Lent and Valentine’s Day
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

If it’s almost February, Lent can’t be far behind! We have a slew of new free, content-rich features that you’ll want to consider for your Web site for Lent. I won’t go into high detail now—we’ll have another e-newsletter a few days before Ash Wednesday, which is February 21 this year. You can check our webmaster’s page between now and then to see the features as we update and upgrade them for your use. In addition to our popular calendar of Lent activities, new things this year will include a “book-a-week” excerpt feature for some quick spiritual reading.  Our Lenten Radio Retreat, conducted by U.S. bishops in English and Spanish, will be back with a new group of bishops, for webcast or podcast. If you know any radio broadcasters who might want to receive the 30-minute show, have them send an email to Letters@FranciscanRadio.org. More on Lent next time.

The holiday on everyone’s mind now is Valentine’s Day, on February 14. It’s a holiday that, like Christmas, has been largely taken over by commercial interests. You can shed some light on its Christian origins with our feature, and encourage people to send a Catholic Greetings e-card on this popular card-sending occasion. If we could figure out how to send flowers online, we might include those too!

Other things are happening: February 25 is the Oscar awards, and we’ve created a link for your Web site to Sister Rose Pacatte’s list of favorites from St. Anthony Messenger magazine’s “CineRose” Awards.

Meanwhile, enjoy this “ordinary time” of the Church year between the Christmas and Easter seasons. It’s a time when we all take stock of where we are and make plans for the coming year. It’s a good time to offer “ordinary” features on your site, like Saint of the Day, one of our most popular. As I write this on the feast day of St. Francis de Sales, patron of Catholic journalists, I pray that each of you will be empowered by the new media to spread the gospel far and wide.

God Bless!

John Feister
Editor, AmericanCatholic.org

p.s. By the way, this week many PBS stations are carrying Maryknoll Productions’ Lives for Sale. Check the Web for local listings.

Parish Site of the Month

St. Mary's Catholic Church (Diocese of Charleston)
The homepage of this parish Web site is constantly updated with excerpts from weekly bulletins, recommended links, news, Mass schedules and "popular pages." This site not only stays fresh by updating its homepage content on a regular basis, but also creates a multimedia experience for users. Check out the audio homilies, which you can download or listen to online, and the photo album, which offers a look at the church's history, people and events. This site has a lot to offer, and a good place to start is the sitemap. Scroll over hyperlinked text to see a useful Javascript tooltip (much like an alt or title tag) with more information on the site's many pages.

Worth a Click

ChristLife: Catholic Ministry of Evangelization
ChristLife is a lay Catholic ministry established in response to the Church's call to a new evangelization. Its attractive Web site offers newsletters, audio content, information on missionary work, photos and more. Read about ChristLife's Missionary Corps and check out the many resources—articles, links, podcasts, books—for sharing your faith.

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