It’s not out yet, but you can go to www.belladvd.com and enter to win a free DVD autographed by the lead actors. Bella should be out on DVD May 6. Pass it on.
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The Swell Bella Fellas, on a Mission for God
Happy Easter!
Rejoice in the Risen Christ!
Christ is Risen (Luke 24:1-35)
But at daybreak on the first day of the week they took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb; but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, “Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.” And they remembered his words. Then they returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others. The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James; the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles, but their story seemed like nonsense and they did not believe them.
But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone; then he went home amazed at what had happened.
Now that very day two of them were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?” And he replied to them, “What sort of things?” They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures.
As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther. But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning (within us) while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
The Paradox of the Cross
In today’s culture it is considered loving for families to end the lives of their loved ones instead of allowing them to suffer and thus to suffer with them. We kill the unborn instead of giving birth to a disabled child, we starve and dehydrate the severely handicapped who are unable to communicate with us, and we hasten the death of the elderly and the terminally ill. All to avoid or eradicate suffering. But is this true love?
Mother Teresa once said that true love means to “give until it hurts.” This is the true meaning of “consolation”. In his encyclical, Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict explains that the Latin word con-solatio, consolation, “suggests being with the other in his solitude, so that it ceases to be solitude” (para, 38). True love means sacrifice – sacrifice which requires the renunciation of self in such a way that we not only love the one who suffers, but we actually take on another’s suffering as our very own.
Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love. (38)
To become a person who truly loves is to suffer with the other and for others out of love. There is another quote from Mother Teresa that goes:
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.
This is the paradox of the Cross which we celebrate today. Love grows through suffering. Mother Teresa surely lived this out in her work with the poorest of the poor, no doubt using for herself the model of Christ’s Passion and death which is the model of true love and consolation. As Pope Benedict writes:
God cannot suffer, but he can suffer with. Man is worth so much to God that he himself became man in order to suffer with man in an utterly real way—in flesh and blood—as is revealed to us in the account of Jesus’ Passion. Hence in all human suffering we are joined by one who experiences and carries that suffering with us; hence con-solatio is present in all suffering, the consolation of God’s compassionate love—and so the star of hope rises (39)
The Cross is for Christ a burden of love for all humankind. We are called to this same love as Christ has said, “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you” (John 15:12). There is “no greater love” than to lay down one’s life for another and, I would say, to “suffer with” the other. By taking up our own crosses and those of our suffering brothers and sisters, uniting them with the Cross of our Salvation, not only will all truly be consoled, but also our love, and our capacity to love more, will grow as a result.
If we ever want to see the image of true love, we have only to gaze upon the Cross.
News Flash: Abortion Hurts Women
Pro-lifers and many post-abortive women have been saying this for years, of course and now others are catching on. In the UK the Royal College of Psychiatrists warns that abortion can lead to mental illness. Here is a response to the story from a NJ woman:
Life as I knew it ended with the untimely co-erced abortion of my daughter, Sara, who would turn 17 next October had she been allowed to live. Her father moved on (thank you, God), married (unhappily, I hear) & had 3 MORE children, oblivious to the destructive force of his pressure on me to end our daughter’s life. I think the abortion’s effects in his life were also deleterious.
Men support abortion far more than women, for financial reasons and responsibilty factors already blogged.
All that said, countless women who think they made the decision of their own volition continue to experience Post-Abortion Trauma issues. Even poor-choice folks can suffer grave psychological distress from ending their child’s life.
The reason? We are supposed to protect our children. To do anything but is to fly in the face of everything hard-wired into the human spirit and our instrinct to survive as a species.
It’s time the medical community and the media reported the truth.
Don’t expect Planned Parenthood to pick up on this however. Very often abortion clinics downplay the emotional and mental side effects and say that they are either a myth, an exception to what most “normal” women experience after abortion, or the symptom of a preexisting mental or emotional condition. From the PP website:
Serious, long-term emotional problems after abortion are rare — they are about as likely as after childbirth. Most women feel relieved. Some women experience anger, regret, guilt, or sadness for a short time. Sudden hormonal changes may intensify these feelings.
You are more likely to have long-term emotional problems after abortion if you had emotional problems before your pregnancy. You are more likely to experience serious regrets if you have strong religious feelings against it. Be sure to examine your moral concerns before choosing abortion. You may want to seek counseling counseling is available before and after abortion.
But it is inevitable that abortion will have a negative impact on a woman if not physically, mentally or emotionally, then spiritually. As Mother Teresa told the world in 1994:
By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems.
If she never confronts what she has done by directly killing her own child, her ability to love herself and others may be greatly diminished, if not permanently damaged.
For more on the harmful (and deadly) effects of abortion on women check out Real Choice.
See also:
British Woman Committed Suicide After Abortion of Twins Over Extreme Grief
Study Finds Women Who Have Abortions Experience Post-Traumatic Stress
For post-abortion healing visit:
Project Rachel
or any of these other support and recovery groups – including some for men
Jesus and Stem Cells?
Adult Stem Cell Awareness has is an interesting story from Bill Schneeberger, the founder of BoGo Wines, whose proceeds go to support adult stem cell research. On an airplane recently he spoke with a woman who admitted that she didn’t know whether or not she had any stem cells in her own body. Bill goes around the country promoting BOGO Wines and speaking about ASC research, but this really awakened him to the people’s ignorance of stem cells.
Check it out: Jesus of Nazareth and Stem Cells
If you have not yet done any almsgiving for Lent, there are still a few days left. Why not help promote ethical stem cell research by ordering some BOBO Wine or Two Hearts Confections or donating to the John Paul II Stem Cell Research Institute?
“Growing…Growing…Gone”
Those are the words on this year’s National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day shirt. This year NPLTD is April 29, so now is a good time to start organizing your youth groups or other church/pro-life groups to order t-shirts if you haven’t done so already.
NPLTD is organized by American Life League with the intent to increase awareness of abortion and the reality of how many innocent babies are murdered every day. Part of creating a culture of life involves raising awareness to the personhood of the unborn and fighting to have the basic right to life extended to these innocent human beings.
The T-shirt Day website has some helpful information for anyone wishing to wear it at a public school including a link to a letter from ALL’s legal department about PLTD and your free speech rights in school.
Also, if you do participate, please send me pictures of you, your friends, your church group, or students wearing the t-shirts at school or out in public and I will post them on this website. This is a great way to show your committment to fight for the rights of the unborn and to be witness to others.
Send pictures to chelsea@zimmcomm.biz
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Pro-Life T-Shirt Day
The Real Booming Stem Cell Business
While most states are in a race to stimulate their economy by throwing hundreds of thousands and even billions of dollars into unethical and unproven research involving the use and destruction of human life the market for adult stem cells is multiplying rapidly and investors are taking notice. From the Chicago Tribune:
A gathering known as the Stem Cell Summit might sound so controversial it would need a steely moderator, or even police protection, so politically delicate is the science of using embryos in medical research.
But this affair at the Hilton New York on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan was all business because while the research community remains interested in embryonic stem cells, these days the focus is on the potential uses of adult stem cells, where it turns out that significant progress is being made away from the political spotlight.
Progress that is helping human patients in several clinical trials today:
“About 11,000 people have been treated in the U.S. with stem cell products in the last two years,” Robin Young, a financial analyst who follows the stem cell industry, told more than 250 institutional investors and Wall Street firm representatives at the summit in New York last month. “Virtually all of the therapeutic stem cells that are or will soon be commercialized are adult stem cells,” Young said.
Yes, the United States is treating patients with stem cells, isn’t that the goal of stem cell research?:
“One of the pieces of rhetoric you hear all of the time is that the U.S. is far behind in stem cell research because of this or that but the fact is, we are not only the furthest along in the U.S., but the world,” said Randal Mills, chief executive of Osiris Therapeutics Inc., who some call the Bill Gates of the stem cell industry…
“We are practicing cellular therapy today and people wouldn’t be alive if it were not for these therapies,” said Kenneth Giacin, chief executive of StemCyte, which manages a cord blood cell bank and database for patients needing a transplant.
Not only that, but the ACS research business is booming. Osiris’ Osteocel, which is a bone marrow treatment that stimulates bone growth, saw their sales jump 83% in the last year and StemCyte Inc. is seeing its revenue grow 50 to 70 percent annually.
We may not exactly be “leading the world” in ASC research as Mr. Mills suggests, there are still plenty of people leaving the country such treatments. But more and more American scientists and investors are picking up on this truly life saving area of research and successfully working together to fund and discover new uses for these amazing stem cells. If only our politicians and news media would pay attention and let go of their obsession with research that destroys human life with little to no progress to show for itself.
Read more about these and other stem cell companies and their plans for future clinical trials to develop treatments for heart failure and breast reconstructive surgery.
More:
ABC News Medical Minute: Stem Cell Research Grows Up (video)
“A Cellular Approach”
ASC vs. ESC research scorecard
Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cells Help Brain Function in Mice
States Take Sides on Stem Cell Research
Sam Lee, Campaigning for Life
I am back from retreat and ready to face the world yet again (with the help of God’s grace).
Before I left I got a copy of the latest Townhall magazine in the mail and was surprised to see a fellow Missouri pro-life activist highlighted inside. Sam Lee has been active in pro-life politics for the last 24 years. He is a lobbyist and the head of Campaign Life Missouri in St. Louis. He is always at the State Capitol either testifying in committee hearing for pro-life legislation or encouraging the legislators themselves to support, or reject, certain bills that relate to life issues.
His dedication to life doesn’t end with politics either. In 1992 Lee co-founded Our Lady’s Inn, a residential facility for women facing crisis pregnancies. His wife, Gloria, serves as the center’s director. He also has an email list (which I am on) to which he dutifully sends out any and all news articles he finds that cover the various life issues.
I couldn’t find the article online so I scanned it. If you click on the picture here you can view it full size so that the words are readable.
On Retreat
Every year I go on retreat about this time. It’s lead by the women’s Opus Dei center in St. Louis. I’ve been going for a number of years now and I love them. They’re silent, reflective and much needed. I especially enjoy it when it comes so close to Holy Week. So I will be on retreat starting this evening until Sunday afternoon. Please pray for me! I will be praying for all of my readers!
Though I am not a “member” of Opus Dei, I do love and follow the basic spirituality of the prelature – holiness in daily life and the sanctification of work. My father is a “cooperator”. The book, Passionately Loving the World, a sermon by founder St. Josemaria Escriva, best describes the focus of Opus Dei.
Peace to you all!
Chelsea
Defending Life and Dignity
From a recent column by Dr. Leon Kass in the Weekly Standard:
Three important values, differently weighted by the contending sides, were (and are) at issue in the debates about cloning and embryonic stem cells: scientific and medical progress, the sanctity of human life, and human dignity. We seek to cure disease and relieve suffering through vigorous research, conducted within acceptable moral boundaries. We seek to protect vulnerable human life against destruction and exploitation. We seek to defend human procreation against degrading reproductive practices–such as cloning or embryo fusing–that would deny children their due descent from one father and one mother and their right not to be “manufactured.”
Embryonic stem cell research pits the first value against the second. Many upholders of the sanctity of human life regard embryo destruction as unethical even if medical good may come of it; many partisans of medical research, denying to nascent human life the same respect they give to life after birth, regard cures for disease as morally imperative even if moral harm may come of it. But the deepest challenge posed by cloning has to do not with saving life or avoiding death, but with human dignity, and the cloning issue is therefore only accidentally bound up with the battle about stem cell research. Yet both parties to the stem cell debate happily turned the cloning controversy into the life controversy.
Read more as Dr. Kass analyzes previous failed attempts to ban cloning in the US, how recent scientific breakthroughs have both made cloning irrelevant to science and a ban on cloning more urgent than ever, and offers a three pronged approach to finally ban human cloning in our country.