"Where love is, there is freedom..."

"Love exists only where there is freedom. To be forced to love is hell; to be free in love is heaven. Where love is, there is freedom.  Since the child is the flower of love, it is earth's sacrament of  freedom. As the cradles come back into the world, freedom will  come back. This freedom will consist not in throwing off restraint,  which is license, but in the increase of new centers of freedom. In  each child God whispers a new secret to the world; adds a new  dimension of immortality to creation; and makes the clinging  hearts of husband and wife feel a little freer, as they look into that  strange and mutual hope which has come to them from God."

+Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Three to Get Married

Prayer to St. Joseph for the Church Militant

 

O GLORIOUS St. Joseph, chosen by God to be the foster father of Jesus, the chaste spouse of Mary ever Virgin and the head of the Holy Family, and then appointed by the Vicar of Christ to be the Heavenly patron and defender of the Church founded by Jesus, most confidently do I implore at this moment thy powerful aid for all the Church Militant on earth. Do thou shield with thy truly paternal love especially the Supreme Pontiff and all the bishops and priests who are in union with the Holy See of Peter. Be the defender of all who labor for souls amidst the trials and tribulations of this life, and cause all the peoples of the earth to submit themselves in a docile spirit to that Church which is the ark of salvation for all men.

Be pleased also, dear St. Joseph, to accept this dedication of myself which I now make unto thee. I dedicate myself wholly to thee, that thou mayest ever be my father, my patron and my guide in the way of salvation. Obtain for me great purity of heart and a fervent devotion to the interior life. Grant that, following thine example, I may direct all my actions to the greater glory of God, in union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary and in union with thee. Finally, pray for me that I may be a partaker in the peace and joy which were thine at the hour of thy holy death. Amen.

But what do you do when you are drowning?

This morning I was up earlier than normal and read a blog post about a facebook / pinterest meme that I had not seen yet.  Jennifer Fulwiler wrote an excellent blog post about how this meme proves that we are living in a culture of death.  She also referred to Mindy Goorchenko's also excellent post pointing out "flaws in the analogy."  I highly recommend reading both of these posts.

Maybe I should have stayed in bed, or maybe I should not have gone online and prayed instead because that facebook meme is really bothering me.  Jennifer and Mindy make very good points of which I am in wholehearted agreement.  But that meme really hits home, and I believe that is why it is so insidious.  Comparing the "birth of a baby to a horrible form of death" is so insidious because it is a twisting of a beautiful truth.  Getting married and having children is a death, but not a horrible form of death that brings destruction.  Getting married and having children is a death to self that brings about life.  And if you do not know about death that brings life, that brings redemption, you will drown.   

"It stuns the conscience," as Jennifer says.  It stuns my conscience because it just so happens that right now in my life, I feel like I am drowning.  Sometimes drowning just in dishes and laundry and little people needing me at every minute of the day, but also in a deeper way drowning in emotions, and hurts and trying to find healing.  Sometimes I go through times where I feel dry and parched, especially in prayer, and this can bring desolation.  Other times desolation comes because I feel overwhelmed, like I am drowning.  It is in these dark moments where I think how could we possibly handle another child or how could I possibly stay here and be  a wife to my husband and a mother to my children.  And my fight or flight instinct kicks in and I either run away for a period of time or fight my way to the surface just trying to get a breath.  Neither really works.  Only surrender does. 

The answer is not to stay out of the water.  The answer is not to put on a temporary life jacket.  The answer is not to take swimming lessons.  The real answer is to let go and surrender and let the grief, sadness, hurt, and yes, death, come.  Because there is new life that is better than anything we can imagine.  Do not be afraid, Christ will rescue you.  He will bring you to the surface.

UPDATE:  Elizabeth Foss has a fantastic post Overwhelmed by the Everyday that really helps!  Surrender to God, listen to Him, and say yes to Him!

 

Why Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have my vote.

I'll be the first to admit that when it was evident that Romney was going to win the Republican presidential nominee, I felt a bit hopeless for our country.  I had read many reports, watched the videos of his changing position on life issues, and just felt a general lack of trust for Romney.  That has changed and here's why. 

Romney's pick of Ryan started to soften my general unease about Romney, as it did with many pro-life people.  Although there have been bumps since that decision, and there will probably be more, I am no longer a Romney skeptic but a Romney supporter.  Perhaps I read too much Hotair or Drudge Report and not enough Shea, but I'd like to think my intellect and heart are more capable than that.  My instinct now is that Mitt Romney is a good man, and God has taught me to trust my instincts.  I don't think my instinct changed, I just think I was ignorant about the man Mitt Romney before this.  You know, I was against him before I was for him ;)  I guess time will tell, but regardless, my hope is in the Lord, not the man.

I got to know Mitt a little bit by listening to some of those who know him closest, particularly his wife.  Nothing like a wife to soften the hearts of people about her guy.  What became evident to me is that Mitt Romney, for all his failures on life issues in the past, is a man who celebrates family, and celebrates life.  To Mitt Romney, a baby is a cause for celebration, a cause to praise God, a beautiful testament to the love of our Creator, of God, our Father.  A baby is not viewed as a threat or a punishment, a baby is viewed as a dignified creation of God.  And he obviously has a talent for bringing prosperity out of adversity, and this is a grace from God that we need desperately in our country right now.

It is evident that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan both care and have a deep respect for women, from the way that they speak of the women in their lives, their moms, their wives, and the women who have worked with them.  Romney has shown his respect for women by action, from the women he has mentored to his deep respect for both working women and women who choose to stay home to care for their children at home.  I believe, perhaps wrongly, that his desire to help women may have been what prompted his grave error on life issues in the past.  Many of us were indoctrinated/lied to/tricked into believing that abortion is a women's rights issue.  The truth is that not only does abortion kill a human being, but it devastates a woman's heart, body, and mind as well.  Because this truth is being realized more and more around the world, people's hearts are changing about abortion, and I believe Mitt Romney is one of those people.

Mitt Romney never supported abortion because he believed that a baby was a punishment or because he believed a baby is a threat.  That is what our current President believes.  More children stand in the way of progress in Obama's mindset, a baby or a child is only to be celebrated if it is wanted and fits into a nice little agenda of making sure it does not stifle a woman's career or exhale too much carbon dioxide.  Yes, he does purport to care about the poor, and the life of a child born into poverty, but honestly, the solution is not to eliminate the child, the solution is to provide opportunity and love for that child.  Every child, EVERY child is a gift, no matter what circumstances into which they were born, and I believe with all my heart that Romney knows that too and will enact policies to strengthen families and protect the dignity of life.

So that is why I fully suppport the Romney/Ryan ticket.  I no longer feel hopeless about our country. I have never lost hope in God and His care for us, but after seeing all those children from the Romney and Ryan families run after the balloons at the end of the convention, I feel a little bit more spring in my step regarding the direction of our country.  Whatever happens, with or without Obama, with or without Romney, God has given each one of us special talents and my heart is full of gratitude for those gifts God gives us.  I believe Romney and Ryan are also both deeply thankful to God for His Grace.  And that is our true hope.

Scroll to about 43:10 in the video below to see the beautiful scene of all the children in the Ryan and Romney families coming out and playing with the balloons. It's priceless! Thank You God for these families! 




Our hope is in You Lord, we accept Your Divine Will. May we cooperate with Your Divine Will, by supporting and encouraging each other to celebrate the beautiful gift of life and families.  Amen.

Young women need justice, not drugs.

Right from the Heart of God

Recently, I was visiting my grandfather in the hospital.  He has been very sick, so I would also ask for your prayers for him.  He is on the road to recovery, but a difficult recovery at 83 years old.  It was a last minute trip down to Texas to help my grandma while grandpa was in the hospital.  He took a turn for the worst the day Michael (our baby) and I arrived in Texas.  Originally, I had planned to come and help out in between times when my dad and aunts and uncles would be there, but when things took a turn for the worst, everyone came back, including many cousins I had not seen in many years, to be with grandpa.  Although this reunion was not under the best of circumstances, it was so good to see everyone again and to be a part of something bigger than my own day to day world. 

Grandma and I spent a lot of time together, and it was so good to be able to just be with her.  I was blessed to be the one to bring her to the hospital every day and take her home again at night.  Please keep her in prayer too as all of this has taken its toll on her health as well.  My grandparents have been like second parents to me.  I lived with them my last three years of high school, and they have always been there for me.  It is such a blessing to have a close relationship with my grandma and grandpa and extended family.  During all the ups and downs of life, which I touched on in my last post, my extended family, and especially my grandparents have been a true gift from God.  He has loved me through their fidelity and care for their family.  Grandma and  Grandpa came when our first two children were born, and Grandma loved me by making sure I got enough rest and did not have to cook one single item (she is the best cook in the world!!!!), and Grandpa made sure I had enough hugs, and when our 2nd was born, read the same books over and over and over to our daughter.  As their health has started to decline, they haven't been able to come make the visit up here any more, but we still love to go home to visit them.  To me, my childhood home is wherever they are.  When I lived with them, they were in Tennessee, but now they are back in Texas, which is where I was born.

During that time, it was so moving to see Grandma sitting by my Grandpa's side holding his hand and caring for him.  They will be married 64 years this month.  It was a gift to witness this after going to the women's conference the weekend before and hearing Father talk about the desire of children to be caught up in the love that created them in the first place, ultimately God's Love.  Watching and being a part of Grandma sitting by Grandpa's side in the hospital was a true gift from God, filling the hole in my heart.  The moment I saw them together, I knew that their love and faithfulness to each other comes right from the Heart of God and reaches out into the darkness of the world, bringing light and hope where it is desperately needed.  As we all have experienced in our own lives, Grandma and Grandpa have had their ups and downs in their married life, but through it all have remained faithful to their vows.  This is what a true sacramental marriage is, a husband and wife coming together and remaining together in the Love of God.  The children that come from their marriage are a both a natural and supernatural manifestation of the love that brings them together, eternal souls created to be light and love in the world.

After being away from the Church for a very long time, Grandpa came back into the Catholic Church about 15 years ago, and Grandma with him.  This was about the same time I converted to Catholicism.  God is good.  As grandpa was in the ICU and not really responsive, I held his hand with his rosary beads intertwined and prayed with him.  He moved his fingers over the beads while we prayed, just the way he does when he prays the rosary, which he had done every day since his return to the Church.  With grandma, we prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet too.  Even though he had not been responding by talking, I stroked his hair and whispered in his ear, "I love you"  and he said back, "I love you too."  These were the first words he had spoken in days.  My aunt and I looked at eachother in shock and joy, and she also told him she loved him and he told her back that he loved her too.  When I had to say good bye to Grandpa several days later, I whispered to him again, "I love you."  He moved his mouth and tried so hard to get the words out, and finally, whispered, with much effort, "I love you." 

I did not know if it would be the last time to see him here on this earth, but he is now responding and was just moved to a rehabilitation center in the last few days.  Please pray for him, for my grandma, and for all of our family.  Pray for our family that God's love will penetrate our hearts, heal the hurts and sustain us all.



 

Must Read: A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the Next America

Archbishop Charles Chaput's newly released Heart on Fire:  Catholic Witness and the Next America is a must read!  I highly recommend reading this, regardless of your beliefs.  It is a fantastic perspective on what is happening in our American public square right now.

The best part is that it is available electronically for just 99 cents!  Find it here or here.  Download it and read it!  It is only 19 pages long.

Meet Bella Santorum

H/T Michelle Malkin

Prayer Request for Amelia

Please pray for Amelia and her family.  Amelia has been denied transplant (I think kidney transplant as her parents were meeting with nephrology department) by the transplant team at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia apparently because she is "mentally retarded".  This is heartbreaking.  Please pray for her doctors as well.  She has been diagnosed with Wolf Hirscchorn Syndrome.  You can read her story here.  This is unbelievable.  Thank you Daily Grace for posting it at your site.

UPDATE:  Here is the Lifenews article about this: 

Parents:  Mentally Disabled Daughter Denied Kidney Transplant

And I also put quotes around the term "mentally retarded" because that is the term that was used on Amelia's paperwork, according to the original heartbreaking post by her mom here.  Please continue to pray for Amelia, her family, and her doctors. 


Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
St. Philomena, pray for us.
St. Jude, pray for us.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.
Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

Exactly what needed to be said

For the first time in a long time, I am engaged in politics again, mainly because of Rick Santorum's surge in the polls.  I am not necessarily a Newt supporter, but I do like him better than I used to many years ago.  I like Santorum better.  But what Newt said at the debate Saturday night was exactly right, especially with regards to "secular bigotry":

“I just want to raise a point about the news media bias,” Gingrich said after a rhetorical skirmish about gay marriage. “You don’t hear the opposite question asked.

“Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won’t accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won’t give in to secular bigotry? Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminated against by the Obama administration on key delivery of services because of the bias and the bigotry of the administration?”

“The bigotry question goes both ways,” Gingrich added. “And there’s a lot more anti-Christian bigotry today than there is concerning the other side. And none of it gets covered by the news media."

H/T Vincenzo for text and video

Wisconsin Personhood Amendment

For my Wisconsin readers:

From Prolife Wisconsin, h/t Badger Catholic:

On Wednesday State Representative Andre Jacque (R-Green Bay) began circulating for co-sponsorship the Wisconsin Personhood Amendment, legislation that would amend the Wisconsin Constitution to apply personhood rights to preborn children at all stages of development. Click here to read the amendment language, and click here to view PLW’s legislative memo.

From a pro-life perspective, the Wisconsin Constitution contains a glaring error at its outset. In specifying the beneficiaries of its human rights, our state constitution leaves out the preborn. It applies rights to only those people who are “born.”

Representative Jacque is proposing a minimal but absolutely essential correction, a personhood amendment, to make the Wisconsin Constitution cover all people, every person, at any stage of development. The amendment seeks to extend the inalienable right to life found in the Wisconsin Constitution to all preborn children from the beginning of their lives.

Should Roe v. Wade be overturned someday and the abortion issue remanded to the states, an activist Wisconsin Supreme Court could use the word “born” in our current state constitution to deny the right to life of the preborn by interpreting an independent right to abortion in that document. In so doing, the court could nullify any present or future pro-life laws in our state. The changing makeup of the Wisconsin Legislature could also jeopardize any pro-life laws in our state. Every two years our state election process determines the majority party in Madison. Legal protection of the preborn should not (and must not) be contingent upon which party controls the state legislature. The right to life should not be subject to the whims of a politicized supreme court or an ever-changing legislature.

The introduction of the Wisconsin Personhood Amendment is a watershed moment in the history of the pro-life movement in our state. It seeks to end abortion in Wisconsin, not to regulate or restrict it. We have been working toward the introduction of such an amendment for the last five years, and we thank Representative Jacque for demonstrating the courage of his convictions in finally making it a reality.

The personhood amendment will face stiff opposition from the pro-abortion industry. Shockingly, the strongest opposition to the bill at this point is coming from Wisconsin Right to Life (WRL). In February WRL published a position paper vowing to oppose any effort to grant Wisconsin’s pre-born babies full constitutional rights as persons, labeling such efforts a “threat to [the] protection of Wisconsin unborn children.” They worked hard to ensure a personhood amendment was never introduced. Having failed in that effort, they are now calling every state legislator demanding that they not sign on to the bill. WRL admits that their legal reasoning for opposing a state personhood amendment is speculative. WRL offers no case law to back up their asserted problems, admitting that they are only “probable”. Pro-Life Wisconsin, on the other hand, offers recent Wisconsin case law clearly demonstrating that the proposed amendment is not a risk to our current, pre-Roe abortion law (Section 940.04, Wisconsin Statutes) by “implied repeal” or otherwise. Click here for PLW’s legal analysis rebutting their misguided objections.

The pro-life movement is founded on the bedrock principle that all human beings, at all stages of their development, deserve full protection under the law. Why oppose proactive people of good will endeavoring to provide full and lasting legal protection for preborn children? Pro-Life Wisconsin remains committed to constitutionally protecting Wisconsin’s preborn children, regardless of opposition from the abortion industry or from within the right to life movement.

Click here to find out how you can help!

Happy Birthday James Fulton

Thanks to Joe (oops I mean Joseph :) ) at Defend us in Battle for posting Mystery of Prayer. He links to 61 minutes, a must read by Bonnie Engstrom, that gives us much needed hope about the power of intercessory prayer. Please go read her post!! It is amazing.

All praise and glory to God! Thank You for the trust and hope of all who seek You and for all the Angels and Saints You give us to pray for us.


And while you're at it, go check out Joseph's post as a new contributing blogger at Virtuospla.net, an awesome new Catholic blog!

Fifty-two babies

Please pray for the situation in Alaska at Providence Hospital at Anchorage, Alaska. You can read more about the situation at Defend us in Battle.

Joe puts it in perspective for us. Fifty two babies have been killed there by abortion since July 11 of this year.

From Joe:

So, while we wait for facts to be found, meetings to be held, and nuances to be debated - babies die.

FIFTY TWO...

The Culture of death is claiming lives every day, I am doing what I can... are you?

God Bless the Last Ones

Because when they go looking for something beautiful, they go looking from the inside out. For my sister Laura:

A Story of Hope

This morning I read a great post over at Creative Minority Report about one couple's struggle with conceiving and their decision to go to Gianna Catholic Healthcare Center for Women. The writer Mary talks about how when you prepare for marriage the priest asks you if you are open to having children, but what about the burden of not being able to get pregnant? She does not talk about miscarriage, but the loss of a child by miscarriage and multiple miscarriages is devastating as well. Here is an excerpt, you will want to read the whole post over at CMR:

But they never ask if you are you prepared for when the children don't come. It can be a frustrating and devastating process full of anxiety, doubt, and heartbreak. It is also not something you fail at once like your 7th grade Social Studies test, it's something that 12 times a year you know you failed. After a year or maybe two, you start to really wonder if something is wrong with you. You see your friends having babies and they tell you you’re next. Or you see a show on television where the character is having a baby and you have to switch channels. Or because you look at the second bedroom in your place that you named the nursery when you moved in and now call the office.

I went through five years of this. So many tears and advice. Of course, IVF was not an option. Where do you turn? On my birthday last year, I got the monthly reminder that we failed. Again. As I laid on my bed crying, my husband decided to make a call. He called Gianna, The Catholic Healthcare Center for Women. My brother Matthew had told us about them.....

Read the rest here.

St. Gianna, pray for us!

A Pearl of Great Price - Pay it Forward Tuesday

Pay it Forward is hosted by Holly at A Life-Size Catholic Blog. Thanks Holly!

One of my favorite priest bloggers (or rather, a priest who happens to blog), Fr. Andrew, has a great post from his homily this past Sunday at his website Catholic-Vision in which he challenges us to live the wisdom of Scripture:

The wisdom of Scripture says to sell everything for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Like a great pearl there is no price too great. Like treasure in the field we must sell all to acquire that field. The wisdom of the world says to hold something back for yourselves and don’t trust the Kingdom of Heaven to provide for you—which is the wisdom of our enemy, the master of this world, Satan.

He reminds us of the 43rd Anniversary of Humanae Vitae and the consequences of choices our culture has made regarding the use of artificial contraception. His post is not about what is right and what is wrong, but about our trust in God. Fr. Andrew speaks to us with love and with challenge, as a good father does. Thanks Fr. Andrew! Read his post here.

Empowering women???

Al Gore recently said this regarding global warming (oops I mean climate change) during an appearance in New York City:

“One of the things we could do about it is to change the technologies, to put out less of this pollution, to stabilize the population, and one of the principle ways of doing that is to empower and educate girls and women,” Gore said. “You have to have ubiquitous availability of fertility management so women can choose how many children have, the spacing of the children.

“You have to lift child survival rates so that parents feel comfortable having small families and most important — you have to educate girls and empower women,” he said. “And that’s the most powerful leveraging factor, and when that happens, then the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices.”

Ubiquitous availablity of fertility management? This empowers women? Really? Societies begin to maker better "choices"? Really? Maybe he needs to read this. Or possibly this might convince him. Or perhaps this? No, I guess it is because of the money he can't see the truth.

I thought that population control was so 70s. Guess not.

Over population is a myth.

The Human Experience

We had family visiting this past weekend and watched The Human Experience again. This is a Grassroots Films movie that follows two brothers through three different experiences. The message of the film is so powerful. It was even better than when we saw it the first time when the local Newman Center hosted a screening of the movie a few years ago. If you have never seen it, I highly recommend it!! You can watch it instant view on Netflix.

Students for Life

Living in a college town and seeing how on fire university students are for their faith and for life gives me great hope. Praise God!!

AMDG!!

HT Matthew Archbold Creative Minority Report

Seriously

Okay.....I am really frustrated right now with all the idealistic crap about how there are all these people fighting for the rights of people who are supposedly getting trampled upon by big corporate interests and political and social conservatives. I might have a little sympathy if these same people would take a look in the mirror and ask themselves, do I truly stand up for the helpless? Do I truly care about all human beings?

What about the women who are being lied to by the billion dollar business Planned Parenthood in the name of "choice"? Funny thing, it seems to me in all this battle cry about choice for women and women's rights, women are being trampled upon daily, hourly, by big corporate abortion interests feigning to be advocates for women. There is no choice at the abortion clinic. There is no informed consent. There is no doctor-patient relationship. It is all a farce, and they are convincing the average uninformed woman that they "care", that they want to "help". Lord, open our eyes as a society to the truth.

Why is there such blindness in our society to this irony? Why? Why are "pro-choice" advocates against informed consent? Against crisis pregnancy centers? Against telling the truth about the horrifically high abortion rates, particularly among black women? Against prosecutors who actually follow-up on criminal behavior at abortion clinics? Against true doctor-patient relationships? I thought the mantra was safe, legal, and rare. Safe is out the window, because I guess oversight of clinics treating women is not truly necessary, unless you are an evil crisis pregnancy center that does not perform abortions. Rare is out the window too. Apparently, it's only legal that they care about. And by legal I mean turn your eyes the other way and let them operate illegally, "legally".

Our hope is in the Lord. How much longer can this go on?

Lord, let us see the truth! Open the eyes of all the idealistic young people in our country and throughout the world to the true genocide that is happening right before us, every day, every hour. Please let us not get distracted by the lies that we are really making a difference helping people while being blinded by the horror of abortion. Lord open my eyes so that I am not blind to the plight of my neighbor. In Your Holy Name, Amen.

"Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the Holiest object presented to your senses." ~C.S. Lewis ( a quote that was on Danielle Bean this past week)