Why Pro-Life?

There is an excellent article at the St. Therese Parish website by their Parochial Vicar, Fr. Paul Berschied on the importance of pro-life issues in the election. Here's an excerpt:

We sometimes forget that Mozart was the product of woman of ill-repute and that
Oprah Winfrey is a product of rape. These two individuals are certainly great
successes in human terms and they are not the only ones that can be cited. Have
we killed by abortion the person who would have cured cancer or developed an
alternative fuel for industry or found the cure for some other disease, or
brought about a modern invention that would help the progress of human
development?

~~Fr. Paul Berchied

(H/T: St. Therese Parish)

On the value of life

"One day, please God, when the stranglehold on public opinion in the United States has been released by the extremists for whom abortion is the center of their political and moral life, our nation will, in my judgment, look back on what we have been doing to innocent human beings within their mothers as a crime no less heinous than what was approved by the Supreme Court in the "Dred Scott Case" in the 19th century, and no less heinous than what was perpetrated by Hitler and Stalin in the 20th. There is nothing at all complicated about the utter wrongness of abortion, and making it all seem complicated mitigates that wrongness not at all. On the contrary, it intensifies it."

~~Edward Cardinal Egan

(Source: http://www.cny.org/archive/eg/eg102308.htm)

Do Your Best

"Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but what you should have accomplished with your ability."

~~John Wooden

"Private matters"

"Error about God cannot be a private affair. It can only lead to a diminished and distorted life for everyone. God’s will is the sole reason for our existence; be wrong about His will and we are inescapably wrong about the reason for our existence; be wrong about that, and what can we be right about?"

~~Frank Sheed, Theology and Sanity

St. Therese Quote

“Perfection seems simple to me. I see it is sufficient to recognize one’s nothingness and to abandon oneself as a child into God’s arms.”

~~St. Therese of Lisieux

St. Therese and Holy Communion

Mother Gonzague would not give in to the petition of Therese for more frequent Holy Communion. And so Therese looked at her, and said with resolve: “Mother Gonzague, when I am dead, I will make you change your mind” (The Hidden Face, Ida Friederike Gorres, New York: Pantheon, pp. 234-35).And that is precisely what she did! The great revision of liturgical practices undertaken by Pope Pius X was attributed largely to the intercession of St. Therese. A wonderful story: a few days after Therese’s death, a newly-ordained priest came to the Lisieux Carmel where he preached his first sermon on the words, “Come and eat my bread.” Soon after that, with the Prioress’s blessing, the chaplain introduced daily Communion to the Carmel.~~From First Steps on the Little Way of St. Therese of Lisieux, by Fr. Peter John Cameron. The entire text can be read at http://www.kofc.org/un/eb/en/resources/cis/CIS307.pdf

Becoming a Real Man

In marriage preparation, I often ask would-be grooms whether they love their fiancée enough to take a bullet for her. Never has one said no. Then I ask whether his answer would be the same if the “bullet” took one of the following forms: being abstinent before marriage; giving up smoking if she asks; being on time if he is habitually late; cleaning up after himself better; patiently telling her what happened that day at work if she requests it; learning the faith better to help pass it on to her more completely; or making the time and the priority to pray with her. Those are the types of grenades on which many men refuse to dive! But these gifts of oneself are so much more valuable than almost any material gift one could give, and they are a far greater sign of real love than any ring could symbolize. When a future husband and wife begin to love each other through sacrifices like this, their marriage can become what it is meant to be: a sacrament, a visible sign and reflection of Christ’s love for his Bride, the Church, because Christ who “loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her” (Ephesians 5:25-26).

~~From "Becoming a Real Man of God", by Fr. Roger J. Landry. The full article can be read at http://www.kofc.org/un/eb/en/resources/cis/CIS322.pdf

(The entire thing is only 26 pages and is written simply, powerfully, and without compromise for the truth.)