Dear Friends,

Please in your charity and mercy, remember two souls that  both passed into eternal life within the Octave of the Assumption on August 16th and buried on the same day - the wonderful feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on August 22nd:

Rev. James R. Dunphy, MS of Hartford, Connecticut and Thomas Nelson found of Tan Books.

These men were great defenders and fighters for the Catholic Faith.  I was blessed to have met both - Fr Dunphy via telephone some years ago as a recommendation for spiritual guidance.  I will never forget his spiritual support and attitude to fight for Truth even when he was overe 80 years old! He continued to say the Traditional Latin Mass until he couldn't.  I imagine his last years he must have offered to God for the continuation of the Catholic Faith and for all of us.  I imagine he had a slow death of white martyrdom for all of us.  But I have nothing to base this on except my conversations with him 20 yrs ago. I am so grateful to have met him and get his advice.

The second soul who passed was Tom Nelson who founded Tan Books.  My husband and I started purchasing books from Tan Books well before we married and brought them with us in our marriage. We built our library for 46+ years with his wonderful choice of reprinted traditional Catholic books. It is said that he started his business in the basement of his parents' house and sold books out of his trunk.  His last five years were a white martyrdom being paralyzed by a stroke but having his mind completely intact offering all to God.

In this world, it is rare to find such Catholic determination to spread the Faith in this way! We have lost so much since the start of this awful self-demolition of the Catholic Church...

My husband and I were blessed to have a happy coincidence occur that affected our plans the day of his funeral so that we were willing and able to attend his funeral.  We had expected a full church.  To our great dismay and disappointment only 70 people had attended and that is counting children. For all of the good that Tom Nelson had accomplished, it was sad and even disheartening to see how not many came to pray for his soul and bid him farewell.  It was a beautiful sung High Mass and the burial was very lovely with even a tribute to his military career. We were able to meet one of his nieces which was very nice. 

In his later years, Tom "lost" his business due to finances.  Many may consider him a failure.  Thankfully and to his credit, the priest who gave the sermon at his funeral spoke about what good Tom had done and that basically God was most likely very pleased with Tom's efforts. 

Many of the saints and holy Catholics that have lived in times past appeared to be failures to the world.  Pauline Jaricot died a "failure" after losing alot of money to swindlers trusting that they would invest it wisely to build the kingdom of God. Garcia Moreno refused protection and counsel to flee his country and lost his life to the Masons who called for his death because of all the good he had done for Ecuador and for supporting the Papacy. 

If I had a Gabriel Garcia  Moreno Memorial Award honoring those who had acted in imitation of this great Catholic leader and fighter for the Faith, I would have bestowed this honor on both of these wonderful Catholic men!  We certainly need more men like them!

May we pray for our Catholic church and our laity «… So that powerful men arise in works and words for the cause of the same faith…» as Cardinal de la Torre, Archbishop of Quito prayed in regards to Garcia Moreno in 1958.

In your charity please remember these good souls... "Eternal Rest grant unto them O Lord..."