A Beautiful Christmas

A beautiful Christmas has just begun. That's right--begun. Today is only the beginning of the Christmas season, so don't take down the tree and lights just yet. Keep enjoying time with family. Spend quiet time reflecting on the miracle that is the birth of Jesus--God made man for the sake of our salvation. Of all the blessings I am counting, this one tops them all.

May you be so blessed this Christmas and in the coming year.

Beware the Dog House

You Did It To Me

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world your best anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway.

- Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Allowing the Author of Life to do the Writing...What a Beautiful Concept

Another beautiful homily by Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P., on the gift of children, the dignity of the human person, and leaving the creative act in the hands of the Creator.

(excerpt from "Dignitas Personae")

It is part of the dignity of the human person to be begotten, not made. Allowing God to arrange our genetics in the marital act of our parents is a way of giving God what is God’s. Our soul is created directly by God in the moment of conception. That is what makes that moment so special and sexual acts sacred. It is the place where the dignity of the human person emerges...

Certainly, there are some couples who cannot conceive in the normal way. But more recently many ways have been developed in which they can be helped with legitimate medical procedures and their number is therefore actually fairly low. If nothing helps, there will certainly be a painful cross; but we also should not forget about the possibilities of adoption, especially in a time where there are so many unwanted babies...

Children can be received only as a gift, not a right; we are living in a time where, paradoxically, this gift is rejected by many, while others want to receive it not as a gift, but as a right and as something of their own making.

A Mother Never Forgets Her Child

Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary: a day when we Catholics celebrate our belief that, from the moment of her conception, God created the Blessed Virgin Mary free from all stain of original sin.

This day is, of course, significant in and of itself. But for me, what makes this day particularly significant is that I am keenly aware of it.

You see, until recently, I have felt little to no connection to Mary whatsoever, and have reached out to her only in times of desperation. But since becoming a mother, my relationship with Our Heavenly Mother has begun to blossom. In my new state of life, she has finally become real, tangible, understandable--a role model. I now reach out to her for strength, guidance, and protection, not only for myself but for my daughter and our family. And she has not left me wanting.

I may have forgotten Mary all these years, but she has not forgotten me. And I understand why--she is a mother, MY mother, and a mother never forgets her own child. I have wandered far away from her, but she has always awaited my return with open arms.

Now I find great consolation, for the first time, in her loving arms. The rosary gives me strength, comfort, and guidance when I am frustrated, tired, or troubled. A simple, "Mary, what should I do?", provides me with almost instant peace and direction. And when I remember to start my day by giving myself to the care of her Immaculate Heart, she never fails to keep me close to Jesus throughout the day. Ultimately, I have found that the more I reach out to Mary, the closer she binds me to her son.

On this great feast day, I am grateful for my Heavenly Mother, and for her incredible patience and love towards me.

From one mother to another, Mary, thank you.

When I Grow Up I Wanna Be an Old Woman

I'm not the biggest fan of Kaiser Permanente, (or any HMO for that matter), but I have to say that they've got a great new ad campaign.



Our culture is obsessed with youth, to the point where aging is considered something to be avoided like the plague. But lets face it ladies--there's only one alternative to getting old...

I say rather than fight this process of getting wrinkles and watching certain parts of our body go south, we embrace it as the badge of honor it is.

So, OK...admittedly, I'm only in my 20's. Who am I, you ask, to talk about "aging"? But I, (along with many of my friends in their 20's and 30's,) have plenty of temptations to hate the parts of my body that don't look as they used to. Those of us in our so-called-youth still fight body image problems. If we don't re-adjust our attitude now, what's going to happen to us when the signs of our age become even more readily apparent?

Next time I have the urge to be critical of my body, I'm going to marvel at it instead--yes, even the stretch marks, the sun spots, the lines forming on my face, the scars, and especially that flabby ponch that so stubbornly hangs at my mid-section. Why, you ask? Because these are God-given signs of a life well-lived. Every stretch mark, every wrinkle, every scar tells a story of my life, and to wish any of them gone would be to wish a piece of my history removed.

Those stretch marks and that ponch are blessed reminders that my body has nurtured a little human being into existance. Those scars, reminders of clumsy moments of fun in my childhood. And what of the lines forming on my face, slowly but surely? They are visible signs of having experienced life to its fullest--both in moments of great joy and of great sadness.

A body free of blemishes in my old age would mean a life free of experience--so I'll take whatever blemishes I'm dealt, although I may do a few sit-ups along the way.

The "Seamless Garment" of Faith

A dear friend once asked me, "can you believe in God and simultaneously deny him?" After much thought, the answer I gave her literally changed the course of my life, as I realized in that moment how hypocritically I had been living. And as I read this homily, written by Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P., I was taken back to that moment when I knew that I could no longer believe in God in bits and pieces--I had to accept Him as a whole, or not at all:

(excerpts from "Faith is Necessary for Salvation")

...Faith [in God] is necessary for our healing as well, for our salvation. Without faith, nobody can be saved...

This is described wonderfully [in] the letter to the Hebrews, in the 11^th chapter. There it [says]: without faith it is impossible to please him [God], for anyone who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. So what we need is at least an implicit faith in God as our redeemer, and the readiness to accept everything he is going to reveal to us...

Faith is an attitude of trust, a trust that is ready to embrace all and everything that the heavenly Father is going to reveal. The patriarchs of the Old Testament had this trust. In our age, however, we sadly see that even those, to whom all of this has now been revealed, are not ready to embrace God’s revelation. Even those who claim to be Christians often claim the right to pick and choose among those things that God has revealed...

I think we need to be very clear that this is not a path that leads us to heaven. Without faith nobody can be saved. But a faith that willfully excludes something that God puts before us to be believed cannot be called faith...

We [know] and yet we do not accept. But that cannot be supernatural faith; it is at the most human credulity. Faith is a grace that cannot be had on our own terms, but only on God’s terms, and that is: as a whole or not at all. Everything else is not faith, but mere human opinion, our own subjective choice, picking and choosing according to our taste...

God’s revelation and all that is taught by the Church in matters of faith and morals, is one seamless garment. Everything hangs together, and you cannot have one without the other...

We can be at peace in knowing that God entrusted this faith to the Church as a whole. She in the meanwhile guards it, keeping it in her profession of faith, even where we do not grasp the whole...

We believe because of God’s authority who witnesses to the truth. He is the one in whom we believe, as well as the one whom we believe. We believe in a God whose witness is truthful, because he reveals to us nothing else but what he himself knows to be true.

A God Who Understands Our Suffering From Experience

A few nights ago on our local Catholic radio station, I tuned in to hear Fr. John Corapi leading the Sorrowful Mysteries of the rosary. Something he said in his reflection on the 4th Mystery, The Carrying of the Cross, really caught my attention.

He talked about Jesus' journey to the cross--a long, painful one. So often when I think of Christ's suffering and death on the cross, I forget the immense suffering He endured before He was crucified: first he was scourged, a torture that tore the flesh from His body with each lash of the whip. Then, while His sores were fresh, they covered him with a cloak and dug a crown of thorns into his head. It was at that point, weak, beaten and bleeding, that they forced Him to carry a heavy cross to His own crucifixion.

Fr. Corapi drew this beautiful parallel: like Jesus, it is often when we've had about all we can take that we are faced with an even greater obstacle--when we are confronted with the cross.

I find this to be so true in my own life, especially lately. The cross rarely comes when I am strong and feeling capable of carrying it. Rather, it comes when I am weakest and most prone to dropping it. The cross can come in many forms: great temptations, character flaws, physical or emotional suffering, or spiritual dryness.

Rather than follow my usual instinct, which is to either run from the cross or to try and carry it by myself, I need to follow the example of Jesus and allow someone to help me carry it. And that "someone" must be Him--He knows my pain even more intimately than I do, and He knows how to help me get through it. The suffering of Jesus shows me that God is not one who is distant from our pain, but one who understands it from experience.

It's Only Natural...the Law, that is

Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P., on Natural Law:

“What do you want me to do for you?”
He replied, “Lord, please let me see.”
Jesus told him, “Have sight; your faith has saved you.”
He immediately received his sight.

"This story is counter-cultural. Far from crying out for Jesus to make us seeing, the present culture seems intent on preserving its blindness.

There is, for example, the blindness for what is called the natural law. Natural law, as its name says, is a law that is inscribed in the nature of things. There is something in how things are that tells us how they should be: If we see a cat with only three legs, we know that these are only three legs, and that the cat rather ought to have four legs. It is the nature of the cat to have that many legs.

We ordinarily do perceive these things. Yet, we are less willing to acknowledge that there is something like a nature of things, when it becomes inconvenient. The same perception should, for example, tell us something about our very own nature. For the most part, we acknowledge our nature, for example, when it comes to health care: when we perceive that we are sick, we do see that we are not how we ought to be – just like the cat with the three legs. And so we go to the doctor. We also know that we should not overeat, because it is unhealthy and leads to physical states that are contrary to our nature. People also exercise to stay healthy, although here it might already get inconvenient, and we are therefore more ready to be in denial about what our nature is.

That denial, however, becomes most pronounced when we enter the realm of sexual ethics. That certain organs and their use are made by nature for the sake of procreation seems to unduly limit our freedom. And I am not only talking about gay marriage here, but also about contraception and quite generally the promiscuity of our society. Even pregnancy is changed from the preciousness of fertility into an accident, an illness that is to be taken care of by abortion, with the help of one’s health-insurance. Here the nature of things is turned into it’s very opposite.

Any appeal to the normative demands of the natural law, which in ordinary life is unwittingly accepted, suddenly starts to become something of an outrage. We will even hear the accusation of imposing our faith on other people.

But this not about faith at all. It is natural law, i.e., it is about nature, not about grace or the supernatural. We do not need faith to see that a cat with three legs is missing something. This is something that is accessible to all people who possess reason. We are therefore also held responsible for any violation of the natural law. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse; we are supposed to know.

When the man in the Gospel asks Jesus to see, Jesus tells him: your faith has saved you. Faith can indeed make us seeing, where we have become blind even to the things that we can know by nature and reason. But we ought to know them even apart from faith; that is itself part of our nature.

The natural law, I said, is a law inscribed into the nature of things. Who wrote it there? The one who made these natures. The one who made our natures, our bodies and brains as well. God himself wrote that law, and not just on the stone tablets of the 10 commandments, but into the nature of things as well as into the very flesh of our hearts, as St. Paul says. He is the lawgiver who obliges us to follow the law; but he also gives us a law that is our very own: if we break that law, we break ourselves.

If on the other hand, there is no God, if the way how cats are and how we are, is just the meaningless outcome of a Darwinist evolution, then there is no natural law. Modern science since Descartes has made an effort to describe reality in such a way, that it could be understood without God. That included the emphatic denial of something like the nature of things, i.e., of anything normative in reality. Everything therefore was open to the boundless manipulation by the new technologies that this modern science yielded.

This eliminated therefore the theoretical basis for natural law. And so we find ourselves indeed in the situation that Dostoevsky described, when he said: if there is no God, then everything is permitted. And the existentialist Jean Paul Sartre emphatically stated that this is not a bad thing, but rather the liberation of man.

What we are looking at is therefore ultimately the attempt to liberate man from God. Because if God exists, then reality has meaning, then it will reflect God’s design. There will be a nature of things that expresses the purpose of God; it will be something that we have to respect, be it in animals, endangered plant species or in ourselves. It will put limitations on what we can rightfully do with each other, with ourselves and with embryos. The very existence of God implies this.

The next battle that we will have to face will be therefore not just about abortion or gay marriage; it will be about the very existence of God himself, including our ability to teach children about him. You might think I am exaggerating. But the movement called “New Atheism” is already producing bestsellers like Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell. It is already making inroads in the academic world. Even at a “hardcore” Catholic College like Steubenville students are reported to have lost their faith after reading these books.

The authors of these books claim that religion is just an aberration of the evolution of our species that should be eliminated. One of the ways to eliminate it, is to forbid parents to teach their children any kind of religion. Dawkins and Dennett declare religious education for children to be a form of child abuse. I have no doubts that we will face even this battle in the near future. Already now God is pushed out of the public square, replaced not by something neutral – for there is no neutrality in these matters – but replaced by an atheistic faith, which is proclaimed by silence and absence.

As awful as this is, it puts the focus where it belongs: it is not about this or that moral issue, it is about the very existence of God. If there is no God, then there is no natural law that would put any limitation on our freedom. If on the other hand, God exists, then there will be ethical consequences that people are increasingly inclined to reject.

The question for us is: would we want to live in a society in which God is declared dead? Would we want to live in a society, in which everything is allowed, not just to ourselves, but also to others, including those in government? How would we live together at all, with no common nature to appeal to? And would we want to live in a society in which there is no guidance anymore regarding right and wrong, except majority votes? In other words, would we want to live in a society in which might is right?

In the name of what would we protest against injustices against the health and well-being of people, if not in the name of our nature, a nature created by God, a nature that expresses his designs and laws, a nature that wants to be well and ought to be well? The appeal to human rights becomes vacuous, if it is not concretized in natural law.

Could we even appeal to the freedom of choice of those who are oppressed? How is their will not just another part of their nature? Would it not just be another brute fact that gets in the way of our own freedom, something that can be just as well trumped by a stronger, but equally brute fact, that of the majority choice? And how about those who are too old or too young or too sick to exercise their free choice?

It would seem that the words that the first reading from the book of Revelation addresses to the Church at Ephesus are addressed to our culture as well:

Realize how far you have fallen.
Repent, and do the works you did at first.
Otherwise, I will come to you
and remove your lampstand from its place.

It would seem that we have all reason to cry out with the blind man in Jericho: Lord, please let me see! It is our gift as Catholics that we have a faith that makes us see what everyone should be able to see by the light of his conscience: the law of nature, which is an expression of God’s gracious will. It is a faith that cures us from our blindness. And by curing us it will help others to see as well: the Gospel tells us that the blind man immediately received his sight and followed him (Jesus), giving glory to God. When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God.

Those who perceive the natural law have overcome their blindness, they will follow Jesus, and they will know nothing less but God himself. And they will praise him."

Elton John says "Marriage" is for Heterosexuals

The gay community's going to let the sun go down on Elton John soon, if it hasn't already...

(Excerpt from an article in USA TODAY, Elton John: Where Prop 8 Went Wrong: )


Sir Elton John, accompanied by his longtime partner David Furnish, had some choice words about California's Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage that passed on Nov. 4.

In December 2005, John and Furnish tied the knot in a civil partnership ceremony in Windsor, England. But, clarified the singer, "We're not married. Let's get that right. We have a civil partnership. What is wrong with Proposition 8 is that they went for marriage. Marriage is going to put a lot of people off, the word marriage."

John and Furnish, and their two cocker spaniels Marilyn and Arthur, were in town for Monday's annual benefit for the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

"I don't want to be married. I'm very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership," said John. "The word marriage, I think, puts a lot of people off. You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships."

Straight-Talk on Homosexuality

Fr. Anselm Ramelow O.P. is a priest who takes seriously his duty to lead his flock. In these times of confusion, he is doing his part to set the record straight:

"As you are perfectly aware, the success Prop. 8 caused a lot of rebellion in this city; yesterday a group was demonstrating in front of the Cathedral, shouting obscenities, today there are demonstrations in various parts of California. Opponents still claim that “gay marriage” is a matter of rights, and they try to override Prop. 8 again, against the majority vote.
Since you will not get the Catholic position from the San Francisco Chronicle (at most they will give you a report on Catholic dissent), let me try to say something tonight (St. Leo the Great would certainly approve of this message).

The first thing is to let you know as Catholics about the teaching of the Church. Her perpetual teaching regarding homosexuality has not changed and indeed cannot and will not change:
To give you one clear statement, I am quoting n. 2357 of the CCC:
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

The Catechism gives several scripture references; I will only quote the passage from the first chapter of Romans to you, which relates this topic to the idolatry of pagan Rome, i.e. to a darkened sense of who God is (be prepared for some strong language; this is the word of God, though, and we need to hear it):
20 Ever since the creation of the world, his (God’s) invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse; 21 for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. 22 While claiming to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. 24 Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, 2627 and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper.

What does this mean? It means that sexuality cannot be divorced from our view of God. As John Paul II has explained in his theology of the body, the family and the sexual complementarity of man and woman are an image of the Trinity itself. When God says: let us make man in our image and likeness and: male and female he made them, then we are invited to see divine and sacred things in sexual relations. In the NT, marriage can therefore be elevated to a sacrament, reflecting the fertile relationship between Christ and his bride the Church; the Eucharist itself is the marriage banquet that celebrates our salvation. By contrast, if we follow St. Paul’s thought, then he is saying that homosexual relationships do not express this, but that they are rather proclaiming a totally different god, demon or idol.

While this is the understanding of the Catholic faith, it is not a matter of mere faith that we would impose on other people, but something that also follows from pure reason and the natural law: “gay marriage” in so far as it claims to be marriage, is about sexual acts. I.e., it is not about the love of friendship. That kind of love, the love of friendship, can, of course, exist in all sorts of relationships. Nobody denies that this will be a genuine good, but it is not marriage. The love of marriage on the other hand is of a different kind in that it integrates these aspects into a sexual relationship. It forms a bond of a very different kind than that between friends or parents and children, or grandparents, or caretakers and those entrusted to them.
Sexual acts by their nature are designed to produce offspring. Homosexual acts cannot do that, even though they are using the organs of procreation. In other words, it is an improper use of these organs. It can certainly never represent their normal function and intended situation. This is obvious for anyone who believes that this world and our bodies and their organs were created purposefully by an intelligent and loving God.
But it is even obvious to those who deny this, i.e. those who say that everything is the outcome of random mutation and natural selection; even Darwinists would agree that sexual organs are made for procreation.

Now the state has neither right nor duty nor interest to be involved in marriage, except because marriage is the place where future generations and citizens originate. In other words: the state is involved in marriage, because marriage is procreative. “Gay marriage” by its nature does not do that; it therefore has no more claim to special political recognition than any other kind of partnership, as for example grandparents living with their grandchildren or caretakers – for these there is no marriage either, even though they might feel love and affection for each other as well.

Now I am perfectly aware that there is a growing number of countries in this world, in which I would be thrown into jail for saying this, i.e. for preaching the faith of the Church. Go and try saying this, for example, in Sweden, Canada or Colombia. Without Prop. 8, this might become an issue in California as well. Broadcasting licenses for Catholic radio stations, for example, would be revoked, if they would present this Catholic position. Also, conscientious objection to hosting gay events or marriages or renting space for such occasions, or even declining to be professional photographers at these events will be impossible. Already now courts have fined photographers and others for their conscientious objection.

What that means is: Prop. 8 is not about the rights of gay people, but about our rights of free speech and conscientious objection.

Teachers at public schools, for example, do already have to teach children about the equality of gay relationships (Senate Bill 777). But surely no Catholic teacher can comply with this; rather, today’s Gospel would speak to this situation:
“Things that cause sin will inevitably occur,
but woe to the one through whom they occur.
It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck
and he be thrown into the sea
than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.
Be on your guard!"

Without Prop. 8, this situation would extend even to Catholic schools, which would otherwise lose their accreditation.

How about teaching your very own children? You cannot refrain from warning your children about false ideas about sexuality and the implied practices. Would you not scream, if you see your children running out on the street, into the moving traffic and being run over? Would you not defy anyone who tries to stop you from rescuing your child, just because it is not politically correct, or because others choose to claim as their right to run out into the moving traffic without looking?

Catholics do believe that there is that deathly traffic out there; and much worse than this, because that kind of traffic only kills the body. In other words: we do indeed believe that there is a hell and we do believe that homosexual acts would lead you there.

We therefore have not only the right but the duty to warn people about the danger they are putting themselves in. It should be a matter of charity and care to do so, not an act of hatred or homophobia. It is in fact the very teaching of the Church that rejects persecution of people with a homosexual orientation. Let me quote from the Catechism again:
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

There are, by the way, many people with same-sex attraction trying to live in this way, with the help of support groups like “Courage”, to whom I am actually one of the chaplains. We might also want to think, what we would be saying to people who are making this effort, if we were to advocate gay marriage: are we telling them that they are actually fools for trying to live according to the Gospel?

We certainly do not want to do that, as little as we want to discriminate people for their sexual orientation. But notice that the Church can say this without therefore implying a “right to marriage”, which is by its nature impossible. Much of what gay people are seeking can already be taken care of by civil union as it is. Any step beyond this would make claims on the rights of other parties involved, not the least those of children.

In other words, we are not here to take away any genuine rights or to insult anyone. But we are here to defend our own rights:
the right to disagree, i.e. the right to believe otherwise and to say so
the right to defend the salvation of our own souls through conscientious objection
the right to warn those entrusted to us, the faithful in the Church and the children at home or in our schools, through the exercise of free speech
and last, but by no means least, the right to be concerned for our brothers and sisters with same sex-attraction, who are endangering themselves, and whom we want to warn, so that they can be with us one day with God in heaven."

Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P.

I, for one, remain relentlessly hopeful

A few months back, after having had about all he could take, my husband looked at me from across the dining room table and said in a very matter-of-fact tone, "Why do you insist on being so relentlessly pessimistic?"

It had been "one of those days." The reality of the sinking economy, the ups and downs of the election, and some upsetting news about a friend had hit me all at once. So there at the table I let all the feelings of the day get the best of me, which took the form of contradicting just about every hopeful thing my poor husband was trying to say.

It wasn't until the next day that I came to grips with what was really going on inside of me. My husband, God help me, was right. (He's going to love hearing that!) Only I wouldn't call it "pessimism"--rather, I would say that I had lost my hope in God.

I don't blame myself for feeling down about all that's going on in this country right now. There's plenty to be depressed about. But I have everything to lose if I succumb to the feelings and forget the fact that Jesus has already conquered the darkness of this world. We are not waiting for the war against evil to be won--it has already been accomplished.

And so I, for one, choose to remain relentlessly hopeful in Jesus. HOPE is not a feeling--it is a person, and this person is God made flesh for the sake of our salvation. He is in charge of this mess we call "life on earth," and as crazy as it gets, He has a plan for it all.

They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love

For all we lost last night in the presidential race, we should be rejoicing in our victory—marriage between one man and one woman has been upheld in California!

California has spoken and it has said YES to traditional marriage, YES to family, YES to giving children both a mommy and a daddy, YES to protecting religious freedom, YES to protecting our schools and hospitals, YES to parental rights.

But we must also remember what California has not said...

To our brothers and sisters who experience same-sex attraction, we want you to know that we love you and wish for your happiness. Our YES vote on Proposition 8 was not a vote of “hate,” but a vote to uphold that which we treasure as sacred, and that is the union that God established to bring about new life—marriage between one man and one woman. We do not wish to take away your right to live and love as you choose. This right belongs to each of us, and is between us and God. But we do wish to keep the institution of marriage as it has always been, and to rebuild it to what it is meant to be—a permanent covenant of love between a man, a woman and God that is total, faithful, and fruitful. We do not believe it is in our capacity to change what God has created, and marriage is not a creation of man, it is a creation of God.

This victory for marriage should be celebrated, but should also be recognized for what it is—only the beginning of the work we have ahead of us. Now is not the time to become complacent. We have restored marriage for the time-being, but it hangs on a thread that if not reinforced will be easily cut.

We Christians must make some drastic changes, and make them fast. The state of marriage today is our own doing, and so it is up to us to undo it.

First and foremost, we need to drastically increase our prayer: the rosary, Eucharistic adoration, devotion to the Divine Mercy and consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus are just a few of the powerful weapons we have in our prayer arsenal. St. Paul reminds us that it is not man we are fighting against but the “principalities” and the “evil spirits in the Heavens,” and so we must put on the armor of Jesus Christ if we are to win the battle. Prayer is also essential in directing our hearts towards the will of God and giving us the power of His Divine Mercy and Love towards our brothers and sisters.

Second, we need to increase education about God's design for love and sexuality. It is without a doubt that misunderstanding and the absence of instruction on the meaning of sexuality are what have lead us to this point. We are in urgent need of leadership from our Church in this area, which will require great courage from our bishops and priests. It will not be an easy task for them, but Jesus promised us that following Him would not be easy. We need to pray for our church leaders and give them encouragement.

Third, we need to pray about how each of us can get involved in restoring marriage and sexuality, according to God's design. For those of us who are married, our first step must be to conform our own marriages to the will of God so that we may be able to speak of it to others from personal experience.

Last, but perhaps most importantly, we need to act with unfailing love and compassion towards our brothers and sisters who experience same-sex attraction. They will know we are Christians by our love, and so this we cannot compromise.

Some final thoughts before Election Day...

As we prepare to place our votes tomorrow, I leave you with some final thoughts on this election and a beautiful homily written by Fr. Anselm Ramelow O.P.:

On Proposition 8
"Regarding Proposition 8, which is supported by the California bishops (Cardinal Mahoney spent millions on a campaign in L.A.). I think it is important to know that after the court decision to recognize gay marriage, Catholics are legally in the same category as racists. That has immediate implications for the Catholic school system. You cannot get accreditation for racist schools. Catholic schools, since they would refuse to teach anything else on this issue than Catholic morality (and natural law for that matter), are in danger of losing their accreditation. It is not surprising that the bishops are alarmed. So please, think of the school in your parish and the many other schools that might have to close. Gay marriage is not about the rights of gay people (they have those through civil union already), but about our rights of freedom of speech and conscientious objection. I am also aware that I might find myself some day in jail for preaching or teaching Catholic morality (this is not an exaggeration, it happens already in other countries in Europe and in South America and is part of a universal development).

Think also of your brothers and sisters who are working in the health care professions. It might be the end of the Catholic hospital system. I talked to a young couple this morning, who are studying to be medical doctors in Stanford; they were quite desperate about this situation that will force into a system that does not allow any conscientious objection; already now they are under a lot of pressure at Stanford. They also expressed great worry about the fact that so many Catholics do not seem to know about this. One of the reasons I am writing this letter is that I have found myself more recently in situations where I had to try and help Catholic laypeople in making difficult moral choices, and I have gained the impression that we as clergy are leaving the lay people alone with their growing ethical concerns and problems."

A Homily by Fr. Anselm on the Feast of St. Martin de Porres

"Today we celebrate St. Martin de Porres, one of the 3 great Dominican Saints in Lima, Peru in the 16./17. century. He was a simple lay brother, caring for the poor and sick and even animals. So, he was someone who had a heart for what you may call the “underdog” or disadvantaged. He himself was one of those. Being the son of a Spaniard and a black woman, he had to struggle with racial prejudice. While skin color is no reason for either rejection or election, he certainly knew about discrimination. And with all of that he can be seen as a patron of social justice.

But there are other aspects to his life. He had a great love for God in the Eucharist, and he spent long hours and nights in prayer, especially for the souls in purgatory. That is, his sense for social justice was not only of one dimension. It also was giving God his due by worshiping him, and making the just reparations for those who had not given him his due, i.e., by praying for the souls in purgatory.

So let us pause and ask for a moment: what is justice? Justice is to give everyone “his or her due” (suum cuique, as the Latins say). We owe things to our neighbor, and we owe things to God as well. God and neighbor have both rights that we need to respect and serve.

But how do we acquire those rights that make, in justice, claims on others?

Mostly through work: if I do work for an employer, I deserve a just wage. If I plough a field, I have a claim to its fruits. If I make an artifact, I have the rights to it, including things like copyright. If I pick wild berries, they are mine. But it seems that not all rights are of the kind that is acquired by work. What about the right to health or, most fundamentally, the right to life? This is most fundamental, because, if we do not live, i.e. if we do not exist, we cannot work either, or acquire rights to other things.

So where do we get that right from?

I would suggest that it is actually not we who have the right to our life, because we are not the one who have worked for it. It is God, who worked for it, when he created us. He has the right to our life, and nobody else, neither we ourselves nor the government nor anyone else. That is why murder and suicide are equally a violation of the right to life.

There is a perpetual temptation to undermine this right by playing God ourselves. That might be one of the reasons why people are so intent on making human beings in their image and likeness, by cloning, by IVF, or by genetic engineering. Because, if it seems that you have made it, then it is yours, and you can also unmake, i.e. kill it, whenever you like. It would be your property after all, and you have the rights to it. This is only one way in which particularly the culture of our age has started to invade and challenge the most fundamental right, the right to life, something that is owned by God and therefore sacred.

If you can challenge this right, you can challenge all the other rights as well. If you think it legitimate to let innocent children die, who survive abortion, what reason can you give, not to torture non-innocent adults or submit them to the death penalty? If you can kill defenseless children, why not armored soldiers even in an unjust war? That is why being pro-life is not just one issue among others, but the foundation of all of them. This is also why the U.S. bishops list the issue of abortion first in their list of priorities for tomorrow’s election. That is, why the Declaration of Independence lists them in this order "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. You cannot have liberty and happiness unless you have life first. It is also why the bishops ask us to protect the place where this life emerges, marriage and the family; the place where sacred life begins is itself sacred. This is why the bishops urge you to vote Yes on Proposition 8 tomorrow.

It is sometimes said that one should not make one issue decisive, and that there is life after birth as well. And that is certainly true; nobody will deny that. But even many issues after birth are dependent on this right to life. What happens, for example, if a Freedom of Choice Act abolishes the right to conscientious objections for health care personal? Doctors and nurses will have to choose between their job and the eternal salvation of their immortal soul. That, too, is at stake. But more fundamentally: no, actually, there is no life after birth, if there is no life before birth first! The right to life is and remains the most fundamental right, because without it there are no other rights.

We have a right and duty to speak out on these matters. One cannot accuse the Church (or Pius XII) of not speaking out enough against the genocide of the Nazis (when it was dangerous to do so) and yet ask the Church to be silent (while we still have the right of free speech) in the face of 40-50 millions of abortions since Roe vs. Wade.

These are our brothers and sisters who are killed. We might meet them some day in heaven, and they will ask us, what we have done to protect them, or whether we have rather helped those who kill them. Don’t think that it is easy for me to say these things; I would rather not have to do it. But I would have to answer these questions myself one day, if I didn’t.

St. Martin de Porres, had he lived today, would have spoken out against it. He would have known that the abortion industry of Planned Parenthood purposefully targets minorities and people of color; he would have known that the abortion rate among black people is disproportionately high. In countries like India and China especially girls are targeted, but always it is the weak, the minorities the disadvantaged and disabled who are targeted. It is for these that St. Martin de Porres would speak up. It is itself a matter of social justice.

It is the blood of our brothers and sisters that is flowing, and it is crying out to heaven – to God, who is the creator and owner of all life. It is the blood that is common to all of us who are children of God, regardless of skin color or age. It is the blood that God not only created, but which he purchased at a great prize by giving for it his own blood on the cross. It puts on us the obligation to defend it, because it is the life of those who God, through his labor, created and redeemed; and it belongs to God alone."

A Frightening Parallel

My hat goes off to Uwe Siemon-Netto, of the Concordia Seminary Institute on Lay Vocation, for his recent article Remembering Collective Shame--he hits the nail right on the head:

(click on article title above for the full version--it's well worth the read)

(Excerpt)

"I am certain that in 1933 most Germans did not find the Nazis’ anti-Semitic rhetoric particularly attractive. What made them choose Hitler, then? It was the economy, stupid, and presumably injured national pride, and similar issues. This came to mind as I read the latest Faith in Life poll of issues Americans in general and white evangelicals in particular consider “very important” in this year’s elections.
...

Guess what? For both groups, the economy ranked first, while abortion was way down the list. Among Americans in general abortion took ninth and among white evangelicals seventh place, well below gas prices and health care.
...

What I am going to say next is going to make me many enemies, of this I am sure: Yes, there is a parallel between what has happened in Germany in 1933 and what is happening in America now. The legalized murder of 40 million fetuses since Roe v. Wade in 1973 will one day cause collective shame of huge proportions. So what if this wasn’t a “holocaust?” This term should remain reserved for another horror in history. But a genocide has been happening in the last 35 years, even if no liberators have shocked the world with photographs they snapped of the victims as the Allies did in Germany in 1945. And it has the open support of politicians running for office next month.
...

I agree it would be unscholarly to claim that what is happening in America and much of the Western world every day is “another holocaust.” No two historical events are exactly identical. So let’s leave the word “holocaust” where it belongs – next to Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Mauthausen. Still there are compelling parallels between today’s genocide and the Nazi crimes, for example:

1. Man presumes to decide which lives are worthy of living and which are not. “Lebensunwertes Leben” (life unworthy of living) was a Nazi “excuse” for killing mentally handicapped children and adults, a crime that preceded the holocaust committed against the Jews. Notice that today fetuses diagnosed with Downs Syndrome are often aborted as a matter of course in America and Europe.

2. In German-occupied territories, Jews and Gypsies were gassed for no other reason than that some people considered it inconvenient to have them around. Today, unborn children are often slaughtered because it is inconvenient for their mothers to bring their pregnancies to term.

3. Murder I is legally defined as killing another human being with malice and aforethought. The Nazis killed Jewish and Gypsies with deliberation – and maliciously. But what are we to think of babies being killed deliberately simply because they would be a nuisance if they were allowed to live? No malice here?

4. Ordinary Germans of the Nazi era were rightly chastised for not having come to their Jewish neighbors’ rescue when they were rounded up and sent to extermination camps. Ordinary Americans and Western Europeans might find the fad to kill babies disagreeable, but as we see from the Faith in Life poll, most have more pressing concerns.

Some future day Americans and Western Europeans will be asked why they allowed their children to be slaughtered. They would even have less of an excuse than Germans of my grandparents’ and parents’ generation. In Germany, you risked your life if you dared to come to the Jews’ rescue. In today’s democracies the worst that can happen to you is being ridiculed for being 'a Christian.'"

Proposition 8 is About Kids

Children have become the absolute last consideration when it comes to marriage. And it is heterosexual couples who have made marriage what it is today. No-fault divorce, cohabitation in place of marriage, an increase in out-of-wedlock births, and intentional single-parent families have created a sense that marriage is simply an optional contract in an array of choices.

Children have long suffered at the hands of adult selfishness. For many the foundation of love and security that should stand beneath them has been taken away; that foundation is a loving mother and father (man and woman) who are committed in marriage to love and honor each other and to love and care for their children for the rest of their lives. This is the original meaning of marriage, and I think we can all agree that this is the ideal. It is the ideal because it provides for each child, and therefore each person in society (as we were all children once), the security that comes with being loved and raised by the two people who created them and who have unbreakable bonds with them because of that connection. It is also the ideal because it provides for each child the balancing influence of both the male and female sex, which studies have shown is necessary for healthy development. When a child is deprived of either mother or father, there is a sense of loss that cannot be denied.

This is not to say that single, divorced, or homosexual parents cannot raise a child well, or even raise them to be better off than they might have been otherwise. But marriage between a man and a woman remains the ideal because it is the only union that provides committed mothers and fathers to children.

This is why, regardless of how badly we have destroyed marriage to this point, we need to uphold it and work to rebuild it to what it was always intended to be—not tear it down or redefine it. For once we need to think about what's in the best interest of our children, not just what we want for ourselves.

If we do not vote YES on Proposition 8, conditions that have always been considered unfortunate for a child will instead be called fortunate. We will not be able to acknowledge that children in homosexual marriages are missing something they long for, as the law will equate these unions with heterosexual marriage. It will become discriminatory to speak the truth that children need both a mother and father in their lives.

It's time to put the needs of our kids first, and vote YES on Proposition 8.

Catholics, it's time to face the music

How is it possible that so many of our Catholic brothers and sisters are still planning to place their vote for Barack Obama? The Church may not be allowed to come right out and name a particular candidate, but I sure can.

Have they not heard the Church's unanimous statements, from the Vatican down to the bishops, that there are no issues of greater moral importance than abortion and euthanasia??? If they have, why are they not listening? Do they think that these statements made by the Church are mere suggestions? Do they feel that their personal opinions are just as morally valid as those held by the Church, which was founded by Christ Himself? Do they think that voting their "conscience" means that they may dismiss the Church's teachings in place of their own "feelings" on an issue? The Church is very clear that our conscience must be "formed", and that means challenging ourselves to look deeper--not look the other way-- when we have personal qualms about something the Church is guiding us in.

So many are saying that abortion is not the only issue that poses a threat to human life and dignity, and are using this rhetoric to argue that in this election the issues of war, the economy and health care pose a greater threat to humanity in this country.

I ask you...HOW is that even possible?

How can the poor and the disenfranchised be helped if they are first denied the fundamental right to live? How can we talk about health care for everyone when we are not even protecting the lives of the most vulnerable? How can we honestly look at this war and say that it has caused more death and destruction to the human person than the killing of the innocent unborn through abortion? No one is saying that war isn't horrific--but one has to weigh the facts: Abortion is the direct, intentional killing of an innocent person; war is not. Innocent persons do die as a result of war, but their deaths are not the intended outcome, nor the target of attack.

Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton, PA. laid it all out when he recently crashed an election forum in his diocese:

"To begin, laws that protect abortion constitute injustice of the worst kind. They rest on several false claims including that there is no certainty regarding when life begins, that there is no certainty about when a fetus becomes a person, and that some human beings may be killed to advance the interests or convenience of others. Another argument goes like this: ‘As wrong as abortion is, I don't think it is the only relevant ‘life’ issue that should be considered when deciding for whom to vote.’ This reasoning is sound only if other issues carry the same moral weight as abortion does, such as in the case of euthanasia and destruction of embryos for research purposes. ... National Right to Life reports that 48.5 million abortions have been performed since 1973. One would be too many. No war, no natural disaster, no illness or disability has claimed so great a price. Even the Church’s just war theory has moral force because it is grounded in the principle that innocent human life must be protected and defended. Now, a person may, in good faith, misapply just war criteria leading him to mistakenly believe that an unjust war is just, but he or she still knows that innocent human life may not be harmed on purpose. A person who supports permissive abortion laws, however, rejects the truth that innocent human life may never be destroyed. This profound moral failure runs deeper and is more corrupting of the individual, and of the society, than any error in applying just war criteria to particular cases. No social issue has caused the death of 50 million people.”

The Church is giving us guidance here on issues of great importance--we need to take this seriously. Do we honestly think that we are better at discerning these matters on our own than the Church is? The Church, which we are part of because we believe (or at least should believe) has the guidance and protection of the Holy Spirit to lead us, free of error, in matters of Faith and Morals? If we do not believe this, WHY are we Catholics?

Neither candidate running for President is perfect. But one, Barack Obama, has promised to do more damage to life than we can possibly allow. In his outright failure to protect babies who have survived abortions through his opposition of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, and in his promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act as one of his first acts as President, Obama will do far more than just allow abortion to continue in this country. He will promote and expand abortion "rights" to prevent any possible reduction or elimination of abortion--a vote for Obama is a vote for more killing of the unborn. If you do not believe this, I urge you to look for yourself. I wouldn't make this stuff up.

Even if McCain does nothing to actually reverse abortion, he will do far less damage than Obama who has pledged to expand abortion. Obama will take us even further away from protecting the lives of the most innocent and weakest among us, which as Catholics must be our first priority.

Children teach us how to be joyful

A little boy sat in the shopping cart at the grocery store...

"VROOMMMMMM!" he said as his mother pushed him through the aisles, his hands holding an imaginary steering wheel. I learned from him that even the most mundane errands can be opportunities to use my imagination.

A little girl walked down the street with her mother ...

"La la la di da di da" she sang as she skipped to the tune in her head. I learned from her that it doesn't matter who's watching--live in the moment and sing if 'ya wanna. It's fun.

My baby girl, while snuggled in bed between my husband and I, rolled over into me and put one chubby hand on each side of my face. I woke up and saw two little blue eyes staring into mine. "Mommy, I love you!," she seemed to say through the most delighted smile. I learned from her that each moment with our loved ones is a moment to cherish, to delight in, to savor. A moment to stop and notice...to put your hands around.

When I stop and watch children, I learn how to live each moment joyfully. Unlike me, they don't worry themselves with what other people think, with the chores that await them, or with the many concerns of this world. They are unburdened and free to be fully in-the-moment.

We too have this freedom, if we live each moment with Jesus. Jesus tells us over and over in the Gospels not to be afraid, or anxious, or worried--to bring our cares to Him and let Him bear the burdens for us. He tells us, "for My yoke is easy, My burden light." This is how we have to become like little children, and how we will gain entrance into Heaven...by trusting everything to Him so that we can live every moment as He intends it.

Your Family Next...

Don't let anyone fool you into thinking this won't happen in California! If Prop 8 fails, your family will be next. Whether or not you agree with gay marriage, do you really want a system that denies your rights as a parent to choose the time and manner in which you will introduce these topics to your kids? Do you want to be criminalized for teaching your beliefs to your children?

Vote YES on Prop 8!

Answering the Call at 3:00 AM

During this presidential campaign, we have been told that it's important to elect someone who can handle the call that comes at 3:00 AM.

But I am not talking about that call. I am talking about the call that I get, just about every night, at 3:00 AM...the same call that most of us mom's get.

It's the voice of Jesus, in the form of a baby's cry, that calls out to me in the dead of sleep and says, "Wake up...come and love me."

Sometimes I have to listen carefully to hear Jesus, but it is He who calls me. It may sound like my daughter, but it is really my Lord.

"You can sleep when you're dead. Come and feed me."

"I'm sad. Come and comfort me."

"It's dark in here, and I'm lonely. I want you near me."

And so I rise from my sleep, weary with eyes half-shut, and shuffle in to pick up my baby girl. "I'm coming Jesus," I sometimes say. It's the way I remind myself that there is great holiness to be obtained in this job of motherhood--even in the littlest of moments, we are doing great things for Christ.

It's hard to answer the call night after night, but if I think about it these precious moments with Jesus, through the tender cuddles of my little one, won't last forever.

What better way to be spending 3:00 AM?

Obama's Promise to Extend Abortion "Rights"

If you think Obama will not really do anything to affect abortion in this country (other than keep things as they are), here he is, in his own words, promising to take action on this issue:


"The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do." -- Senator Barack Obama, speaking to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, July 17, 2007




And just what is the "Freedom of Choice Act?" Otherwise known as FOCA, H.R. 1964, (read the bill here) would, in the words of Planned Parenthood: "prohibit states from enacting laws intended to deny or interfere with a woman's fundamental right to choose an abortion."

If FOCA were to pass, we would lose the ability to enact any laws (or retain current laws) pertaining to: (read more here)

-- restriction of government funding of abortion.

-- prohibition of abortions in public hospitals. (The Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that such policies do not violate Roe v. Wade.)

-- any requirements that girls and women seeking abortion receive certain information on matters such as fetal development and alternatives to abortion, and then wait a specified period before the abortion is actually performed, usually 24 or 48 hours.

-- allowing doctors, nurses, or other state-licensed professionals, and hospitals or other health-care providers, to decline to provide or pay for abortions.


--parental or adult notification of a minor seeking an abortion.


And who knows...pro-lifers may even be restricted from praying near clinics as this could "interfere" with a woman's "right" to choose.

Our Kids, Their Agenda

Here is exactly why we must support Prop 8!

1st Graders in San Francisco taken to their teacher's lesbian "wedding" as a field trip

It's not even a matter of "when" you will lose your parental rights, because it is already happening.

Vote YES on Prop 8!

Marriage Matters to Kids!

Check out this wonderful video and pass it on to everyone you know!

http://www.marriagematterstokids.org/

Will our reasoning be enough?

If we believe that we can put the abortion issue aside this election in favor of other things we believe to hold "equal" or "greater" moral weight, what will the consequences be? Will our reasoning be enough to justify our actions when someday we meet the victims of abortion face to face?

There are two ways of thinking I wish to address: the first is the idea that even if you are personally against abortion, you should not "impose" this viewpoint on others--i.e. that abortion should remain legal. The second is the idea that even if you believe abortion is wrong and should be illegal, there are other issues of equal or higher importance that should take precedence. For many, abortion is a done-deal--unfortunate, yes, but not worth wasting your vote on.

To those who identify with the first: it seems your fundamental argument is not that the unborn are not human beings, (after all, science has unanimously disputed any claims to the contrary), but that the right of the woman to "choose" supersedes the right of the unborn to live. Here I ask you to consider the words of our dear late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II:

"The Holy See insistently proclaims that the first and most fundamental of all human rights is the right to life, and that when this right is denied all other rights are threatened. The assumption that abortion and euthanasia are human rights deserving legislative sanction is seen by the Holy See as a contradiction which amounts to a denial of the human dignity and freedom which the law is supposed to protect. A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members; and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying."

How are we to have any rights if we are first denied the right to live? And if the unborn person is undeniably a person, which he or she surely is, does abortion not single out the unborn as the only group denied this fundamental human right? What if a candidate were in favor of denying gays, minorities, or children who have just been born the right to life? (Oh, and by the way, we do have a candidate who is in favor of denying the just born the right to life.) Would we consider it "imposing our views" to speak out against the candidate? Would not that one viewpoint sway our vote even if the candidate held other opinions we agreed with?

Those who vote pro-life first are often accused of being single-issue voters, placing aside all other concerns. But pro-lifers are not unique in this--we all do it. The question is not whether you care for all issues equally or care for one issue alone, but which issue concerns you the most.

For those who identify with the second idea: I point you also to the words of the Holy Father. But I also want to address the issues of this election that are pulling your heart in other directions, as they are not without merit: the war in Iraq, the failing economy, care for the poor, illegal immigration and many others. These are all important issues, but when nearly 4,000 babies are aborted in this country every day, (over 1 million per year) all else pales in comparison. Our Church is very clear about this. And if we believe that a candidate who doesn't see the moral corruption in abortion can make sound moral judgements elsewhere, we are sadly mistaken. A candidate's seemingly good economic policy, or his promise to fund programs for the poor, or his plan to pull the troops from Iraq on a set time-table does not outweigh or excuse his view that this holocaust of abortion is morally acceptable. If babies are not people worthy of human rights and protection under the law, how can we expect sound protection of our own rights?

In a recent interview, Barack Obama sited Jesus' words "whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me," saying that the maxim should apply to victims of poverty, sexism and racism. And while none of us can disagree with him there, Obama misses the mark by a long-shot in his disregard for the absolute "least" among us--the unborn.

As Archbishop Chaput warns us, God willing, someday each of us will meet the victims of abortion in Heaven. As we stand face to face, what will we say to them? Will we be able to look them in the eye and defend our choices on earth without shame? Will we be able to say with confidence that we did all we could to protect them? Will our reasons for not defending them be sufficient to release us from any complicity in their deaths?

This November, challenge your heart, inform your conscience, and vote life first.