Dear Friends:

As always, things have been insanely busy here for several weeks now without letup or a chance for me to catch my breath.

 

Ever since I finally finished mailing out the last of my Christmas cards a couple of days ago I’ve been busy writing a lengthy article to post here on my website commemorating this month’s 25th anniversary of my apologetics/theology/Biblical studies apostolate, Biblical Foundations International (founded January 1981). The article surveys all that we’ve accomplished over the past quarter century and what we still urgently need to do during the years ahead.

However, I’ve had to interrupt my essay writing because I’ve been once again overtaken by another imminent deadline. On Tuesday, January 26, I’ll be appearing nationwide on TV as a contestant on the quiz show Jeopardy. If you’re interested and don’t already watch the show, you'll need to find out what channel carries the show in your area and at what time. The show is syndicated nationally on various TV affiliates — it’s not a primetime network show — so there’s no way for me to tell all of you in this post which of your local TV stations airs the show, and during which time slot.

  

The simplest solution is for you to go to www.jeopardy.com on your computer, tablet, smartphone, or other Internet device. If you allow your computer/device to be aware of your geographic location, as soon as you land on Jeopardy's home page you should see, in the upper left region of the page, superimposed over the purple background surrounding the head shot of the show's host, Alex Trebek, the words “Watch Jeopardy on ___,” followed by the call letters of your local TV affiliate. If not, click on the link in the upper right corner of the screen where it says in white letters “Find Your Station” and enter your zip code on the next screen.

 

Other options would be to check your local newspaper’s TV listings, the TV Guide at your local supermarket checkout, go to tvguide.com, or check the TV Guide channel that your cable, DirectTV, or DISH service provides right on your TV screen, and enter “Jeopardy” in the search box.

 

Those of you that don't own a TV set can of course (if you're interested) go to the sort of restaurant that has several TVs tuned to different channels, and ask if they'll have one tuned to the station you've determined will be showing Jeopardy. 

Because I had to sign a legally binding nondisclosure agreement when I taped the show in Los Angeles last month, I’m not allowed to tell you before the show airs on the 26th whether I won or lost; all I can say is, tune in to find out! Once the show has aired, however, I’ll be posting a follow-up article here on the website, sharing with you further information about the entire experience and its ramifications.

In the meantime, please believe that your much-appreciated and indispensable purchases from our online store at www.gerrymatatics.org/shop and your donations (whether by check, credit card, or PayPal) continue to be essential to the ongoing operation of Biblical Foundations International (BFI) — in fact, more than ever — and for your faithful and sacrificial support I continue to be enormously grateful. 

 

The only reason I even tried out for Jeopardy and spent the time and money to prepare for and appear on the program was in fact because sales and donations have been at an all-time low for over a year now, leaving us in a most precarious predicament, financially speaking.

We are determined that BFI continue, as long as humanly possible, its vital work month after month, and this has required from us many enormous sacrifices and much creative alternative income replacement. For example, we have been selling off many books from our personal library, and have also been going virtually every month, and often several times a month, to many used book sales (library sales), both locally and hours away, to acquire books (especially children’s books) inexpensively and then re-sell them on Amazon, eBay, and other Internet outlets.

I have also launched Aristotle Tutoring and Test Prep Services, to provide educational tutoring to high school and college students — in fact to people of any age — as well as helping students to prepare for and excel on standardized academic achievement tests and entrance exams like the GED, ACT, PSAT, SAT, GRE and more. This tutoring and exam coaching is offered both face-to-face as well as via Skype, FaceTime, and other Internet videoconferencing apps. (For more information, see my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/aristotletutoringandtestprep, or simply go to Facebook and search for "Aristotle Tutoring & Test Prep Services.”)

 

In these and many other ways we have been diligently seeking to raise the necessary funds to enable Biblical Foundations International to continue to operate into 2016 and carry out its many vital projects of explaining and defending the classic Catholic Faith to our utterly confused world:

— confused by atheists, agnostics, and other spiritual skeptics and truth-bashers, 

— confused by false religions such as Islam and Christ-rejecting Talmudic Judaism,

— confused by the endless varieties of Protestantism and other heretical versions of Christianity that claim to be Biblical but in reality are not,

— confused by the Vatican II “counterfeit Catholicism,” which betrays its bogus character every time it departs from yet another traditional teaching of the true Church, as antipope Francis does virtually every month,

— confused by pseudo-traditionalist organizations such as the SSPX and periodicals such as The Remnant and Catholic Family News which rightly accuse the Vatican II establishment with its errant “popes” of teaching false doctrine, and yet wrongly insist that this error-teaching entity is somehow still the Catholic Church (such pseudo-traditionalists tragically deny the infallibility of the Church’s ordinary magisterium, which was defined at Vatican I and taught by all previous popes),

— and, finally, confused by the “unauthorized shepherds” of the SSPV, CMRI, MHFM, and similar sedevacantist groups who rightly reject Vatican II and its antipopes but wrongly and audaciously assert that the vacancy of the Holy See gives them carte blanche to flaunt not only Church law but divine law and “re-create” the Church’s clergy, hierarchy, and religious orders (Benedictine, et al.) according to their own subjective whims.

Please partner with us in spreading the soul-saving truth of classic Catholicism and combatting the many soul-destroying spiritual errors of our day. 

 

I genuinely hope all is well with you and yours. May Almighty God be giving you and yours a most Blessed and glorious Christmastide (which continues through February 2), a grace-filled and Happy, Holy New Year, and a spiritually fruitful Septuagesima season.

Yours in Christ our incarnate King and Mary our Queen Mother,

Gerry Matatics, Founder & President