I think this is my all-time favorite TSO song. I could listen to the late Daryl Pediford sing for hours. Beautiful. And, unlike a lot of modern “Christmas” music that actually has very little to do with the holiday we are supposed to be celebrating, TSO never fails to get me in the mood for CHRISTmas. Just FIVE more days!!
What is your favorite Christmas song?
This image was hot around the pro-life/Catholic blogosphere (see here, for example) a few months ago. I love it! It’s been my Facebook profile picture since the beginning of Advent:
ADVENT PRAYER FOR LIFE
God of Life,
We rejoice in the promise of your coming.
You have sent your Son, born in Bethlehem.
He is the Prince of Peace, and
The one in whose name all oppression shall cease.
May we welcome his coming each day
And prepare for his coming at the end of time.
May we build a culture that welcomes him
By welcoming every child,
born and unborn.
We pray through the same
Christ our Lord,
Amen.
Just FIVE days left!! I don’t know about you, but to me this Advent seems to have gone by very quickly. This Thursday my family and I will be escaping the cold Mid West and flying down to South Florida for Christmas where two of my cousins will be baptized next Sunday (I’m gonna be a godmother!).
Please keep us in your prayers as we travel. While you’re at it, please say a prayer for my uncle and his family (a wife and 6 kids) in GA. Their house burned down Friday night. No one was killed or seriously injured, thank God, but there is little to nothing left to the house or what was in it.
Such a terrible thing to have to deal with at any time, but especially right before Christmas. It’s been a rough couple of months for them, in more ways than one. I’m just hoping this ends up being a blessing in disguise…somehow. If nothing else, perhaps they can just see this as an opportunity to help them grow closer to Christ this Christmas as they can now kind of relate to the poverty of the Holy Family the night Jesus was born.
What are your plans this Christmas? I will be sure to say a prayer to St. Raphael for those of you who will be traveling as well!
For the past six years the federal government has been funding abortion organizations, to the tune of $1 BILLION. So, it should come as no big surprise that, according to Planned Parenthood’s recently released 2008-2009 Annual Report, you, the tax payer, are one of the largest financial contributors to America’s largest abortion provider. It may not be a big surprise, but it should still piss off anyone who is apposed to abortion especially considering that number of children killed behind PP’s doors continues to rise as the amount of your money they receive continues to rise:
What else are your tax dollars supporting according to PP’s report? Ninety percent of the “health care” provided by PP is centered around pregnancy and disease prevention through comprehensive sex education…like showing girls how to put on a condom and encouraging our young people to “be sexy and healthy” (images from the annual report):
PP must be de-funded – for all services. It’s wishful thinking, I know, considering the abortion giant has been well funded with our tax dollars under both Democrat and Republican controlled Houses and Presidencies over the years. But it’s what needs to be done, not only in the interest of respecting the deeply held beliefs of many of America’s taxpayers, but also for saving unborn lives and really protecting our young people.
At RedState, Susan B. Anthony List president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, has a good summary of what’s “behind the colorful graphics and happy faces” of the PP report, as does National Right to Life.
The things you come across while surfing the web:
Kinda weird, but I suppose it’s nice that “Noelle” and her robot fetus are being used to help learn how to deliver babies and not kill them before they’re born.
I’ve posted on this story a few times in the last two years (here and here) and now it’s back in the news. In 2008 an American with HIV living in Berlin seemed to have been cured of the disease after receiving a bone marrow transplant to treat his leukemia. Now the identity of that American has been made known and a new report has been published claiming that there is evidence in this patient for a “cure” for HIV infection using the selective adult stem cell transplant. This is exciting news, to say the least, but Dr. Prentice warns:
The published evidence seems sound, but caution should be exercised. This is not a gentle procedure. Moreover, it relies on finding a bone marrow adult stem cell donor with the particular mutation, so that their donated cells lack the CCR5 receptor.
In other adult stem cell news, a quadriplegic donkey is walking again thanks to bone marrow from a Thoroughbred racehorse. Dr. Prentice has all the details on that one.
Awful. In Canada a couple opted to have one of their unborn children killed for no other reason than that having twins just did not fit into the “perfect” life they had laid out for themselves (h/t Rebecca Taylor). From the National Post:
Like so many other couples these days, the Toronto-area business executive and her husband put off having children for years as they built successful careers. Both parents were in their 40s — and their first son just over a year old — when this spring the woman became pregnant a second time. Seven weeks in, an ultrasound revealed the Burlington, Ont., resident was carrying twins. “It came as a complete shock,” said the mother, who asked not to be named. “We’re both career people. If we were going to have three children two years apart, someone else was going to be raising our kids. … All of a sudden our lives as we know them and as we like to lead them, are not going to happen.”
She soon discovered another option: Doctors could “reduce” the pregnancy from twins to a singleton through a little-known procedure that eliminates selected fetuses — and has become increasingly common in the past two decades amid a boom in the number of multiple pregnancies….
The Burlington woman, however, says she has no regrets, and believes the option should be openly available to all parents expecting twins.
“I’m absolutely sure I did the right thing,” she said. “I had read some online forums, people were speaking of grieving, feeling a sense of loss. I didn’t feel any of that. Not that I’m a cruel, bitter person … I just didn’t feel I would be able to care for (twins) in a way that I wanted to.”
AAAHHHH!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE!!?? Of course, this couple’s reason for killing one of their unborn twins, inconvenience, is the main reason women who are only pregnant with one child get abortions in general, and it perfectly illustrates what I said a few weeks ago: the culture of death is driven by that Original Sin that just won’t go away – human pride. By basing one’s life and morals according to the “magesterium of me” to the extent that even life itself is valued less than love of comfort and control.
Now, we all fall into pride from time to time. When things happen beyond our control we understandably feel helpless, vulnerable – weak. But instead of trying to regain control by forcing our own will, especially when that violates our own personal human dignity or that of another, in these situations it would be more beneficial to listen to the words of our Lord to St. Paul and his response:
“My grace is sufficient for you for power is made perfect in weakness. I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me, for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinth 12:9-10)
In this is true strength, that we learn to abandon our own will and embrace the will of God, even if it does not make sense to us. Then we will be sustained by the Author of all life, free from our own selfish pride and able to endure affliction, hardship, inconvenience with a smile. God knows what is best for us.
“The Lord is good because he often does not give us what we desire, in order to give us something we would prefer” -St. Jerome, Epist. ad Paulinum
That is, provided we are willing to see and accept it with the right attitude, trusting God in all things.
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The Beauty of Human Weakness
The Theology of the Body Institute has a great testimony from a couple whose marriage was wounded by pornography addiction and how it has been transformed through the teachings of TOB:
We are a couple whose marriage barely survived my addiction to pornography. Through God’s grace, we found Dr. Douglas Weiss’s counseling center for pornography addiction in 2004, which brought us out of the crisis and helped me to experience sobriety. After several years of couple’s counseling and 12-step groups, I was rebuilding trust with Beth, but I lacked a Catholic vision of the beauty and sacredness of marital sexuality. In 2006, we attended a presentation by Christopher West, and I began to study Theology of the Body resources. As I spent more time with Pope John Paul II’s amazing insights, my vision of sexuality was transformed, and my respect and tenderness for Beth was greatly deepened.
When you think of the opposite of love, hate naturally comes to mind – violence, terrorism, war, etc… And that’s certainly true to some extent. But, if true love means total self donation and affirming the dignity of the person, the opposite of love is not so much hate, but use – using another person for one’s own selfish gratification. This way of treating other human beings on a regular basis – even through a computer or in one’s own mind – kills love.
This summer I listened to some great commentary on Bishop Finn’s pastoral letter “Blessed are the Pure in Heart” (BATPH) on the dignity of the human person and the dangers of pornography. That’s right, the danger. While many think that viewing pornography is something “private” that “isn’t hurting anybody”, it profoundly affects the moral fiber of our society and the well-being of families. Pornography is a serious attack on human dignity in general and does “grave injury” (BATPH) to the dignity of all persons involved in the production, purchase and viewing of pornography. It affects not only their spiritual and emotional well being, but can also harm them physically, with STDs, as well as financially when one spends endless amounts of money purchasing pornography.
Adults aren’t the only ones in danger. According to some statistics, the average age at which a child first sees porn online is 11 with 90 percent of children ages 8-16 have viewed pornography online!
According to a recent article in Our Sunday Visitor, priests cite viewing porn as “the No. 1 sin they are hearing from men in the confessional.” And I’d be willing to bet that the number of men not confessing it is even higher. If you or someone you know is addicted to pornography, do pick up Bishop Finn’s Pastoral Letter which is really not that long. It would make a good gift (if you’re close enough for that sort of thing) or a good resource for you to understand the gravity of this kind of behavior. This commentary on the Bishop’s letter, from Peter Kleponis, licensed clinical therapist and nationally certified counselor from the Institute of Marital Healing, and Fr. Kevin Barrett, Chaplain of the Apostolate for Family Consecration, is helpful as well.
If you’re looking for a good internet filter for your family (or one just to keep yourself safe) check out CovenantEyes.com
For more on human beings as objects of use – which is not just about pornography but any time the marital act is used as merely a means of satisfying the sexual urge – see Dale O’Leary’s columns that are linked to in this post.
I just couldn’t resist getting a pic of this precious little guy sleeping soundly in the pew in front of me at Mass yesterday:
This one is my friend’s little boy who was born about a month ago. He looks so completely comfortable and, yet, not at the same time:
I just found out that another good friend of mine gave birth to her second baby today, so stay tuned for even more cuteness some time soon!
Jill Stanek has a great round-up of this weekend’s pro-life related articles. The one that peeked my interest: “28 Revolting Quotes That Define the Pro-Abortion Left” at NewsRealblog.com. The worst this time of year has to be this one from The Abortioners encouraging readers to help poor pregnant women get abortions this Christmas season:
Unfortunately, this time of year can be particularly difficult and trying for low-income women who are pregnant. Like most, they too are in the process of holiday shopping. Many of these women already have children and are already at or below the federal poverty line. They are already scraping by. Trying to make Christmas happen for their kids is going to be hard enough as it is…one way many of these women seek additional assistance is through local abortion funds. They can tremendously help out these women in very desperate situations.
Riiight, because, as NewsReal post author Megan Fox sarcastically put to, “nothing celebrates the season of our Lord’s birth more than ending another innocent baby’s life.” Sick.
You know, I thought it was bad when I was protesting at Columbia’s friendly neighborhood killing center and a pro-abort yelled out the window as he drove past us, “babies are tasty!” But that guy was just trying to get a rise out of us…I think. These people are serious about their love for the taste of human baby blood! Check out the rest (if you can stomach it).
Sorry, I know this is not the most uplifting way to start the work week here. Don’t worry. I’ve got a cute baby post coming up that’s sure to put a smile on your face, or at least make you feel a little better about the world we live in. If you can’t wait; do yourself a solid and head over to: Awkward Pregnancy Photos (another Stanek find). Hilarious!
Happy feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn and Mother of the Americas!
Oh Mary, Mother of Jesus and Mother of Life,
We honor you as Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Thank you for pointing us to Jesus your Son,
The only Savior and hope of the world.
Renew our hope in him,
That we all may have the courage to say Yes to life,
And to defend those children in danger of abortion.
Give us your compassion
To reach out to those tempted to abort,
And to those suffering from a past abortion.
Lead us to the day when abortion
Will be a sad, past chapter in our history.
Keep us close to Jesus, the Life of the World,
Who is Lord forever and ever. Amen.
(via Priests for Life – Click here for Spanish — En Español)