Looking Ahead
by John Feister

(If you don’t have time to read this now, please take note of the buttons on the right. They are free for the taking, for you to use on your Web site. Click on a button to pick up the html code.)

Q U I C K S C A N

Parish Site of the Month
Worth a Click

We are moving into one of the “busy seasons” in parish life. Education programs are in full gear, the important months that end the liturgical year (All Saints and All Souls Day) are not far off and there are saints’ lives to celebrate. Advent this year will be shorter than some years, since Christmas falls on a Tuesday. It won’t start until December 2 and, practically speaking, will be celebrated for three full weeks, then the Fourth Sunday. That’s all a ways off, but smart webmasters look ahead!

There are a few good sites that have all of the liturgical calendars on them. My favorites are the U.S. bishops’ official Liturgical Calendar, which is foolproof and particular to the United States, and the more approachable The Catholic Calendar Page, which I’ve recommended for over a decade. Catholic bookstores also sell nice print products that are handy for keeping track of things related to the Church’s seasons. I use The Liturgical Desk Calendar from Franklin McCormick, and some folks here use the more compact A Light For My Path, which includes daily and Sunday Scripture citations for the Mass readings.

Big on our calendar at AmericanCatholic.org is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi on October 4 and the pet blessings that take place all over the country in the Christian community. We’ve got a popular feature, “St. Francis of Assisi: Patron Saint of Animals and the Environment,” which has lots of new material this year from St. Anthony Messenger’s new special issue (October) on St. Francis. Our feature includes the only national listing of pet blessings, which has grown every year since we started it back in 1997. You can add your listing of place and time.

Thanks to all of you who submitted entries for “Parish Web Site of the Year.” We’ll be announcing the winner in the next issue of Web Catholic and spending some time in coming issues talking about some of the best features on sites that were submitted.

As St. Francis would say, “Peace and all good!”

John Feister
Editor, AmericanCatholic.org

Parish Site of the Month

Catholic Community of St. Patrick (Diocese of St. Petersburg)
Here’s a site that does a good job of keeping things simple, yet informative, on the homepage by posting the church's mission statement, Mass schedule and a list of news and events. Click on the address in the left sidebar to be taken to a Mapquest map and a form to get driving directions. (Maps and/or driving directions are a must for all parish sites, and using Mapquest is free!) What’s also nice is the site’s background. Typically, patterned background images are a no-no, but St. Patrick's does it right, making sure content itself is against a solid color (in this case, white).

Worth a Click

World Community for Christian Meditation
A “monastery without walls” founded by Benedictine monk John Main, the World Community for Christian Meditation is a resource without limitations. New to meditation? Go to the site’s “How to Meditate” page to start. Want more? Check out the audio and video resources. A collection of podcasts contains audio clips on “Meditation and Discipleship,” “The Teaching of Jesus on Contemplation,” “Silence in Worship” and more. Also, take some time to watch excerpts from The Journey of Meditation video by Laurence Freeman, O.S.B., read (or listen to) the Christian Meditation Newsletter and browse articles on peace and justice.

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