Deogratias

84,000 Novenas for the Pope’s 84th Birthday!

Will you join me in giving the Pope a huge gift for his birthday? Pope Benedict XVI is celebrating his birthday on April 16th and I’m joining up with praymorenovenas.com to get 84,000 people to pray a novena for the Pope’s 84th birthday.

On April 8th, we will begin praying for nine days leading up to and ending on the Papa Benedict’s birthday. The Pope prays for us everyday so it’s time to return the gift to him on the anniversary of his birth.

84,000 Novenas is a lot! So, I’m going to need your help. I want everyone who reads this blog to do the following to help with this birthday gift!

For more information or to sign up for e-mail reminders, click here.

 

 

Another Reason Why IVF is a Bad Idea

I recently received a mailing from Pope Paul VI Institute, where I studied to become a Fertility Care Practitioner, and I was moved by the following case contained therein:

The patient came to the Pope Paul VI Institute with a history of infertility.  She had gone to an in vitro fertilization clinic thinking that that was the approach she would take.  In the process of her evaluation at the IVF clinic, she had a diagnostic laparoscopy.  When the laparoscopy was over, she was told that both tubess were obstructed at the fimbriated end of the tube.  It is common practice for the IVF clinics to do a tubal ligation in cases like this so that the imflammatory fluid from inside the obstructed tube does not go back into the uterine cavity.  In this patient, this was done by placing clamps over the right and left fallopian tube.

Thanks be to God this woman sought further treatment.

 

In her evaluation at the Pope Paul VI Institute, she underwent a second laparascopy.  At the time of her laparascopy, we found that the ends of the tubes were perfectly normal and that she, in fact, did not have hydrosalpinges.  But they did clip both tubes and they were now completely obstructed.  In other words, they sterilized a woman who came to them wanting to achieve a pregnancy.

 

Pope Paul VI further evaluated and treated this woman, finding endometriosis, which was subsequently treated.  They took the clips off of ther tubes and reconnected her fallopian tubes.

 

Pope Paul VI Institute is a fabulous institution begun by Dr. Thomas Hilgers in Omaha, NE.  They have done amazing work in the field of reproductive medicine which is perfectly natural and works with the natural reproductive system. 

 

Silent March through Atlanta

Yesterday afternoon we in Atlanta standing on the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Capitol Avenue, just as we do every year at about this time. 

Nicholas and some of his friends were holding signs and waving at passing cars.

Other friends were holding signs for the Catholics across the street to let them know that the Catholic Campaign for Human Development is NOT something we should be contributing to if we are interested in the sanctity of life, and that the U.S. Catholic Bishops do contribute to this.

Thousands of us were waiting for the Silent March for Life to begin.

  I really wish I had taken some better photos to show just how monstrous the crowd was, and is every year.  It really is amazing!  And unfortunately I got the confederate flag being waved by one wacky guy in my picture.  He was the only one with a flag, but others had signs urging an end to abortion. 

Messages included Men Regret the Loss of Fatherhood, and Abortion Hurts Women,  and one homemade sign with a picture of a baby girl and the words What about her rights? followed by an arrow pointing to her. 

Suddenly we saw a man walking through our midst arguing with some of the sign holders regarding the existence of God.  It is all a myth, he said.  He was being very civil, and I have a feeling he was really searching for God, so we played along.

When I asked him how he thought the universe came into existence, he said that he didn't know for sure, but it was not created by God.  How could all of this come about by accident, I asked.  Nature was his answer.  So you think that all of this complex universe with complex beings just came about by accident? It is possible, he agreed.

I asked him if he though that a highly sophisticated computer with all kinds of super programs could just come into existence on its own or by accident.  No, he laughed.  "It needs people like me to program it and tell it what to do."  Ah, so a computer can't be an accident, but a human being can.

Many other people were standing around asking this guy questions and arguing with him as well.  Our friend Bob came forth and offered the explanation of a scientist because this guy was saying that he followed reason and logic.  Bob got him to agree that the universe was created either by something, nothing or something that is neither something or nothing.  And since he had never seen nothing create anything, it the creator must be something.  Because of the massiveness of the universe, the Creator must be massive. 

This guy didn't really go for this either, because he wasn't really looking for logic as he said.  In fact, he tried to skirt the subject at this point and go on to calling the Bible a work of historical fiction.   Some people argued on this, but I stepped out.  There is no way you can convince a nonbeliever in the validity of the Bible without going through several steps.  So... 

Next we moved on to abortion.  He said that a fetus is nothing more than a mass of cells, which is obviously ludicrous considering the ultrasound technology we have today.  He said that if you take an embryo out of the mother's body and put it on a plate it would not survive.  Thus, he said, it isn't human and does not have a soul.

I said that if I dropped him off alone in the middle of a dessert with no food, water or transportation that he wouldn't be able to survive.  He claimed to be self-sufficient and able to find his own food, so I let that slide.  I reminded him that many people aren't self-sufficient and many would and have died in this situation.  He agreed. 

So then those people who died weren't human by his definition, right?  No he argued.  Well, that was his definition, but apparently he doesn't agree with it.  Hmm..  By this time, I had had enough of this guy.  I was ready to move on....

To  the Silent March for Life.  The thousands of folks standing in front of the Georgia State Capitol began the 1 mile march through the streets of Atlanta.  We went past Five Points, Woodruff Park and through part of the campus of Georgia State University and back to the Capitol.  We were very quiet for such a large crowd, and people everywhere came out of their office buildings and classrooms to watch us.  Our boys and their friend waved at the people sitting in the park, and I was pleased to see people smiling back.

It was a very fun day, which began in the morning with a Rosary and then the Mass for the Unborn with Archbishop Gregory and Bishop Zarama and a dozen or so other priests.  Of course, we can't wait for the day when such a protest will be no longer necessary.

 

 

 

 

An Anniversary We Hope We Can One-Day Forget

Like every year in recent memory, thousands of pro-lifers met in Atlanta on January 22nd to mark the anniversary of the tragic Supreme Court decision in the case Roe vs. Wade which marked the beginning of legal abortion in the United States.  When you see the pictures of the huge crowd, you'll find it amazing that there was no media coverage of this event.  I guess some people just don't want to be reminded.

It was Rosary lead by Father Omar and then Mass with the Archbishop Gregory as the main celebrant.  This was held at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.  Next it was a rally at the capitol with some fabulous speakers and a presentation to remind us of the millions of babies killed each year.

Next there was a Silent March.  It is estimated that 10-15,000 people were there, and I surely believe it.  We were in the back this  year, and when we stood atop the hill by the capitol and saw the huge wall of people covering the street all the way to Peachtree Street and beyond, the crowd appeared massive. It was  hard to capture the image with my tiny camera.

Blood Money

Blood Money is a new film which sheds light on the abortion industry.  How could these things happen? 

Hitler learns about Scott Brown's Victory

 

Hilarious!!  I found it here after meeting the blogger at the Pro-Life Rally at the Georgia Capitol today.  More on that event later.

I wonder if he will keep his promise....

I wonder what President Obama's new conscience clause will say.  Will medical personnel who object to certain procedures, medications, etc. be forced to perform or prescribe them, or will they be permitted to opt out?  This morning I read the following:

The president told representatives of the Catholic press last week that his revised conscience provision will offer “robust” protections for medical personnel and “certainly will not be weaker than what existed before the [January 2009] changes were made.” If the new conscience clause is similar to the one that existed before January 2009, is this acceptable, from the perspective of the U.S. bishops?

Deirdre McQuade: President Obama’s stated commitment to conscience protection is a welcome word. I understand him to mean that — at the very least — he has no plans to undermine existing conscience-protection laws. So we have some assurance that we’ll be no worse off than before the short-lived Bush regulation went into effect.

But this assurance alone hardly makes for “robust” conscience protection, as those laws are — and have been for some time — pretty ineffectual.

Read the rest here:  Conscience Rights and Obama: National Catholic Register

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Snowy Night in Georgia

I was so proud of Nicholas for giving thanks to God when he first saw the flakes coming down.  He has been praying for a couple of years for snow and he has finally seen it.  The boys and their friends quickly ran outside screaming for joy and trying to catch the flakes on their tongues.

Of course you can't see the snowflakes in the pictures, but they were there.  Hopefully they'll stick around for a while so we can enjoy them.

Cure for the Drought??

Up until recently it was believed that 2007 would be the driest year in Atlanta history, but now there is hope.  Rain over the past week and precipitation in the forcast for the weekend may result in a year end total above the record low of 31.8 inches recorded in 1954!

Why, you may wonder.  Click here and check out the photos in the album.

Presidential Candidate Quiz

According to SELECT A CANDIDATE, Sam Brownback is my man, followed by Duncan Hunter in a close second.  Check out the link to find out which candidate most closely matches your views.