WHY YOU MAY CONSIDER JOINING THE THIRTEENTH OF THE MONTH CLUB

I am so happy that there is a Thirteenth of the Month Club, which is open to you, me and anyone who wishes to enjoy this network of grace.

The Club is run by the priestly order, The Marians of the Immaculate Conception. And the Marian priest who is the driving force behind the Thirteenth of the Month Club is Father Calloway who has become a household name on account of his smash-hit book Consecration to St Joseph. The Club has members all over the world, and the aim of the Club is to bring souls together who pray the Rosary so that they may pray for each other. Every month, the Marian Fathers in their house in Fatima offer a Mass where they pray for all the members of the Club. Members also receive a monthly newsletter.  You may stipulate your special intentions in this form, and the good fathers take the needs of each person very much to heart.  You may also like to share this page with someone who is looking for other souls to pray for them. 

But this is not the first inception of the Club. What we are witnessing is the re-birth of the Thirteenth of the Month Club. The Club first started in 1948 in Detroit, Michigan when a group pious souls met on the 13th of the month to pray the Rosary. Their reason for picking the 13th of the month was to honor the date that Our Lady appeared to Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco at Fatima. When they founded the Thirteenth of the Month Club, it was only 3 years after World War II had ended; they had just witnessed the war that Our Lady foretold would happen in the event people did not amend their lives, do penance and pray the daily Rosary. 

As for joining the re-founded Thirteenth of the Month Club, there is a membership fee, which may be looked upon as a small donation, you may pick an amount that is comfortable for you. No doubt part of your fee would fund the Masses which are offered on the 13th for members worldwide. It is quite a consolation to know that your intentions will be included in a Mass offered every 13th of the month in Fatima, that blessed part of the earth where Our Lady stood. 

Were you to pay Mass stipends for a year of Masses, say one Mass to be offered on the 13th of every month for your intentions, that would be 12 Mass stipends and it would amount to quite a bit of money. Presently, I give an American priest a 30 dollar Mass stipend, and I give a British priest in England 20 pounds or so. Were I to ask a priest to offer a Mass every 13th of the month that would be 360 dollars or 240 pounds. 

This newly re-founded Thirteenth of the Month Club may have wider, positive influence on our culture in that it will challenge the status of 13 as an "unlucky number", and help instill in people that 13 is a blessed number. The number 13 has an ancient and venerable heritage in Catholicism, in the early Church, All Saint's Day used be on May 13th. 

There is a condition called triskaidekaphobia - triskaidekaphobics are people with terror of the number 13. To think, it is an actual phobia; some people are terrified of the number 13 in the same way that people are afraid of heights, savage dogs or spiders. I have sympathy with these sufferers. I have a fear and loathing of rodents, and recently when I saw a palm tree where the palms had been ravaged to bits by a nest of rats, I felt nauseous. 

Yet, the number 13 poses no real threat to someone's health, and there may be a lot of demonic energy involved in inciting this unease in ordinary people, it is quite a neat trick if the devil can inspire a phobia of the number 13 in a person, then they are almost guaranteed to be averse to the message of Fatima because Our Lady appeared on the 13th of the month there. Prayer needs to be offered for the re-habilitation of the number 13, that it is restored in people's minds as worthy of respect and not scorn borne out of misguided fear.