Fishers of Men, the 18-minute video (given as two clippings here) that is a major resource in a vocational recruitment project launched last year by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has been honored with a Gabriel Award, in Hollywood, California.

More than 60,000 copies of the DVD have been distributed nationwide and beyond. Fishers of Men has been aired on TV stations, shown in schools, during parish Masses, seminaries and small group settings and played on individual computers.

Fishers of Men was produced by Grassroots Films of Brooklyn, New York, and is a fast-paced video which shows many of the facets of a priest’s daily life. Several priests provide testimony to the importance they place on their own vocation. A dramatic re-enactment portrays how a priest can inspire a vocation through his service to someone in need of priestly ministry.

The Fishers of Men project is intended to renew priests’ sense of fulfillment in their vocation and to encourage them to draw on that satisfaction to invite other men to pursue the priesthood. It is based on Christ’s call to the first Apostles, “I will make you fishers of men” (Mk 1:17). The project was developed by the USCCB Committee on Vocations.

The Gabriel Awards are sponsored by the Catholic Academy for Communications Arts Professionals to honor works of excellence in broadcasting. Other 2007 winners include Picturing Mary, an effort by the USCCB and Thirteen/WNET, the nation’s flagship PBS station; and Disney’s Little Einsteins: A Tall Totem Tale, from the Disney Channel.

Joseph Campo, producer of Fishers of Men, said, “I speak for everyone on the Grassroots Films staff when I say that we have always had a positive view and appreciation of the Catholic priesthood throughout the world, and we are grateful for the opportunity to portray what it means to be a priest in the film, Fishers of Men.” He finds the DVD’s success heartening.

“Serious filmmakers always work to produce something of extraordinary artistic quality,” Campo said. “When the work can serve a noble goal such as inviting men to the priesthood, it’s doubly rewarding for the artists.”

Watch the above clip to see an incident which shows unbelievable sportsmanship in softball game.

With two runners on base and a strike against her, Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University uncorked her best swing and did something she had never done, in high school or college. Her first home run cleared the center-field fence.

But it appeared to be the shortest of dreams come true when she missed first base, started back to tag it and collapsed with a knee injury.

She crawled back to first but could do no more. The first-base coach said she would be called out if her teammates tried to help her. Or, the umpire said, a pinch runner could be called in, and the homer would count as a single.

Then, members of the Central Washington University softball team stunned spectators by carrying Tucholsky around the bases Saturday so the three-run homer would count – an act that contributed to their own elimination from the playoffs.

Central Washington first baseman Mallory Holtman, the career home run leader in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, asked the umpire if she and her teammates could help Tucholsky.

The umpire said there was no rule against it.

So Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace put their arms under Tucholsky’s legs, and she put her arms over their shoulders. The three headed around the base paths, stopping to let Tucholsky touch each base with her good leg.

“The only thing I remember is that Mallory asked me which leg was the one that hurt,” Tucholsky said. “I told her it was my right leg and she said, ‘OK, we’re going to drop you down gently and you need to touch it with your left leg,’ and I said ‘OK, thank you very much.”‘

“She said, ‘You deserve it, you hit it over the fence,’ and we all kind of just laughed.”

“We started laughing when we touched second base,” Holtman said. “I said, ‘I wonder what this must look like to other people.”‘

“We didn’t know that she was a senior or that this was her first home run,” Wallace said Wednesday. “That makes the story more touching than it was. We just wanted to help her.”

Holtman said she and Wallace weren’t thinking about the playoff spot, and didn’t consider the gesture something others wouldn’t do.

As for Tucholsky, the 5-foot-2 right fielder was focused on her pain.

“I really didn’t say too much. I was trying to breathe,” she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday.

“I didn’t realize what was going on until I had time to sit down and let the pain relax a little bit,” she said. “Then I realized the extent of what I actually did.”

“I hope I would do the same for her in the same situation,” Tucholsky added.

As the trio reached home plate, Tucholsky said, the entire Western Oregon team was in tears.

Central Washington coach Gary Frederick, a 14-year coaching veteran, called the act of sportsmanship “unbelievable.”

For Western Oregon coach Pam Knox, the gesture resolved the dilemma Tucholsky’s injury presented.

“She was going to kill me if we sub and take (the home run) away. But at the same time I was concerned for her. I didn’t know what to do,” Knox said.

Tucholsky’s injury is a possible torn ligament that will sideline her for the rest of the season, and she plans to graduate in the spring with a degree in business. Her home run sent Western Oregon to a 4-2 victory, ending Central Washington’s chances of winning the conference and advancing to the playoffs.

“In the end, it is not about winning and losing so much,” Holtman said. “It was about this girl. She hit it over the fence and was in pain, and she deserved a home run.”

Watch this video clip which tells us a beautiful story of two men, both seriously ill, occupying the same hospital room.

One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room’s only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.

And every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those one-hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside. The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake.

Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color of the rainbow. Grand old trees graced the landscape, and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance. As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene. Then one day…….

Watch the above clip to know the full story  OR  goto The beautiful world outside the window