Catholic Matriarch in My Domestic Church

Now that we are here...

2012-01-29T15:57:00.000-05:00

RAnn made an important point in a comment on my previous post: We would not be in this mess with the HHS mandate if Catholics were by and large following Church teaching and not using contraception. It is similar to the point made my Emily Stimpson here and here, reinforced by Pia de Solenni here, addressed by Thomas Peters here, and finally Tom Crowe offers a summary of all the aspects of these viewpoints here.

I highly recommend you take the time to read all the links above, but in case you are hurried here is the executive summary:

It is all well and good that are bishops are speaking out forcefully against the HHS mandate. It is a true threat to religious liberty. At the same time, there is some real frustration because we are in this mess because our shepherds have not done a very good job for at least forty years and probably longer in proclaiming the Gospel of life. Catholics know the Church does not approve of contraception, but how many understand the "why" of this prohibition? Not only have bishops and priest not given the reasoning for the Church's stand, but many have been poor shepherds and actually given tacit approval to the use of contraception, sterilization, and other immoral actions. While the Obama administration bears the blame for initiating this assault on religious liberty, the Church leadership's failure at catechesis has enabled this crisis.

So this is where we are: a new generation of bishops are ready to lead the charge against the assault on religious liberty. A small number of well-catechized Catholics appreciate the threat and are joining the battle. The vast majority of self-identified Catholics are oblivious to the issue. I don't refer to them as Catholics in the pew because a good many of them do not find a pew except on Christmas and Easter and maybe when "Grandmother" is in town. They are using contraception with no idea of the serious moral implications.

The answer to this dilemma begins where the answer to all dilemmas begins--with God. We begin in prayer. We ask for forgiveness for our failings. Perhaps one of the most relevant devotions for these times is the Divine Mercy chaplet where we pray repeatedly: For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world".

And then we act. One of the Spiritual Works of Mercy is "to instruct the ignorant". There are a whole lot of ignorant Catholics out there. We need to teach by example first, and then as St. Francis admonished, use words if necessary. We also cannot ignore the political realities. In order to combat the evil around us we have to engage the political process. That means working tirelessly for candidates and legislation that embody true Catholic principles.

It is true that if the bishops, priests, and laity had embraced Humanae Vitae, the state of the Catholic Church would be very different. The reality is they didn't. So we are where we are. That doesn't mean we throw up our hands at the task and point fingers of blame. It means that we trust in God and seek to be instruments for His plan.

A Call to Battle!

2012-01-26T13:57:00.000-05:00

As they say in the fighter pilot world: Fight's on!

On January 19, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI addressed a group of American bishops in Rome for their ad limina visits and gave them their marching orders. He let them know, in no uncertain terms, that America cannot rest on her laurels of religious freedom. The Church and all she represents are under assault in the United States:
[I]t is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The seriousness of these threats needs to be clearly appreciated at every level of ecclesial life. Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion. Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices. Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.

Continue reading at HLI America

Who said anything about ignorance?

2012-01-25T17:15:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned, my latest piece over at HLI America takes on the "experts" who think they know better than I do what my children need to know about sex and when they need to know it. As expected, the first commenter is outraged because she assumes I want to keep my children ignorant and in the dark about sexuality. I never said that. I said I will teach my children. Why does she assume that parents are incapable of providing essential information about sex to their children? If anyone wants to wander over there and offer some support in the com box, I would appreciate it!

The "experts" want to tell your child about sex

2012-01-25T09:58:00.000-05:00

If you, like most parents, are anxious about how to impart a healthy and moral view of sexuality to your children, a coalition of ”experts” want to come to your rescue. They have decided what your children need to know about sex and when they need to know it.
The Journal of School Health published the special report, National Sexuality Education Standards: Core Content and Skills, K–12. The purpose of these standards is to make a radical agenda normative for all public schools in the United States.
According to the “experts,” what should your child know? By the end of the second grade, your child needs to, “Identify different kinds of family structures,” which means that they not only want your child to know about traditional two-parent families, single-parent families, blended divorced families and gay-parent families, but they want them to see each of these as equally acceptable and good. In addition, by the end of the second grade your child should be able to, “Provide examples of how friends, family, media, society and culture influence ways in which boys and girls think they should act.” Notice how family is lumped in with the media, society and culture as just another source of influence to be critically evaluated – by children in the second grade.

Continue reading at HLI America

Isn't she talented?

2012-01-15T22:11:00.000-05:00

My aspiring architect daughter is letting her creative juices flow as she starts up her jewelry business. Take a look at her creations.

Robert McCartney gets all selectively sanctimonious

2012-01-15T17:41:00.003-05:00

What did I tell you? As soon as people criticized the actions of Page Melton (now Page Ivie), the powers that be at the Washington Post came down on them, characterizing them as judgmental cowards. Columnist Robert McCartney goes on to say that those who object to a woman divorcing her disabled husband so she can marry another man and get on with her life are just out of touch with the American mainstream:

These writers have every right to voice their disapproval of Ivie’s actions on the grounds that their view of the marriage covenant is different from hers – and, given the national divorce rate, different from that of most Americans.

I agree with Mr. McCartney that hateful comments offer nothing to the discussion. No matter how much we disagree, we should always try to respond with charity. However, Robert McCartney has never uttered a peep over the hateful comments directed towards Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, clergy, Catholics in general, or any one else with whom he has ideological differences. No, it is only when the comments go over the top in criticism of one of his beloved liberals that he gets his feathers ruffled.

And surely Mr. McCartney isn't suggesting that because many Americans are choosing to solve their marital issue by getting a divorce, we shouldn't think getting a divorce is any big deal? Is that how he determines what is right and wrong? Once over fifty percent of people engage in a behavior it becomes morally acceptable and good? I can't imagine having to consult the polls every time I needed to make a moral decision. I will just continue to base my choices on the firm principles of natural law as taught by the Catholic Church, built on the Rock of Peter. The shifting sands of popular culture offer no foundation for building an ethical life.
Page Melton did what she did so that she could become Page Ivie. She can lay out all the justification for her actions that she wants. I will leave it to God to pass judgment. What I can say is that no matter how she wants to spin it she did not keep her vow to stay married to her husband in sickness and health until parted by death. Her first husband is very much alive and she is no longer legally married to him. So be honest. Don't sugar coat it. Admit what you did. You found being married to a man with brain damage was just too hard so you quit. You divorced him. You married someone else. You still look after your first husband. But you are no longer legally married to him. If it is all so wonderful and noble, why try to paint it as something it is not?

All parents are homeschoolers!

2012-01-11T11:12:00.000-05:00

I strayed from a strictly bioethics topic to write on parenting over at HLI America.

We are all homeschoolers. Some of us may seek more outside help to cover English literature, calculus or social studies, but the crucial education of our children in truth and virtue begins at home, and begins with parents. This means it is our responsibility to form our children in the principles of a culture of life.
That is a very high sounding ideal, but what are the practical nuts and bolts components of raising children of faith and virtue? First and foremost, parents can show their commitment to the dignity of every child when they are open to the gift of life and welcome each new family member as a manifestation of God’s love. Supporting a culture of life must be a family activity and can be accomplished through both corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

Please read the whole thing here!

Marriage is for a lifetime

2012-01-11T09:29:00.002-05:00

I have been struggling for four days to figure out how to write a post on this article without sounding harsh and judgmental. I have finally given up and will just have my say. The title of the article is:

A family learns the true meaning of the vow ‘in sickness and in health’

The thing is, I don’t think they learned the true meaning at all. The gist of the story is that at age 46, Robert Melton suffered a stroke and a heart attack. His brain suffered from lack of oxygen but he survived. He was conscious and conversant but had some mental disabilities. He had an incomplete memory of his family but did eventually remember his wife and daughters. He needed a very structured environment so he was placed in an assisted living facility. The family had a healthy and happy routine of visiting every Saturday, while Page also visited a few days during the week. Then Page reconnects with an old friend, Allan, who is getting divorced. They hit it off and develop a relationship. They even include Robert in the relationship by visiting him together. The next thing you know this old friend is proposing marriage and Page is accepting. Of course, there is this problem that she is still married to Robert. So she divorces Robert, marries Allan, moves the whole family to St. Louis, and moves Robert to a new assisted living center in St. Louis. He is part of their “blended family”.

I am sure it was devastating for Page to find, that as a relatively young woman, her life would not take the fairytale path of marriage, two kids, and happily-ever-after. But that disappointment does not justify her abandoning her marriage vows. She married Robert “in sickness and in health as long as we both shall live”. The vows do not say “in sickness—but not too sick”.

I feel for Page. I really do. But what does it say about our culture’s view of marriage when the Washington Post holds up this story as something noble and wonderful? Is marriage really so plastic that we can mold it into anything that gives us earthly pleasure?

This view is so selfish. Marriage is not about me, but about total self-giving of myself to my spouse. It is a vocation. It is a calling to serve God as a couple in whatever manner God has chosen for us. In sickness and in health. In times of wealth and times of poverty. During times of joy and during times of sadness.

Perhaps this story hit me so hard because I had the rug pulled out from under me over the last couple of years. My husband was diagnosed with cancer in 2010. I have endured the physical pain, the chemotherapy, and the uncertainty with him ever since. I’ve spent hours on my knees scrubbing the bathroom floor grout to keep our house as antiseptic as possible when the chemotherapy left him susceptible to infection. I have spent even more hours on my knees in prayer.

So I guess there is part of me that feels really angry that the Washington Post says my sacrifice is meaningless and totally unnecessary. I could just go find someone else who will give me an easier life as long as I remain kind and supportive to my current husband. But I don’t serve the Washington Post. I serve God. This is not how I envisioned our retirement years. Yet this is what God has offered us. And I say “yes”. I say “fiat!” I say “Thy will be done.” That is the true meaning of "in sickness and in health."

Life isn’t always fair and bad things happen. But every challenge is an opportunity for virtue. It is an opportunity to grow in holiness. God did not make us for happiness on this earth. He made us for happiness in Heaven.

Intercession by Blessed Fr. Seelos

2012-01-07T09:23:00.000-05:00

When my husband was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2010 I found that Blessed Fr. Seelos was a powerful intercessor. My husband was in terrible pain that was poorly controlled with medications. Before he even began the chemotherapy the pain seemingly miraculously subsided. There is no doubt in my mind that his relief was Divine intervention and was helped along by the intercessory prayer of Fr. Seelos. I have continued to ask for his prayers ever since and include him in my Litany of Saints after a Rosary. So I am very happy to see Blessed Fr. Seelos is credited with the recovery of a priest who suffered a fractured neck and was paralyzed.

An American priest who was paralysed from the chest down has started to walk again after praying to a 19th-century Blessed.
When Redemptorist Fr John Murray struck his head against a railing after tripping along a walkway 15 months ago, the consequences were devastating.
The Baltimore parish priest suffered a broken neck that left him immediately paralysed. Rushed to a hospital, he underwent emergency spinal cord surgery and later began rehabilitation.
Doctors said that Fr Murray, who was known across the east coast of America, for his preaching abilities, would almost certainly never walk again.
“When they said I’d never be able to move, they took away all hope,” Fr Murray told the Catholic Review, Baltimore archdiocese’s newspaper.
But on November 28 2010 Fr Murray did something everyone said was impossible. While living and undergoing rehabilitation at Stella Maris in Timonium, Maryland, he moved his left leg ever so slightly, lifting his foot off the ground.
“I was ecstatic,” Fr Murray said. “Here I was about six weeks after they told me I’d never move again and, lo and behold, I could move. Just the foot, but it kept going and going and going.”

Continue reading here.

Conscience Rights Affect Quality of Health Care

2012-01-06T20:26:00.003-05:00

Did you know that the quality of care provided by doctors and nurses can be negatively impacted when they are forced to violate their moral or professional principles? Over at HLI America I cover a new study that suggests patients will suffer if conscience rights are not respected.

Are there significant consequences when doctors and nurses provide health care that violates their moral or professional principles? The APPROPRICUS study, results of which were reported in the December 28 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), suggests that the inability of physicians to practice medicine in accord with their personal ethical standards leaves them professionally dissatisfied and clinically less effective. Specifically, the authors conclude:

Among a group of European and Israeli ICU clinicians, perceptions of inappropriate care were frequently reported and were inversely associated with factors indicating good teamwork.

Continue reading here

A different sort of Christmas

2011-12-24T21:08:00.010-05:00

My oldest is celebrating in Afghanistan. He already called after getting out of "Midnight" Mass. It began at 3:30am Afghanistan time which corresponded to midnight in Poland. He is on a Polish base. During Mass, a Polish general in Poland addressed the troops in Afghanistan via a video conference set up. Interesting that he assumed the Polish troops would be at Mass.

My daughter-in-law and granddaughter are in Texas with her parents for Christmas. Our home is so quiet. There are only five of us here--well five people and four dogs. My son's two dogs did not join his wife and daughter in Texas. Normally, my parents would be with us for Christmas. My mother's death this past February has left a gaping hole in the Christmas season. My father was here for Thanksgiving so he stayed in Texas and visited my sister for Christmas this year.

Still, there is joy. I heard my son's voice today so I know he is safe. Miles cannot diminish love so even family members who are not in my home are in my heart. And it is still Christmas with so many familiar sights and sounds--a Christmas tree, cookies, and carols.

Most importantly, there is Mass. We always go to Mass on Christmas Eve, but this year my son drew the 7:30 am Christmas morning Mass as an altar server. So we will go to Mass before we open presents. Another difference this year. I love Christmas Mass. The joy of welcoming our newborn Savior wells up within me. It fills all the niches of sorrow and loss. There is Faith. There is Hope. There is Love.

Wishing each of you a Christmas filled with Faith, Hope, and Love. Know the greatest of these is Love.

"Ordering"' a child

2011-12-22T11:29:00.002-05:00

In these days when the order for a cup of coffee specifies the size, flavor, ingredients, and country of origin for the coffee bean, it is not surprising that some parents think they can do the same thing with their children. "I want one healthy male, intelligent with no genetic diseases, and no prospect of serious diseases in the future, please." When the child doesn't arrive exactly as ordered, some parents are taking legal action. See my latest article at Zenit:

WASHINGTON, D.C., DEC. 21, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Imagine gazing at your child and coldly declaring, "You should never have been born." Yet parents are doing exactly that in courts around the world as they bring "wrongful life" or "wrongful birth" lawsuits against doctors and fertility clinics.

These very sad cases are variations on the classic "wrongful death" medical malpractice suit. The twist is that the plaintiffs are dissatisfied because the patient -- in this case a child -- lived instead of died. Usually these children suffer from a serious disability or genetic disease. In a "wrongful birth" suit the parents allege that if they had been given a prenatal diagnosis of the child's condition they would have aborted their child. They seek compensation for the care of their child and punitive damages for having to live with a disabled child.

Continue reading here.

A hit piece masquerading as a medical report

2011-12-13T23:32:00.003-05:00

The Lancet, a respected British medical journal, just published a commentary that was nothing more than an attack on the Catholic Church masquerading as a medical recommendation. I responded in this piece over at HLI America:

On December 8, the Solemn Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the British medical journal, The Lancet, published a most puzzling commentary, in which a clarion call is issued for the Catholic Church to provide all nuns with oral contraceptives in order to prevent cancer. Australian researchers Kara Britt and Roger Short make their recommendation based on the increased risk of ovarian, endometrial and breast cancer associated with nulliparity, the condition of having never been pregnant:

Today, the world’s 94,790 nuns still pay a terrible price for their chastity because they have a greatly increased risk of breast, ovarian, and uterine cancers: the hazards of their nulliparity.

While nuns almost always carry this risk factor, many lay women are also nulliparous. Why are the authors limiting their recommendation to women religious? It seems that these researchers are trying to cast the Church hierarchy in a negative light by claiming they are not addressing a significant health issue of their women religious:

If the Catholic Church could make the oral contraceptive pill freely available to all its nuns, it would reduce the risk of those accursed pests, cancer of the ovary and uterus, and give nuns’ plight the recognition it deserves.

Continue reading here.

Telling the truth is not propaganda

2011-12-05T13:08:00.002-05:00

A recent news article claimed that publicizing a medical study that suggests a link between abortion and breast cancer is a form of propaganda. I answer that charge at HLI America:

Which of the following is likely to be motivated by ideological bias: Reports on independent medical studies that show a link between a commonly chosen medical procedure and rates of a certain type of cancer, or news stories that ignore the latest scientific evidence and rely on a single, controversial, and now-debunked report to make the case in favor that the medical procedure?

In a, to put it charitably, questionable news article, The Daily Caller suggests that pro-life medical and research experts, dubbed “advocates,” are motivated by a political agenda after statements on recent research that showed a nearly 3-fold increase in breast cancer in women who had an abortion. The headline, “Pro-Life Advocates: Study shows link between abortion and breast cancer; cancer institute: no way,” suggests that this is an ideological battle rather than a debate in which almost all relevant research points in a specific direction. In fact, The Daily Caller claims the “experts” deny a link between breast cancer and abortion, while the “advocates” say the link exists.

Continue reading here.

How fast can two weeks fly?

2011-12-03T19:02:00.003-05:00

It seems like just yesterday that we were picking Wesley up from the airport. Now it is time for him to return to Afghanistan.

We had everyone home for Thanksgiving Day so we took advantage of the opportunity to do a family picture. We even had my dad and my husband's parents visiting from Houston.

Please say a prayer for my son and his family. He has another three months of deployment to go.

Can you believe my granddaughter is already a year old? It is such a blessing to be able to spend so much time with her and her mom.

Hope your Advent is full of joy. Count your blessings and prepare for the coming of the Lord!

Let a nation of faith and justice begin with me

2011-12-01T14:39:00.003-05:00

A strong city have we; he sets up walls and ramparts to protect us. Open up the gates to let in a nation that is just, one that keeps faith. A nation of firm purpose you keep in peace; in peace, for its trust in you.
(Is 26:1-3)

I would like to live in a nation that keeps faith; a nation where God is not banned from the public square; a nation whose laws are consistent with God's law. Such a nation begins first with individuals who keep faith. These individuals form families that keep faith. These families form communities that keep faith. These communities will build a nation that keeps faith.

So as individuals and families, do not be afraid to publicly live your faith. Bow your head and say grace before you eat in a restaurant. Wish your friends and neighbors a "Blessed Advent" and then a "Merry Christmas".

Remember that Christ said, "Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock." (Mt. 7: 24) Share your bounty with those in need. Reach out to the lonely. Offer love and forgiveness to those who have hurt you.

It is easy to point out the faults of those around us. But turn that examination inward. Advent is a penitential season. Humbly acknowledge your sins and seek forgiveness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

We used to sing "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me." Perhaps our song should now say, "Let us be a nation of faith and justice, and let it begin with me."

Why I need Advent

2011-11-30T10:20:00.001-05:00

"Advent is a time of vigilance, prayer and conversion."
--Blessed John Paul II

The world gets very loud at this time of year. Lights flash, music blares, and commercials scream at us that we are lacking the material goods necessary for true happiness. The Church offers an oasis of calm. It is Advent. Advent lets us turn away from the dizzying sparkle of tinsel and lights and bask in the soft glow of candles. Through prayers proclaimed around the Advent wreath we rededicate ourselves and our families to holiness. We clothe ourselves in the purple of penitence, acknowledging our sinfulness but confident that with God's grace we can hope for our conversion. We await the coming of Jesus, not only as the Holy Infant, but as the King of Kings at the end of time. Our anticipation and joy overflows on Gaudete Sunday when we cast off the purple and wrap ourselves in hues of rose. We then return to our purple world with renewed vigor. We offer more prayers and give one final push towards conversion to a life of holiness. We may not be perfect when we greet Christ on Christmas morning, but we will be better than we were when Advent began.

So let every gift purchased, every card written, and every cookie baked be a prayer. If it does not lead you to holiness, it does not belong in Advent. Let the quiet rhythm of this liturgical season carry you to the real joy of Christmas.

Counting Blessings 2011

2011-11-21T09:27:00.008-05:00

My son made it home from Afghanistan for a little R&R. He will head back after Thanksgiving, but we are counting our blessings that he gets to share Thanksgiving with us.

Waiting for Daddy in the airport

Daddy!

Happy Family!

Mom gets her turn

Pro-Abortion group goes after Crisis Pregnancy Centers

2011-11-16T10:15:00.003-05:00

While the advocates of abortion like to label themselves "pro-choice", they seem to support only one choice--abortion. NARAL Pro-Choice of North Carolina released a report condemning the work of crisis pregnancy centers. My analysis of this report is up at HLI America.

The abortion industry is clearly feeling the heat. Planned Parenthood has been defunded in several states, workers from the infamous Kermit Gosnell abortion facility have pleaded guilty to murder, and the Commonwealth of Virginia is providing a model for other states with newly enacted and strict standards for abortion clinics.

The North Carolina chapter of National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) Pro Choice has responded to this pressure with a report lambasting crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) in the Tar Heel State. In it’s press release, NARAL claims to have conducted an undercover investigation of 66 of the 122 CPCs in North Carolina. The actual report reveals that this “investigation” involved visiting only 27 of the centers, while the rest of the information was gleaned from 47 CPC web sites and from 40 phone calls. This small sample size would be enough to question the usefulness of any conclusions, but as it turns out, there are bigger problems in the report than its very limited scope.

Continue reading here

A time when the free market approach does not work

2011-11-15T13:07:00.002-05:00

I am usually a fan of letting free markets do their thing. However, when we start treating humans as commodities for sale, it is time to reject economic incentives and seek a higher motivation. My latest article for HLI America addresses the sale of transplant organs to increase the supply:

What’s wrong with paying people in dire straits for their kidneys?

Dr. Sally Satel asks the question many consider taboo in the November 8 Wall Street Journal. In her op-ed, she argues for the compensation of organ donors in order to alleviate the worldwide shortage of kidneys, livers and lungs needed for transplantation. Herself the recipient of a donor kidney, she points to the tens of thousands who are waiting for organs in the United States, as well as the twelve patients who die every day because no donor kidney is available as justification for her position. Since a black market already exists for transplant organs, Satel argues, legalizing organ sales is a win-win proposition, especially for those facing financial hardships:

Were donor compensation legal, it might have been a good option for Donna Barbera of California. Last week, she wrote me asking how she could sell her kidney. She sent her phone number and blood type. “I do not find anything immoral about helping someone get a kidney and in return they help me out of a financial bind,” she said by email, noting that she faces foreclosure on her house. “I have a donor card on my license, so my intentions have always been to help. I just thought maybe someone could help me too.”

Revising NOTA [1984’s National Organ Transplant Act] would allow healthy people like Donna to save a life in exchange for bettering their own. As countries provide for their own needy patients, they will keep future clients from patronizing people like Levy Rosenbaum—and they’ll keep brokers from preying on the vulnerable.

Continue reading here.

A moral approach to infertility

2011-11-11T18:50:00.003-05:00

I wrote the HLI America column for the Arlington Catholic Herald this week:

Laura and her husband married in the Catholic Church and have been open to life throughout their marriage, yet in three years they have not conceived a child. Well-meaning family and friends keep asking when she is going to start a family. In spite of her smiles and reassurances that they hope to have children someday, she has a growing realization that there might be a problem, a physical reason for why they haven’t gotten pregnant. Her heart aches as she thinks about life without bearing a child. She wonders how God could let this happen to her.

Continue reading here.

Kind of Pathetic

2011-10-24T10:05:00.003-04:00

I was probably not the model of Christian charity last night when I was on the phone with our credit card company. Someone had obtained our credit card number and used it to make online purchases. USAA was amazingly helpful as always. Within hours they had contacted us and our credit card was disabled. However, it is still a monstrous inconvenience to be without a credit card for a few days and to have to re-establish the recurring charges that I have set up. I did not have kind thoughts about the thief who was inflicting this stress upon me.

But then I looked at the fraudulent charges. The first thing he did was to join Match.com. I bet his profile had a few lies in it. The second purchase was $180 in flowers from FTD.com. That is just plain sad. Someone has to be pretty lonely for them to steal a credit card number just so they can join an online dating service and send flowers to potential mate(s). I guess now mixed in with my sense of outrage is a bit of pity.

Seeing blessings in 'Impossible Situations"

2011-10-22T10:47:00.002-04:00

I am on day four of my novena to St. Jude. This is today's reflection from the praymorenovenas.com email.

"Take up your cross and follow me..."

Sometimes Jesus asks us to embrace the suffering and pain that we endure. Sometimes God want's us to carry the cross like Christ did for a greater good in our lives.

Despite this suffering, God want's to bless us. He wants to bless us abundantly.

Today let's pray that in the midst of our 'impossible' situations that we pray for in this novena, that we can still see God's blessings in our lives.

Go to Mass. Offer it up.

2011-10-22T10:04:00.004-04:00

I have mentioned before that this is one of my most popular posts. People do a Google search for "travel dispensation for Mass" and find it. I suspect some are sorely disappointed when they read in the first sentence that there is no such thing as a "travel dispensation".

I though about this yesterday when I spoke with my son who is stationed in Afghanistan. We are blessed that he is able to phone us regularly. He had not phoned in a while so I knew he had been out and about in the countryside. He mentioned that when he did get to another base he found they were having Mass and attended. Just as at his primary base, the priest was Polish. It didn't matter. It was the Mass.

So if my son can make it a point to find Mass in the wilds of Afghanistan, I can't imagine that it would be that difficult to find Mass here in the United States. The instructions on doing so are in the first link. And if you find going to Mass a little inconvenient this weekend because you have soccer games, work, relatives visiting, or some other competing activity, go anyway. Offer it up. Pray for all the soldiers who serve in war torn areas and struggle to find Mass. Pray for all the priests who serve these soldiers. And if you need a special intention, pray for the cadre of Polish priest who have offered spiritual support to my son during his deployment. I will be forever in their debt.

That's my girl!

2011-10-19T11:41:00.002-04:00

That's my daughter at the 27 second mark. She is sitting and sketching at the base of Willy's statue.

Pray a Novena with Me!

2011-10-19T09:50:00.003-04:00

A novena is nine days of prayer, usually dedicated to a specific intention or to the intercession of a specific saint. It is based on the nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost that Blessed Mother and the Apostles spent in prayer.

Starting today, I am joining over 5,000 Catholics to pray the St. Jude Novena!

I’m looking forward to the answered prayers from this amazing saint! With so many faithful Catholics around the world praying this novena, I thought you’d like to join too!

Do you have any ‘impossible causes’ to pray for?

You can sign up for handy email reminders to get the the novena prayers here: St. Jude Novena

I love this "pray more novenas" site. They start a new novena and then email me the prayers each day. It is a wonderful reminder and helps me stick to my commitment to pray. It is also very supportive to know that thousands of other Catholics are praying right along beside me. Click on one of the above links or on the badge in my sidebar and join me in offering this and future novenas.

When Catholics and non-Catholics mingle

2011-10-18T18:07:00.002-04:00

Thanksgiving and Christmas are approaching. This means many Catholic families will be intermingling with their Protestant relatives. So, what do you do on Sunday? If you visit your Protestant aunt's church, what do you do about "communion"?

Fr. Z offers a great deal of commentary here as he refutes an article in US Catholic, a less than orthodox publication. The bottom line is canon 844:

“Catholic ministers may licitly administer the sacraments to Catholic members of the Christian faithful only and, likewise, the latter may licitly receive the sacraments only from Catholic ministers.”

and

“Whenever necessity requires or a genuine spiritual advantage commends it, and provided the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided, Christ’s faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister, may lawfully receive the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid.”

Protestant sects do not have valid sacraments. Canon 844 cannot be used to justify receiving communion from Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, etc. The non-Catholic Churches that do have valid sacraments are the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Polish National Catholic Church, and the pre-Calcedonian Churches.

Also, attending the liturgy of a Protestant sect cannot fulfill a Catholic's Sunday obligation to attend Mass. Refusing to attend Protestant services can create family tensions. However, it is not unreasonable to expect our Protestant family and friends to respect our Catholic faith. Perhaps you can attend Saturday evening Mass and then spend Sunday morning at the Protestant liturgy (refraining from taking communion as described above). Or perhaps you can attend Mass while the others attend their services and then meet for brunch.

Our Protestant relatives are welcome to attend Mass, but just as we do not receive communion in their churches, they should not receive the Eucharist at Mass. No one, Catholic or Protestant, should receive the Eucharist unless he is in a state of grace and fully united to the Catholic Church. Such unity is impossible for Protestants.

It is tempting to pretend there are no differences for the sake of peace in the family. However, we miss a chance to evangelize when we fail to live up to the teaching of the Church. We also risk confusing children in the family. The Catholic Church is not just one of many Churches. It is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. There are elements of holiness in many of the Protestant sects, but only the Catholic Church contains the fullness of truth. By insisting that all Catholics attend Mass on Sunday (or Saturday evening) and refusing to engage in "cross-communion" we show by our actions what we truly believe.

Plug for speaking opportunities

2011-10-13T19:29:00.003-04:00

Wanted to highlight the intro to my guest column for the HLI Newsletter:

When we first envisioned and created HLI America's Fellows program Dr. Denise Hunnell was the first person I contacted due to her medical and bioethical expertise. She's been a great addition to the HLI America family. Be sure to read the rest of her work on the
Truth and Charity Forum. And if you'd like to have Denise (or any of the other members of the HLI America team) speak at your parish or organization email us at hlia@hli.org. God's blessing to you and yours.

Arland K. Nichols
National Director

I have a presentation entitled "10 questions about health care ethics that every Catholic should be able to answer" that is ready to go. Especially if you are within a day's drive of the Washington DC area, I would love to speak to your group.

When "Preventive Care" causes diseases instead of preventing them...

2011-10-13T14:07:00.004-04:00

My latest work for HLI America is up.

Every package of either oral or injectable contraceptives includes a warning that they do not protect against sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS. This warning may need to be amended: A study published in the October 4 issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases found that use of a hormonal contraceptive doubles the risk of acquiring HIV/AIDS.

Continue reading here.

Do Not Ask Amy!!!

2011-10-03T20:43:00.005-04:00

Why do I do it? Every time I read an advice column in the Washington Post I find myself fuming. I should just turn the page and never read another word. A couple of weeks ago Carolyn Hax suggested a woman let her pregnant teenage niece come live with her and her three young children. Being around those children should certainly convince the niece to have an abortion. Today, Ask Amy basically tells a woman to get up off her backside and find a job. Staying at home with kids does not contribute enough to the family.

My husband and I have been married for 12 years. He has always worked, and I’ve always been a dedicated homemaker. I consider this my “job.”
Recently my husband was laid off, and he accepted another position that pays significantly less. Now that my sons are in middle school, my husband wants me to consider working part time, because I “have so much free time during the day.”
I find this extremely disrespectful. I feel like he thinks I just lounge around all day.
How can we compromise on this issue, and how can I show him the importance of everything that I do? -- Already Employed Wife

DEAR WIFE: One way to compromise would be for you to get a part-time job to help support your family.

Excuse me. Exactly how much money do you think this woman is going to make at a part-time job? Nothing in her letter indicates they are not putting food on the table or a roof over their heads. What Amy should have recommended is that the husband and wife sit down and discuss the benefits and burdens of her taking on employment outside the home. How does the husband see this extra income being used?

Things to consider:
There are costs associated with working. The increased spending power of a second income is grossly overestimated. Families with two working parents eat out more. They buy more convenience foods which are more expensive. A woman's wardrobe for work is more expensive. If both parents are working you tend to pay for household services like housekeepers, dry cleaners, laundry, and yard work because you are both too tired to take care of them.

Will the wife's job compromise her job as a mother if she works outside the home? The prime time for teens and tweens to get into trouble is when they are unsupervised after school. They are too old for daycare and babysitters often don't exert much control over their behavior. The first hour after children get home from school is golden. That is when you can look at their faces and see how their day went. The look in their eyes tells you if there is something bothering them. Shuttling them around to after school activities is a window into their world that you lose if you are paying someone else to drive them.

With increased costs and possibly increased taxes, will the extra income be worth the burdens? The couple should discuss ways to cut expenses that might be equivalent to what the wife would make in a part-time job. Perhaps, the husband is just feeling envious that his wife gets to keep doing the job she loves--being a stay-at-home-mom --and he has to take a downgraded less satisfying position. This may be more about his professional unhappiness than about the family's need for more income.

Rather than belittling the work of being a wife and mother and telling this woman to go get a job, Amy should have recommended the couple sit down and find out what each thought the family would gain and what it would lose if the wife got a job.

It really makes one wonder what kind of family life these advice columnists have when they think staying at home with kids is insignificant and living with children is a good argument for abortion.

Last day to let HHS know you oppose contraceptive mandate!

2011-09-30T12:10:00.004-04:00

Today is the last day for comments on the HHS mandated no-cost contraception insurance coverage. If you have not made your voice heard, please comment now!

Read this letter written by Keith Rothfus, a candidate for Congress from Pittsburgh. I thought it was so good I sent him a campaign donation. We need congressmen like him!

Where I will be on Saturday

2011-09-28T20:52:00.000-04:00

This Saturday, October 1, I will be giving a presentation entitled "Ten Questions on Health Care Ethics every Catholic Should be Able to Answer." The talk will follow the 9:00 am Mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Annandale. We will probably start around 9:45. If you are in Northern Virginia I would love to see you there.

Would anyone notice?

2011-09-21T21:03:00.001-04:00

Rob Vischer at Mirror of Justice expresses some concern over the expanding use of drones in military conflicts. He worries that if we are not putting troops in harm's way we will not be as judicious in our use of military force. That may be a reasonable theoretical concern. However, here is my response:

My husband just retired after 30 years of service to the Air Force and my oldest son is currently in the Army, stationed in Afghanistan.I spent much of today walking the halls of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Around every corner was a young man who was maimed from service in Iraq or Afghanistan. The number of amputees I saw brought me to tears. This sight is hidden from most Americans. I understand your concern that using drones might loosen the inhibitions against using military force. However, there is such a disconnect between the military and the general public as it is, that most Americans are only vaguely aware of the sacrifice of our armed forces in the current conflicts. I don't know that many would notice we are losing drones instead of soldiers.

Now I realize that many of you are part of a military family and know exactly what the cost of armed conflict is. I also know that many of you are unwavering in your support of the military. My comments are not directed at you. Unfortunately, for way too many Americans, episodes of NCIS are as close as they come to the military. They are oblivious to what it means to serve in the military and to be part of a military family. There is a huge gulf between those who serve and those who don't. No one who is not in the military or a civilian supporting military operations is sacrificing for this war effort. The military is a fuzzy concept without a human face.

If you don't know anyone in the military, why don't you take a look at this. Put a name and face to our military. Say a prayer of thanksgiving for their sacrifice and another prayer for their continued safety.

The full story on HPV

2011-09-21T13:32:00.001-04:00

The Washington Post ran a very abbreviated version of my article opposing mandatory HPV vaccines. My full argument is up at the HLI website.

I would never consider my own kids as a persuasive argument for abortion!

2011-09-19T13:07:00.000-04:00

This has got to be one of the saddest commentaries on motherhood I have seen in a long time. Carolyn Hax is a newspaper advice columnist. A woman writes to her because her 15-year-old niece is pregnant and the girl will not listen to her parents' advice and get an abortion. The woman suggests that she have her niece come live with her for a few months since she has three children under the age of six. Time spent in such a household would certainly open her niece's eyes and make her see the sensibility of abortion. Carolyn Hax responds that it should only take a couple of weeks. She advises the woman not to bring up the subject of abortion. Just let her daily life do the talking.

My first three children were born in under four years. My oldest was eight when the fourth child was born. As chaotic and exhausting as those years were, I would never consider our household to be a living statement for the wisdom of abortion. Pray for any woman who thinks a pregnant teen would see her life with children and opt for abortion.

Washington Post publishes my letter on HPV vaccination!

2011-09-19T11:00:00.000-04:00

I sent the Washington Post an op-ed article explaining why mandatory HPV vaccines are an intrusion on parental rights. HPV infection does not rise to the public health risk level needed to merit overriding parental authority. They truncated it to a Letter to the Editor and took out most of my medical information that justifies my position. But they did publish it and gave it a prominent place on the page. My full argument should be up on the HLI America website in the near future. I will keep you updated. In the meantime, feel free to visit the Post website and offer support if the liberals start taking pot shots.

Thanks, but no thanks

2011-09-17T17:49:00.000-04:00

I love nuns! I am overwhelmed when I think of how completely they have given themselves to Christ. I have a couple of orders on my monthly charity donations list. In my work with pro-life advocacy and bioethics I run into these holy women regularly. I often will send a donation to the order of a sister with whom I have just worked. Take a look at this post by the Anchoress. She has a beautiful round up of nun news.

However, not all orders have stayed true to their charism. That is why there now two groups of nuns in the United States. There are orders who belong to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). They have shunned tradition, are very concerned with feminism, fight the Magisterium, support women's ordination, and are often into New Age nature worship. These are also the orders with very few new vocations. Then you have the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious.(CMSWR) They are faithful to the Magisterium, love the Church, and are supportive of tradition. These are the orders that are growing by leaps and bounds.

This week I received a solicitation for a charitable donation to the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi in Wisconsin. They sent me a lovely set of Christmas cards. Now I don't send money to everyone who offers me greeting cards or address labels. I went to their web site to see who these sisters are. Are they vintage 1970's feminists or are they true brides of Christ? Take a look for yourself and you will easily see the answer. What bothered me was they had no "corporate stand" on the sanctity of human life. In fact, they explicitly state that human life cannot be placed above "Earth" and the "Cosmos". Take a look at their "corporate stand" on the "web of life":

All of creation, from the initial creative event to the arrival of humans, is a single, interconnected and interdependent whole. Over billions of years hydrogen and helium unfurl the shimmering stars and galaxies, the basic elements emerge, and eventually our solar system and life unfold. Each aspect of the creative process is necessary and essential since each mode of being depends on the interactions and transformations that both precede and follow it. This web of relationships makes it impossible to rank or separate creation in a hierarchical or dualistic manner.

Perhaps even more disturbing is they avoid speaking of God and prefer to talk about the "Creator Spirit"

We believe we are to relate to Earth, to one another, and indeed to the Cosmos, in mutually sustaining ways and that all of our systems of learning, technology, healing, economics, governance, politics, and religion, including our Christian faith and Franciscan charism, must be in harmony with the basic ecology and laws of the Universe.

TODAY THE CREATOR SPIRIT STILL MOVES OVER THE EARTH WAITING TO ASSIST US . . .

In spite of their lovely and very traditional Christmas cards, I will be offering my charitable donation elsewhere.

Is it really all relative?

2011-09-13T19:36:00.003-04:00

I post this for everyone, but most especially for my young adult children and friends. First read this. Pay attention to this passage:

Rejecting blind deference to authority, many of the young people have gone off to the other extreme: “I would do what I thought made me happy or how I felt. I have no other way of knowing what to do but how I internally feel.”

Many were quick to talk about their moral feelings but hesitant to link these feelings to any broader thinking about a shared moral framework or obligation. As one put it, “I mean, I guess what makes something right is how I feel about it. But different people feel different ways, so I couldn’t speak on behalf of anyone else as to what’s right and wrong.”
Smith and company found an atmosphere of extreme moral individualism — of relativism and nonjudgmentalism. Again, this doesn’t mean that America’s young people are immoral. Far from it. But, Smith and company emphasize, they have not been given the resources — by schools, institutions and families — to cultivate their moral intuitions, to think more broadly about moral obligations, to check behaviors that may be degrading. In this way, the study says more about adult America than youthful America.

Then reflect on the words of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger just before he was elected Pope:

Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.

We, however, have a different goal: the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true humanism. An "adult" faith is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty; a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false, and deceipt from truth.

We must develop this adult faith; we must guide the flock of Christ to this faith. And it is this faith - only faith - that creates unity and is fulfilled in love.

Decades of evil. Decades of courage. Decades of prayer.

2011-09-11T14:08:00.002-04:00

There is no way to write an adequate tribute or commentary on September 11, 2001. Yes, I remember where I was when I found out. My four children were at school. All I wanted to do was rush and pick them up and hold them close. Yet, I stayed put. I let them finish their school day. I knew our world had changed forever. However, after sending my husband to war nearly a decade earlier, I knew how important it was to keep as much of life's normal routines intact. I was first and foremost a military wife. I knew that my husband's military mission would not include directly fighting this fight. But I knew that someone's husband or wife, father or mother, would fight it. I fell to my knees and prayed. Countless decades of the Rosary passed through my fingers as I watched the fire, smoke, and devastation unfold on television.

What I could not anticipate is that on the tenth anniversary of this horrific evil, the soldier fighting the fight would be my son. My oldest is deployed to Afghanistan. He was the little boy who was four-years-old when the combat started in Desert Storm. He sat and watched CNN with me and when he saw my tears start to fall, he marched to the television screen, pointed to the map of the Middle East, and said, "Look, Mom. Iraq invaded Kuwait. Daddy is doing his job. He is going to push Iraq back. He has to be there." Nothing like having your four-year-old show more courage than you do. So the tears stopped. We still had family dinners, playtime, and weekly Mass. The Rosary was our constant prayer. We rejoiced when Daddy came home. My oldest son was a skinny high school kid when the Twin Towers fell. He knew the fight was continuing.Now he is a muscular full-grown man wearing body armor and carrying a weapon half way around the world. He still shows more courage than I could ever muster.

His wife now has my role. She guards the home fires and keeps their daughter happy and healthy. I do my best to support her because I have been in her shoes. I know my husband went to war hoping it would save his children from having to fight this battle. I am sure my son likewise hopes that his children never have to face the horror of war. What I have learned over these decades is there is no shortage of evil. What I pray is that with God's grace, there will be no shortage of courage. Perhaps even more importantly, may there be no shortage of wisdom. As the decades of my Rosary continue, may decades of peace follow.

Your new Pyrex is not like your old Pyrex!

2011-09-10T12:05:00.000-04:00

In January 2011, Consumer Reports ran an article about the reported shattering of pyrex dishes while cooking. The Pyrex your mother used or you may have used years ago was made from borosilicate glass. This is the same kind of glass used in laboratory test tubes and flasks. Today's Pyrex is made of lime soda glass. The manufacturer says the lime soda glass is no more prone to shatter, but consumer complaints are rising. I have a pretty large collection of the new generation blue Pyrex baking dishes and bowls. I noted the article, but didn't pay that much attention to it.

Then a couple of weeks ago, my father-in-law used one of my Pyrex bowls to cook some canned beans. He cooked them on top of the stove, doctoring them up with a few spices. The bowl went from the stove to the table. We ate dinner then poured the left-overs into a plastic bowl for storage. Because he cooked the beans over a gas flame, there was some sauce that had adhered pretty firmly to the bottom of the Pyrex bowl. My mother-in-law put some soapy water in the bowl and set it on the counter to soak. Probably a good fifteen minutes later there was an explosion. The bowl shattered sending shards of glass everywhere. We were stunned. Fortunately, no one was injured.

Coincidentally, two days later the latest issue of Consumer Reports arrived with a follow up on the Pyrex concerns. After their first article, the anecdotal reports of shattered Pyrex came rolling in. One woman reports that the glass shattered with enough force to sever her Achilles tendon when it was hit by a flying fragment. The incidents are most frequent when butter or oils are microwaved in the glassware. Delayed reactions like the one we experienced are common.

The manufacturer still claims that lime soda glass is as safe as borosilicate glass. I am not so sure. However, the Consumer Reports article did give four safety tips to reduce the risk of Pyrex glass shattering:

Never place Pyrex directly on a burner or under a broiler
Add liquid prior to cooking meats or vegetables
Preheat oven
Place hot glassware on a dry cloth pot holder. (Our bowl had been placed directly on a granite countertop. This seems to be a common factor in several of the shattering incidents. The granite may cause the glass to cool too rapidly.)

Just thought I would pass on this safety tip. I may be scouring the thrift shops for vintage Pyrex.

Use Words if Necessary

2011-09-09T12:46:00.001-04:00

"Preach the Gospel always. Use words if necessary."

(Often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi)

A few days ago I wrote about fraternal correction. One of the comments asked for guidance about how to go about offering such correction. This offering from Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro-Carámbula, HLI Interim President, offers a solid approach. The crux of the advice is in his last two paragraphs:

As we discuss how we can overcome this growing decay in our societies, the primary solution must be to return to a living faith. We have to live our Faith with total coherence; living by example is far stronger and more convincing than a flood of words. Living of the faith leads to a deep love of its saving truths, and moves us to share them with others.

And as we share these truths: we must be certain that the Lord will be with us, and will give us all the graces that we need to fulfill our mission.

We teach most by our example. Great heroics make for inspiring stories that are told over and over. However, more hearts are quietly softened and converted to the Gospel message by the demonstration of simple, faithful, living. Clothe yourself in your Catholic identity. Then remember, that once you have identified yourself as a Catholic, the Church will be judged by everything you do.

Charity in word and deed is paramount. Be a joyful Catholic. It is easy to wrap ourselves into knots over the moral decay so aptly described by Monsignor Barreiro-Carámbula. We cannot condone or ignore sin. We must be clear and forthright in promoting goodness. However, rather than relentlessly wailing about the sin around us, we should model the joy of virtue. Have you noticed how complicated and unhappy lives become when the straight and narrow way is abandoned for promises of a shortcut to happiness? Be living proof that the road to Heaven is challenging but filled with authentic happiness.

Be faithful in the little things. For example, make it to Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation. You don't need to make a show of it. Just do it. All four of my children played soccer. We never missed Mass for soccer games. We found Mass wherever we were or found a Mass time to fit the soccer schedule. Sometimes it meant driving a long distance. Sometimes it meant missing a team meal on Saturday night.

A couple of years ago my husband and I were invited to an elegant ball. It was on a Friday during Lent. The meal choices were steak, chicken, or vegetarian. The others at our table were intrigued when our vegetarian entrees arrived. "Oh, how long have you been vegetarians?" I think some were disappointed to learn that we were not an exotic progressive-minded couple. We were just faithful Catholics. Still, humble obedience to the disciplines of our faith was a form of evangelization. As it happened, there was another Catholic at our table. He expressed disappointment that he had not also kept the meatless Friday directive. I think he will next time.

We must not be afraid to lovingly offer fraternal correction. Live the faith always. If necessary, use words.

Unintended consequences of artificial insemination

2011-09-09T12:12:00.000-04:00

We medical students were for the most part broke. I was an economic vegetarian – I couldn’t afford to buy meat. The medical school faculty knew that there were always student subjects available to participate in their research studies as long as they offered money or free food. My arms still bear the needle marks of multiple vials of blood proffered for about ten dollars a pop. For $100, my roommate agreed to undergo bronchoscopy, which entailed inserting a tube through her nose all the way into her lungs so that the technician could collect cells from her deepest airways. Afterwards, she said it wasn’t worth it.

The male medical students, on the other hand, had it made. They were very desirable sperm donors: lots of women want to be able to say their child’s father was a doctor, even if they have never met him. I always wondered if in the future one of these men would look at every child who shared his physical features and wonder if this boy could be his son or that girl could be his daughter.

Continue reading here.

Faith in the face of persecution

2011-09-07T12:29:00.001-04:00

Psalm 3:

A psalm of David, when he fled from his son Absalom.
How many are my foes, LORD!
How many rise against me!
How many say of me,
“There is no salvation for him in God."
But you, LORD, are a shield around me;
my glory, you keep my head high.
With my own voice I will call out to the LORD,
and he will answer me from his holy mountain.
I lie down and I fall asleep,
[and] I will wake up, for the LORD sustains me.
I do not fear, then, thousands of people
arrayed against me on every side.
Arise, LORD! Save me, my God!
For you strike the cheekbone of all my foes;
you break the teeth of the wicked.
Salvation is from the LORD!
May your blessing be upon your people!

Pope Benedict reflects on this powerful prayer in today's Wednesday audience:

Psalm 3 presents us "a supplication replete with faith and consolation. By praying this Psalm we share the sentiments of the Psalmist: a just but persecuted figure which would later be fulfilled in Jesus. In pain, danger and the bitterness of misunderstanding and offence, the words of this Psalm open our hearts to the comforting certainty of faith. God is always close, even in times of difficulty, problems and darkness. He listens, responds and saves.
"However", the Pope added, "it is important to be able to recognise His presence and to accept His ways: like David during his humiliating flight from his son Absalom, like the persecuted righteous of the Book of Wisdom and, finally and fully, like the Lord Jesus on Golgotha. In the eyes of the unrighteous it appeared that God did not intervene and that His Son died, but for believers it was at that precise moment that true glory was manifested and definitive salvation achieved".

A quick look at today's news reveals the hostility Christians face in today's culture. The current health care reform efforts seek to marginalize faithfully Catholic health care. Any mention of God is being shut out of the public square, public schools, and the workplace. Relativism denies an objective truth and labels any such assertion evidence of bigotry. Yet, as we learned Sunday, we cannot stand by silently as our culture descends into sin. We must speak out for virtue--even when it aligns tens of thousands against us. For no earthly numbers can overcome God. We must test our faith and trust this to be true.

Fraternal Correction

2011-09-05T14:39:00.002-04:00

8 If I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. 9 But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way; he shall die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your life. (Ezekiel 33:8-9)

Pope Benedict reflected on fraternal correction in yesterday's Angelus address:

The text of the Gospel “tells us that brotherly love also involves a sense of mutual responsibility,” said the Pope, “so if my brother sins against me, I must use love towards him and, first of all, speak to him personally, pointing out that what he has said or done is not good.”
The Pope quoted the 4-5th century theologian, St. Augustine of Hippo, who said Christians cannot be indifferent to the “severe wound” a fellow believer may have inflicted upon themselves through sin.
However, St. Augustine also stressed that any subsequent fraternal correction has to be animated by love and not revenge insisting “you have to forget the hurt you have received, not the wound of your brother.”

Therein lies the challenge of fraternal correction. To admonish the sinner and to instruct the ignorant are spiritual works of mercy. In order to be merciful, they must be done with love. Fraternal correction is not a game of "gotcha" where we expose, judge, and condemn. Even Jesus promotes the leadership pearl of "praise in public, correct in private". We show our love by offering the sinner truth while never demeaning his dignity. We stand fast by our principles because to do otherwise would condone sin and lead others to sin. We offer correction with humility, fully aware that we ourselves are sinners and will need correction at times as well.

As Pope Benedict said:

All this indicates that there is a shared responsibility in the way of Christian life. Everyone, aware of their limitations and defects, is called to welcome fraternal correction and help others with this particular service.

If our fraternal correction is rejected, our response must still be one of love. We pray for the one who persists in sin. Once private correction fails, it may be necessary to publicly expose the sin to protect others from the same error. Church sanctions are not punishment. They are proclamations of the truth and a call to conversion. We cannot presume the authority to mete out God's justice. We can seek to imitate His mercy.

New study confirms abortion link to subsequent mental illness

2011-09-05T11:45:00.001-04:00

Here is my latest piece at HLI America

Pregnancy "Reductions": a euphemism for abortion

2011-08-17T20:31:00.003-04:00

The New York Times recently ran an article lamenting the stigma attached to women who "reduce" their multiple gestation pregnancies (twins, triplets, etc) to a single fetus. My response is up at HLI America.

The directions on my flower seed packet say, “Sow seeds directly into the soil. When plants are two inches tall, thin to six inches apart.” Sowing more than you need and culling the excess once seeds have germinated is a great approach to gardening. But it is a horrific way to approach pregnancy and childbirth.

Yet that is exactly what happens in more and more pregnancies achieved by in vitro fertilization (IVF). The New York Times ran an article chronicling the growing trend for women to “reduce” their multiple gestation pregnancies to a single fetus. Under ultrasound guidance, the physician inserts a needle directly into the chest of the unwanted child and injects potassium chloride, the same drug used for prison executions by lethal injection. This stops the heart and the child dies. The corpse is broken down by the mother’s immune system and is reabsorbed. What prompts a mother to consent to this barbaric procedure?

Continue reading here.

True justice demands legal protection for the unborn

2011-08-10T10:00:00.003-04:00

My latest article is up at the HLI America Truth and Charity Forum:

The abortion debate is not about when life begins. Science has answered that question. Life begins at conception. The newly formed embryo meets all the scientific criteria for new human life. From the beginning he has metabolic processes and is responsive to his environment. He initiates movement of both his entire organism as well as his individual parts. He grows by increasing the size of existing cells as well as by increasing the number of cells. The embryo exhibits differentiation, meaning cells transform from unspecialized stem cells to cells designed for a specific purpose. Finally, the embryo is capable of reproduction: he can form new cells for growth, repair, or replacement. Most importantly, the embryo accomplishes these life processes under his own direction. The mother supports and nurtures these processes but does not direct them. As far as science is concerned, the embryo is a distinct living human being from the moment of conception.

Therefore, it is wrong to suggest the abortion debate centers around the humanity of the embryo. That question is irrefutably resolved. The debate is actually about whether or not an unborn human being is a person who deserves legal recognition and protection.

Continue reading here

A Young Voice on Authentic Support of Women

2011-08-09T16:50:00.003-04:00

One of wonderful things about now being a fellow with HLI America is that I have been introduced to some really great voices in the pro-life movement. Sarah Ryan is one of the HLI America Young scholars and she has a wonderful piece on the misguided efforts of the United Nations to address women's issues.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) states that its mission is to promote health and opportunity for every man, woman, and child; it attempts to ensure that “every girl and woman [be] treated with dignity and respect.” As a woman, I will gladly stand behind an organization that empowers me, dignifies me, and acknowledges the rights that accompany my femininity and humanity. The UNFPA’s idea of empowerment, however, seems to be limited to the promotion of birth control, and its dignity to the avoidance of children through sterilization. Its acknowledgment of rights is applied narrowly to those women who are “wanted” or who happen to be outside of their mother’s womb. In taking this tack, the UNFPA is in reality accelerating the very discrimination against women and children that they are purportedly trying to alleviate.

Continue reading here

Lord have Mercy

2011-08-06T12:29:00.002-04:00

My son who is stationed in Afghanistan called me this morning and told me about this. May the souls of these brave soldiers rest in peace. May God provide consolation to their loved ones.

Our Lady of Victory, pray for us.

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us this day in battle...

Kathleen Sebelius and HHS thinks being a woman is a disease

2011-08-01T11:27:00.003-04:00

Part of being a woman is having the capacity to be a mother. For a substantial portion for our lives, most women are capable of bearing children. It is considered to be a medical disorder for a woman to be infertile unless she is prepubescent or she is post-menopausal.

Tell that to Kathleen Sebelius at HHS. She has declared that a woman's fertility must be thwarted. It is now mandated that all group insurance plans must cover contraception and sterilization. There are no meaningful conscience protections.

As I wrote here and here, fertility is normal and healthy and not something that should be prevented. All women should be offended and outraged that our normal physiological state is being declared a disease.

More on Sham conscience protection

2011-08-01T11:16:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned in this article, HHS adopted the Institute of Medicine recommendations for preventive services. The USCCB demanded conscience protection. The response would be risible if it were not so repugnant.

The sham conscience protection offered is as follows:

HHS’ preventive care guidelines have been released http://www.hrsa.gov/womensguidelines/

** Group health plans sponsored by certain religious employers, and group health insurance coverage in connection with such plans, are exempt from the requirement to cover contraceptive services. A religious employer is one that: (1) has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; (2) primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets; (3) primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets; and (4) is a non-profit organization under Internal Revenue Code section 6033(a)(1) and section 6033(a)(3)(A)(i) or (iii). 45 C.F.R. §147.130(a)(1)(iv)(B). See the Federal Register Notice.

How many Catholic entities meet these criteria? Certainly not Catholic hospitals. Certainly not Catholic schools. Certainly not Catholic doctors' offices. These guidelines protect no one. They are window dressing.

Sham conscience protection and more discrimination

2011-08-01T10:56:00.003-04:00

As expected, the department of Health and Human Services department accepted the recommendations by the Institute of Medicine to include contraception and sterilization as mandated preventive services for insurance coverage. My latest article at HLI on this topic is up:

Last week the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its report proposing a list of preventive services for women that would be mandated for coverage in all private insurances under the regulations of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Early this morning, the Department of Health and Human Services accepted these recommendations. Included in this list are all prescription contraceptives, surgical sterilizations, and “education and counseling” to inform women about these options. (At the moment of publication it is still unclear whether the coverage includes Plan B and Ella, which are known abortifacients)

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops vigorously opposed the inclusion of these elective medical therapies that are contrary to Catholic moral teaching in the mandated coverage requirements. There are no provisions for conscience protection in the PPACA, however, the HHS did propose some limited conscience exemptions with this decision. Initial analysis reveals that the proposed conscience protections exempt Catholic organizations that primarily employ Catholics, serve Catholics, and have as their purpose, the inculcation of religious values. With these criteria in mind, it seems that many Catholic institutions will have to provide coverage for services they find morally reprehensible, including Catholic hospitals and universities. This would be contrary to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services directive number 52:

Continue reading here

An affirmation of parenthood

2011-07-27T13:17:00.002-04:00

This week is NFP awareness week. My fellow writer for HLI American, Gerri Laird, offers a beautiful testimonial to the gift NFP can be to a marriage. Take a look:

“My children are going to pay for your Social Security!” That was my response to one of my husband’s co-workers when he approached me at a company picnic and loudly criticized my pregnancy with child #5. My husband and I were pregnant by choice. He didn’t have a response – he and his wife were childless by choice.

But, child #5 must have heard this conversation while in utero. When he was old enough to talk, he came running down the stairs one day and asked if we loved him and his brothers and sisters. Our “Of course,” was met with, “Then, why aren’t there more babies around here? You love each other, right? Well, when mommies and daddies love each other, babies come…so why aren’t there more babies around here?” From the mouths of babes, we learn Natural Family Planning (NFP) and responsible parenthood 101! And as this has been designated “Natural Family Planning Awareness Week” by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, it may be time to reflect on how our innate love of siblings and children can be better understood by embracing Church teaching on fertility and sexuality.

Continue reading here

A response to a critic

2011-07-23T15:55:00.005-04:00

Normally I delete anonymous hostile comments. However, I decided this comment (which is indented and in bold print) which was submitted to this post might be instructive.

OR....Artificial contraception is an elective medical therapy

Ok. We agree on something. Artificial contraception is elective medical therapy. It is not essential health care. It is optional. That is what elective means. It is a lifestyle choice.

For those desiring to enable the totally normal and healthy physical condition of NOT being pregnant while engaging in sexual relations.

On the contrary. Fertility is not a disease. It is a normal, physiological condition. It is not normal and physiological to engage in sexual relations without the possibility of pregnancy unless you are prepubescent—and in that case the sexual relations are sexual abuse--, you are already pregnant, or you are post-menopausal. Otherwise, you suffer from the non-physiological condition of infertility. The purpose of oral contraceptives is to induce this non-physiological condition of infertility.

Your counter argument is pretty weak from a medical stand-point. However, if you want to play the "Conservation Catholic" card and argue about "God's will" goooo ahead. I wonder how far an argument of God's Will regarding female reproductive rights would go in the courts?

No one is trying to outlaw contraception. If you want to choose this lifestyle, in your words, “goooo ahead”! All I am saying is that elective medical therapy should not be mandated for insurance coverage. We don’t force insurance companies to pay for Botox injections. Why should we force them to pay for this elective medical therapy?

Catholic conservative theology and medicine are two different topics, and just because you have a[sic] educated grasp of both, doesn't mean that what you are preaching isn't erroneous, ridiculous, and contradictory.

Tell me again what I have said that is erroneous or contradictory? Ridiculous is a subjective judgment and you are certainly entitled to your opinion as to what is ridiculous.

It's probably a good thing you don't practice medicine anymore. I can't imagine if I sent my daughter to you at a clinic and you starting to council[sic] her about your specific religious beliefs regarding female contraceptive practices when she was there to see an unbiased medical professional in obtaining a valid and legal prescription.

Ah, yes. Nothing persuades like a good ad hominem attack. Never fear. If you were to bring your daughter to my office in order to enable her fornication there would be no surprises. I would be very upfront that I run a medical practice that is pro-life and consistent with Catholic medical ethics before you ever set foot in the door.

EEEW!...

2011-07-21T13:57:00.003-04:00

I love belonging to Groupon. I find good deals on car washes, restaurants, and yes, manicures and pedicures. Yesterday's deal, however, was not my cup of tea. Anyone out there ever tried the fish foot treatment?

Yvonne’s Day Spa's welcoming aesthetes soothe weary feet with the invigorating fish foot therapy before primping and pampering hands and feet with traditional mani-pedi techniques. As toes wiggle into a small trough of warm, relaxing water, a cabal of tiny fish, armed with a natural predacious appetite for coarse, dead skin, nibble off rough patches with the aquatic excitement of Jacques Cousteau on a jet ski. The finned factions leave feet thoroughly exfoliated, smooth, and relaxed for a human-led pedicure, during which hooves are further massaged and nails are transformed into paradoxes of beauty and strength. A member of Yvonne’s staff then turns attention to clients’ hands, filing down rough epidermic outgrowths, sweeping out digital disrepair, and kneading out stress and stiffness

Contraception is Not Preventive Medicine

2011-07-20T10:48:00.005-04:00

My latest piece as an HLI America Fellow:

In a July 18 New York Times op-ed , Dr. Vanessa Collins, a physician and vice-president of medical affairs for Planned Parenthood Federation of America offers an interesting but erroneous argument for mandating insurance coverage of contraceptives as preventive medicine. First of all, preventive medicine implies the prevention of a pathological condition. Pregnancy is anything but pathological. Artificial contraception is an elective medical therapy for those desiring to block a totally normal and healthy physical condition

Continue reading here.

What's So "Natural" about Natural Family Planning?

2011-07-14T17:57:00.004-04:00

I am so excited! I have just begun working as a fellow for Human Life International--America. I hope to be posting over there on a regular basis. My first piece is up now.

In the last week, articles on Natural Family Planning (NFP) appeared in both secular and Catholic media. In the New York Times, David Oppenheimer chronicles the views of Sam and Bethany Torode, two conservative Protestants. In 2000 the young married couple co-wrote the book Open Embrace: a Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception. They advocated for NFP, a method of fertility regulation in keeping with the Catholic Church’s teaching. However, by 2006 both rejected NFP as a recommended method of birth control. They divorced in 2009. Both have joined liberal Christian communities. Mr. Oppenheimer offers their story as a testimony to how maturity and enlightenment lead to the rejection of NFP.

Then Danielle Bean, a solidly Catholic author, offers what she calls a “reality check” on NFP. She writes in Crisis magazine of “Five Ways I don’t Love Natural Family Planning.” She discovered that NFP is less precise for her when she is breastfeeding. Her reaction is disappointment.

Continue reading at HLI America

Please stop whatever you are doing and pray

2011-06-20T11:58:00.005-04:00

With my son deployed to Afghanistan it was very hard to read this article in yesterday's Washington Post. Then my son called from Afghanistan this morning. He sounded very tired. He had been at the helipad waiting to receive a delivery. Then a medivac helicopter arrived and a flag-draped body was off-loaded. He attended the memorial service for this soldier today. Right now, that soldier is everyone's son or brother. Please stop whatever you are doing and say a prayer, right now, for the repose of the soul of this soldier. Then say another prayer for all the men and women who are serving our country.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him . May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
St. Michael, pray for us
Our Lady of Victory pray for us

Why does Terry Pratchett want to die?

2011-06-16T21:04:00.002-04:00

Several nights ago, BBC aired a documentary by the immensely popular author Terry Pratchett. This was not a romp through Discworld. No. This was a much darker journey. Terry Pratchett explored the world of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide in "Choosing to Die". This is a very personal topic for Terry Pratchett. In 2007 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He has made no secret of his desire to have control of his own death. After his diagnosis was made public he said he would like to die in his, "own home, in a chair on the lawn, with a brandy in my hand to wash down whatever modern version of the 'Brompton cocktail' some helpful medic could supply. And with Thomas Tallis on my iPod, I would shake hands with Death."

I have not seen the program. From media reports I gleaned that Pratchett went to the Swiss clinic Dignitas to explore using its assisted suicide services and followed the course of two British men who did the same. The death of one of the men, Peter Smedley, was captured on camera and the scene was included in the documentary. This graphic look at euthanasia and assisted suicide has provoked both horror and praise.

What drives a man who is in no pain at the moment to take a cup of poisoned tea in his hand and willingly gulp it down? I believe there are two factors. The first of these is pride. Mr. Smedley was a millionaire. He had made his fortune in the hotel industry. He was used to having others look to him for guidance. He had a degenerative neurological disease. There was going to come a time that he would be dependent on others for the most basic of needs. Similarly, Mr. Pratchett is a celebrated author. He created a world and everything in it. How can he allow his brilliant mind to wither into a lump of Silly Putty? The answer for both Mr. Pratchett and Mr. Smedley lies in the fact that allowing others to care for us when we are in need is actually an act of generosity and holy humility. Yes, it is humbling to have someone else bathe us and feed us. It is humbling to have someone see us when our hair is unkempt and our breath stinks. But in that humility, we allow others to be virtuous. We generously give others the opportunity to feed the hungry, quench the thirsty, clothe the naked, and minister to the sick.

But do others want to be virtuous? When physician assisted suicide and euthanasia were being discussed in light of the Oregon assisted suicide law, it was directed mostly at cancer patients who had a grim prognosis. The reason these patients were looking at taking their own lives was that they feared being in pain. Once they were assured that they could be kept comfortable, most chose to continue living. The medical community realized they had not been adequately addressing pain. Suddenly pain assessment became part of every practice of medicine. This is the origin of the ubiquitous query about your level of pain on a scale of one to ten no matter why you are seeking medical care.

Just as these terminal cancer patients fear pain, those like Terry Pratchett who have a degenerative disease fear becoming a burden. Will anyone really take care of them? Will they be treated with kindness and compassion? Will they be laughed at or treated with dignity? If you wander through any nursing home you will see rooms of elderly souls who are mere shadows of their former selves. They seem warehoused and forgotten. In our self-gratifying culture, is it any wonder that self-sacrifice for the debilitated seems almost unthinkable? Just as the medical community realized their failure to assess and address pain contributed to the appeal of suicide and euthanasia, our culture must see that our failure to embrace the opportunity to lovingly care for the chronically ill and disabled breeds a fear of being ill and disabled that makes death look desirable.

The debilitated patient exercises humility and generosity when he allows himself to be cared for. The virtuous caregiver is generous and patient. Every challenge is an opportunity for virtue. Seeking death selfishly denies this expression of holiness.

Conservative and Liberal are not the right words

2011-06-09T10:21:00.003-04:00

Much can be said about the Roxanne Martino fiasco at Notre Dame. For those who have not heard, The University of Notre Dame Board of Trustees elected Ms. Martino as a member. The Cardinal Newman Society then revealed that Ms. Martino had donated $25,000 to Emily's List, a PAC dedicated to electing pro-abortion women to congress. Fr. Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, claimed that Ms. Martino is a strong supporter of all Catholic teachings and was unaware of the connection between Emily's List and the pro-abortion movement. Now there are two scenarios here. The first is that Fr. Jenkins is being less than truthful about what Ms. Martino knew and when she knew it. It is truly hard to believe that Ms. Martino could have been unaware of the purpose of Emily's List. Supporting abortion is not just a sideline cause. It is their raison d'etre! Of course, let us say that Fr. Jenkins is being completely truthful and Ms. Martino had no idea of the pro-abortion purpose of Emily's List. That means that the Notre Dame Board of Trustees is electing a woman who is conspicuously careless with large sums of money. Neither of these scenarios looks good for Notre Dame.

The Chicago Tribune now reports that Roxanne Martino has resigned from the Board of Trustees.

A Chicago business executive resigned Wednesday from the University of Notre Dame's board of trustees after a conservative Roman Catholic watchdog group reported that she donated thousands of dollars to an organization that says it is "dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women."
Roxanne Martino, a 1977 Notre Dame graduate and president and chief executive officer of Aurora Investment Management, a Chicago firm with more than $8 billion in investments, said she stepped down less than two months after her appointment in "the best interest of the university."

I do believe her resignation is in the best interest of the university. However, could we please dispense with the labels of "conservative" and "liberal" or "progressive" when referring to Catholics? This is not an issue of politics. This is an issue of being faithful to Church teachings or being unfaithful to Church teachings. Are you Catholic or not? Faithful Catholics are sinners. They often fall short of living up to the teachings of the Church. But they recognize the authority of Church teachings, acknowledge their sins and pray for God's grace that they sin no more. Unfaithful Catholics pick and choose among Church teachings, rationalize their deviance from Church teachings, and have no intention of repenting. The only authority they recognize is their own.

To Err is Human...

2011-06-08T14:54:00.002-04:00

Sometimes the fear of making a mistake or of failure can paralyze us. Inaction is preferable to imperfect action. Sometimes a mistake is just a coarse file that hones away our rough edges. Wrong decisions are part of the human condition. Redeem them by making them hard lessons on the road to holiness.

Life is simply time given to man to learn how to live. Mistakes are always part of learning. The real dignity of life consists in cultivating a fine attitude towards our own mistakes and those of others. It is the fine tolerance of a fine soul. Man becomes great, not through never making mistakes, but by profiting by those he does make; by being satisfied with a single rendition of a mistake, not encoring it into a continuous performance; by getting from it the honey of new, regenerating inspiration with no irritating sting of morbid regret; by building better to-day because of his poor yesterday; and by rising with renewed strength, finer purpose and freshened courage every time he falls.

Do read the entire piece linked above. It is definitely worth your time. (H/T Happy Catholic)

Counting Blessings

2011-06-08T12:58:00.003-04:00

When your son is deployed to Afghanistan, you take your blessings where you find them. Of course, one of the greatest blessings of my son's current deployment is that my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter are spending so much time with us. This is time I treasure. Another blessing is that my son is on a Polish base. That means there is a chapel staffed with two priests. He attends Mass every week. It is in Polish, but the Polish American Liturgical Center was kind enough to send him a missal with English translations of the Polish Mass. The post chapel is named in honor of Divine Mercy. This is also very special since my mother was very attached to the devotion of the Divine Mercy Chaplet. The Divine Mercy group that prays the Chaplet, the Rosary, and the Stations of the Cross at her parish every Friday is the fruit of her labor. So having my deployed son worship in a chapel dedicated to Divine Mercy so soon after my mother's death is somehow comforting. God is good.

You might need a Catholic refresher course if...

2011-06-05T12:30:00.004-04:00

The religious education office in our parish has worked very hard in the last few years to increase the adult education opportunities. It is still a struggle to convince many of our parish adults that they need religious education. I like the current approach. There is a full color page in the bulletin that begins with:

The office of Religious Education would like to ask you a few questions about the Faith:

What are the 7 Sacraments? What is a simple definition of each one?
Can you list the 10 commandments...in order?
How often is a Catholic obliged to go to Mass? to receive Holy Communion? to go to the sacrament of penance?
What is the conscience?
Can you list the 20 mysteries of the rosary?
What is the role in the Church of the bishop? of the Pope?
In what areas of teaching can the Church not err?
What two conditions could keep a Catholic who is attending Mass from receiving Holy Communion?
What is the Immaculate Conception?
Missing any of the answers to these questions? Why not take one of our Adult Faith classes and grow in knowledge of our Faith?

I hope many of our adults see these questions and realize they have forgotten a few things since eighth grade confirmation classes or maybe they never learned them to begin with. Maybe they will be inspired to try a little Catholic refresher course. And then perhaps they will realize that there is always something new to learn about the Faith. Religious education is a lifelong endeavor.

Virtue: the habit of doing good

2011-06-02T10:19:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was an extraordinarily trying and frustrating day. I worked very hard to prepare and be ready for it to run smoothly. Yet, no matter where I turned, there was a glitch in the system. I had all paperwork filled out and neatly organized for my son's camp physical. Yet when I went to pick him up from school I found that he had forgotten to carry his military ID so we had to return home and retrieve it. This resulted in an alternate route to the military base. Since we were short on time I decided to detour around the major construction projects. I trusted my GPS. This meant we followed a route that went straight through the middle of Washington D.C. and up Wisconsin Avenue to Bethesda. The GPS claimed we would be there in twenty-five minutes. I realized this route would take us an hour. I tried to call the clinic to alert them to my traffic woes. All phone calls were being routed to Walter Reed because of training. The recording said Bethesda would resume receiving calls at 13:30. It was 14:30 and there was still no way to reach a live person. I left a recording and pressed on. Fortunately, a doctor was still available to see my son. Unfortunately, this meant we left Bethesda and headed for home in the midst of rush hour. I was supposed to give a presentation on Catholic Social Teaching to the RCIA class. This was part of the post-Easter mystagogy to help those who just entered the Church continue their growth in understanding of Catholicism. I knew I would never make it home and back to church on time. I drove straight to the church and had my daughter bring my laptop and the cables I needed to connect to the parish AV system. As I am connecting, I realized I have no HDMI input on my cables. Another phone call to my daughter and she once again rescued me with the needed technical assistance. Then I waited for the class to arrive. And I waited. And I waited. The only people who showed up were the two lovely ladies who bring food for the class each week and one of the RCIA sponsors who thought his confirmand was going to be in attendance. I guess not wanting all my preparation to go to waste, they asked me to give the presentation anyway. Patience is a virtue and I must admit that by the time I arrived at home I was not feeling very virtuous. Is that bad?

When I was studying for certification in Catholic health care ethics, I attended a conference that addressed the issue of selling human organs. The ethicist explained that one of the reasons to object to this practice is that it removes an opportunity for virtue. He further asserted that even an atheist could accept this argument. Now there are many reasons to reject the concept of selling human organs. It exploits the poor and vulnerable. It demeans the human person by reducing the body to a collection of commodities. And I certainly agree that selling body parts does rob one of the opportunity to practice the virtue of generosity. However, I am not convinced that virtue in and of itself is universally seen as a desirable attribute. I listen to many pragmatists that argue results are what matter. If the supply of organs for transplant increases, why should we worry if the reason for the increase is the enhancement of wealth for the donor?

Fr. Araujo at Mirror of Justice offers an eloquent discussion of virtue and its role in citizenship.

So what is it that is so important about the virtuous citizen? He or she treasures the freedom about which the President spoke, but this person also recognizes that the rights and claims that attend this freedom must surely be accompanied by a healthy understanding of responsibilities and obligations to all others who have the right to make and perfect the same claims.

The virtuous citizen, I suggest, would be cognizant of this. The virtuous citizen would know that what has made the rule of law established by the “alliance of shared values” so admired in many places throughout the world is the recognition of what is authentically just—to each person his or her due, and the further recollection of what is justice—right relationship between and among all members of the human family. The virtues of humility, prudence, courage, hope, fidelity, wisdom, and others make this recognition and recollection essential elements of human existence and the actions which ensue from this existence.

The President did speak of the importance of human dignity to the shared values and ideals. But this dignity must be founded not on what powerful and influential pressure groups say it is but rather on what right reason establishes it to be. Sometimes this conclusion is contrary to what the culture insists. Illustrations of this point are found in human history associated with these shared ideals. But, the examples of Thomas More and John Fisher quickly come to mind. As Jacques Maritain defined it in 1943, human dignity is that which is due the person simply because he or she is human. With this point about dignity in evidence, the virtuous citizen would acknowledge that the core of the shared values of which the President spoke must necessarily incorporate the non-derogable right to life and continued existence by every member of the human family if human dignity is to have substantive meaning; moreover, these values must come to the aid and protection of the fundamental unit of every human society, viz. the nuclear family.

Without recognition of these points, the shared values of which the President frequently mentioned can be negatively influenced by human whim and caprice as I have already stated. The circumstance where these values are compromised by human fancy would be the very sort of thing of which Blessed John Paul II taught can make a democracy a thinly disguised totalitarianism. The President appeared to acknowledge something about the beliefs of the virtuous citizen when he said, “It has been the values that we must never waver in defending around the world – the idea that all beings are endowed by our Creator with certain rights that cannot be denied.” The virtuous citizen knows from where his or her being originated and that he or she is not the only one who was so created.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines human virtue:

Human virtues are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. They make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good life. The virtuous man is he who freely practices the good.
The moral virtues are acquired by human effort. They are the fruit and seed of morally good acts; they dispose all the powers of the human being for communion with divine love. (CCC 1804)

Because they are habits, virtues must be practiced and strengthened by repeated use. They are difficult because of our fallen human nature. However, with God's grace, they are attainable.

It is not easy for man, wounded by sin, to maintain moral balance. Christ's gift of salvation offers us the grace necessary to persevere in the pursuit of the virtues. Everyone should always ask for this grace of light and strength, frequent the sacraments, cooperate with the Holy Spirit, and follow his calls to love what is good and shun evil.(CCC 1811)

Perhaps today it would be good to reflect on the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Perhaps I will also think about patience. It is far more important to say my walk through life was a virtuous journey than to say it was a materially successful venture. And truthfully, no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to guarantee a glitch-free day. So a little patience needs to be packed in my purse right next to my organizer.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and The Holy Spirit

2011-06-02T09:15:00.001-04:00

Never leave your house without making the sign of the cross. It will be to you a staff and a weapon...Let this sign teach you that you are a soldier, ready to combat against the demons, and ready to fight for the crown of justice. Are you ignorant of what the cross has done? It has vanquished death, destroyed sin, emptied hell, dethroned Satan, and restored the universe. Would you then doubt its power?-St. Chrysostom

A prayer for our nation

2011-05-30T15:47:00.003-04:00

Poster designed by my daughter for my parents' church

A fortunate series of events

2011-05-16T12:20:00.004-04:00

You know how you can start one project that leads to another project and then another and then another? This is most common when I am trying to do home improvement projects. One bedroom needs painting but if I am going to paint I might as well see about putting a ceiling fan in like I've been meaning to do and if I am getting the handyman in to do one ceiling fan I might as well get him to put ceiling fans in the other two bedrooms and if I am going to put ceiling fans in the other two bedrooms I might as well paint them as well.

We had a chain reaction this morning with absolutely scrumptious results. On Saturday I went to the farmers' market for the first time this season and picked up a couple of quarts of strawberries. I meant to make a pie with them. However, by the time I got around to making a pie today, I didn't have that many strawberries left. My usual recipe requires a pre-baked pie shell, filled in the bottom with cream cheese that has been thinned with a little milk. I then dip whole strawberries in sugar and stand them pointed-end-up on the cream cheese. The remaining berries are then mashed with sugar and corn starch and cooked until they thicken into a glaze. This is poured over the standing berries and the whole pie is chilled. Today, I decided I would make a smaller pie than usual and skip the standing berries. I just poured the chunky glaze over cream cheese.

Since I used a small 9-inch pie plate instead of my larger deep dish pie plate I had left over pie dough. (I highly recommend making your own pie dough if possible) What to do? I had seen a recipe for homemade "pop tarts". Perfect! I rolled the pie dough out and used a pizza cutter to cut it into rectangles. I took a little cream cheese and mixed it with Nutella. I put a dollop of this mixture on one side of each rectangle then folded the rectangle in half and sealed the cut edges with a fork. I poked a few steam holes in the top of each tart and baked them in a 350-degree oven until browned--about 15 minutes in my oven. They were amazing.

Bon apetit!

Unknown Saint

2011-05-07T23:17:00.005-04:00

I am in Houston helping my dad sort through many of my mother's belongings. I ran across this statue. Can someone help me identify the saint? It is a female saint, wearing a crown, holding a book and a sword. At her feet it looks like the head of satan since he has ram horns. Any idea who this might be?

Aha! I think this is St. Dymphna, a 7th century Irish martyr.

The Tortoise and the...

2011-04-29T09:15:00.008-04:00

My morning adventure began before I had my first cup of coffee. It was not the usual caffeine-deprived morning adventure like turning the coffee maker on without putting coffee or water in it. No, this was a rescue mission.

First it must be noted that four dogs now abide in my home. Athena is my black Lab mix. She is purported to be a Labradinger--Lab and Springer Spaniel. I just know that she is smart and sweet but in this pack of dogs she comes off as the bossy big sister.

Then there is Hazzard. He belongs to my second son. He is a black Lab/German Shepherd mix. His ears always look like that. That is part of his charm. He is a great big teddy bear with a bark that is more of a bellow. He is a dog of few words but when he chooses to bark, it reverberates through the trees.

Chewy is my daughter-in-law's miniature Dachshund. Just call him Napoleon. There is nothing that the big dogs do that he does not try to do. He is insulted if you offer him a miniature toy. Somehow, he has convinced all the Labs he is really as big as he thinks he is. He is the alpha dog. When he barks, the Labs obey.

Finally, the star of my morning adventure is Bonnie. She belongs to my oldest son and has also moved in with us since he deployed to Afghanistan. She is a one-year-old Black Lab. She still has a lot of puppy in her. "All mach and no direction" pretty much sums up Bonnie.

The thing about having a pack of dogs in the house is that they function like a pack. There is only one thought per four dogs. If one goes outside, they all go outside. If one is hungry, they all are hungry. If one wants to play with the green and white chew bone, they all want to play with that very same green and white chew bone. It does not matter that there are at least four other green and white chew bones available. Only one specific bone can meet the desires of all four dogs.

This morning the dogs decided they needed to go outside. They thundered through the door as a giant black mass with a dot of brown mixed in. They did not get far. Bonnie caught sight of a box tortoise taking a morning stroll. I know that slow and steady wins the race, but it would have been in this tortoise's best interest to have moved more like a hare. Instead, he pulled into his shell, doing his best imitation of a rock. Alas, Bonnie likes rocks. She scooped up the tortoise and began running super-sonic circles around the yard. Assuming Bonnie had a desirable toy, the other dogs took up the chase. Bonnie's circles now included evasive actions with quick cuts and changes in direction. In the process she periodically launched the tortoise into a wild airborne trajectory only to retrieve him and resume her erratic running.

With the help of my son and a handful of dog treats I was able to convince Bonnie to give up the tortoise and I corralled the dogs inside. The tortoise lay motionless outside my back door. However, after about an hour, I noticed he poked his head out of his shell. A few minutes later, he was out of sight.

Unfortunately, he did not go very far. The next time I let the dogs out, Hazzard spied Mr. Tortoise beneath the wisteria bush. Bonnie was thrilled to rediscover her "toy" and the game began anew. I was quicker about getting her to give up the tortoise this time. I scooped him up and took him to the woods, outside the range of the dogs' wireless containment system. Bonnie was not to be deterred. Her back legs trembled as she withstood the shocks to pick up this most amazing "rock". Once again I was able to rescue the tortoise. This time I deposited him much farther out into the woods. I did not stick around to make sure he once again emerged unharmed from his shell. I am sure he is traumatized. I hope he finds the tortoise equivalent of a good cup of coffee or a shot of Jack Daniels.

Irony

2011-04-25T10:28:00.004-04:00

Sometimes your bumper stickers send more of a message than you think. This weekend I was behind a car that had three stickers:

"Obama/Biden 2008"

"Save a live--Adopt! National Animal Rescue League"

"My body--my choice. Don't let grumpy old men take away your right to an abortion"

Divine Mercy Novena begins today

2011-04-22T09:47:00.001-04:00

I hope you are able to take advantage of the Church's beautiful liturgies of the Triduum. They offer a perfect spiritual preparation to comprehend the reality of Christ's Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Overlapping this, is the beginning of the Divine Mercy Novena. You can find the prayers here. The Pray More Novenas web site will even email you the prayer each day.

I will be offering this novena in a special way for my mother. It was her favorite devotion. This is also an appropriate time to remember Pope John Paul II. He will be beatified on Divine Mercy Sunday.

The Ascent Towards Holiness

2011-04-18T09:57:00.004-04:00

I began Lent with thoughts from Pope Benedict about how this liturgical season was supposed to find us different at Easter than when we began on Ash Wednesday. Lent is a time for moving us towards holiness. As we enter Holy Week, Pope Benedict XVI also reflects on holiness. Do read the whole thing. It is the perfect reflection to keep in mind this entire week. Here is a snippet:

Our procession today is meant, then, to be an image of something deeper, to reflect the fact that, together with Jesus, we are setting out on pilgrimage along the high road that leads to the living God. This is the ascent that matters. This is the journey which Jesus invites us to make. But how can we keep pace with this ascent? Isn’t it beyond our ability? Certainly, it is beyond our own possibilities. From the beginning men and women have been filled – and this is as true today as ever – with a desire to “be like God”, to attain the heights of God by their own powers. All the inventions of the human spirit are ultimately an effort to gain wings so as to rise to the heights of Being and to become independent, completely free, as God is free. Mankind has managed to accomplish so many things: we can fly! We can see, hear and speak to one another from the farthest ends of the earth. And yet the force of gravity which draws us down is powerful. With the increase of our abilities there has been an increase not only of good. Our possibilities for evil have increased and appear like menacing storms above history. Our limitations have also remained: we need but think of the disasters which have caused so much suffering for humanity in recent months.

The Fathers of the Church maintained that human beings stand at the point of intersection between two gravitational fields. First, there is the force of gravity which pulls us down – towards selfishness, falsehood and evil; the gravity which diminishes us and distances us from the heights of God. On the other hand there is the gravitational force of God’s love: the fact that we are loved by God and respond in love attracts us upwards. Man finds himself betwixt this twofold gravitational force; everything depends on our escaping the gravitational field of evil and becoming free to be attracted completely by the gravitational force of God, which makes us authentic, elevates us and grants us true freedom.

Advice for the new Catholic family

2011-04-11T11:06:00.002-04:00

In just two short weeks there will be many new Catholic faces in the pews. Thousands of candidates and catechumens are completing their preparation to enter full communion with the Catholic Church. While their preparation has covered the basics, learning about the faith is the work of a lifetime. Many of these converts are not entering alone. They have families who may or may not be familiar with what a Catholic family looks like. What is a Catholic family supposed to do? Of course (We hope!!) their preparation has covered the big points about marriage and children. But what are those little things that should make a Catholic family different?

The series I did several years ago on Keeping your Kids Catholic (It is linked in the sidebar) goes into a lot of details. However, I would love to know what simple advice you would give to a new convert about creating a Catholic family. How do you establish a Catholic identity within your home?

My advice is that you first establish you are a Catholic family by attending Mass every Sunday--rain, shine, and soccer games notwithstanding. This puts Christ at the center of your family life. All activities revolve around Him and are subservient to Him.

Secondly, pray together. Begin with grace before every meal--even those meals you eat at a restaurant. It doesn't have to be conspicuous or loud. It just needs to be a few seconds of bowed heads and everyone saying "Bless us, O Lord,…" Any words that thank God for the blessing of this meal are appropriate, but I would recommend learning the classic Catholic grace:

"Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty. Through Christ Our Lord, Amen."

It immediately puts you in solidarity with other Catholics. Also, a family can never pray the Rosary together enough. Don't worry if this seems impossible at first. Begin with a single Hail Mary together. Then eventually increase to a decade of the Rosary. With a little persistence, your family can pray the Rosary together. I promise you will not be disappointed in the results.

Incorporate the liturgical calendar into your family life. Put a Catholic calendar up in your home and keep track of both the major and minor feasts and celebrations. There is so much more to the liturgical year than just the holy days of obligation. The various feasts and memorials are wonderful tools for learning about the Communion of Saints.

Finally, give your home a Catholic look by including religious items such as a crucifix, religious picture or statue of a saint in your home decor.

So, dear readers, what advice would you offer a newly minted Catholic family?

Passiontide

2011-04-10T12:58:00.004-04:00

All of the crosses and statues were covered today. Fr. Z offers a beautiful explanation of Passiontide. Please take a few minutes and read it. It will prepare you to explain the liturgical season to those who may not understand.

A business must be able to fail in order to succeed

2011-04-08T15:32:00.001-04:00

Finally. Some common sense words about the economy.

No vouchers but yes to abortion

2011-04-08T08:42:00.002-04:00

President Obama and his Democratic colleagues in Congress took away school vouchers from the children of Washington DC. Now they are willing to withhold pay from the military and other federal workers in order to ensure that the most dangerous place for a child in Washington DC is in his mother's womb.

More about those "grass roots activists"

2011-04-06T10:26:00.003-04:00

The ever vigilant Thomas Peters, aka American Papist, took my post from yesterday and ran with it. Read his post and see how it looks like Planned Parenthood may very well be behind the hiring efforts to increase the number of pro-abortion "grass roots activists".

His summary:

So, let’s recap: Mere days before a major pro-abortion Congressional lobbying day in Washington DC, an organization that has worked with Planned Parenthood before posts an advertisement named “PP DC CL” in a local Craigslist job section to hire people willing to “fight the anti-choice Congress.”

In other words, this very well may be yet another example of our tax dollars at work paying for Planned Parenthood to pay people to … get us to pay them with more of our tax dollars.

Pastoral means causing both smiles and tears

2011-04-06T10:07:00.002-04:00

Fr. Robert Araujo offers a cogent critique of Marquette University's decision to offer "domestic partner benefits" for its homosexual employees who are in legal domestic partnerships registered with the clerk of their county. This policy only applies to homosexual couples. It does not include heterosexual couples in registered domestic partnerships. The University's president explains this move:

"If we are truly pastoral in our application of the Jesuit principle of cura personalis, I asked myself if I could reconcile that with denying health benefits to a couple who have legally registered their commitment to each other.”

My granddaughter just learned to giggle. This may sound like a non sequitur and the ramblings of a proud Gramma. I will give you the latter but stay with me here. Do you remember when your baby first giggled? You would do absolutely anything to elicit that chuckle. You made funny faces, played peek-a-boo, and otherwise thoroughly humiliated yourself. Nothing made you happier than making your baby happy. However, as your precious little one grew, bringing a smile gave way to teaching important lessons. Giving in to every demand for sweets and toys would certainly bring smiles but a good parent knows there comes a time to say "no". There may be a tantrum. You steel yourself against the tears. The first few times you may even cry a little too. But you know the value of these lessons is worth the tears. The smiles will come again and in greater number because you are saying "no" now.

The president of Marquette University claims he is being "pastoral" with his support of homosexual relationships. Unfortunately, this is often the claim of those who condone behaviors that are contrary to Church teaching. To them, being pastoral means always eliciting giggles and never causing tears. Yet as every parent knows, such a strategy is a pathway to raising a spoiled brat. What should a Jesuit university do? Fr. Araujo suggests they look to the guiding principles of the Jesuits:

Whoever desires to serve as a soldier of God beneath the banner of the cross in our Society, which we desire to be designated by the name of Jesus, and to serve the Lord alone and the Church, His spouse, under the Roman pontiff, the vicar of Christ on earth, should, after a solemn vow of perpetual chastity, poverty, and obedience, keep what follows in mind. He is a member of a Society founded chiefly for this purpose: to strive especially for the defense and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine, by means of public preaching, lectures, and any other ministration whatsoever of the word of God, and further by means of the Spiritual Exercises, the education of children and unlettered persons in Christianity, and the spiritual consolation of Christ’s faithful through hearing confessions and administering the other sacraments. Moreover, this Society should show itself no less useful in reconciling the estranged, in holily assisting and serving those who are found in prisons or hospitals, and indeed in performing any other works of charity, according to what will seem expedient for the glory of God and the common good.

In other words, you do not bend or break the teachings of the Church because you want to keep everyone smiling. Being a good pastor or a good parent means you are going to make some people cry.

Hiring "grass roots activists"

2011-04-05T13:00:00.004-04:00

I found this in the jobs section of the Washington DC Craigslist. It seems the pro-abortion side is hiring mercenary "grass roots activists" for up to $535 per week. Next time you see a pro-abortion protest it would be good to find out how many of those carrying signs are paid protesters. I wonder whose deep pockets are really paying for this.

Girls' Day Out

2011-03-27T14:17:00.009-04:00

Yesterday my daughter-in-law, her twin sister, my granddaughter, and I had a girls' day out in DC as we enjoyed the cherry blossoms as well as some of the great museums and monuments.

You can get a snazzy bow of your own here.

Gramma and Trinity in front of the White House

Misty, Kristy, and Trinity at the Lincoln Memorial

Misty and Trinity lunching at the Smithsonian

A great view of the Jefferson Memorial

Snoozing beneath the Cherry Blossoms

Praying for victims of Japanese earthquake and tsunami

2011-03-11T07:50:00.002-05:00

A massive earthquake hit Japan today. Offering prayers for all the victims with a special prayer for my former student Erin. She and her family are now stationed in Okinawa. They are safe but have been evacuated.

Begin the Novena to St. Joseph today!

2011-03-11T07:13:00.003-05:00

Today begins the Novena to St. Joseph. Head on over to Praymorenovenas.com and find the novena prayer. You can also sign up for a novena reminder via email. Join the over 600 people who will be offering this novena for all husbands. I will be remembering my oldest son, a husband and a father, as I pray this novena. He deploys today for Afghanistan.

Do you know how the tradition of praying for nine days began? After the Ascension, Mary and the Apostles went to the Upper Room to pray for guidance. They were unsure of what they were expected to do next. They prayed for nine days. Then the Holy Spirit came to them on Pentecost. So a nine-day prayer is modeled after the nine days of prayer of Mary and the Apostles.

The Basement Bowtique

2011-03-10T17:39:00.003-05:00

Here is a plug for my talented and creative daughter-in-law's new Etsy site. Big bows are all the rage for the fashionable baby and toddler and the Basement Bowtique is churning out a wonderful variety to accessorize every outfit. Take a look! There is also a link on my sidebar.

Prayers for my kids ( and grandkid)

2011-03-10T12:26:00.003-05:00

Keep this gorgeous family in your prayers. That is my oldest son Wesley who heads to Afghanistan, probably tomorrow. My daughter-in-law Misty and my granddaughter Trinity are staying with me. I am trusting Blessed Mother to wrap them in her mantle and St. Michael to strike down the evil that pervades the war-torn region. Our Lady of Victory, pray for us.

It is not just for 40 days

2011-03-10T12:01:00.004-05:00

Yesterday we began the liturgical period of Lent. With the imposition of ashes we are reminded of our own mortality. Yet Christians are a people of hope. We trust in God's mercy. We embark on a focused period of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We intend to emerge on the other side of these forty days irrevocably changed. If our Lenten practices do not leave an indelible mark, they have been in vain. If we do Lent right, we will celebrate Easter as new people. Steps toward holiness will persist. As Pope Benedict remarks in his Ash Wednesday homily, the point of Lent is conversion.

"Today we begin the liturgical period of Lent with the emblematic ritual of the imposition of the ashes by which we intend to take on the task of turning our hearts towards the horizons of Grace", said the Pope in his homily. "This is not some superficial or transitory conversion, but a spiritual itinerary which has a profound effect on our conscience and involves a sincere intention to amend our lives".
"This means undertaking an authentic conversion to God - returning to Him - recognising His sanctity, His power, His majesty", the Holy Father went on. "Such conversion is possible because God is rich in mercy and great in love. His mercy is regenerating. ... God, in fact, does not want the death of sinners but their conversion to life. ... He offers us His forgiveness, ... so as to give us a new heart purified from the evil that oppresses it, so as to lead us to participate in His joy. Our world needs to be converted by God, it needs His pardon, His love, it needs a new heart".

His journey has begun

2011-03-04T14:20:00.002-05:00

Just back from the airport and am a little teary eyed still. We took my oldest son Wesley to the airport to begin his journey to Afghanistan. His wife and daughter, my youngest son, my husband and I all went to the airport to send him off with lots of love and a few tears. I was very impressed when the gate agent gave all of us security passes so we could go all the way to the gate with Wesley. She also made a point to thank Wesley for his service. It soothes my heart to see a stranger understand the heartache of this goodbye.

The last time I watched a loved one deploy it was my husband. He was off to Desert Shield. The "Shield" was soon replaced by "Storm". On the night the combat began we were glued to CNN. All we could see was the map of Iraq and all we could hear was the voice of Bernard Shaw, Wolf Blitzer, and Peter Arnett. I was crying. Wesley marched up to the TV map and in his four-year-old voice said, "Mom, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Daddy has to be there to make things right." I never dreamed that twenty years later he would be deploying to the same region in a continuing effort to make things right.

So I am shedding a few tears today. And I am busy chatting with the saints. Today we are raising our hearts and hands to Heaven. Our Lady of Victory, Pray for us. Jesus, Our Savior, make things right.

Never forget the cost of freedom

2011-03-03T15:20:00.003-05:00

My husband is nearing the thirty year mark as an Air Force officer. I also wore an Air Force Uniform. My father was an Air Force officer. So what does my oldest son do? He joins the Army. And I am immensely proud of him. Tomorrow he leaves for Ft. Benning and from there he will deploy to Afghanistan. His wife, daughter, and two dogs have moved in with me. We will pray my son over there and pray him home.

I have watched my own husband deploy. In some ways it is harder to send a son. I think this is more difficult for my husband than it is for me. When duty calls, he is the one that has always left and I have stayed behind holding down the home front. Now my husband is left behind to carry on. It is not that easy. But this is who we are and what we do. I have no regrets.

In addition to offering a prayer for my son and all our men and women who are deployed, please take the time to read these links.

The Washington Post ran this article yesterday that includes remarks by Lt. Gen. John Kelly who notes that most of the United States population is unaware of the military sacrifice in the current war. It was a very hard article to read with my son deploying tomorrow, but it was an article that needs to be read.

Lisa Douglas captures the pain of military goodbyes in this this article.

Not too long after September 11, 2001, I wrote this essay.

In 2007 I wrote this essay about being the mother of a soldier.

Finally, please consider offering this Rosary for soldiers and their families.

More on those trying to undermine the role of parents

2011-02-28T20:34:00.003-05:00

In my last post I linked to Rob Vischer's Mirror of Justice post in which he offers the work of Jeffrey Shulman for consideration. Mr. Shulman believes it is important for the law to protect children from the social values of their parents. Naturally, there were quite a few objections to this point of view in the comment section. However, the ninth comment sends shivers up my spine as I think of people with this mindset deciding public policy for my children and grandchildren:

Most parents agree with the parents who have posted in this thread. The conflict of interest itself is sufficient to judge that reaction as unworthy of consideration. It is not at all interesting that the group whose control over other persons is at stake takes the position that the control should remain not only undiminished, but completely free from outside review.
I hate to be harsh, but those of you taking the view that the public school system and/or the medical system shouldn't interfere with the parent-child relationship are complicit in the victimization of millions of physically, psychologically, and sexually abused children.

This man understands nothing about being a parent.

Parents beware!

2011-02-28T15:23:00.003-05:00

Rob Vischer at Mirror of Justice offers an example of what current secular cultural elites think of the family. It is frightening. Those who embraced Hillary Clinton's concept of the state as the village to raise your child will embrace Jeffrey Shulman's new book. He writes:

Physically and intellectually transporting the child across the boundaries of home and community, a public education can bring its students a much needed respite from the ideological solipsism of the enclosed family. Of course, public education comes at a cost. It disrupts the intramural transmission of values from parent to child. It threatens to dismantle a familiar world by introducing the child to multiple sources of authority - and to the possibility that a choice must be made among them. Indeed, the open world of the public school should challenge the transmission of any closed set of values. Unless children are to live under "a perpetual childhood of prescription," they must be exposed to the dust and heat of the race - intellectually, morally, spiritually. A public education is the engine by which children are exposed to "the great sphere" that is their world and legacy. It is their means of escape from, or free commitment to, the social group in which they were born. It is their best guarantee of an open future.

Reading those words makes me feel like a mama grizzly. Mr. Shulman and his ilk better keep their paws off my cubs.

Keeping my feet on the ground and my heart in Heaven

2011-02-28T11:59:00.001-05:00

Yesterday Pope Benedict XVI offered these words in his Angelus address:

"Clearly this teaching of Jesus, while it remains true and valid for everyone, is practiced in different ways depending on our different vocations: A Franciscan friar may follow it more radically, while a family man will have to take account of his duties towards his wife and children. Yet in all cases Christians stand out for their absolute faith in the heavenly Father, just like Jesus" Who "showed us what it means to live with our feet firmly planted on the ground, attentive to the real situation of our neighbours and, at the same time, with our hearts in heaven, immersed in God's mercy".

I love the image of our feet firmly planted on the ground but our hearts in heaven. This is important as each of us considers our vocation. Our calling by God requires certain practical considerations. As a mother, the care of my children means meeting my children's physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. I do need to look forward and plan for the future. Yet none of these efforts is an end in and of itself. Each must be focused on the ultimate end of serving God's plan. When I am pushing my son to do well in school and prepare for college, it is not because he should be seeking mere earthly success. It is because he has been given certain gifts by God, and to fully use those gifts in God's service, he must be intellectually prepared. As my husband and I make career decisions, the choices are not guided by the standards of the world for professional success. Rather, they must be guided by how our professions serve our vocations of marriage and parenthood.

So today's prayer is that God will grant me the discernment to keep my practical, earthbound feet and hands always subservient to my heaven-seeking heart.

A three-step approach to Lent

2011-02-25T12:53:00.002-05:00

Lent is around the corner (March 9) and the blogosphere is filling up with recommended devotions, readings, and sacrifices. Rather than offering a specific reading list or a specific prayer plan, I would like to propose an approach to the Lenten triad of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. I am a firm believer in the Pizza Dough Spirituality approach. Just as pizza dough cannot be stretched across the pan too quickly, growth in our spiritual life must be undertaken in small increments. Therefore, when looking at your Lenten practices, carefully assess what you are doing and where you can realistically expect to improve. I recommend a three-step process.

First, decide one thing that you can do with a pretty sure chance of success. For example, perhaps you are perpetually late for Mass. How about this Lent offering the effort required to get you and your family in the pew every Sunday ( or Saturday evening) on time? Think about what changes you need to make to your Saturday evening and Sunday morning schedule to accomplish this goal. Do you need to set out clothing the night before? Do you need to forgo coffee and the paper in the morning so you can focus on getting children ready? Do you need to write the check for the collection plate the night before so that you do not waste time on Sunday morning looking for a pen and the offertory envelope?

Next think of a slightly bigger step that is probably doable, but a little bit more of a stretch. Once you are getting to Mass on time, can you get there just a few minutes earlier so that you can be mentally prepared for the Mass? What are you going to do during this time? This is a good time to read the Sunday readings so that when you hear them proclaimed in Mass you can listen more intently. Maybe you can offer a decade of the Rosary for a special intention.

Now consider something that you would really like to do, but are pretty sure it is beyond your spiritual capability. For example, you have always wanted to extend your participation to parish prayer other than Sunday Mass? If you have barely been making it to Sunday Mass, it is unrealistic to think that you will suddenly become a daily communicant. Yet, once you have mastered getting to Sunday Mass early enough to prayerfully prepare for the Mass, you might be ready to branch out a little bit. Can you make it to daily Mass once during Lent? Can you make it once per week? Can you attend a Friday Stations of the Cross devotion? Can you attend a parish holy hour?

You do not need to declare all three steps at once. Throughout Lent assess where you are. Then think about where you can "stretch the pizza dough". Once the novelty of giving up chocolate wears off, there is often a staleness to such simplistic Lenten sacrifices. This gradual approach allows continual growth during Lent. It can be applied to all three types of Lenten observances: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Lent is not just about giving up something. It is not about shedding a few pounds so that we look better in our Easter dress. We die to the world so that we may live in Christ.

Thinking about Baptism during Lent

2011-02-22T09:02:00.002-05:00

On December 26, the day after Christmas, my husband and I along with my oldest son, his wife, their newborn daughter, and my three other children gathered at my mother and father's home. We went to my parents' church to witness the baptism of my granddaughter, Trinity. This Baptism was so important to my mother. She knew that my oldest son was deploying to Afghanistan and it was important that the entire family stand in support of his family. So she made it clear to the parish staff that this Baptism had to happen during this very busy time of the year when everyone could be present. Once my mother made up her mind, few could resist her. It did happen and it was beautiful. My second son was the godfather. The young woman who was my daughter-in-law's sponsor when she entered the Church was now my granddaughter's godmother. The deacon offered excellent catechesis about the Sacrament of Baptism as he conducted the liturgy. The ceremony was followed by a joyous reception at my parents home.

That night my mother fell ill. She was taken to the hospital. She never came home. The Sacrament of Baptism will forever be linked to my mother. That is why it is very poignant that one week after her death, the Vatican news service announces that Pope Benedict XVI's Lenten message will focus on Baptism. I know my mother is pleased.

RENEW OUR ACCEPTANCE OF BAPTISMAL GRACE DURING LENT

VATICAN CITY, 22 FEB 2011 (VIS) - Made public today was the 2011 Lenten Message of the Holy Father Benedict XVI. The text, dated 4 November 2010, has as its title a passage from St. Paul's Letter to the Colossians: "You were buried with Him in Baptism, in which you were also raised with Him". Extracts from the English-language version of the document are given below:

"The fact that, in most cases, Baptism is received in infancy highlights how it is a gift of God: no one earns eternal life through their own efforts. The mercy of God, which cancels sin and, at the same time, allows us to experience in our lives 'the mind of Christ Jesus', is given to men and women freely".

"Hence, Baptism is not a rite from the past, but the encounter with Christ, which informs the entire existence of the baptised, imparting divine life and calling for sincere conversion; initiated and supported by Grace, it permits the baptised to reach the adult stature of Christ.

"A particular connection binds Baptism to Lent as the favourable time to experience this saving Grace. ... In fact, the Church has always associated the Easter Vigil with the celebration of Baptism. ... This free gift must always be rekindled in each one of us, and Lent offers us a path like that of the catechumenate, which, for the Christians of the early Church, just as for catechumens today, is an irreplaceable school of faith and Christian life. Truly, they live their Baptism as an act that shapes their entire existence.

"In order to undertake more seriously our journey towards Easter and prepare ourselves to celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord - the most joyous and solemn feast of the entire liturgical year - what could be more appropriate than allowing ourselves to be guided by the Word of God? For this reason, the Church, in the Gospel texts of the Sundays of Lent, leads us to a particularly intense encounter with the Lord, calling us to retrace the steps of Christian initiation: for catechumens, in preparation for receiving the Sacrament of rebirth; for the baptised, in light of the new and decisive steps to be taken in the 'sequela Christi' and a fuller giving of oneself to Him".

"The Lenten journey finds its fulfilment in the Paschal Triduum, especially in the great vigil of the Holy Night: renewing our baptismal promises, we reaffirm that Christ is the Lord of our life, that life which God bestowed upon us when we were reborn of 'water and Holy Spirit', and we profess again our firm commitment to respond to the action of the Grace in order to be His disciples.

"By immersing ourselves into the death and resurrection of Christ through the Sacrament of Baptism, we are moved to free our hearts every day from the burden of material things, from a self-centred relationship with the 'world' that impoverishes us and prevents us from being available and open to God and our neighbour. ... Through the traditional practices of fasting, almsgiving and prayer, which are an expression of our commitment to conversion, Lent teaches us how to live the love of Christ in an ever more radical way.

"Fasting, which can have various motivations, takes on a profoundly religious significance for the Christian: by rendering our table poorer, we learn to overcome selfishness in order to live in the logic of gift and love; by bearing some form of deprivation - and not just what is in excess - we learn to look away from our 'ego', to discover Someone close to us and to recognise God in the face of so many brothers and sisters. For Christians, fasting, far from being depressing, opens us ever more to God and to the needs of others, thus allowing love of God to become also love of our neighbour.

"In our journey, we are often faced with the temptation of accumulating and love of money that undermine God's primacy in our lives. The greed of possession leads to violence, exploitation and death; for this, the Church, especially during the Lenten period, reminds us to practice almsgiving - which is the capacity to share. The idolatry of goods, on the other hand, not only causes us to drift away from others, but divests man, making him unhappy, deceiving him, deluding him without fulfilling its promises, since it puts materialistic goods in the place of God, the only source of life".

"The practice of almsgiving is a reminder of God's primacy and turns our attention towards others, so that we may rediscover how good our Father is, and receive His mercy.

"During the entire Lenten period, the Church offers us God's Word with particular abundance. By meditating and internalising the Word in order to live it every day, we learn a precious and irreplaceable form of prayer. ... Prayer also allows us to gain a new concept of time: without the perspective of eternity and transcendence, in fact, time simply directs our steps towards a horizon without a future. Instead, when we pray, we find time for God, to understand that His 'words will not pass away', to enter into that intimate communion with Him 'that no one shall take from you', opening us to the hope that does not disappoint, eternal life".

"The Lenten period is a favourable time to recognise our weakness and to accept, through a sincere inventory of our life, the renewing Grace of the Sacrament of Penance, and walk resolutely towards Christ.

"Dear brothers and sisters, through the personal encounter with our Redeemer and through fasting, almsgiving and prayer, the journey of conversion towards Easter leads us to rediscover our Baptism. This Lent, let us renew our acceptance of the Grace that God bestowed upon us at that moment, so that it may illuminate and guide all of our actions. What the Sacrament signifies and realises, we are called to experience every day by following Christ in an ever more generous and authentic manner".

A different sort of TSA story

2011-02-20T21:13:00.002-05:00

I will be returning home soon. We had my mother's funeral this past Friday and I am needed back at my own home front. I will be back here before too long. I cannot begin to thank everyone who offered prayers, logistical help, food, prayers, etc. The generosity of everyone has been overwhelming.

However, I must share one episode of kindness. Upon hearing the news of my mother's death I was consumed with making the arrangements to get all my children and my husband to the funeral. Once I found myself actually at the airport I had time to absorb the reality of the situation and was feeling a little teary eyed. I handed my ID to the TSA agent at the entrance to the security screening line. He asked how I was doing. I am not sure why I didn't just say "fine". I said, "I've been better." He looked up and asked what was wrong. I told I was on my way to my mother's funeral. He said, "I am so sorry." Then he handed me my ID and said, "God bless you." He certainly did not have to take such an interest in my emotional state and he certainly took a chance by saying "God bless you." In this day and age such a simple kindness could be construed as inappropriate by many people who seek to exclude God from all public places. I am grateful for this agent's simple prayer. It strengthened me for the journey ahead.

Requiéscant in pace

2011-02-15T08:48:00.003-05:00

Delia Sanchez Jackson

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon her.
May she rest in peace. Amen.

Catholic In the Name Is No Guarantee

2011-02-09T17:30:00.002-05:00

My father, my siblings, and I are facing a difficult time right now. My mother became ill the day after Christmas as her chronic leukemia transformed into an acute leukemia. Within days she was intubated in the ICU of MD Anderson. She has remained hospitalized though no longer requires intubation. Initially, it was felt that if we could just support her through the chemotherapy, she could recover. There were complications with one organ system after another, but each was dealt with and the ultimate goal remained recovery. However, in the last week all systems crashed. There is kidney failure, heart failure, respiratory distress, and probably a stroke. In addition, her response to chemotherapy has been less than ideal. We understand that recovery is no longer the goal. Comfort and preparation for death is. So it is time to seek out hospice in the Houston area.

Let me be clear that not all hospice organizations are the same. Some truly seek to care for the patient and provide a dignified and patient centered end to life. Others want to provide minimal care and collect their payments from Medicare. I am sorry to say that the hospice organization affiliated with the local Catholic health care institution falls in the latter category. The representative of this organization spoke to my father, my sister, and me before she had any knowledge of my mother's condition. Her focus was on providing morphine for "pain". My mother has no pain. When I asked her about nutrition and hydration she immediately told me to remember that we are talking about hospice care. They do not do hydration or any form of artificial nutrition. John Paul II, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Ethical and Religious Directives for health care, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith all clearly state that nutrition and hydration are ordinary care even if administered by artificial means. If a patient can benefit from such care, we are morally obligated to provide it. I find it appalling that a hospice organization that purports to be Catholic would shun this basic principle. I do not know if my mother needs artificial nutrition and hydration. However, I cannot in good conscience entrust her to the care of an organization that views this basic level of care as extraordinary and unnecessary. Similarly, when I asked about the use of oxygen for her respiratory distress, I was told that while they do administer oxygen, their immediate response to a patient struggling to breathe is to administer morphine. They would not check an oxygen saturation (a non-invasive test done at the bedside by clipping a sensor to my mother's finger) to see if my mother was getting adequate oxygen. It is true that morphine can help some respiratory distress, but the hospice representative presented it as an agent of sedation to stop the discomfort of shortness of breath. She had so many different reasons to offer morphine, it seemed she just couldn't wait to euthanize my mother.

My father will be speaking with a representative from a different hospice agency this evening. I have already spoken to a representative from this agency and found it to be much more in line with Catholic bioethical principles. It is a sad commentary on the state of Catholic health care when a secular for-profit hospice agency sounds more Catholic than the local Catholic agency.

Vocations and Discipleship

2011-02-07T16:08:00.003-05:00

This essay on vocations by Fr. Damian J. Ference hits all the right notes. First of all, Fr. Ference does not isolate the religious vocations. He includes marriage and chaste single life in his discussion. He understands that all vocations are the fruit of discipleship.

Millions of dollars have been spent by vocation offices on prayer cards, lesson plans, vocation week activities, homily helpers, discernment brochures, websites, and an array of other vocation promotion materials, but have these approaches really made a significant impact on our young people? Sadly, the answer is no. For all the effort that has been put into vocation awareness in recent history, our returns have not been very good, but it is not for lack of effort. Bishops, vocation directors, DREs, catechists and parents, have been working diligently to address the lack of vocations in the Church, but very little has changed. Sure, there are some orders and some diocesan seminaries that are doing better than others, but the overall vocation picture remains the same. It seems to me that the real problem is that we’ve misdiagnosed the vocation situation, and therefore, we’ve been spending all our time, effort and money on the wrong things. In other words, we’ve been treating the symptoms without ever recognizing the disease.

The root of our current vocation problem is a lack of discipleship. Of course, a disciple is one who encounters Jesus, repents, experiences conversion and then follows Jesus. All too often those of us in positions of Church leadership presume that all the folks in the pews on Sundays, all the children in our grade schools, high schools and PSR programs, all the kids in our youth groups, all the men in our Men’s Clubs and all the women in our Women’s Guilds, and all the members of our RCIA team are already disciples. Many are not. (The same can be said of staffs and faculties of Catholic institutions.) Our people may be very active in the programs of our parishes, schools and institutions, but unfortunately, such participation does not qualify for discipleship.

The answer to the crisis of all of our vocations comes from forming and strengthening disciples of Christ. As I wrote here, vocations are a natural response to understanding that we are servants of Our Lord. A man does not become a priest in order to serve himself, but rather to serve God by serving His Church. A man and a woman do not rightly enter into Holy Matrimony for their own benefit, but rather to love and serve God through the vocation of marriage. A woman does not enter a religious order to please herself, but rather to serve and please God. This desire to serve comes from knowing and loving Christ. Without this relationship to Christ, all of our good works will be empty actions devoid of any transcendent quality. Fr. Ference touches on this when he discusses youth groups.

Let us take the example of a parish youth group to serve as a microcosm for our current situation. A youth group has a similar structure to most parish groups, in that most parish groups identify themselves in four ways: spiritual, service-oriented, social and catechetical. For a parish youth group to be what it is supposed to be, the first priority of the group must be to make disciples of young people who do not know Jesus, and to make stronger disciples of the ones who already know him. Such a suggestion seems quite basic and even simplistic at first glance, but this is precisely the point. Far too often we as a Church have failed with the most basic principle of discipleship while loading up on service projects and social activities, and the parish youth group becomes just one more line on a young person’s college résumé, without ever calling that young person to real conversion.

Pope Benedict emphasizes the same point in his encyclical, Deus Caritas Est:

Individuals who care for those in need must first be professionally competent: they should be properly trained in what to do and how to do it, and committed to continuing care. Yet, while professional competence is a primary, fundamental requirement, it is not of itself sufficient. We are dealing with human beings, and human beings always need something more than technically proper care. They need humanity. They need heartfelt concern. Those who work for the Church's charitable organizations must be distinguished by the fact that they do not merely meet the needs of the moment, but they dedicate themselves to others with heartfelt concern, enabling them to experience the richness of their humanity. Consequently, in addition to their necessary professional training, these charity workers need a “formation of the heart”: they need to be led to that encounter with God in Christ which awakens their love and opens their spirits to others. As a result, love of neighbour will no longer be for them a commandment imposed, so to speak, from without, but a consequence deriving from their faith, a faith which becomes active through love (cf. Gal 5:6).

The final words spoken by Christ to the Apostles did not command them to alleviate earthly suffering. Rather Christ said:

"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age." (Mt. 28:19-20)

We are each charged to do the same.

Bargain hunting to make Mom proud

2011-02-07T11:07:00.006-05:00

My mother is still critically ill and in the ICU at MD Anderson. She has been hospitalized with acute leukemia since December 26. For over a month now her condition has been tenuous. As I mentioned here, I feel empty since I can no longer just pick up the phone and share a moment with her.

Yesterday I found a great deal on Craigslist. It is the perfect cabinet for a small space I have off my kitchen. It is sort of a mud room since it is the entrance off the garage. However, there is no door separating it from the kitchen so everything that gets tossed in there is clearly visible. Now I have a cabinet to hold dog food, dog dishes, first aid supplies, soft drinks, etc. I so wanted to call Mom and tell her about my find.

My mom loves a bargain. It must be genetic. Both my daughter and I love the thrill of a treasure hunt at the local garage sale or thrift shop. And we have found treasures: her prom dress; my china; a couple of paintings; lots of handy household items; and more than a few really great outfits.

I am very grateful my mother taught me that the value of our purchases has to do with their usefulness and not the store label that accompanies them. It seemed almost ironic the other day when the thrift shop cashier put my $8.00 worth of treasure in a used Nordstroms shopping bag. It was a very sturdy bag with secure handles. The name on the side did not make my dishes any prettier. But it did make the bargain seem a little sweeter. My mother would have loved it.

Aggie Catholics

2011-02-02T12:14:00.001-05:00

I am so proud of Texas A&M!

March for Life is about more than abortion

2011-01-24T11:30:00.003-05:00

For the first time in several years I will not be marching in Washington with the National March for Life. Family issues require me to stay close to home today. But I will be there in prayer and spirit. Thirty-eight years have passed since the infamous Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision and fifty million innocent human beings have been killed. Some may quibble with my characterization of the unborn as innocent human beings. Certainly most of those who have been aborted do not resemble the quintessential Gerber baby. Our current president asserted that it was above his pay grade to decide when life begins. Supreme Court Justice Blackmun apparently concurred as Fr. Araujo at Mirror of Justice relates:

First of all as I reread the decision penned by Justice Blackmun, I realize that he did not, contrary to the opinion of others, answer the question he posed about the personhood and the humanity of the unborn. As lawyers, we know that the use of language is important to the position we argue and then seek to justify. In a manner of speaking, Justice Blackmun posed the question about the status of the unborn, but he dodged the bullet when the trigger was pulled when he said, “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” (Italics added)

In spite of the fact that there may not have been consensus in 1973, Justice Blackmun was in a position to answer the question then just as we are today. Consensus is not essential to answer any difficult issue. Facts and objective reason, on the other hand, are crucial to the task. And what do the facts state: that the fertilized ovum is a new human. On that point, it is worth reflecting that each one of us was in this precise state in the earliest moment of our human existence. While in our mother, we were not simply of our mother. We were us and no other. We were different. We were separate. We were human. We were new. Objective reason helps us to understand these facts and to comprehend their significance about the meaning of being human and being person.

I would like to add to Fr. Araujo's well written essay. I teach anatomy and physiology at a secular institution. There are no revealed truths in this class. As Sgt. Friday would say, we deal in "just the facts". However, these facts unwaveringly declare that the nascent life within the womb is a living human being. What is the definition of life? Science says six characteristics define life. The first is metabolism. The embryo, from the first moment of its conception, supports itself with a complex array of chemical reactions. That is the definition of metabolism. The second is growth. There is no question that the embryo grows both by the addition of new cells as well as the enlargement of existing cells. The third characteristic that distinguishes living from non-living is responsiveness. This is not necessarily a conscious responsiveness. Rather it refers to the organism's ability to detect changes in the environment and react to these changes. Fourthly, a living organism moves. Movement of the whole organism as well as movement of organ systems or even cellular structures qualifies as a sign of life. Differentiation is the fifth hallmark of life. A living begins with non-specific stem cells that differentiate into more complex and more specialized cells. Finally, life is capable of reproduction. Again this refers to both the reproduction of the entire organism as well as the reproduction of cells within the organism. Based on these widely accepted scientific principles, there is no argument that the newly conceived embryo is a living being. This new life carries out these six life-defining processes independently of his mother. His mother supports, but does not direct these functions. Now that science has established the newly conceived embryo is a living being, the question to be asked is "What kind of being is this new life?" The only answer is that the newly conceived embryo is a living human being. He has his own unique DNA that defines him as a unique human being. There can be no argument that the embryo is a fully alive human being from the moment of his conception. The crux of the argument concerning abortion is whether or not more powerful human beings have the right to declare less powerful human beings as unworthy of life.

On this disturbing anniversary I want to point out that as grotesque and horrific the acceptance of abortion is, it is not the root evil. Abortion is a symptom of a much deeper issue. Man has forgotten the reason for his existence. Like Adam in the Garden, he has chosen to make himself like God and become the arbiter of life and death. This arrogance of a false enlightenment has been emerging for years. A pivotal moment that precipitated this modern fall was the 1930 Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion. At this gathering, the Anglicans became the first mainline Christian denomination to condone contraception within marriage. This changed the understanding of the marital relationship. No longer was sexual intimacy a partnership with God, open to new life. Rather, it was wholly human. It was stripped of its Divine purpose and became something banal and mundane. The attempt to separate the procreative aspects from the unitive aspects of sexual intimacy left a disordered view of sexuality in its wake. This is what prompted Pope Pius XI to issue his beautiful encyclical, Casti Connubii, on Christian Marriage on December 31, 1930. Similarly, the promulgation of oral contraceptive led Pope Paul VI to issue his prophetic encyclical, Humanae Vitae in 1969. Both men understood that when marriage became an avocation, a quest for earthly happiness, rather than a true vocation, a response to the calling of God, society would suffer. Contraception has allowed children to be viewed as commodities that are obtained at the whim of the parents for the benefit of the parents. Is it any wonder that this selfish perspective has degenerated from the prevention of pregnancies to the elimination of pregnancies?

Only when pregnancy and parenthood is viewed as wholly human and totally separate from God and His plan for salvation, can fifty million lives be quashed without protest. When some men believe they are wise enough to determine which lives are valuable and which lives are expendable the culture devolves into the oppression of the weak by the powerful. The classification of one life as unworthy leaves all lives vulnerable.

Prayers and Puppies

2011-01-15T11:50:00.002-05:00

Hazzard & Athena

There is a void in my heart right now. It became unexpectedly obvious after taking my dogs to the vet yesterday. Many of you whom I know from Facebook know that my mother is desperately ill. She has had a chronic leukemia for about two years and had been responding well to an oral chemotherapy. Managing her leukemia was no different than managing her blood pressure. All of that changed the day after Christmas. We were blessed on that day to celebrate the baptism of my first grandchild, Trinity, at the parish my parents attend in Katy, TX. That night my mother ran a fever and a trip to the ER revealed a transformation from chronic leukemia to acute leukemia. Her condition steadily deteriorated with one organ system after another causing difficulties. She is now in the ICU at MD Anderson Cancer Center. The good news is that she has been stable for several days. A day with nothing new going wrong is a good day. She is still critically ill, intubated, and sedated. The doctors say that there is still every reason to believe that she can turn the corner and make a recovery--IF, a very big IF--nothing new goes wrong.

Her condition also means that she is no longer just a phone call away. Funny, interesting, or joyful moments in my life often prompt a quick phone call to Mom so that she can share them. Special prayer needs also prompt a call because no one prays like Mom prays. I have a special prayer need right now that I cannot share with her. It feels so strange to not have her as a prayer partner. Yesterday, I took our two dogs to the vet. Joining us in the waiting room was a 9-month-old puppy. A very large 9-month-old puppy. He weighed in at 118 pounds. The interaction of the dogs was a comedy. It was the smaller of my dogs, my 60-pound lab, who wanted to wrestle with the behemoth. My mother would enjoy hearing about such an encounter.

So I will light a candle and appeal to Our Blessed Mother, especially as Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mary always seems most maternal under that title. She will pray with me. I might even tell her about the puppies.