Devotion for today: Always dig for the truth

 Proverbs 6:16-19: There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

Here is a letter from Fr. Frank Pavone of the Priests for Life movement I would like to share with you today. It clarifies the misunderstandings the media caused in misinterpreting Pope Francis’ recent interview.

September 23, 2013

Dear Sandy,

I just had a wonderful trip to Rome where I was again with Pope Francis. While there, I was asked to comment on the controversy caused by his recent interview, in which he shared some thoughts about the Church’s focus on abortion. I wrote several articles explaining why we do not need to be alarmed, and am awaiting some major papers to publish them. Meanwhile, below is another version of my commentary. Enjoy and pass along!

Thanks

Fr. Frank

As the Director of Priests for Life, known worldwide as a ministry within the Catholic Church that urges more preaching, teaching, and action against abortion, I was asked by many alarmed and confused people these past few days about the reported comments of the Pope that the Church should not be "obsessed" with this issue, and that there should be "balance" and "context.

Is the pope saying we should talk less about abortion? Is he saying that the emphasis the Church has placed on this issue has been a mistaken emphasis?

When I first received these inquiries via emails and text messages, I was actually in the presence of Pope Francis, in the dining room of his residence. I had spoken just hours earlier, at the invitation of the Vatican, about the Church's defense of the unborn child, and about the clear and strong position of the Church, expressed in many documents, that the right to life is our first right and the foundation and condition for all the others.

So the news came to me with more than a little irony, and I immediately began to tell worried pro-life warriors that they had no reason to think that the Pope no longer wanted the Church to focus on abortion.

Pope Francis preaches on pro-life in a very integral way. He gives strong and clear messages that derive from the very substance of the Faith and a very broad vision of the demands that Faith places upon us. The conclusions and applications for the pro-life movement are undeniable, even if he does not use the specific words “pro-life movement” and “unborn.”

This was very clear in his homily at his installation onMarch 19, when he spoke of the need to protect every person, especially children, from the “Herods” of our day who plot death.

And it was clear again in his Palm Sunday homily, which contained the very strong message to have confidence in the victory of life over death.

He said it this way:

“Let us look around: how many wounds are inflicted upon humanity by evil! Wars, violence, economic conflicts that hit the weakest, greed for money, power, corruption, divisions, crimes against human life and against creation!

"Jesus on the Cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God’s love he conquers it, he defeats it with his resurrection.

"Dear friends, we can all conquer the evil that is in us and in the world: with Christ, with the force of good!"

He mentions “crimes against human life,” using the same word the Second Vatican Council used inGaudium et Spes to describe abortion (an “unspeakable crime”). He urges us to see evil for what it is, and then never to lose confidence in the victory we have over evil, thanks to the death and Resurrection of Christ.

In his recent interview, he made it clear that the Church should put opposition to abortion "in context." This is neither new nor unwelcome. The Pope wants to see the renunciation of abortion put in the context of mercy toward the mother, and this is consistent with the pro-life movement's emphasis on "loving them both." In fact, in my personal conversations with the Pope, he particularly urged me to go forward with the work of Rachel's Vineyard, the largest ministry in the world for healing after abortion. He called it an "excellent work."

The Pope wants the teaching against abortion not to stand alone, as if it were a negotiable moral prohibition, but rather to stand in the context of our teaching about who God is. He made this clear in his June 16 homily at the worldwide "Day of the Gospel of Life" when he declared,

"The Scriptures everywhere tell us that God is the Living one, the one who bestows life and points the way to the fullness of life…The commandments are not a litany of prohibitions -- you must not do this, you must not do that, you must not do the other; on the contrary, they are a great "Yes!": a yes to God, to Love, to life."

"All too often, as we know from experience, people do not choose life, they do not accept the "Gospel of Life" but let themselves be led by ideologies and ways of thinking that block life, that do not respect life, because they are dictated by selfishness, self-interest, profit, power, and pleasure, and not by love…As a result, the Living God is replaced by fleeting human idols which offer the intoxication of a flash of freedom, but in the end bring new forms of slavery and death."

This approach radically strengthens the Church's opposition to abortion, because the Pope is saying not simply that it breaks the Fifth Commandment ("You shall not kill"), but that more fundamentally it breaks the First Commandment ("You shall not have other gods besides me") and that to disrespect life is to abandon God himself.

Nobody should worry or think that the Pope is in any way diluting the Church's strong and unchangeable stance against abortion, or contradicting all that has already been said and written, in documents likeThe Gospel of Life, about the urgent priority that this issue deserves. Some 50 million children are killed by abortion around the world each year. If we want to know how much we should focus on it, we only have to use human reason and ask what our response would be if 50 million adults throughout the world were killed each year by terrorism.

Long live the pro-life movement, and long live the Pope!


Priests for Life
PO Box 141172
Staten Island, NY 10314
Phone: 888-PFL-3448
718-980-4400
Fax: 718-980-6515
Email: mail@priestsforlife.org
Priestsforlife.org

Devotion for today: Trading in Whole Foods and Trader Joe's for Life

 Matthew 16:25-27: For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.  What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

I recently had a crisis in my life. I just found out that two of my favorite food stores, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, contribute to Planned Parenthood, one of the largest abortion providers in the country. If I stand for anything in this world, I stand for life from conception to natural death. I am living this conviction on both ends right now. My greatest joy in life is watching my granddaughter during the day, seeing her wonderment and awe at life emerge as she passes from newborn to infancy to older baby stage. I am also helping my 92 year old aunt cope with the ravaging effects of cancer treatment as she lies in a hospital bed trying to recover from her latest round. Both are marvels to me. My aunt has a profound love and trust in God, so she is peaceful and calm. My granddaughter is a joyful child, filled with giggles and squeals, so happy to be alive. How could I possibly continue to support groups that contribute to death? Oh but I love those stores. What to do?

God never lets me debate for long. Look at what I just read in “The One Thing is Three” by Father Michael Gaitley, Marian Press, 2012:

“… Now here is where the enrichment of faith comes to the rescue. Again, the enrichment of faith refers to ‘the witness of a living and mature faith’ that faces the challenges of the modern world and doesn’t back down. In fact, it ‘masters’ those challenges by putting faith first. What does it mean to put faith first? It means choosing being over having, the person over things, a life of self-giving love over selfishness. This is what it means for the faith to “penetrate the believer’s entire life.” It means letting God’s Word rule over all one’s decisions. It means not limiting prayer to Sunday Mass. It means living the life of Christ, abiding in him, and being a contemplative in action. In sum, it means doing everything through Christ, with Christ and in Christ, from riding the subway to folding the laundry. When the laity have such an enriched faith, God is made visible to the world through what they do and say and how they act and are. This is the witness of true holiness to which all the laity are called….”

When Karol Wojtyla visited the United States less than a year before becoming Pope, he said:

“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel.”

Chilling? I would say so. There is no real choice in life for an authentic Christian. We have to be willing to sacrifice, and that is a foreign word to many people today. What? Give up my pleasures, my money, my free time for the good of another human being?  Well, yes. It is called martyrdom to the world and fullness of life in Christ. One leads only to death: that is a scientific fact. One leads to eternal life. The choice is yours.

So I will find other places to shop. And I will write a letter letting my former grocery friends know why I am leaving a long and wonderful relationship as I truly love the food in these store. If I don’t write the letter, I am like a protester standing in front of the White House without a sign. How will the President know what it is I don’t like!!!

Let me end with a few more words of John Paul II:

“The challenge facing us is an arduous one: only the concerted efforts of all those who believe in the value of life can prevent a setback of unforeseeable consequences for civilization.”

Be brave, be strong and be willing to sacrifice for the cause of life. We believe God brings every baby into a mother’s womb for a loving reason, and we believe God takes a person home when He does for a loving reason. Any attempt by man to end life at any stage is nothing short of replacing the true God with one whom we created ourselves.

This site, although not exhaustive by any means, will give you an idea of other places contributing to abortion through Planned Parenthood: http://www.physiciansforlife.org/content/view/1225/2/.

The Girl Scouts are on it, as is Disney. Really???????????????????

Devotion for today: Serve God Cheerfully

Romans 12:4-8:  Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function,  so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.  We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith.  If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

I would like to site a passage from a wonderful book I have been reading for some time, due to the fact that I keep rereading sections and making so many notes. It is an “everyman’s guide to understanding the faith” and it is written in such simple, concise terms that I am finally understanding parts of my faith I never did before, or at least not fully. The book is “The One is Three: How the Most Holy Trinity Explains Everything” by Father Michael Gaitley, Marian Press, 2012. Here’s the passage that has me thinking today:

“Who has the mission of communion and evangelization? Everyone. Every single one of the Baptized has it. But while the great mission of the Church aims at one single goal-to bring all of creation back to the Trinitarian Communion of God- Christians have a wide variety of roles to play in accomplishing this goal…. What’s your role in the Body of Christ? You’ve certainly got one, and it’s utterly unique! John Paul II calls it a “personal and unrepeatable life project” that the Father entrusts to you as His gift to you- and as your gift back to Him. Such a personal life project us not usually revealed all at once, but rather, it unfolds in and is discovered through a consistent life of prayer, discernment, and spiritual direction.”

Permit me one more quote Father uses to make the point. This one is from the Second Vatican Council Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People, Apostolicam Actuositatem, November 18, 1965, n. 33:

The Council, then, makes an earnest plea in the Lord’s name that all people give a glad, generous and prompt response to the impulse of the Holy Spirit and to the voice of Christ, who is giving them an especially urgent plea at this moment.”

This is really an eye-opener on so many levels, isn’t it? Let’s start with St. Paul’s exhortation in Romans. There are several words that jump out at me right away: generously, diligently, and cheerfully. It seems St. Paul knows that God doesn’t want us to fulfill our position in life with a perfunctory sense of duty, plodding through the day serving Him in the workplace or at home with a resigned spirit and a dull attitude. No, He wants us to do this with a desire to go over and above what is expected, to perform our tasks with care and conscientiousness, and to be thrilled to be doing it because we are working for God in His vineyard and making a difference! Can we really say we do this each and every day of our lives? Because each and every day is all we get in this life. Once today is over, it is gone forever. Lost are all the opportunities we were given to share our love of God through the joyfulness and vibrancy with which we should be living our lives. That is what is going to make a difference in people’s lives. It doesn’t matter if you have 10 Degrees in Theology, studied at thus and such university or know every single Vatican Document by heart. If people don’t see you as accessible, loving, careful and joyful, they don’t want what you are presenting.

Moving on to John Paul II’s statement, isn’t it fascinating to think that God has given each and every one of us a life project to complete for Him? Don’t you feel amazingly special right now? I do! I know I could have been born at any time in history, but God needed me right now, today, in the 21^st century, with all its problems and upheavals, to make a difference. How do I know what I am supposed to do? Father Gaitley makes it crystal clear: pray, discern and seek guidance. How many of us actually do this every day of our lives? Yet, we must. It is the only way we will see the tapestry that is being created in us, thread by thread.  Look for yours. Spend time today reflecting on what you have done, and where you heart is leading you. That is the “impulse of the Holy Spirit and the Voice of Christ” at work in you. Listen, pray, ask for guidance from trusted spirited-filled friends, family and clergy to see what it is that God wants you to use for the comfort and care of His people, so that they, too, can find the joy in living that you already have. The gift is to be given away, everyday, cheerfully!!!!!!!