The main core of what we do is the annual Men's Forum on the Saturday after Easter Sunday, so we have been looking at our present times and culture to make some tweaks on how we fill in the gap between events. I'd like to share some of that with you here....
Men's Forum: The unique thing about the Bishop Perry Catholic Men's Forum is the group discussions, and how us men connect the dots with each other on our spiritual journey. When we started CMCS in 2004 it was the
Bishop's Prayer Breakfast, then it became the
Bishop's
Men's Conference and now, especially with all that is going on in our culture, many of you have told us how the Bishop's Men's
Forum format is needed more than ever. So likewise, we plan an Hispanic Men's Forum in the Fall 2024 (as you have donated the seed money for us to do this), and then we'll work towards a Polish Men's Forum as well.
Technology: online platforms are always changing at a rapid speed, so you either move with the changes or you make the changes that best work for you, and we make these tweaks every summer: Our main online resource is the CMCSMen Blog and will be highlighting our blog articles and videos using the Tumblr platform, which also has a huge Catholic community (as well as others migrating from Twitter), if you wish to open an account there. ... it's up to you.
Social Media: over the years online networking has changed from building a network to stay on top of events from people we know, towards now a walled garden of algorithm content to keep our attention and distract us from the human interactions in our lives. We have all seen fall-off of engagement from (CMCS Men on our) social media channels. Email is known as the original social media, so we will continue to communicate with you through our E-mail list which has overwhelming engagement from all of you. You can likewise bookmark or join our profile on Brigheon Soical posting relevant content from around the web along with our increased video content on Brighteon.com (these are Twitter and YouTube alternatives to prevent us from being censored). You can otherwise follow my social accounts as well.
So, all other platforms we've been posting to, and especially our Page and Group on MeWe, will be closed and instead sent direct to your E-mail box. If you feel that you missed something we've sent out, you can check or bookmark the Email Archive here, and the Email Community Blog here.
So the E-mail schedule will be about twice a week: The Tuesday Manhood Nuggets Video for the upcoming Sunday Gospel, and the Thursday Blog Post. Many of you it seems prefer to forward the emails as we've seen a tremendous growth of new subscribers over the past several months from you doing this. We'll also include a share button to the Big Tech social media platforms in the emails and blog posts for you to share with .. thank you!
Online Meetings: Although it's not the same experience online as it is in-person, we plan hosting some video / conference call / chat discussions as an easy way to bring men together for spiritual growth but, again, all that we do is for the purpose of leading men to our live Men's Forum on the Saturday after Easter 2024. Very few if the many Catholic Men's movements around the country have a blog, and CMCS was also the first to be an apostolate of a bishop, these are important resources to stay true to our Faith and grow your holiness to make Christ the center of your life.
Bishop Perry Transition: Many of you know that Bishop Perry in April sent to Pope Francis his notice for mandatory retirement. We are waiting for the pope's acceptance and learn of Bishop Perry's replacement. However, please know that CMCS will transfer along with all of Bishop Perry's ecclesiastical endeavors, and we're prepared to make ours a smooth transition in due time.
So, Men, as you live your lives and grow in holiness engaging with all that CMCS has to share with you, please also be mindful of sharing CMCS with other men and, most important, remember to talk about and invite them to the Forum next Spring.
"No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us."
~ 1 John 4:12
Frank J Casella, CMCS Co-founder & Executive Director
Catholic Men Chicago Southland
cmcsmen.net / fjcasella@cmcsmen.net
708-965-0209
PS. Please know that you are in our prayers, and please pray for each other and for the CMCS-Team who is very intent on making this mission, and the next Forums, most meaningful for you and others you share your lives and faith with.
