My Pro-Life Life

  14 th Sunday C 2022 Thanks to a good friend, we have a new angel statue in the back. It was made, like the large  crucifix we obtained during lent, by the Daprato company in Chicago, started by Italian  immigrants in 1860.   When revolution exploded in the late 1960’s, statues like these were hauled out of many of our churches and replaced with cheap felt banners and similar items that failed to raise hearts and  minds to heaven. The Daprato company nearly went out of business at this time, and many if not  most of the molds for its statues were lost or destroyed. So, our new angel and new crucifix are  not replications, but rather old originals, having detail and craftsmanship not found in modern  pieces.  It is essential for right worship to have crucifixes that reveal the sufferings of Christ. Gazing  upon them we tell ourselves, along with St Paul, “May I never boast except in the cross of our  Lord Jesus Christ.”  S...

From Fr. Z (https://wdtprs.com/2021/09/this-is-the-sort-of-person-whom-the-house-voted-that-its-okay-to-kill-up-to-birth/): Bl. Hermann of Reichenau (1054) Born with cleft palate, cerebral palsy, and spina bifida, he was placed in a Benedictine monastery at seven. A genius in astronomy, theology, poetry, math, music, Arabic, Greek, and Latin, he composed the Salve Regina and Alma Redemptoris Mater.

I don't think I'm alone in this, but I don't know where my comrades are. Who else out there wants to do this and can't: A lot of nurses (and doctors too, I imagine) are idealists when they start school (perhaps some are like me and go to school because they're idealists), idealists when they graduate, idealists when they interview and take their first job... And jaded after two weeks in the field. They want to be really good nurses, to really take care of their patients, but get swamped by the system, which makes them spend ninety-five percent of their shift passing meds, being behind, and sitting at the nurses station an hour after that shift is over (not having had a lunch break), hitting keys so that something acceptable is in the patient chart, just good enough so they can log off and go home. Ask me how I know.  All we want to do is take care of sick people, not fulfil Medicare requirements. We're exhausted and frustrated over mandates that come from people...

     The Institute of Christ the King  is, for the sixth year in a row, organizing a pilgrimage to the March for Life in Washington, D.C. God willing, I will be there this year!       For the second year in a row, the Institute is fundraising to offset the cost of the pilgrimage with the Candle for Life campaign ( HERE ). For a donation of $25 or more, a pilgrim will carry your prayer intentions and a lighted candle at the March in January.      The Institute relies heavily on donations to make this trip possible; please help their pilgrims take a stand for life!   

My school's pin for practical nursing graduates      On Wednesday, August 26th, I officially graduated from nursing school. On the Monday prior, we had a private pinning ceremony. While searching for the text of the Nightingale Pledge, I came across the Wikipedia article on the pinning ceremony , which has some information I wanted to share.      Pinning is the official induction into the "brotherhood or sisterhood of nurses". Its earliest history dates from the 12th century during the crusades, when "monks initiated into the Knights Hospitaller that cared for injured and ill Crusaders were given a Maltese Cross". After the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale was awarded the Royal Red Cross by Queen Victoria, and the tradition further evolved from there.      At our ceremony, after each of us received our pin, we recited the Nightingale Pledge. It is so beautiful! Here is the version we recited (apparently a combination of the original and the ...

     "You shall not kill!" Reminds us Our Lord in the Gospel.      For the past fifty years, a culture of death, violence, hatred and destruction has triumphed around us. Since the laws authorizing contraception and abortion. Since hedonism and utilitarianism replaced God and morality.      In 1979 (40 years ago), when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, declared: "The greatest destroyer of peace today is the crime against the innocent unborn child. If a mother can kill her own child, in her own womb, what keeps you and me from killing each other? (...) But today we are killing millions of unborn children. And we don't say anything."      How our society, which proclaims with such insistence Human Rights (this new Decalogue of the modern world), how did men come to let flout the most fundamental right: the right of every human being to life? How is it that modern man, always talking about "...

From Fr. John Hollowell back in 2012. Amen.