From the Beginning.....

                        

"Lifeforms"

From the beginning
Small lifeforms
They can kill without warning
So you don't explode

Stump your growing limps and thinking
And you've lost them now you're blinking
And reminding her of him

Oh you steal his features
And your mother is a bleacher
She don't even feel the heat no
She don't even want to speak to you

But you, you always find another place to go
(Oh you) you always find another womb to grow

Well you can try to sink down deeply
And find the children lost at sea
Find the children who discretely
Be killed in infancy

To stop them holding you and screaming
That you'll lose your wildest dreaming
Still reminding me what I feel
How he left without reasons

But you, you always find another place to go
(Oh you) you always find another womb to grow

You can try to forget but I won't let you easy
You can try to forget but I won't let you easy
I'm flooding out and more I'm too washed out to see
Drifting away this time you'll regret you've conceived it
Clean up the dead you leave behind
Just like insects

Clean up the dead you leave behind

I Couldn't Agree More, Mr.President

Finally, I totally agree with the President on a VERY IMPORTANT ISSUE. I just don't think he really understands what he is saying: Words meant to stir up support for gun control.....but not other forms of massive human destruction? I don't get it.

Choice?

So we must say "Pro-choice" but it really only means "For Abortion." I am so tired of the double standard and semantic games.

Awake, Oh Sleeper

Rise thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead: and Christ shall enlighten thee

Ephesians 5:14

Amen, Gloria!

Hat tip to Cheryl

Freedom From HHS Mandate

HT Mary LeBlanc

"His conversion to becoming a totally NFP physician began with a plate of cookies and the book, Physicians Healed, given to him by two of his patients who, as a result of taking the Familia course, decided to approach him on this topic.
Amazing what God does with our “yes”! "

A Model Child for the Culture of Life

November 29, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – When Gemma Andre submitted photos of her young daughter, Taya, to a UK modeling agency at the urging of a family member, she didn’t say anything about the fact that Taya was born with Down syndrome.
“No one asked the question, ‘Is your child disabled?’ So I didn’t mention it,” Gemma told the Daily Mailrecently.
Even after the ad agency, Urban Angels, phoned Andre and told her that Taya had made the first cut, and they would like to meet her personally, Gemma stayed mum on her daughter’s condition.
“I didn’t want her to be chosen as the token disabled child. If she was going to be picked, then it had to be on her own merit,” she says.
It turns out that Gemma didn’t have to be worried: after going in for a photo shoot with Urban Angels, Taya was chosen as one of the few lucky child models for the agency.

Read the rest here. 

To Love And Be Loved

HT Jen's Pen

Cultural 180

HT to Little Catholic Bubble

Turning The Tide Where It Counts Most

HT: Jen 

Be Not Afraid- Lead A Prayer Driven Life

Pope Benedict's General Intention 

February 2011:

That the family may be respected by all in its identity and that its irreplaceable contribution to all of society be recognized.

Missionary Intention: 

That in the mission territories where the struggle against disease is most urgent, Christian communities may witness to the presence of Christ to those who suffer.


With that in mind.....

"There's a little light inside us all.....let it shine! Sharing a bit of my heart from Africa, hope you will join us in April. "Ashley Gautier

Join Miracle At Mogra on FB 

Reality TV?

Seems like the marchers are getting younger each year. Is it that I am getting older and the crowd just looks younger? Or could it be that this generation realizes they are the true Survivors. They have survived a 38 year spiral into the Culture of Death, and are fighting back in the name of their brothers, sisters, and peers who are unable to fight for themselves. And which networks are going to cover this Reality? You can bet the mainstream media will downplay the March, as they do every year. But we will be watching EWTN and FOX  with the hope that one day, very soon, it will not be necessary to protest this American Holocaust.

Two of my children were present at this Walk for Life in Louisiana on Saturday.

And two more are marching in DC today. At least one is attending the National Pro-Life Youth Rally. 

They Stand for Truth and The Culture of Life. Rock on, kids! I am proud of you all. Now go give our legislators a Reality Check!

Thanks, Jen, for the pictures.

Take Time To Stand For Life

Shout Out to Keller TX!

40 Days for Life at its finest!

40 Days for Life

Stand up for the Culture of Life in your community.

Remember that silence perpetuates the holocaust.

40 Days for Life!

A Saint for Generation X

HT: Saliesianity
Read transcript of the post here.

The Dusty Little Box

This post is compliments of Beyond These Walls. Thanks, Jenna! So many young women will figure this out a little too late, unless women like you continue to bare their hearts and speak the truth that is engraved on our bodies and souls:

WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 2010

The Dusty Little Box

When I began using the Pill, my fertility was little more than a nuisance in my life. Like a gnat at a barbeque it always seemed to pop up and ruin the moment, and just wouldn’t be shooed away. The constant worry (particularly as that time of the month approached), month after month after month, was driving us both insane. Well, I just wasn’t going to stand for that kind of oppression at the hands of my own biology – I found a way to stick it to those pesky ovaries. I’d shut them up. The Pill freed me from the chains of fertility, and for me, that made the Pill just about the greatest thing since sliced bread. It allowed me to drop my fertility into a tiny box, seal it up and pack it away. I knew I’d use it again someday, but for now I didn’t care where it ended up. I just pitched it under the bed, left it to collect dust bunnies and went about my business.

Fast forward seven years. I find myself a married, twentysomething woman with a deep, agonizing ache in the pit of my soul. Some call it “the baby itch”, which makes me laugh. Some man must have coined that phrase, because “itch” just doesn’t even begin to cover it. An itch, I could scratch. An itch would go away. An itch is a minor irritation that might distract one for a brief moment. This ache of which I speak is utterly unmanageable, unremitting, and all-consuming. Day and night, regardless of other distractions, it is perched on my shoulder whispering sweet baby sighs and projecting images of tiny wrinkly toes and adoring toothless grins. Yes friends, I’ve got it bad.

But even despite all that, the light bulb still hadn’t flicked on in my mind. I still hadn’t reached the realization that my chemicalized body was completely incapable of giving me what I so desperately desired. Well, I knew it intuitively, but I failed to recognize what it truly meant to me. I had taken it all so lightly for so long. “When we’re ready, I’ll just go off the Pill and we’ll get pregnant” …I hope. “I’m young, so my cycles will bounce right back” …I hope. Those lingering fears, coupled to my concurrent discovery of the myriad health risks associated with oral contraceptive use, set off an entirely novel train of thought, and triggered an unexpected uprising of emotion that I’ll never forget.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I figuratively reached under the bed and fumbled around for that dusty little box. It was different than I remembered it – it was nearly bursting with its contents and the seal was barely holding it closed. What I had stuffed into that box so many years ago had been growing and multiplying, but had gone unnoticed for all this time – it was out of sight and out of mind. That tiny little box could barely contain the significance that my fertility had taken on, though it fit so nicely when I packed it away. I held that little box in my quivering hands as I contemplated our future, my longing for children, the past transgressions that the Pill had allowed me to perpetrate without a second thought. The tears were flowing down my cheeks by now. How could this weighty box ever have felt so light? How could the matter of my own fertility ever have meant so little to me?

And then, it really hit me. There I sat, in the prime of my biological child-bearing years, a virtual desert of infertility. I felt like a stripped down version of myself. On the outside I was all woman, complete with eclectic accessories, expensive handbags and a closet full of shoes. I wore feminine clothes and feminine scents, embraced my role as a wife, loved to cook… all the pieces were there. There was just that one minor detail that was missing – an internal detail that sustained my biological role as “woman” – and I had given it away. That precious gift that so many women would almost kill for… I had it, and had run from it like a house on fire, thanking my lucky stars that I had escaped unharmed.

Of all the things that I fear in this world, the inability to have children just might be #1 – yet I had willingly rendered myself infertile. It suddenly seemed so unnatural that my body had not been allowed to cycle in years, and that I knew nothing of my reproductive health. I suppose I was planning on waiting until we were ready to conceive to find out where we stood as far as my fertility was concerned. Great plan. This giant question mark was far more worrisome than the prospect of leaving the Pill behind, particularly in light of the highly effective natural methods of birth control that I was learning so much about. I wanted to know myself. I wanted to reclaim control over this pivotal aspect of my world – a subject that meant so much to me yet had been so casually and carelessly ignored.

Knowledge is power, and the female body is a wealth of it – harvesting that information just requires a little extra attention and a thermometer. That vital information can be used to postpone pregnancy, to achieve pregnancy, to troubleshoot fertility difficulties… all without ever stepping foot in a pharmacy or a doctor’s office, and most importantly, without harming a woman’s health or future reproductive capacity. No chemicals, no regret. Just your body doing what it was made to do, naturally and effortlessly.That, my friends, sounds like a great plan for me.

A few months ago, I was more empty inside than I realized. The growing weight of my fertility was blindingly apparent in some ways, yet I had failed to notice that the dusty little box that contained it was ready to burst. I understood all too well the significance of the gift of child-bearing, and how exceedingly important that was to me, yet I had stripped myself of it and taken my body for granted. I can forgive myself for the decision that I made all those years ago – young girls simply cannot understand the profound magnitude of their fertility – but I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around what took me so long to put two and two together.

But today, I stand before you a new woman. It is as though a sizable chunk of my soul has found its way home. I suppose it was in that dusty little box all along, alongside a little slice of my heart. These missing pieces were so small in the beginning, I thought I’d barely notice them. Oh how they grew, but it was such a long, gradual process that it fooled me for a very long time. Now that they’re back where they belong, I feel full again in a way that I never anticipated. I never knew what it all meant to me until I had it back. One thing is for sure – I’ll never let it go again. I know that there is little I could say to convince most young women that they’d feel the same way if they allowed themselves to unpack that dusty little box, but I hope that my story will at the very least give you a moment of pause to contemplate what your fertility means to you.

For the full story of my journey from the Pill to Natural Family Planning, catch my Guest Post on Planted & Blooming. 

Pray to End Human Trafficking

The Stations of the Cross, when used as a meditation, remind me of who I am before God. Archbishop Angelo Comastri really spoke to my heart through the meditations he wrote for Pope Benedict XVI on the occasion of Good Friday 2006. The Tenth Station was right in line with Pope Benedict  XVI's general intention for May: "That the shameful and monstrous commerce of human beings, which sadly involves millions of women and children, may be ended."

Human Trafficking is an evil that we would like to believe doesn't exist. Please join me in praying for this intention.

Meditation: Station X
"The soldiers take Jesus’ tunic from him
with the brutality of thieves;
they also try to rob him
of his modesty and his dignity.
But Jesus is the modesty, Jesus is the dignity
that belongs to man and the human body.

And the scorned body of Christ
becomes the indictment of all the scorn
ever shown to the human body,
which God created as the mirror of the soul
and the language to speak of love.

Today bodies are constantly bought and sold
on the streets of our cities,
on the streets of our televisions,
in homes that have become like streets.

When will we realize that we are killing love?
When will we realize that, without purity,
the body can neither be alive nor life-giving?"

You Must Be Catholic

You must be Catholic or madly in love,” said the gas station attendant as I escorted 7 sleepy children past the candy isle to the restroom. It was 2:00 am and we were only halfway to our destination.

“Both,” I replied with a wink and a grin. It was a pleasant change from the stale comments I usually get from strangers in public places:
“Don’t you know what causes that?”
            Duh- yeah, I think we’ve perfected it.
“Haven’t you got a TV?”
            Yes, we have a TV. But we have an even better marriage.


But this nameless gentleman at the Quick Stop was right on the money. I am very much enamoured with my husband and my Catholic faith, because both are teaching me how to live richly in the fullness of love.


How I wish those lessons had been well received earlier in life!  You see, at the rebellious know it all age  tender young age of 16, I was well versed in the pop culture version of counterfeit love and feminism.  I knew how to define my own standards of right and wrong and be fiercely independent. I was totally free from those guilt trips and social constraints that shackled generations before me. Funny how, after a while, all that freedom began to weigh on my heart, like an anchor dragging me ever deeper into the Culture of Death. Somewhere at the bottom of all that muck, I found my soul and decided that I wanted to live- REALLY LIVE! A wisp of a voice within was urging me to break out of the cycle of using and being used- of manipulating and being manipulated, of narcissism and daring to be my own god.  All I really wanted was what everyone desires; to be understood, accepted, and loved just for my own sake. From then on, I chose life- -
the Culture of Life.


Like the prodigal son I took the long way home, and found that love was waiting for me the whole time. I met my husband along the way and we learned from the Master Lover together. After all, the essence of God is Love. I don’t mean the Hollywood version you hear about on the Top 10 song charts, but the “lay down my life and sacrifice everything for you” type of love. That is the beauty of our Catholic faith. We are not called to obey an arbitrary set of do’s and don’t’s to please an oppressive ruler. We are called to be united; body, mind and soul, to love. United to the lover who sacrificed everything for us. It is in the marital embrace that male and female become the image of God. All of creation is ordered to that end. Every relationship I have brings me closer to the realization of that ultimate communion. We were meant to live for another; this truth is engraved on our very bodies. Even the unity I share with my husband in our marital embrace reflects an attribute of God, Himself, and foreshadows that union which He has planned for His bride, the church. That is why our marriage must be loving and life giving, not selfish and sterile.  Nothing artificial can come between us if our love is to be authentic. No manipulative games, no pretense, no latex or chemicals. Just the 2 of us, giving ourselves as a gift for the other. We give everything--all of our love, our fidelity, our trust, our hopes, our dreams, and yes- even our fertility ….au naturel.


Is it always sweetness and nice? Hardly. We’ve carried a lot of baggage into our marriage from those earlier years of living in the muck. There is also that pesky original sin business that keeps getting in the way of perfect harmony. Weeding out the selfishness in our hearts is difficult and often painful. But growth and maturity come with those growing pains. How many couples never experience the real deal because at the first difficult struggle they bail out of the relationship? Sure we all enjoy the Joyful Mysteries of life, but if we refuse to work through the Sorrowful Mysteries, we can never reach the Glorious. 


Dear Husband and I have learned so much over the years:

·        He has learned to respect and appreciate the natural rhythm of my body and psyche. Our union is both procreative and unitive by God’s design. It is a beautiful thing. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Mark 10:9

·        I have learned that a man who has mastered his passions has a strength about him that it is extremely attractive and desirable.

·        We’ve learned patience during times of continence.

·        We’ve learned that NFP is very effective for postponing pregnancy, when practiced; though it is a joint effort which requires delicate charity and frequent communication about the most intimate things.  *Not to be confused with MGDNFP, which is much less effective for spacing children.  Large quantities of MGD (Miller Genuine Draft) has a significant impact on NFP decision making skills.  

·        We’ve learned that children are a gift from God and not the scourge of society that many would have us think.  There is no need for us to protect ourselves from sugar and spice or snakes and snails. They are all made of love. And what better way to understand what it means to be created in His image, than to behold our own features and mannerisms in our children? Each one is a unique, unrepeatable creation, yet so much like us at the same time. And in case there is any doubt, know that love in a big family is never divided. It multiplies.

·        We’ve learned that taking God (Who is Love) out of the bedroom, has undeniable consequences:  Male + Female - God= No love.                        Do the math. If you don’t believe me, just Google the stats.

I have no doubt the man at the gas station had been well schooled in these love lessons. He knew that I needed a word of encouragement especially at 2:00 am, in this world which can be oddly hostile to the Culture of Life. I remember him every time I see a young mother balancing an infant carrier, a diaper bag, a purse, and her purchases, while trying to hold onto a toddler or two. That is my opportunity to pay it forward. 

Classically Catholic

Under Cover of Health Care