Category Archives: Pro-life

Our Lady of Kibeho and a Worthy Lenten Intention

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In Left to Tell, Immaculee Ilibagiza tells her story of the Rwandan genocide. In 1981, many years prior to the Rwandan events( to which the world turned a blind eye,) Our Lady made them known through a series of apparitions (approved by the Church) to seven children, Alphonse, Anathalie, Marie Claire, Agnes, Stephanie and Vestine and Emanuel, a young pagan, known as ‘Sagastasha’ at the time of the revelations.

Approved apparition of Our Lady of Kibeho

In this present day, many of the people who where imprisioned after the genocide are being released and returning home.  The time for healing is upon the village people of Rwanda. If  this suffering country is to go forward with one heart, a healed and merciful heart, much prayer and forgiveness is needed.  Only prayer can win this spiritual battle. A worthy Lenten prayer intention!

Lent “Forgiving the Living”

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“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

“Remember, O man, that thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return”

A Lenten reflection on “Forgiving the Living” a phrase used by Immaculee Ilibagiza in her own story:

Left To Tell, Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust

Most of us struggle to forgive, finding it difficult to put aside our bumps and bruises.  We savor our wounds as though they give us pleasure. We are a strange lot.

Imagine, if you can, living with the memory of genocide.  Not a genocide across the world from you, but surrounding you; a genocide that includes your mother and father, your brothers, friends and all your neighbors in one way or another.  Imagine a genocide you can smell and touch and that touches you, that calls your name, hunts you and haunts you.

For thousands in the world today, that is the reality.  For one particular soul, Immaculee Ilabigiza, the author of  Left to Tell, this reality has sprouted wings.  She flies high above her small village in Rwanda living forgiveness, not as a half-hearted effort, but as a mission.  A dream, that she believes was given her by God, opened her heart to the world.  Her touch is one of grace and healing.  Immaculee was left behind to let us know that in order to truly be alive to Life, we can and must forgive by the living grace of God.

Lenten alms and charity

CNN’s Textbook Refusal

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CatholicVote.org had plans to air their pro-life video on CNN .  The video that was refused airing during the Super Bowl has met a similar fate at the hands of CNN execs. Briane Burke writes that CNN has refused the pro-life video that they’d planned to air after President Obama’s first State of the Union Address.   “Their (CNN’s) excuse”, an executive of a prominent commercial ad agency, said “is a textbook answer for a network that does not want to run your ad.”

Burke states, ““CNN and others simply don’t like the obvious conclusion of our ad – there was no ‘choice’ for abortion back in 1961. Thankfully, we had laws then safeguarding unborn children – laws that protected the life of a future president who tragically is unwilling to fight for those same protections today.”

Hope springs eternal! Life’s that important.  “All is not lost.”  Burke says, “CNN’s refusal will only create more attention for our ad, which has been widely discussed even among abortion groups like NARAL and nationally-syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman. The ad remains a viral hit on the Internet with over 1.6 million views on YouTube.”

No Mention-Pelosi

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Gateway Pundit calls it a rebuke , while Speaker Pelosi avoids the obvious in her release:

“It is with great joy that my husband, Paul, and I met with his Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI today,” Pelosi said in a statement released hours after the meeting. “In our conversation, I had the opportunity to praise the Church’s leadership in fighting poverty, hunger and global warming, as well as the Holy Father’s dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel. I was proud to show his Holiness a photograph of my family’s papal visit in the 1950s, as well as a recent picture of our children and grandchildren.”

Victor L. Simpson,  AP writer, reports:

The Vatican’s attempts to keep the Pelosi visit low-profile displayed its obvious unease with the new U.S. administration. Benedict and Bush had found common ground in opposing abortion, an issue that drew them together despite their differences over the war in Iraq.

Wednesday’s meeting, in a small room off a Vatican auditorium after the pope’s weekly public audience, was closed to reporters and photographers.

The Vatican also said — contrary to its usual policy when the pope meets world leaders — that it was not issuing either a photo or video of the encounter, claiming the meeting was private.

The Anchoress writes:  Pope Punks Pelosi Pix

A Fly on the Vatican Wall

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Oh, to have been the proverbial fly on the wall when Pope Benedict XVI met privately with Madam Speaker Pelosi.  Actually,  if I were the fly, I’d have perched myself on Nancy’s nose as she posed Speakerential.  The Pope is cool, kind, and slendorously Poperific so he’ll continue fighting for her soul while she’s stuck in radical wrong-headed feminism.

From Whispers in the Loggia, the Vatican statement:

Following the General Audience the Holy Father briefly greeted Mrs Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, together with her entourage.

His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.

Remembering Michael

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Amy Welborn shares not only her grief but her gratitude for all that is Michael.  Amy writes:

“How can I, even as I acknowledge the crushing, puzzling, confusing loss and my shattered heart  – for even Jesus wept –  how can I say that I love him and that I believe all this stuff we both said we believed is actually true – and not allow some gratitude, albeit limited and struggling gratitude – to creep into my soul, for that thing, which is not a small thing, but a great thing?”

It will be a good day to die when someone who knows me intimately can write:

He prayed the Office almost every day of the last 25 years or so. Prayed the rosary every day for longer. Went to Mass almost every day.

He prayed, and knew intimately all those words I have been praying – or trying to pray – so intensely over the past week.

Thirsting for God. Rescuing from the snares of the enemy. Letting Christ live in me, being consumed, taken over by Christ, the Risen One,  alive in Him. Praying for that. Every day. Asking God for mercy, for forgiveness, for peace. For the total embrace of Love.