION, which will always be identified with a green banner and border and incorporates the liturgy of the day, the DAILY WORD, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's inspiring words, vignettes on the saints and feast days and the Monthly Medjugorje Message along with devotions tied in with the liturgical time of year. The second is NEWS, unique for its MAROON banner and border as we strive to keep you up-to-date as possible with the latest news out of Rome and the world from a Catholic perspective through articles provided by CWN, ZENIT and Noticias Eclesiales. The third is our FEATURES section, always in Blue with photos of our contributing writers on the side panel. This section will include columns, on-going series and our feature APPRECIATION OF THE PRECIOUS GIFT OF OUR FAITH. The final section is called CURRENTS and it is noticeable by its red banner and border and is a catch-all for all other items in the publication including the daily calendar of events in Church history for that day as well as our latest ShipLogs, a preview of the next issue and other miscellaneous things. The main front page of each issue will always have a black banner and border and be a teaser page for articles in other sections as well as carry the Holy Father's latest address and other significant breaking news. We are still refining the sections but think you will like the look and ease of this new format which allows each page to load very, very quickly, especially if you have Microsoft Internet Explorer. It loads ten times faster than Netscape. Not sure yet how fast it loads on AOL. Those are the three major browsers and we again strongly recommend Explorer because of its speed. We program all files according to Explorer but we don't use Front Page or anything like that. We write our own HTML programs. Therefore, to best align everything we always recommend going to the smallest font in your browser. We have formatted type so everything is readable, always using 2 pt. type and larger. We welcome your feedback on how we can improve the DAILY CATHOLIC even more to suit your needs.

    Because of our needs, we repeat what we wrote a week ago: All donations to the DAILY CATHOLIC are tax deductible and we are in dire need of financial help in order to fulfill what God desires of us. Again, we remind you, not one penny goes to salaries. All work involved with the DAILY CATHOLIC, from the editor to contributing writers to volunteers, is done per gratis. We believe that is another reason why God has blessed us so. We have a kinship with Saint Francis in that we beg for everything, but offer something special in return for our mendicant status. Because of the look of the publication and its daily regularity, many are under the false impression that we have a large contingent of people in a large office building producing this Monday through Friday. While we would love to be in that position because it would afford us to do even more, we accept our current situation of having our control center in our home and operating from there.

    Because of this "hominess" we often abhor the impersonality of e-mail because it can be so sterile. The same for our gift form where one would fill out the form to make a donation. While this works sometimes, if you're like us you're not crazy about filling out forms and the caution of using your credit card on the internet. Though most of the time it's safe, there are horror stories that can dissuade people to help. Also, if someone is willing to donate to the cause of the DAILY CATHOLIC, then we want to thank you personally. Therefore, if you would like to help, all we ask is that you e-mail us with your phone number and we will gladly spend our dime to call you and speak with you personally. Or, if you prefer you may call us at our toll-free number in the USA at 800-I-DO-PRAY (800-436-7729) though you could get the answering machine if it isn't during office hours. It means so much more to speak with a human being. Today so much has become voice-mail, numbers and a sterile impersonalization. All of that "progress" flies in the face of what Christ asks of all of us in reaching out to our brothers and sisters on a one-on-one basis. That's another reason we're willing to take the time to call you directly because the success of the DAILY CATHOLIC to date has been mostly by word of mouth through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Come to think of it, that's how the Apostles started and how the Church grew; it's how St. Francis' friars multiplied all over the world as well.

    We had also planned to begin our account of our most recent pilgrimage dubbed JUBILEE JOURNEY OF JOY FOR JESUS in yesterday's issue, but again because of the circumstances, that too will have to wait a while before we can get it on-line. We ask all for your patience. What it all boils down to, in prayer and discernment, is that we expected to launch everything on the Solemnity of the Ascension. What we didn't take into consideration in hindsight is that the Apostles and disciples hovered in the upper room for nearly ten days not knowing what would happen until the Holy Spirit alighted on them with tongues of fire, giving them the gifts and confidence to go out into the world. This past week has been time in that upper room - even if it was the fourth floor room 445 of Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside and given all of us a clearer picture to proceed in God's time, not ours.

    "Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love. Send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth." We're ready to help renew the face of the earth, but we need to stoke the fires of sensibility before launching such an ambitious plan. It could be considered a setback, but when you're doing God's work, there's never a setback. It proves over and over again the age-old addage, "When God closes one door, He always opens another" and "He will never give us a cross too heavy to carry." In both situtations this holds true with us and we again ask for your prayers, your patience, your understanding, and any help financially or technically that you can give. Christ is the Head of the Church, we are its members, and some appendages such as arms and legs aren't working as well as they once did. Therefore, like Christ needs us to be His hands, eyes, ears, feet and mouth, so also we need you to be likewise for us during this time when rest is mandatory on doctors' orders. Just consider us helpless children and remember Our Lord's words in Matthew 25: 40, "Amen I say to you, as long as you did it for one of these, the least of My brethren, you did it for Me."