Holy Mary, Mother of God

ChelseaPro Life, Religion1 Comment

Madonna of the StreetsHappy New Year, dear readers! Today Catholic’s celebrate the Blessed Virgin Mary in her most important role – Mother of God. Mother – is there any sweeter title in all the world?! Motherhood is the sublime calling for all women, without exception. Spiritually, biologically – maternity is, Alice von Hildebrand writes, the very soul of a woman. May all pregnant women imitate Our Lady’s gracious acceptance of new life and all women have recourse to this perfect example of authentic femininity.

“To be a mother, to feel maternally, means to turn especially to the helpless, to incline lovingly and helpfully to every small and weak thing upon the earth.”
~Gertrude von le Fort, The Eternal Woman

Introducing TOB Tuesdays

ChelseaTheology of the Body, TOB Tuesday2 Comments

If I had to pick my favorite post from the past year, I think it would be Jennifer Fulwiler’s (of Conversion Diary) post, How I Became Pro-Life. In it, Jen shares how, though recognizing the life of the child in the womb initially got her to think twice about her pro-choice position, she wasn’t fully able open her heart and mind “to the wonder and dignity of even the tiniest of my fellow human beings” until she “understood the nature of the act that creates these little lives in the first place.”

The root of the abortion problem, as I’m sure I’ve said here before, is a misunderstanding (if not a total rejection) of the truth and meaning of human sexuality. People did not wake up one day and decide they had the right to kill their own offspring. But they did progressively decide that it was their right to have sex without meaning, limit or, most importantly, consequence. Because of this, I want to make sure I touch on the Theology of the Body, JPII’s vision of the human person and what it means to be male and female, on a more regular basis – if only to share an article or a simple quote. I hope I can keep this up…

Since it is still Christmas, I thought I’d start by sharing Christopher West’s recent column on The Spousal Mystery of Christmas. Enjoy:

God sent his angel to Mary “in order to win her heart.” And on account of the “hidden delights” of his divine proposal, “she gave her consent.” He [St. Louis de Montfort] describes this glorious moment – when God proposed and Mary said “yes” – as “joy for the angels,” as “a sweet melody,” as the “Canticle of the New Testament, a delight for Mary, and glory for the Most Blessed Trinity.” This divine song is”a pure kiss of love” given to Mary, “a crimson rose, a precious pearl.” (True Devotion 252-253).

Then, groping for images to describe the invisible, immortal, eternal seed of God given to Mary (see 1 Pt 1:23), de Montfort writes of “dew falling from heaven” to make her fruitful. In this astounding moment, God poured a “chalice of ambrosia” into the virginal womb of his mystic-bride and, receiving this “divine nectar,” she conceived God’s own Son (see True Devotion 253)…

The Song of Songs teaches us – as does the spousal imagery throughout all of Scripture – that God wants to “marry” us. Furthermore, through this mystical marriage, the divine Bridegroom wants to fill us, “impregnate” us with divine life. In the Virgin Mary, this becomes a living reality. And this, as the Catechism says, is why “Mary goes before us all in the holiness that is the Church’s mystery as ‘the bride without spot or wrinkle’” (CCC 773).

Read more

“Come What May”

ChelseaAbortion, Activism, Supreme Court, video2 Comments

This film from the Advent Film Group looks interesting. The synopsis:

Caleb, a recent transfer to Patrick Henry College, teams up with Rachel to lead the college to the National Moot Court Championship. Along the way, he is caught in a moral tug-of-war between his parents – a newly Christian father, and a feminist Supreme Court attorney mother. As the PHC moot court team and the U.S. Supreme Court simultaneously grapple with legal cases involving abortion, Caleb clashes with his mother and his own conscience over difficult issues of truth and compromise in the intense world of college moot court.

The trailer:

With Obama as president, even if only for four years, you can pretty well bet that we’ll maintain a Roe favorable Supreme Court for the foreseeable future. But, how incredible would it be to see, even in a “mock court” setting, how the legal case against Roe might go down?

Come What May can be ordered on DVD from the Advent Film Group website

The Incomparable Value of Every Human Person

ChelseaFaith, Pro Life, ReligionLeave a Comment



null

    “[O]nly in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light” (Gaudium et Spes, 22)

As we celebrate the Incarnation this Christmas season it is a wonderful time to reflect on the meaning of human life for, as Vatican II goes on to say:

    “Christ…fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear” (ibid)

There are many things that the Word made flesh reveals to us about the mystery of humanity, but let’s just start with the very beginning. In 2004, Jill Stanek wrote a column for WND on The Embryonic Jesus Story:

Luke 1 tells about the first person besides Jesus’ mother and earthly father who recognized He was extraordinary – Jesus’ cousin John, while John was yet a fetus, and Jesus was but an embryo.

read more

nullThe New Testament accounts of the Annunciation and Visitation clearly reveal for Christians that not only does human life begin well before birth (as science also clearly supports and new technology allows us to see), but that God, when he sent His only Son to bless the whole world, uniquely blessed all human life from the very moment of its inception.

By His Incarnation, Christ intimately united Himself to the entire human race and showed us the incomparable value of every human person. Not only did Christ elect to take on our human nature, becoming like us in all things but sin, but he chose to begin his life on earth as the weakest and most defenseless among us, an unborn child. Because of this saving event we realize the splendor of all human life – including the unborn child and the unformed embryo.

Related and worth reading: A Christmas View of Abortion

Christian, Remember Your Dignity!

ChelseaPro Life1 Comment

nullThe Christmas season has officially begun! Let us remember not only our dignity as Christians, but the dignity of all human life on this the “birthday of life”:

“Dearly beloved, today our Savior is born; let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness.

No one is shut out from this joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing. Our Lord, victor over sin and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all. Let the saint rejoice as he sees the palm of victory at hand. Let the sinner be glad as he receives the offer of forgiveness. Let the pagan take courage as he is summoned to life…

Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.

Through the sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not drive away so great a guest by evil conduct and become again a slave to the devil, for your liberty was bought by the blood of Christ.”

– From Pope St. Leo the Great:

God bless you all this Christmas season!

The Life of the Sufferer Must be Affirmed

ChelseaAssisted Suicide, Death, Disabled, Euthanasia, Suffering2 Comments

In a post that I linked to a few weeks ago, Wesley Smith mentions a man he knew who was dying from ALS who, after years of depression and suicidal thoughts, eventually came out of his despair and learned to embrace his physically challenging life. According to Smith, who was one of his hospice caregivers, this transformation was the result of life affirming support from his family and church community. Before he died he wrote a column for the San Francisco Chronicle explaining how those who are sick and suffering need to (and I would submit really long to) be loved and supported in such a way that affirms their life and dignity as human beings.

Euthanasia advocates believe they are doing people like me a favor. They are not. The negative emotions toward the terminally ill and disabled generated by their advocacy is actually at the expense of the ‘dying’ and their families and friends, who often feel disheartened and without self assurance because of a false picture of what it is like to die created by these enthusiasts who prey on the misinformed.

What we, the terminally ill, need is exactly the opposite–to realize how important our lives are. And our loved ones, friends, and indeed society, need to help us feel that we are loved and appreciated unconditionally.

The experience of a traumatic, life altering injury or disease affects a person mentally and emotionally just has it affects them physically. Your whole world suddenly changes and, as few people can really relate to such an experience, very often you are alone in that world with all its pain and challenges – envying the physical freedom of others (or your pre-injury self) and feeling slightly worthless or at least inadequate by comparison. A great tragedy occurs then when you are further isolated by people who, in misguided compassion, pity you for all that you can’t do or the pain you must endure, and justify your feelings of worthlessness.

nullAs for me and my own post injury life, I did not get where I am today solely on my own personal conviction and will to live. Besides the sanctifying grace of God, I was helped in no small part by a family and community who loved and supported my life. Who helped me understand that my life was still worth living though it had been altered in a major way. Though I tried to keep myself optimistic, I had my moments of doubt and self pity and would have surely sank into deep depression and despair without those people showing me how much I had to live for.

We must not give in to the radical individualism of today’s society which calls us away from this kind of compassion that upholds the dignity of the human person by “respecting” a suffering person’s desire or “choice” to end their life. Suffering does not destroy human dignity, killing does. Unfortunately so many suffering people are encouraged to die when they are really searching for a reason to live. As I’ve said before, no human being, whatever situation they’re in, should ever feel that he or she has a worthless life. And if they do, it is our duty as family members, friends and society as a whole to assure them that their life still has meaning and infinite value.

Society’s View of Large Families, the Musical

ChelseaFamily1 Comment

This is great! A family of nine put to music all of the comments that they receive from people about the size of their family (h/t Jen):

See my previous post: Society’s View of Large Families

Pro Life Blog Awards Update

ChelseaPro Life3 Comments

American Life League’s Pro-Life Blog Awards have begun! Visit www.prolifeblogawards.com for more information.

Give the Gift of TOB!

ChelseaChastity, Sex, Sexuality, Theology of the Body

Folks, our culture is in desperate need of “sexual healing” as Christopher West explains in this brief video clip:

Help facilitate this healing by sharing the good news of the Theology of the Body this Christmas. One of the best resources is Christopher West’s book Good News About Sex and Marriage. I have given away a number of copies over the last few years and always keep a copy on hand for the next person I meet who needs it. It is good for TOB beginners and those who may be living outside the Church’s teaching on human sexuality because it answers very specific questions and objections that people have about her position.

A slightly more detailed introduction to TOB can be found in Theology of the Body for Beginners and, for those who may not take nullthe time to read a whole book, the 2 cd set God, Sex and the Meaning of Life (I have a copy of this on my computer, along with the even shorter and more simple And the Two Become One, that I burn and give to people just as frequently as Good News).

Straight Talk About Sex is a great talk for young adults in which Christopher West uses pop culture to explain how our culture has been fooled into accepting such a twisted view of sexuality.

Ascension Press has many other TOB materials to choose from, depending on your audience, including a Marriage preparation program, for any engaged couples you might know, Theology of the Body for Teens, a seminar for priests, talks specifically about men and women and so much more.

Parents, do not hesitate to read and listen to this material with your children! I was surprised at how many girls in my TOB study group at Ave Maria University said that they had listened to Christopher West talks with their mothers when they were in high school. Teaching our children purity can start even younger with these great books by Jennie Bishop: The Princess and the Kiss and The Squire and the Scroll. Lesson books are available for Bishop’s stories here and here.

Last but not least are Carmen Marcoux’s novels Arms of Love and Surrender about chastity and courtship. My aunt was so impressed by Arms of Love that she said that she will make it required reading for her homeschooled children!

It is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not help the young to accept and experience sexuality and love and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection (Evangelium Vitae n. 97)

Duggar’s Welcome Child #18

ChelseaCloning, Pro Life, Right to LifeLeave a Comment

Duggar FamilyIn total defiance of modern society, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have entrusted their entire “quiver” to God and just welcomed their 18th child – girl Jordyn. Below is an excerpt I posted last year from Our Sunday Visitor Editor Gerald Korson’s humorous take on society’s view of large families:

Here’s how society’s perception of family size appears from our side of the maternity ward:

Child No. 1: In today’s culture, everyone is entitled to have a chid. No problem there. It’s a birthright. It can be a boy or a girl – it doens’t matter.

Child No. 2: You’re allowed a second child, as long as it’s the opposite gender from your first. “How wonderful! You have one boy and one girl,” we heard when our second child came. “Now you can quit.” Quit? At 25, we’re done having kids?

Child No. 3: The culture allows you, if you insist, to have a third child, but only if you failed to get a matched set with the first two. Call it a mulligan. If you have two girls, you go for a boy; two boys, and you’re after a girl. if you blow it and get another of the same, too bad. You get no more do-overs.

Child No. 4: Now you’re just getting ridiculous, especially if the kids are close in age. You’re officially christined “Fertile Myrtle” and “Virile Cyril.” Knock it off.

Child No.5: People begin to suspect you are nuts. Or just plain irrisponsible. Or both.

Child No. 6: The diagnosis is confirmed. Besides, a family of eight is simply impractical. Most minivans seat seven. Now you need a full-size van or nine-passenger SUV, or one of those classic early 1980s station wagons with the fake wood panelings and the fold-down third bench seat (I recommend the 1983 Pontiac Parisienne).

Child No. 7: By now, anywhere you venture as a family, you are inevitably asked, “Are they all yours?” Take no offence. Between day-care, field trips and the proliferation of blended families, it’s actually a legitimate question.

Child No. 8: Since No. 5 you’ve been hearing that timelessly coarse quip, “Don’t you know what causes that?” You have permenant teeth marks on your toungue from trying to suppress snappy sarcastic replies. (One wouldn’t think of making remarks about fertility to couples with few or no children. Why are large families fair game?)

Child No. 9: Neighbors, strangers and even a few well meaning friends have pretty much given up on you long before now. They compare your progeny to sprting events: With nine, you’ve got a baseball team.

Child No. 10: You’ve gone American League and added a designated hitter.

Couples with large families aren’t necessarily better parents, better Catholics or more blessed than others. We’re simply blessed in a different way – and, like all persons of faith, we are called to raise up our blessings for the greater glory of God.

The Duggars can be seen on the TLC series “Seventeen Kids and Counting.”

Previous Post:
How Can There Be Too Many Children?
Becoming Better People, One Child at a Time
Society’s View of Large Families
Family Welcomes 17th Child