Do you vaccinate your children?

I had an incident in 1997 which has caused me never to vaccinate again. Isabella, at her 6 month old baby visit received the DTP shot, as she has previously. The next morning, she had a high fever. This was not unusual, as it had happened at 3 months to her and at least three times to Gaby at that age, 106 degree temperature, and a hyperventilating baby. This time WAS different, however, because of the cough. Whooping cough. She coughed for three weeks, often vomiting, and had every symptom of what they had vaccinated her against.We spent Christmas Eve in the Emergency Room with 6 different doctors who wouldn't admit she had had a reaction to the shot. We paid $500 cash to be told, "she has a virus" and bather her in cool water ourselves.

Her pediatrician wouldn't give her the booster, but refused to admit she had had whooping cough. Later, I read the devastating book about the vaccine, "A Shot in the Dark" which described cases like Isabella, and the doctors' lockstep attitude of denial. One wonders how many cases of reaction to vaccines never get reported to the CDC or FDA. Anyway, the vaccine was changed to the Accellular Pertussis vaccine. Must have gotten enough complaints. I lost my faith in doctors forever.
Then, to make matters worse, I found out that many common vaccines use aborted fetal stem cells, which as a Catholic, I find immoral. Read this article, and make up your own mind about the issue, but know that Catholics DO have a basis for religious objection to the vaccine, and Children of God for Life provides one you can download.

Bishop LoVerde takes a dim view of pornography

Read this timely article about one of the biggest factors in the corruption of our society. It will give you an urgent new prayer petition this Advent.

Homeschool Leaders Take it to the Vatican

Dr Mary Kay Clark, Virginia Seuffert, and Dr. Catherine Moran recently met with officials at the Vatican to discuss Catholic Home Schooling.The response of the Vatican officials was encouraging and positive. Bishop Karl Josef Romer of the Pontifical Council for the Family thanked the home schoolers: "I would like to thank you for your Catholic home schooling initiative that opens up new horizons for the family. I truly admire parents, the mothers and fathers who take on this great commitment and give their children not only food for their bodies and physical well-being, but also all the necessary formation for their minds and instruction in the Catholic Faith, which before being a doctrine, is the lived example of parents themselves. You are the most perfect model of teachers because you live what must shape the lives of your children."

Quo Vadis?

Edward on To Jesus Through Mary is receiving emails regarding interest in completing a Catholic survey about the direction of the Church. Send him a line, and let your voice be heard.

O Antiphons with the Trapp Family

Most of what I know about celebrating the feasts of the Liturgical Year I learned from "The Story of the Trapp Family Singers". This website takes the best of these traditions, and explains them, and gives ideas on how to celebrate them with your family. Today I especially like singing the hymn, Veni, Veni Emmanuel because of all the references to the O Antiphons.

The Holy Father Celebrates Gaudete Sunday with Children

Go over to Open Book to see what Pope Benedict had to say to the children at the Angelus prayer recently.

Little Sisters of the Poor: the richest ladies in town!

I have just time near Heaven! I went with my 13 year old Gaby to volunteer at the nursing home run by Little Sisters of the Poor in Queens Village, NY. I felt the peace emanating from the site when we first pulled into the parking lot, and couldn't wait to get inside.
We were greeted at the door by a smiling Sister Mary of the Holy Spirit, in her crisp white habit and veil, and walked down ivory corridors were bedecked with the sight of twinkling Christmas trees, and stunning nativity scenes at every turn. Five hours later, I wondered where the time had gone, having spent such a peaceful day, serving the sisters, and their sweet elderly patients (one dear soul is just 102 years young!)
We had attended a quiet, yet full chapel for Mass with sunlight pouring on our backs, where we were exhorted by a holy priest to remember to keep Our Lord as the center of Christmas, and listened to Christmas carols while packing loaves of pumpkin bread the Sisters give to community benefactors, fed the elderly infirm, set cozy tables for a Christmas party, and ate a leisurely lunch enjoying the Sisters company. It's so gratifying to see religious who embrace their work among the poor so fully and with such genuine joy, you can tell they see Christ in their patients, and that the patients sense Christ in the Sisters. We felt as loved as the patients do, and can't wait to come back!
Contrasted to this spiritual beauty are the Christmas-shopping-frenzied faces of the box-store shoppers we encountered as we stopped on the way home. They had plenty of Christmas goodies piled in the carts, yet there were NO smiles. They need some time with the Sisters!
They are certainly the richest ladies in town!

Send Pro-life Christmas Cards

Tenessee Right to Life has a lovely religious Christmas card for sale, as a fundraiser for their Right to Life work. If you haven't finished your gift shopping, there are a variety of pro-life gifts for sale in their online catalogue.

Catholic Carnival 97

Go and visit Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering to see the Catholic Carnival, eggnog edition to read some Christmas thoughts.

St John of the Cross

St. John of the Cross, author of "Dark Night of the Soul" (sometimes I consider this my biography!) worked closely with St. Teresa of Avila to reform the Carmelite order. He originally wanted to join a more ascetic order, but she told him she wanted him to help her conduct the reform.
For this he was imprisoned and publicly disgraced by his brothers, further serving to detach him from this world.Pope Pius XI declaed him a doctor of the Church in 1926.

"With what procrastinations do you wait, since from this very moment you can love God in your heart?" Excerpted from Prayer of a Soul Taken with Love — St. John of the Cross.

The Hard Truth

Watch this groundbreaking interview video from the O'Reilly Factor TV show Tuesday, and see the heartbreaking story of a Kelly Dickerson whose life was shattered by having a late term abortion(her baby was 20 weeks old, just like the baby pictured here). It's very graphic, not for the faint of heart, but very important for all those interested in the truth.
Fr.Frank Pavone says America will outlaw abortion when America sees abortion. This video is an important step in that direction.

It's perhaps the first of it's kind in this country on a major news outlet. And it came out on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Patroness of the Unborn.
Thank you, mother, for opening our eyes to the horrors happening in our own nation. Give us courage to work to end this slaughter of the innocents, before too many more babies die and mothers suffer.

Thank you, and God Bless you, Bill O'Reilly!

Wish a Wounded Soldier a Merry Christmas

Here's an address to send a few Christmas cards written out to recovering wounded soldiers, telling them thank you for their service to our country, and wishing them Merry Christmas:

A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue, NW
Washington, DC
20307-5001

The Moon Under Her Feet

As a devoted listener of Fr. Corapi on EWTN, I am used to his strong preaching style, and take-no-prisoners approach to Catholic morality. That's why I listen to him! I'm sick of non-committal homilies about 'being nice'. Charity sometime looks harsh at the outset, but it always has the eternal destiny of the soul in mind.

In this series, Fr. Corapi relates a series of facts regarding the Muslim connection to two of the most popular Marian apparitions in history, Fatima and Guadalupe. Both had connections to the Moorish occupation of the Iberian Peninsula.

The very name "Fatima" is the name of Mohammed's daughter.Today, the Basilica of Our Lady of Fatima has thousands of Muslim visitors.

The story of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a bit more complex. A revered icon of Our Lady, was hidden during the Moorish occupation of Spain for centuries, and discovered around 1500 in a place with an Arabic name, meaning 'hidden river', or Guadalupe. The icon became known in Spain as "Our Lady of Guadalupe" and a shrine in Spain dedicated to her honor. Bishop Zumarraga, the bishop to whom Juan Diego reported his apparitions of Our Lady, didn't understand the name "she who stands in front of the sun"(an Aztec word) and mistakenly used the name of the popular Spanish shrine to describe the apparitiong, thus "Our Lady of Guadalupe" has a Muslim name!

These are surely not accidents, and Our Lady clearly is calling her children there so she can lead them to her Son.

Feast of St. Lucy

St. Lucy, virgin, and martyr, pray that we may always have the courage to defend the Holy Catholic Church.

Moms for Modesty

Laura Ingraham had a great discussion on modesty on her radio show last night, touched off by her mention of those horrible "Bratz" dolls. It's an important topic, considering the shocking statistics which surfaced recently, that 40% of children in this country are born out of wedlock, and that less than 50% of American households consist of a traditional family with both parents. This is where the lack of morality since the 1960's has brought us.
Just where are we headed as a nation?
Let's get involved, parents! The group Moms for Modesty is organizing to protect the innocence of our children, particularly our daughters. Click on the button, send a comment, and post your own.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Unborn, Pray for Us!

Our Lady of Guadalupe is Patroness of the Unborn because, the Aztec religion required human sacrifice, and her apparition put an end to this practice in Mexico. May she put an end to the practice of modern child sacrifice, abortion, in the rest of the world.

The battle for the lives of the unborn takes place on so many fronts, so I keep current via daily email updates from Life Site. I learned there that our brothers and sisters in Portugal are fighting to keep abortion illegal in this predominately Catholic nation, but, foreigners, mostly American are involved in trying to force this horrible practice on one of only three European nations to ban it. The others are, of course, Ireland and Poland.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for Portgual!

I've got a new parish!

The webmaster at St. Blog's Parish Directory has added me to this distinguished online 'parish' with a review that makes me blush. Thank you.

Blessed Adolph Kolping 1913-1865

While Advent is full of beloved, well known saints, here's a newcomer. Blessed Adolph had a similar ministry to St. John Bosco to single men adrift in cities during the Industrial Revolution in Germany. He started the Young Workmen's or Kolping Society to sanctify family life, to improve work conditions, and to keep them in the Catholic Faith.
It just occured to me that this could be one of the main reasons Europeans(and Americans) have largely left the Faith, fast-paced city life, more leisure time and disposable income in a city full of temptations, and distance from family and traditional mores.

Father Kolping once said, “The first thing that a person finds in life and the last to which he holds out his hand, and the most precious that he possess, even if he does not realize it, is family life.”This is where we learn the Faith, grow in love, and revceive love not for what we earn, but for who we are, faults and all. Homeschoolers know this, and try to build children a strong basis in the Faith before the ravages of modern life teach the child his worth is something less, like his buying power, or his ill-used sexuality. We hope that like a young tree, tied to stakes while it's vulnerable, and untied when it can withstand storms, our young ones, by the time they leave home, will resist the evils of the world, while accepting the goodness, and work to bring about the kingdom of God.

Adolph Kolping gathered skilled workers and factory laborers together. Thus he overcame their isolation and defeatism. A faith society gave them the strength to go out into their everyday lives as Christ’s witnesses before God and the world. To come together, to become strengthened in the assembly, and thus to scatter again is and still remains our duty today. We are not Christians for ourselves alone, but always for others too” (Pope John Paul II, beatification homily)

Celebration of St. Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Singing "Las Mananitas" is the traditional serenade for the vigil of Our Lady of Guadalupe sung in the Basilica where the tilma with her miraculous image is revered by thousands.
A troupe of actors travel Long Island to spread devotion to Our Lady in her various apparitions. Our Lady is first appearing to St. Juan Diego at Tepeyac.
Here, St. Juan Diego and Bishop Zumarraga discover the miraculous image Our Lady herself 'painted' on the tilma (or poncho) of Juan Diego.
The little ones enjoyed the mariachis!

A Marian Feast and Procession

The girls made ornaments with the Holy Family, had pizza, fruit and cookies, and processed into the chapel at our homeschool co-op at St. Michael the Archangel, while we sang "Salve Regina". It was simple,and innocent, just as our Blessed Mother would love it.