Adding Examples of Jesus and Mary in our Daily Life

Mother Angelica translates this example of Jesus and Mary to our daily life in the following examples:

- To see a Christian believe in God's Love when sorrow befalls gives Hope.
- To see joy on the face of a Christian beset with trials and problems, gives us a new concept of
Faith.
- To see someone crushed but serene over the death of a loved one, makes us realize there is
another life.
- To see sickness and pain patiently borne gives us courage.
- To see a friend who has suffered the loss of all things begin again with trust and love, gives
us strength to continue on.
- To see forgiveness and mercy after friends quarrel, brings joy to our hearts.
- To see sinners turn to God and rise to great heights of sanctity, increases our trust in His
Love and Mercy.

Our Lady Teaches us how to Bear Suffering

As she stood at the foot of the Cross, Our Lady taught us how to bear suffering. She did not flee. She did not shrink back from the greatest suffering any human heart could possibly bear. She did not become bitter. The Scripture tells us, so simply, that Our Lady stood at the foot of the Cross.

St. Joan of the Cross

The downtown areas of most major cities hold a population of “street people.” Well-dressed folks usually avoid making eye contact, probably out of being asked for a handout. That was St. Joan of the Cross’s attitude until the day one of them touched her heart. Most people thought the old woman was crazy, but she put St. Joan on the road to sainthood. Who knows what the next beggar we meet might do for us?

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Edith Stein was born of Jewish parents in 1891, becoming an influential philosopher following her extensive studies at major German universities. Following her conversion to Catholicism, she became a major force in German intellectual life, entering the Disclaced Carmelites in 1933. Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was arrested by the Nazi regime on August 2, 1942, and transported by cattle train to the death camp of Auschwitz where she died in the gas chambers on August 9, 1942.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross Quote

A few days before her deportation and execution, she had dismissed the question about a possible rescue: "Do not do it! Why should I be spared? Is it not right that I should gain no advantage from my Baptism? If I cannot share in the lot of my brothers and sisters, my life, in a certain sense, is destroyed."

God's Call

God does not call us to be successful. He has called us to be faithful.

- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Faith Lesson from St. Bernadette

St. Bernadette stumbled through life guided only by blind faith in things she did not understand - as we all must do from time to time.

Doing the Lord's Will

YES, LORD. HERE I AM. I COME TO DO YOUR WILL!!

Our Human Will

Because we desire to control the outcome - falsely believing that we can provide better for ourselves than Our Lord Can. How mistaken we are!!

Arch Bishop Fulton J. Sheen Quotes

Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.

I feel it is time that I also pay tribute to my four writers - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.

Life if like a cash register, in that every account, every thought, every deed, like every sale, is registered and recorded.

Pride is an admission of weakness; it secretly fears all competition and dreads all rivals.

The big print giveth, and the fine print taketh away.

The proud person counts their newspaper clippings, the humble person their blessings.

The Magi

The Magi set out because of a deep desire which prompted them to leave everything and begin a journey. It was as if they had always been waiting for that star.

- Pope Benedict XVI

What You Do Not Use

The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the clothes hanging in your wardrobe are the clothes of those that are naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the ones who are barefoot; the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.

- St. Basil

The First Purpose in our Daily Work

The first purpose in our daily work is to do the will of God. Our second purpose is to do it in the manner in which He wills it. Our third purpose is to do it because it His will.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

Presentation of the Lord (February 2nd)

The Presentation of the Lord is celebrated on February 2nd. Under the Mosaic Law, a woman was ritually "unclean" for forty (40) days after childbirth when she was to present herself to the priests and offer sacrifice for her "purification". This feast emphasizes Jesus' first appearance in the Temple. Because Christmas is celebrated on December 25th, the Presentation is celebrated on February 2nd, forty (40) days after Christmas.

March for Life 2010

I attend this year's March for Life in Washington, DC. It was held on Friday, January 22, 2010 to mark the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. It was the 37th Annual March for Life. It was attended by 400,000 pro-life marchers to end the genocide of abortion.

As I figured, the secular press did not cover the event and CNN commented that "both sides of the debate were in attendance". Actually there was only about five (5) pro-abortion people there, but I guess that the secular media doesn't worry about that.

Anyhow, the March was great and hopefully we will not need one next year.

Abortion Kills Babies

“Abortion Kills Babies”

Abortion kills millions of babies each year. Just because a woman has an abortion it does not mean that she is not a mother. It just means that she is the mother of a dead child (Top Ten Reasons).


To have a willful abortion is to take innocent lives into our own hands and to decide who is worth living and who is not (Abortion is Wrong).

In the United States alone 1.37 million children were aborted in 1996. This equates to approximately 3,700 a day (Center for Bo-Ethical Reform).

The anti-life or pro-choice movement in America will state that it is a woman’s right to choose. Unfortunately it is the only sentence that is not complete. I ask, what is the choice? The correct saying should be that they want a mother to have the right to kill her unborn baby.
To make matters worse, currently fathers do not have a say in the argument. If a wife of ten years decides on her own to have an abortion, the father and husband have no say in the matter.

There are three angles to human rights for the unborn. They are: One, The unborn baby has rights on its own. Two, the unborn baby has no rights. Three, the unborn baby has human rights if the mother wants to keep it, but no rights if it is unwanted. Most of the time only angle one or two will be used (Thripp).

The anti-life community will push that the second angle is right and justified. They will state that a woman has the right to do what ever she so choices with her own body, regardless of what the interests of the child are. They will also state that it is good to help teenage girls with unwanted pregnancies.

Many will say that teenage girls are not ready for a child. This is not true at all. Many years ago girls in their early teens were having children because life expectancy was not long, so biologically they are ready to have a child (Thripp).

One of the most horrible styles of abortion is “partial-birth” abortion. This is performed mostly on women who are pasted their twentieth week of pregnancy. This procedure typically requires that the child be dismembered while still inside the mother’s womb, so that it can be extracted through the cervix with dilation. This procedure has been referred to as the “D&E” method, or Dilation and Extraction (Rovner).

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute that conducts surveys of the nation’s abortion doctors, about 15,000 abortions were performed in the year 2000 on women twenty weeks or more along in their pregnancies, the majority of which were between their twentieth and twenty-fourth week (Rovner).
While I can understand the pro-choice’s movement that they are concerned with women’s rights concerning abortion, and that they should have the right to choose. The real question should be what does the baby want?

Many times the reason that people state that abortion should stay legal is because what about a woman who is raped, or the baby is the product of an incestuous relationship. In all actuality, these two reasons only account for one percent of the abortions (Kidd).

The main argumentative reasons for women choosing to have abortions are that they currently cannot afford the child and the concern about how having a baby would change her life. These two aforementioned arguments are just simply selfish statements. The mothers selfishly want to spend their money on themselves, and their wants and needs rather than to have to sacrifice a little for the sake of their unborn child (Kidd).

In today’s modern society it seems that women have forgotten that she also has a right to choose abstinence or adoption. An unwanted child can still be loved, and they deserve that, even if it is by strangers (Kidd).

If a woman is considering having an abortion they should think it through long and hard. Once a woman has an abortion there is no going back, once the deed is done, it can not be reversed (Thripp).

Currently in New Jersey, women that seek an abortion are not informed of many things. These
items are pain that the child goes through during an abortion. Negative psychological effects of having an abortion, and how your life will be forever impacted. Also, ultrasound services to be able to actually see the child in the womb. Currently, there is no waiting period for abortions. If a woman walks into an abortion clinic, she can have the abortion right way, there is no “cooling off period”, to think about it. Also, currently abortions in New Jersey are covered by the Medicaid Program (Overview of Abortion Laws).

The most disturbing law currently in the state of New Jersey concerning abortion is the fact that no parental consent is required. This means that a fourteen year old girl can walk into a clinic and have an abortion without her parents knowing about it, or consenting to it. This same fourteen year old girl who fell out of a tree in the woods and broke her arm would have to wait for hours in an emergency room to have her arm reset because they need parental consent for that.

Abortions are also disproportionately done according to race. Thirty-seven percent of abortions occur to black women who only make up thirteen percent of the female population (Facts on Induced Abortion).

Abortions are also highest among households who earn between $30,000 and $60,000 at thirty-eight percent. Of this thirty-eight percent, ninety-three percent state their reason for having an abortion is for social concerns such as unwanted or inconvenient pregnancies (Abortion Facts).

If a pregnant mother is murdered, then the person who murdered her would be charged with double homicide. By this law, it is noted that an unborn child is a real person with rights. Isn’t a mother who terminates her pregnancy also guilty of homicide (Abortion is Wrong).
It is evident that after I have stated all of these facts and refuted most of the common arguments for abortion, that abortion is the wrong choice, and that it kills millions of babies each year. If I were an unborn child who had to choose between life and death, I would choose to live, as would everyone else who is currently privileged enough to be living.

Works Cited

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. “Abortion Facts”.
2008. http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html.

Guttmacher Institute. “An Overview of Abortion Laws”. State Policies in Brief. 1 December 2009. http://www.guttmacher.org

Guttmacher Institute. “Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States”. July 2008.
http://www.gutmacher.org/pubs/Fb_induced_abortion.html

Kidd, Travis M.D. “Abortion”. 2000.
http://www.dutyisours.com/abortion.htm.

Rovner, Julie. “Partial Birth Abortion, Separating Fact from Spin”. New Republic Magazine. 21 February 2006 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5168163.

Thripp, Richard X. “Why Abortion is Wrong Even if it’s Right”. 8 August 2008. http://www.richardxthripp.thripp.com/why-abortion-is-Wrong-even-if-it-is-right-643>.

“Abortion is Wrong”. 2008.
http://www.christianet.com/abortionfacts/abortioniswrong.htm

“Top Ten Reasons Why Abortion is Wrong”
http://www.youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=1885