Father Patrick A. Martin

Hi All,

I felt compelled to share the following; on Sunday October 25th, 2009, our Parish Saint Catherine of Sienna was visited by a legally blind Priest, Father Patrick A. Martin. He is nearly completely blind and uses a walking stick, and had to be escorted around the Altar by another Parish Priest. He delivered one of the most powerful sermons I ever heard. Everyone was greatly moved. He has a photographic memory, and was able to repeat the readings at the podium from memory. As we were following along, he didn’t miss a word.

I met up with him after Mass, as I’ve been involved with working with the blind by helping provide Catholic literature converted to audio, mainly working with Sister Christine Kabumbu in Kasama, Zambia over the internet:

http://www.sistersofthechildjesuskasama.com/Index.htm

Father Patrick uses a laptop with little braille identifiers on each of the keys, ignoring the display screen. A software program audibly identifies each key as it is touched and verbally describes what is taking place as he progresses. I had upgraded high quality AT&T computer voices, that sounded better than the voice he was using (that sounded like the one Steven Hawking uses). I was also able to provide him with some audio books that he was unable to locate anywhere else.

Father Patrick has his own website:

http://www.awildcanary.com/library.html

On it, there is posted some of his sermons and talks in an Mp3 format. I found them to be wonderful, and have been listening to them in my car while commuting to work. I highly recommend this audio.

Other audio I highly recommend is by Jews who converted to Catholicism:

http://www.salvationisfromthejews.com/audioconverts.html

God Bless