Making War On the African Child

Will Nigeria be the first country to be bought with Obama's funding for abortion? The irony here is almost overwhelming, but will it get any coverage by NBC?

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Feast of the Annunciation

Exaustion

Has it been eighteen weeks of Mondays already? It seems like so much longer. Not that anything he has done has been a surprise, but it does seem that our president is determined to bring the wrath of God down upon our country.

Is it just me, or is there a particular arrogance to some of his decisions? For example, why in the world, when the country is, according to his own words, in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, would you offer to send our tax dollars out of the country to pay for the abortions of women who aren't even American citizens?

And why would you choose as head of Health and Human Services a woman who literally partied with George "The Killer" Tiller, a man who never saw a pregnancy he wasn't willing to terminate, even if it was practically in the last stages of labor and delivery? How's that for a human service?

Unfortunately, our president is only one of what are probably millions of confused "Christians" in this country, whose primary concern is the economy while they are blind to the fact that we are all wading around up to our knees (at least) in blood.

St. Joseph, pray for our president, and pray for us all.

Anniversary of the Dred Scott Decision

On this date in 1857, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Dred Scott, an African-American slave, had "no rights that a white man need respect." Because he was black, he was not considered to be an American citizen and was not allowed to sue for his freedom.

What does this have to do with abortion? Two things. First, that the Supreme Court is not infallible. Its decision may have been logical, based on the laws of its day, but the laws of its day were unjust. Second, that Roe v. Wade is a similar decision, since it supports the belief that an unborn child is not a citizen and thus is not entitled to the rights of the rest of us. In other words, an unborn child has "no rights that the rest of us need respect."

In 1857, and even into the twentieth century, many educated white people sincerely believed that African-Americans were no better than beasts. Despite clear scientific evidence that all races are essentially the same with regard to innate intellectual capacity, there are still white supremacists who refuse to believe the truth. And despite clear scientific evidence that abortion is an act of bloody violence that takes the life of a human being, albeit a tiny one, with brain waves and a beating heart, with tiny little bones, tiny little fingers and toes, and a capacity to feel pain and to fight for his life, still there are many educated people who sincerely believe this is not true. The truth is out there, but they stubbornly refuse to believe.

At this very moment, across America, there are sonogram pictures of unborn babies taped to refrigerators and used as screen savers, but there are those who choose . . . to refuse to believe. We elected one of those people to be our president. Please pray for him.

Our Sixteenth Monday for Obama

'For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison and visit you?' And the king will say in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did it for me.'

'Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.' And these will go off to eternal punishment . . .

----- Gospel Reading for Monday of the First Week of Lent

Please pray for President Barack Obama, and for all Christians who do not understand the meaning of the Gospel.

Thursday, February 26

The king of Egypt told the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was called Shiphrah and the other Puah, "When you act as midwives for the Hebrew women and see them giving birth, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she may live." The midwives, however, feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt had ordered them, but let the boys live.
--- Exodus 1:15-17
(from the Office of Readings, Thursday After Ash Wednesday)

I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.
---Deuteronomy 30:19-20
(from the First Reading of the Mass for Thursday After Ash Wednesday)

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Ash Wednesday: Lent Begins

Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.

-- antiphon for the Miserere, Mass of Ash Wednesday


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Join a National Novena

Catholics for the Common Good is asking people throughout the nation to join them in a novena (nine days of prayer) in support of California's Prop (Proposition) 8, which as you may recall, supports the traditional definition of marriage. Although California voters passed Prop 8, it is now under fire through three lawsuits filed against it. The oral arguments will be March 5, so a novena of prayer is set to begin on Ash Wednesday. Why are the rest of us being asked to join in? For one thing, they need the prayer support badly. For another, as California goes, eventually so go the rest of us, often enough. I suppose we can pray now or pray later. What has this got to do with President Obama? Indirectly, nothing, but what we're seeing with Prop 8 is just the latest battle between the Culture of Death and the Culture of Life. It's all the same war, really.

National Novena for Prop 8 Legal Challenge Catholics For The Common Good

Change Worth Praying For!

The conversion of President Obama has another web site devoted to its cause: http://convertObama.com/. The great thing about this site, in addition to its name, is that you can pledge your specific prayers and sacrifices and then see all the pledges being announced, one by one. What I really like is the subtitle: "Change Worth Praying For." This Lenten project, which I suspect may be extended after Lent is over, is a great idea with a great web site.

Check it out, and pass the word: let's pray and sacrifice for President Obama, especially during Lent.

Our Fifteenth Monday for Obama

So we are into Week Fifteen, which brings us to the brink of Lent, the great season of prayer, fasting, mortification, and preparation -- for the Four Last Things (death, judgment, heaven, and hell) and the great celebration of the Resurrection.

If you're looking for a particular objective for your Lenten prayers and fasting, why not consider our President? Our country needs prayer, and since he leads our country, I believe that to pray for him is to pray for the country.

The economy is in crisis; on that we can all agree. But is that the real problem, or is it a symptom of a much bigger problem? What is the real economic crisis, the real poverty? Mother Teresa has told us: What a poverty that a child must die in order for us to live as we please. We have been practicing child sacrifice in this country for many years, and the numbers are more staggering than the Holocaust.

Around the country, many are participating in another 40 Days for Life campaign during Lent. Consider adding prayers for our President as part of that campaign.

A man in the crowd answered, "Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit...
I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they could not..." "O unbelieving generation, " Jesus replied, "how long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me..." After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, "Why couldn't we drive it out?" He replied, "This kind can come out only by prayer and fasting."

Let us pray and fast for President Obama.

The Red Envelope Project

Send an empty red envelope to President Obama. It represents the life of a child snuffed out by abortion. See more here:

The Red Envelope Project

Good News

We have to take it where we can find it.  Hit with declines in funding from the economic crisis and the Madoff scandal, the PPFA (Planned Parenthood Federation of America) is laying off around 20% of its staff.  This was first reported about a month ago. 

Planned Parenthood makes staff cuts - Crain's New York Business

President Obama’s Remarks at National Prayer Breakfast: Sounds Like a Pro-Lifer . . .

On Thursday, February 5, 2009, while addressing the National Prayer Breakfast, our President stated: "There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being."

Such as this one?

How did that remark get past his spin doctors? Surely, and hopefully, it will come back to haunt him until his own intelligence, common sense, and conscience force him to face the truth. Just remember, Mr. President: the truth will set you free. Or can't you handle the truth?

(P.S. That's a remarkably well-delineated cluster of cells on that quarter, don't you think? It resembles a pair of human hands!)

Please pray for Barack Obama.

President Obama’s Remarks at National Prayer Breakfast - NYTimes.com

He Went To Catholic School

Hmm.  Am I feeling a glimmer of hope?  I think I am, especially since he actually said NO to Nancy Pelosi's STD Stimulus Pork (that sounds dirty, but it could definitely be worse). 

Please continue to pray for Barack Obama.

Obama Should Acknowledge His Roots

22weeks: Does this look like a "cluster of cells" to you?

This is a baby who was born alive during an abortion. His horrified mother begged the staff to help him, but they refused. He died in his mother's arms. The Born Alive Infants Protection Act was proposed to provide medical care to children like this, but our President, Barack Obama, is opposed to such legislation. He has also arranged for our tax dollars -- yours and mine -- to be used to do this all over the world.

A short film has been made about this particular baby, and you can read more about it at the web site:

www.22weeksthemovie.com

Today is our twelfth Monday for Obama. Please pray for the conversion of our president.

A Man's Perspective

A former True Believer in Choice, he ends with a question:  How could The Love Generation spawn the abomination of abortion?

Big Hollywood » Blog Archive » Flashpoint! A Woman’s Right To Choose

Is God Pro-Choice?

He will love and bless and multiply you; he will bless the fruit of your womb and the produce of your soil ...
no man or woman among you shall be childless nor shall your livestock be barren.
-- Deuteronomy 7:13-14

I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live ... What I am commanding you is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach ... it is already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.
-- Deuteronomy 30:11-15

From the Office of Readings for Thursday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

So, if by "God Is Pro-Choice" you mean, He allows us to choose death, then I agree with you. If you mean, He thinks death is a good choice, then . . . perhaps you're reading from a very different translation from all the ones I've seen. "Choose life" seems pretty clear to me.

Please pray for Barack Obama, and all the confused Christians who give him advice.

Our Eleventh Monday for Obama

But God says to the wicked:

"But how can you recite my commandments

and take my covenant on your lips,

you who despise my law

and throw my words to the winds . . .

. . . You do this, and I should keep silence?

Do you think that I am like you?

Mark this, you who never think of God,

lest I seize you and you cannot escape . . ."

Our God will come and will not keep silence;

before Him there is a consuming fire,

and round about Him there is a raging storm.

He calls the heavens and the earth from above

to witness the judgment of His people.

from Psalm 50

Office of Readings

Monday of the Third Week

in Ordinary Time

Please pray for Barack Obama, and pray for us all.

I Have a Dream...

But first, here are a few things I've been ruminating on since the inauguration, or is it The Inauguration? Or even, perhaps, The Coronation?

• What was up with the really long trumpets that had fancy banners hanging from them, depicting somebody's coat of arms? Were they loaned by Queen Elizabeth? Have we used those at every inauguration and I've just missed them?
• Am I the only one made uneasy by the fact that the star of The Inauguration drew a crowd very comparable to say, the Pope? And that so many people in the crowd were reacting as if they were seeing the Holy Father (tears streaming down their faces)? That these same people have put the kind of hope in the man Obama that is usually reserved for the Vicar and personal ambassador of Jesus Christ?
• Do the words "Put not your trust in princes" come to anyone else's mind but mine?
• Does anyone honestly think, with expectations and anticipation this high, that President Obama has anyplace to go but down? And it's such a long, long way down.
• Why is it that when George Bush talks tough, he's jeered as a cowboy, but when Barack Obama uses almost identical words, the crowds cheer him as if he were king?
• Why is it that when George Bush invokes the Almighty, and speaks defiantly of our faith, he is demonized, but when Barack Obama uses almost identical words, he is rhapsodized? (I know I'm not imagining this part, because Jon Stewart on The Daily Show has already put them in side-by-side videos on last night's show.)

Please observe carefully that I mention these things not as a criticism of President Obama, who surely had no involvement in the selection of trumpets, and can't be held completely responsible for the fact that he makes people cry. It's the reaction of the world that makes me uneasy.

Which brings me to my dream.

I have a dream. . . that one day, we will have a president who will use his incredible charisma and eloquence, his incredible influence over Hollywood, the rest of America, and the world at large, to persuade us all that we need to re-think our belief that killing people is ever a good solution to a problem, and that this especially includes children and other innocent people, not just convicted murderers and terrorists. I have a dream. . . in which that president will be Barack Obama.

Please pray for President Barack Obama.

A Liberal's Definition of Abortion

"I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful ... Abortion results in annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue.

"I have never understood the standard Democratic combo of support for abortion and yet opposition to the death penalty.  Surely it is the guilty rather than the innocent who deserve execution?"

-- Camille Paglia

click here for the entire article; scroll to page four for these quotes on abortion| Salon

Another Monday for Obama

Another Monday, another day of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving for the conversion of Barack Obama. Of course, this is the day before he is anointed Messiah and Savior of the United States of America, the day of celebration which has been named, ironically, "We Are One."

It certainly did not seem to me that We Are One this past Saturday, as I walked in our local March for Life. As we walked past the more notorious of our city's two abortion facilities, there were colorful balloons festooning the parking lot and a big banner reading "For Abortion Call 1-800-" whatever. For your killing convenience, there is a 1-800 number. Then there were the signs: "Pro-Faith, Pro-Family, Pro-Choice" (killing your children is pro-family?). "CHRISTIAN TALIBAN" (I think that was supposed to be us; we are like the people who execute women for learning to read and who use children as human shields). "CHRISTIAN BULLIES" (I think that was supposed to be us, too, although we processed silently while they had a team of three attractive and hip-looking young people standing on the corner jeering and taunting us as we passed). My personal favorite, though was "GOD IS PRO-CHOICE." Is that the same God who commanded us not to kill? Who told us to let the little children come unto Him, to welcome them in His name? Who told us that He set before us life and death, blessing and curse, and urged us to choose life? Are these people out of their minds? They are actually saying that they are doing God's will? This is surely insanity. The saddest part of all is these were --it's hard to even say it -- our brothers and sisters in Christ. They honestly believe they are performing a work of mercy through the killing of children. May God have mercy on their souls, for surely they know not what they are doing.

"Because you have rejected the command of the Lord, He, too, has rejected you as ruler."

-- words of Samuel, the priest, to Saul, the King of Israel
I Samuel 15:23

Please pray for Barack Obama.

Obama's Negro Project

Margaret Sanger would have been ecstatic.  From the grave she has managed to help a black man into the White House, so that he can support her Negro Project by signing the FOCA as his first official act (at least that was the plan before the economy took a nosedive; it may have to wait in line a little while).

P.S.  If you voted for Barack Obama and you don't know what FOCA stands for, shame on you.  After all, he said himself it was the first thing he would do. 

BlackGenocide.org | The Negro Project

Finally: A Little Coverage By the MSM

US News & World Report featured some coverage of the Pro-Life movement demanding  the attention of the President-elect.  I am amused that the writer was struck by how respectful the comments were, and that he surmised this was so because of Mr. Obama's ability to bring out the best in folks, as opposed to the fact that so many of the Pro-Lifers are Christians and this is what living the Gospel of Christ looks like.

Pro-Lifers Inundate Obama Website With Comments - God & Country (usnews.com)

Our Best Response

So today is our eighth Monday for Obama. (Yes, I skipped posting for a couple of weeks because of the holidays, but I did not skip the prayers.)

Here's an appropriate quote for us from George Weigel:

"...the Church in America anticipates at least four years of grave challenge in its living of the Gospel of life. The best response to that challenge is for each of us to become the saints our baptism calls us to be."

Monday, January 19, will be our tenth Monday for Obama, and I plan to run my Monday straight through Tuesday, January 20, Inauguration Day. But I will also be praying for Rick Warren as he prepares to deliver the inaugural invocation. I think it's an encouraging sign that Mr. Obama selected him, and I pray that Rev. Warren will be given an extra dose of eloquence on that fateful day.

Don't forget: saints are known mostly for their prayer.