Take a moment to thank a solider

Here's a good deed you can do for Advent;
send a free, pre-made postcard to a soldier serving our country serving overseas by clicking here.
Keep it on your desktop and make it a daily habit.
Thank you, Xerox!

A Blessed Season of Advent

How are you going to be keeping Advent?
Joseph Bottum says at First Things blog that "Advent is gobbled up by Christmas".
He goes on to say, "More than any other holiday, Christmas seems to need its setting in the church year, for without it we have a diminishment of language, a diminishment of culture, and a diminishment of imagination. The Jesse trees and the Advent calendars, St. Martin's Fast and St. Nicholas' Feast, Gaudete Sunday, the childless crèches, the candle wreaths, the vigil of Christmas Eve: They give a shape to the anticipation of the season. They discipline the ideas and emotions that otherwise would shake themselves to pieces, like a flywheel wobbling wilder and wilder till it finally snaps off its axle."


Even though I assembled my Advent Wreath and sang "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" at Mass, I realized that he was right.  Christmas has encroached upon Advent, and I have been complicit in it, as I sang "O Holy Night" along with the radio last night on the way home from my father's for Thanksgiving. I just find my favorite Christmas carols more tempting than cookies or presents. I miss them, and welcome each carol back as an old friend. That is why I like singing for Midnight Mass; you get to practice those wonderful carols in November. We'll be sining "Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming" in my church this year. I can't wait.
 
However, we should be also be singing lovely Advent hymns like this one. And holding back on the decorations, letting the girls put them up little by little AFTER the Advent housecleaning.

Thank you Lord

At Mass this morning, the priest reminded us that we were celebrating thanksgiving, which in Greek is eucharist. In fact the first Thanksgiving, if you are a Catholic took place at St Augustine at the Mision de Nombre de Dios, a tiny Spanish chapel still in existence. There, Spanish missionaries offered the very first Eucharist in America.
So, to my readers, I offer my wish for a heart full of gratitude for the blessings of living in the grace of God, in freedom, and in relative peace.
 Thank God for my family, my health, my husband's job which supports us, my writing by which I try to give my talent to Him as an offering. Thank God for my three wonderful girls, who just earned honors by their hard work in Catholic schools, and for their good Catholic friends. I thank God for Fr Tito, my holy pastor, and for the schedule which allows me to attend daily Mass, and for the Friary of Our Lady of Guadalupe where I can refresh my soul in front of the Blessed Sacrament 24 hours a day. I thank God for good pro-life friends who are working to promote a Culture of Life both online and in my community. I thank God for my father, who is learning to live without my mother, step by painful step. I thank God for my mother's happy death, and entrust her to the mercy of God.

I thank God that America seems to be waking up to the evils of the most pro-abortion politician on earth, Barack Obama, and for the Manhattan Declaration by which Christians are uniting to resist the Culture of Death. I thank God for courages prelates like Pope Benedict, and Bishop Tobin who are not afraid to call evil evil, and pay the consequences. I thank God for holy priests, for the Holy Rosary, Eucharistic Adoration,  and for the Latin Mass

I thank God that our freedom of speech and freedom of religion are still protected in America, and pledge my full efforts to preserve both.

I thank God that Christ is King of heaven and earth, and that the entire universe is in His Hands. I know that all this turmoil in the present day will pale in comparison to the glory that awaits us in Heaven. I thank God for the gift of His Mother, who holds back His Hand of judgement on us until more sinners can repent.

Amen

 

Christina's story is on "Mary's Healing Touch" on Catholic Radio International

In this broadcast, you can listen to me tell the story of how, after receiving the news of my mother's terminal cancer diagnosis last spring, Mary heard the prayers of my little saint with Down syndrome.
 For the next four months she helped us, with her healing touch, to usher Mom into her waiting arms.
Listen here.

Want to smile? read Sarah Palin's story about Trig

Sarah Palin's delightful story of how Trig came into their family, is on the Times Online.
It speaks for itself.
She is a gift for our nation. Now what are we going to do with her?

Catholic evangelist Immaculee Iligagiza starts a blog

One of my favorite Catholic writers Immaculee Ilibagiza has just started a blog, called Immaculee. She invites us to join her in celebration of the feast day of Our Lady of Kiebeho, November 28.
In the months she was dying from cancer, my mother found great comfort in Immaculee's testimony, and sent for the rosary of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady.
My review of her latest book, Our Lady of Kiebeho is at Catholic Media Review.

New treatment to help those with Down syndrome!

Great new research to help cognition in  those with Ds. This is what Dr Mobley described in his talk at Cold Spring Harbor Labs last spring.
Read the article from Reuters here.
Update 11-21
Yet, updated medical research is still being used to destroy our children rather than save their lives. Read this article at MercatorNet on how pre-natal diagnosis leads to eugenics.
"If Down syndrome, a series of conditions that are amenable to both life and happiness, is considered unacceptable, what then of other "problems"? In a society obsessed with so-called health, the outcome seems predictable. For those of us who are uncomfortable with or disagree with the laws on abortion, do we have to stop using a wonderful diagnostic tool for fear that it will, literally, fall into the wrong hands? Or is this a good moment for declaring a moratorium on ante-natal diagnostics and re-opening the abortion debate? "
I say re-open the abortion debate, we know so much more in 2009 about pre-natal development than we did in 1973, in fact Blackmun himself commented that a deciscion to grant Personhood to the unborn would nullify this decision.

Happy 50th Anniversary, Fr Benedict Groeshel

Here's an optimistic,  lighthearted interview with a man whose been through many a battle and survived to hope that all mainstream faiths, even the Catholic Church, are moving towards orthodoxy and renewal.

Celeste Behe asks: " What do you believe has been the impetus behind this renewal?

Fr Benedict responds:
"You cannot say; you can only blame the Holy Spirit. I have to tell you that the more traditional people did not win the battle; it was a standoff, but things nonetheless started to change. You find in this country that the mainstream Protestant churches are dying off; nobody goes to them. It’s the evangelical Protestant churches that are doing well. Also, many young Jews who had no actual religious training are becoming orthodox Jews. And even among young Catholics who are not particularly observant, there is at least an interest in the faith. God himself, through the Holy Spirit, is calling to souls, and I’m absolutely delighted with the changes that are taking place. The pendulum has swung."

Deo Gratias, for Fr Benedict's long and illustrious career, and for the pendulum's swing!

Read more in the NC Register blog.

The Canonization of St Jeanne Jugan and Charles Dickens

During our years on Long Island, my oldest daughter Gabbi and I paid a memorable visit to the Little Sisters of the Poor in their nursing home in New York. and learned of Blessed Jeanne Jugan, their foundress's cause. At the Eucharistic Congress last September, I heard the good news that she was soon to be lifted to the altar as St Jeanne Jugan.

George Weigel writes about an interesting meeting between Jeanne and Charles Dickens.
"Yet the novelist Charles Dickens could write, after meeting Jeanne Jugan, that "there is in this woman something so calm, and so holy, that in seeing her I know myself to be in the presence of a superior being. Her words went straight to my heart, so that my eyes, I know not how, filled with tears." I always knew Dickens had a heart from the poor, you can tell by his works, especially "A Christmas Carol".

Weigel also derives a valuable lesson from her holy example. "The Little Sisters of the Poor and their patients are living reminders that there are no disposable human beings; that everyone is a someone for whom the Son of God entered the world, suffered, and died; and that we read others out of the human family at our moral and political peril."
Weigel is right, the  nursing home operated by the Sisters in New York City is a haven of peace and love. I didn't want to leave. How often is that said about a nursing home?
Now, there is a lesson from the saint which can be applied to public policy lately. . . .anyone say "death panels"?
Read the entire article at the Ethics and Public Policy Center website.

Women on "The View" on aborting children with Down syndrome

Whoopi is right, 'doing away with the problem' is NOT an easier option. It is painful, leaving lasting scars on the mother's body and soul,  and her family. But I don't approve of her and Barbara Walters' attempts to shout down Elizabeth Hassleback who echoed Sarah Palin's assertion that all children offer their parents challenges and chances to grow in compassion. No one can forsee whose challenge will be harder, I know plenty of typical children who present their parents with major challeges, especially as teens. I'll take my Christina any day, compared to a troubled teen on drugs, pregnant, self destructive and angry.
Sarah's point was so well stated, that Whoopi and Walter's attempts to negate it make them look shallow and selfish. It's all about the mother's feelings about the child.  Nowhere in the conversation was the possiblity of adoption raised. Over 200 families are waiting to adopt a child with Down syndrome.
View the video here.

My story is on National Public Radio

Beacause I shared the story of my family's Catholic faith here, I was asked by Minnesota NPR reporter Molly Bloom to share my stories of commuting to New York City. I commuted to Manhattan from Long Island (2 1/2 hours one way) for a year when I was in graduate school at Fordham way back in the mid eighties, but this story remained in my memory.
"The first day I took the train, I had a conversation with a religious sister who told me to say the rosary on the train for those who were in my car. She said it was the best use of my time. She was right, and I do. "

Manto de Guadalupe: Eduardo Verastegui's charity

I remember that Eduardo mentioned his organization Manto de Guadalupe in the press interview I attended on August 11, and I have just stumbled unto it's beautiful website (in Spanish). While I search for an English version,  click through, after you understand the basics; Manto de Guadalupe refers to Our Lady of Guadalupe's mantle, and is a pro-life human rights organization with worldwide outreach. Manto de Guadalupe is based in LA where Eduardo seeks to build a pro-life women's health center for the underserved poor Latina women of Los Angeles. His express purpose is to give poor women alternatives to abortion. You will find nothing that Eduardo does contradicts the moral or social teaching of the Catholic Church, and I give it my highest recommendation.
Que viva la virgen de Guadalupe!

IDSC for Life interviews Reece's Rainbow

My friend Diane Grover at IDSC for Life was pleased to interview the good folks at Reece's Rainbow.
Read the interview here.
 

My review of The 13th Day

Is up at Catholic Media Review.

It comes out on DVD on December 1st from Ignatius Press.

 Don't miss a great Christmas gift opportunity for your family.