"I want to live!"

“The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion.” ~ Blessed Mother Teresa

I have some friends who seem to value and enjoy loving people, anyone, “everyone”, regardless of differences.  And yet, they are “pro-choice” and support the pro-abortion agenda.  I can’t help but think that if these friends could meet the babies in their mothers’ wombs who are about to be aborted (for these are also part of that supposed “everyone”), and these babies could share their hearts with them, my friends might realize the love they have to share MUST include loving and protecting these little ones.

Even though these babies in the womb can’t speak with audible words, they can even-so share their hearts.  Their tiny little hearts are beating, pumping blood through their developing bodies, showing in a very tangible way their 100 % desire to live! 

When a baby is aborted, it is sometimes burned (with chemicals) to death.  Sometimes the baby is pulled apart in the womb, limb by limb; the abortionist pulls off the baby’s legs, the baby’s hands, the baby’s head…  Abortion is not the removal of mindless, heartless tissue; abortion is the mutilation and killing of a baby, a human-being. 

93% of all abortions occur for social reasons .  http://abortionno.org/index.php/abortion_facts/

Is this loving everyone?  http://www.abortionno.org/  Be forewarned: the video on the homepage of this site shows what abortion really is with live footage of an abortion.  Don’t watch it if you aren’t prepared to face the truth.  There are also beautiful videos of a developing baby in the womb showing the development of various organs.  These babies have minds, hearts, feelings; most of all they wish to live.

"The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing - direct murder by the mother herself. And we read in the Scripture, for God says very clearly: Even if a mother could forget her child - I will not forget you - I have carved you in the palm of my hand. We are carved in the palm of His hand, so close to Him that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God. And that is what strikes me most, the beginning of that sentence, that even if a mother could forget something impossible - but even if she could forget - I will not forget you. And today the greatest means - the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion. And we who are standing here - our parents wanted us. We would not be here if our parents would do that to us. Our children, we want them, we love them, but what of the millions. Many people are very, very concerned with the children in India, with the children in Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you kill me - there is nothing between. And this I appeal in India, I appeal everywhere: Let us bring the child back, and this year being the child's year: What have we done for the child?"  ~ Blessed Mother Teresa (from her Nobel Peace Prize lecture)

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1979/teresa-lecture.html

Sacco on the Illusions of Status

From Praying With Saint Mark's Gospel, published by Magnificat

"The kingdom of heaven in not about status.  Our rank, our titles, our possessions, our popularity will all mean less than nothing in the next life.  Only our openness to love, coupled with our capacity to forgive, will determine our experience of heaven.  In a place of perfect happiness and joy, how can one person be happier or more important than the next?
Suffering will come to us all, but once we have cleansed ourselves of our sins and petty jealousies, we will be able to finally sit with Christ at the heavenly banquet.  And none of us will be concerned about the status of the seating arrangement."

~ Jack Sacco, an award-winning author, whose book Where the Birds Never Sing was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and his latest novel is The Resurrection Sequence.

Sometimes I am surprised to find I need this reminder myself. :S  Praise be Jesus the Lord loves a contrite heart! :)

Washington on Morality

"(T)he foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; ...the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained..." George Washington, First Inaugural, April 30 1789

from "Quotes From The Founding Fathers"

Apples

“All badness is spoiled goodness. A bad apple is a good apple that became rotten. Because evil has no capital of its own, it is a parasite that feeds on goodness.”
—Fulton J. Sheen

From the book “Through the Year with Fulton Sheen”.


I found this quote on Ignatius Press's Facebook page.  This is real food for thought!

Trash Baskets

"Forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive others who put trash in our baskets."
~ 4-year-old in prayer

Pope Benedict XVI Quotes - BrainyQuote

Pope Benedict XVI Quotes - BrainyQuote

Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church is often labeled today as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along by every wind of teaching, look like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards.
Read more athttp://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/pope_benedict_xvi.html#jYy73d5DORmsEZpv.99

Magnificat - April 2010

In the Magnificat - April 2010 Editorial, Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P. includes several quotes I would like to include in my "Quotary." These I will list first, and then make my own reflections after.

The texts Fr. Cameron quotes comprise around half his material, but he puts it all together so beautifully, please be sure to read his editorial to get the whole of what he was presenting. I am simply listing the quotes here because I value them so much and want to return to them again and again as I reflect on them, on how the truths in them relate to my own life. Be sure to read Fr. Cameron's editorials in the Magnificat. They are wonderful! And while you're at it, consider subscribing to the magazine. It is a treasure of daily Scriptures, prayers, articles, editorials, and art-work w/ commentary. I don't work for the Magnificat, and receive no compensation for telling others how wonderful I find it to be; I simply want to share this great treasure w/ others!

Okay, now for my favorite quotes or excerpts from Fr. Cameron's editorial:

By Pope Benedict XVI:

" [The human being is a] creature who wants to break out of the prison of
finitude, out of the closed confines of his ego and of this entire world
[because, in a way,] this world is too small for the human being."

"[Our experience tells us that] what we need is the presence in our lives
of what is real and permanent so that we can approach it -- a participation in
the way of the Lord, in God Himself."

"[The human being] yearns for the Other, the totally Other, that which is
beyond his own reach."

"In the liturgy, the absolutely Other comes among us."

"There are things we only understand with the heart; the mind can gradually
grow in understanding the more we allow our heart to illuminate it."

"What is new and distinctive about the Christian liturgy [is that] God
Himself acts and does what is essential." {Fr. Cameron quotes Pope
Benedict further, and all points made are worth noting, but I want to reflect on
this one part.}

[The liturgy is our daily] turning point in the process of redemption [--
the longed-for moment when] the Shepherd takes the lost sheep onto His shoulders
and carries it home."

By Pope John Paul II:

"Worship does not primarily consist in expressing human thoughts and
feelings, but in listening to the divine Word in order to know it, assimilate
it, and put it into practice in daily life."

By the 19th c. French poet Lautreamont:

"It appears from what I have been told that I am the offspring of a man and
a woman. I find this quite astonishing! I thought I was more than
that."

The Importance of What We Sing

"Take heed that what you sing with your mouth, you believe with your heart, and that what you believe with your heart, you obey in your work."

I think this is an instruction from one of the early Church councils, maybe from the fourth century, but I can't find the source.  When I do, I will provide whatever documentation I can.

Pope BXVI on Priorities

"There is no greater priority than this: to enable the people of our time once more to encounter God, the God who speaks to us and shares his love so that we might have life in abundance."

~ Pope Benedict XVI (Verbum Domini)

Amiel on Life's Purpose

Life is short and we have 
not too much time for gladdening 
the hearts of those 
who are traveling the dark way with us.  

O be swift to love!  

Make haste to be kind.


~ Henri-Frederic Amiel (1821-1881)

Rohr on Choosing Life

"Only people who first choose 'dualistically' for the Big Picture, the life adventure, the journey with God, eventually proceed to non-dual thinking or 'mercy.'   Sort of a paradox, isn't it?  You need both to the full distance.  Clear choice and decision gets you started, aims you on the right course, and then if you stay on it, that very path will open you up to subtlety, nuance, shadow, contradictions, inconsistencies, brokenness, and variance in almost everything.  One soon realizes that what Jesus said is indeed true:  Nothing is entirely good except God alone (see Mark 10:18).  The choice for this all-good God allows us, ironically, to deal victoriously with non-goodness."

~from Wondrous Encounters by Richard Rohr

Lost and Saved in Christ

"Whoever would save his life must first lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.  What profit does he show who gains the whole world yet destroys himself in the process?"

~Luke 9:24-25

Choose Life!

"I call heaven and earth to witness this.  I now set before you life and death, a blessing and a curse.  Choose life then, that you and your descendants will live, by loving the Lord, heeding His voice, and clinging to God."

~Deuteronomy 30:19-20

Now!

2 Corinthians 6

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

 ¹ And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain— ² for He says,
   “AT THE ACCEPTABLE TIME I LISTENED TO YOU,
AND ON THE DAY OF SALVATION I HELPED YOU.”
   Behold, now is “THE ACCEPTABLE TIME,” behold, now is “THE DAY OF SALVATION”

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians%206&version=NASB


Behold: NOW is the acceptable time!  NOW is the day of salvation! :)

Gould on Art

"The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity."

~ Glenn Gould

God Pours Out His Spirit

In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
I will show wonders in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the the Lord.
And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

~ Acts 2: 17-21

We Will Not Comply!

Re the HHS Mandate to force everyone to supply coverage of abortions even if it violates our conscience:

We cannot – we will not – comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second-class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom. Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights. In generations past, the Church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her sacred rights and duties. I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same. Our children and grandchildren deserve nothing less.

http://www.thecatholictelegraph.com/a-letter-from-archbishop-dennis-m-schnurr-concerning-hhs-edict/5749

Crocs

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

~ Winston Churchill

There Was No-one Left!

"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/niemoeller.html

St. Francis De Sales on Confidence in God

I am a poor, frightened little creature, the baby of the family, timid and shy by nature and completely lacking in self-confidence; and that is why I should like people to let me live unnoticed and all on my own according to my inclination, because I have to make such enormous efforts about shyness and my excessive fears.  Who can fail to see that this is not living according to the spirit?

No indeed,... for when I was still very young and had little understanding I already lived like this; but although according to my temperament I am shy, nervous and as timid as a mole, I want to have a good try to overcome these natural passions and little by little learn to do everything that belongs to the office which obedience, proceeding from God, has laid upon me.  Who can fail to see that this is living according to the spirit?

Living according to the spirit means doing the actions which the spirit of God asks of us, saying the words and thinking the things that he wants.  And when I say thinking the things he wants, I am referring to your willed thoughts.   I am miserable and so I don't feel like talking: draymen and parrots do as much; I feel miserable, but since charity demands that I should talk I will do it:  that is what spiritual people say.

I have been slighted and I get cross: peacocks and monkeys do as much; I have been slighted and I rejoice: that is what the Apostles did.  So to live according to the spirit is to do what faith, hope and charity teach us to do, whether in things temporal or things spiritual.

So live wholly according to the spirit,...  live sweetly and in peace.  Be quite confident that God will help you, and in all that happens rest in the arms of his mercy and fatherly goodness.

~ Saint Francis De Sales (+ 1622)

[taken from Magnificat for Tuesday, Jan. 24th, 2012]

Tutu on Choosing Justice

If you are neutral in situations of injustice,
you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
~ Desmond Tutu

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

George Bernard Shaw

Gibran on Suffering

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls;
The most massive characters are seared with scars.

~ Khalil Gibran