The Right Choice (a pro-life poem)

Below is my latest poem.

The Right Choice (a pro-life poem)

Sharon was expecting a baby
What would her family say?
The school counselor pressured her
To abort without delay

Fortunately friends stepped in
and did all that they could do
to help Sharon keep her baby
and to make it through

Today Sharon is so happy
that she made the choice for life
As she proudly watched the wedding
of her son and his sweet wife.

Other Matters

Learn special ways to help the Holy Souls in Purgatory and read inspiring stories of how the Holy Souls in Purgatory have helped their benefactors

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Overcoming infertility through prayer to St Philomena the Wonder Worker

Baby Filomena Elizabeth

The following story comes from Australia. It is told here in the words of Filomena’s mother Elizabeth. Having been married on the feast of Mary the Mother of God on the 1st of January, 2000, Francis and I were trusting that God might bless us with a baby at some stage.  This was going to be a big challenge for me, as I had never considered myself to be very maternal because my reproductive cycle was always extremely “light on” or in other words “spaced out.”  Nevertheless my husband was always trusting in God’s providence and he never doubted that one day we would have a baby. I think that I “flunked” the Billings Ovulation method because in the end, our Billings practitioner was not convinced that I had been fertile during any of the months that we had consulted her, so Francis and I stopped the analysis and started praying.  Instead of consulting the medical fraternity we consulted Jesus in the tabernacle and prayed many Saint Philomena Chaplets before a statue of Saint Philomena at Saint Patrick’s in the city.   In April 2001 I discovered that I was pregnant. The great miracle had happened.  Saint Philomena made her presence felt very strongly during the labour and we subsequently named our gorgeous daughter Filomena.  There were some special pointers that Saint Philomena had indeed interceded for us in bringing about this great favour. One of these indicators was a small incident with an Italian friend of ours.  She came and visited our baby daughter when she had just been born.  She then put a question to her father when she got back home asking him to guess what we had named our daughter.  He paused for a couple of seconds and then said “Filomena.” Our friend could not believe it!  Incredible, how did he guess it? Our friend said that the name Philomena is an extremely old fashioned name in Italy and a name that probably only one’s grandmother or great grandmother might have. We thank Saint Philomena for her intercession and pray that we will able to have a brother or sister for our little Filomena.

The story above is one of the many accounts of answers to prayer from my book entitled:

Help from Heaven (Answers to Prayer), which can be read free on-line by clicking here. Please pay a visit.

Devotion to Maria Bambina

In some countries there is a devotion to Maria as a baby, just as many of us pray to Jesus as an Infant.  This statue is in a church in Italy.

The air-raid (a protection attributed to a guardian angel)

During WWII during an air raid in Croatia, a mother quickly grabbed her baby and placed him into the pram.  She wanted to get to the air-raid shelter as quickly as she could, however outside the snow was very thick and the pram could not be pushed along.  During this stressful time a man appeared and told her that all would be well.  He then disappeared.  All the difficulties immediately dissolved and she was able to push the stroller along and safely arrive at the air-raid shelter.  She believes that the man who appeared is her guardian angel.

Abortion (a poem about the evil of this act)

A tiny baby
Inside his mother,
Looked forward to meeting
His big brother.

As he swam joyfully
In his room,
He looked forward to the day,
He would leave the womb.

He felt safe and happy,
In his temporary home,
However people outside
Had hearts of stone.

Their diabolical plan,
Was to terminate his life,
Using as an instrument,
A sharp surgeon’s knife.

In this and other
Similar cases,
Excuses were made
To cover the bases.

Lies to his mother were fed,
As to death her baby bled.
“It’s just a blob of jelly,
and a bunch of muscle tissue.
This abortion thing,
is  no big issue”.

No one told her
He was a child,
An innocent baby,
Gentle and mild.

Some people give better care
Than this to their pet,
When it’s sick
They worry,
And seek help from the vet.

If he had known
His life would end today,
He would have pleaded with us,
To find a better way,

To let him be born,
And carry out his mission
Sadly the matter,
Was not his decision.

The abortion industry
is driven by lies and greed.
Money helps grow
Its poisonous weed.

If the money runs out,
Have no doubt,
This evil industry,
Would soon
Lose its clout.

It matters not,
If the deed is done,
By a knife or a pill,
Abortions are murder still.

If RU486
goes ahead,
More unborn babies
Will be dead !

Here’s more of the lies
That from this industry are spun.
“A child will ruin your life,
And destroy all your fun”.

“Another child,
Your finances will drain,
Get rid of him now,
To stay well off and sane”.

“A disabled child’s
Not worth the trouble.
Get rid of him,
On the double”.

“You already have a child.
That’s more than enough.
With two or more children,
You’ll find it real tough”.

A woman is not always
fully to blame.
The man often pushes her
into this shame.

The burden of childcare
Is not for this man.
It doesn’t fit into
His low selfish plan.

Reach out
To the women,
Who have been through
This Hell.
Help them come to God,
Who can make all things well.

Abortion (find out what it really looks like)

It is a good idea to confront people with graphic pictures of what an aborted baby looks like.  Father Frank Pavone highly recommends showing these pictures. He receives emails everyday from people who supported abortion and then changed their position to being pro-life immediately, upon seeing the pictures of abortion on the Priests for Life website. Pregnant women who have seen pictures of aborted babies have cancelled their abortion. Seeing is believing. Priests for Life have been trying to get TV stations to show these images for some time.  Father Pavone does not even ask for a message to be given with the TV images.  The images speak for themselves.  Showing pictures of the reality of something is sometimes the only way to get people to come out of denial.  On TV there are horrible video images of the inside of a smoker’s lungs. Smokers who are hooked on smoking like to switch off to arguments against it.  The TV video images of a smoker’s damaged lungs can’t be argued with. Likewise TV campaigns against speeding and drink driving show the ugly reality of a fatal car accident.  Pictures speak louder than words.

To read a poem on the evil of abortion visit this webpage.

St Anthony’s bread

True son of St Francis that he was St Anthony had a great love for the poor and even now he still continues to help them by encouraging the devotion known as St Anthony’s bread. This is a very old devotion too and it had its origin in Padua as the result of another miracle.  

 

A little child whose parents lived near the Basilica, which was then being built fell into a vessel of water and drowned. The poor mother was heart broken but great as was her grief she had a greater confidence in the power of St Anthony. She begged him to help and give her back her babe promising that if her prayers were heard she would give the child’s weight in grain to the poor. Towards midnight while the bereaved mother was still praying the child rose up as if from sleep. After this miracle the practice developed of promising alms to the poor in return for favours received through the intercession of the saint. Today this practice is widespread and in most of our churches boxes are provided to receive alms for the poor from those who have been assisted by this great friend of the poor. 

 

Great impetus was given to this devotion by a simple incident that occurred towards the end of the last century. A pious French girl Louise Bouffier who owned a small linen store in Toulon, found difficulty, one morning, in opening the door of her shop. After repeated efforts she sent for a locksmith, whose assortment of keys proved useless. Deciding that the lock must be forced, the man departed to get tools for the purpose. While he was away, Louise prayed earnestly to St. Anthony, promising him bread for his poor if the door was opened without injury to the lock. When the locksmith returned she asked him to try his keys once more, telling him of her promise to the Saint. The man did as she asked, and with the first key he tried, opened the door without any difficulty. 

 

This incident greatly strengthened Louise Bouffier’s confidence in St. Anthony.  She increased her devotion to him, always promising bread to the poor.  Her friends followed her example with the result that, in a short time the rear of her store became a centre for St. Anthony’s Bread in Toulon. People of all ranks and conditions came there to pray before the statue of St. Anthony which had been erected.  

 

Alms of bread arrived in great quantities, until the task of distributing it became too difficult. Then it was decided to accept money offerings for the poor, who were thereby enabled to purchase not only food, but clothing and other necessities. The thank-offerings also took the form of alms for the education of poor boys for the Priesthood

 

More customs in honour of St Anthony

 

Some moral and ethical issues concerning IVF techniques

IVF is not allowed by the Catholic Church because it separates the unitive and the procreative aspects of marriage. To separate the unitive and the procreative aspects of marriage is a mortal sin. In addition the sperm donor commits a mortal sin in order to harvest the sperm which is needed for IVF.

Although one human life may be created through the IVF technique, many surplus foetuses, (unborn babies), are destroyed through this process. Other surplus unborn babies are left frozen in the laboratories where they were manufactured as though they were not human beings, but simply consumer goods. They were not created in love through the marriage act as God intends.

What a nightmare dilemma the presence of these forgotten, frozen, (so called left over, surplus, not needed), human beings has caused us. Sometimes the parents have died or have changed their minds about having the IVF baby, which is already in existence. There appears to be no answer to this problem except to leave them there. To destroy them would be murder.

Another unhappy business regarding IVF techniques is that multiple implants are made in the woman’s womb in the hope that one of these pregnancies will come to term, and that a live baby will be born, however sometimes the outcome is that the woman instead of carrying one baby, may be carrying several babies. A process called selective reduction is sometimes resorted to. This means that the surplus babies are aborted, (which means that they are murdered).

IVF mix-ups have occurred with disastrous consequences. Some women did not end up with their husband’s baby, but with another man’s baby.  Just think what chaos that could bring to the marriage and to family life. Divorce has been one of the bitter fruits of these events.

There are other very disturbing developments brought about through these techniques. People conceived through these techniques are in danger of unknowingly marrying relatives.  These marriages further increase the risk of sicknesses and or disability.  It would not be the fault of the people involved, but nevertheless this is highly undesirable.

Marrying relatives has been shown even in the natural order, to produce more illnesses among the children born on account of these marriages. This has been shown in the case histories of the frequent marriages between relatives of the royal families of Europe, where many of the male children were born with the hereditary bleeding illness called haemophilia.

Babies bought about by IVF techniques are more likely to be sick and/or disabled, as has been seen in other unnatural techniques of bringing about new life, such as cloning, which deviates from God’s plan for procreation. At the present time cloning is only done on animals. There is mounting evidence of the large amount of deformities and sicknesses in animals bought about in this way. If this happens to animals we would be foolish to believe this would not happen to human beings also, if these unnatural techniques of bringing new life into existence are utilised.

If IVF gains acceptance, it is probably only a matter of time before even more diabolical reproductive technologies are used. It is not wise, nor is it moral, to go against nature by techniques such as IVF and in the process increasing the chances of sickness and/or disability. (This is not in any way an argument against the right to life of sick and disabled people.)

The so-called medical scientists involved in IVF technology are not usually there for the happiness of infertile couples. They are proving to themselves and to others what they can do with human life, and they are playing God. Money also motivates them, as it does the drug companies who sell contraceptives, and abortionists who destroy human life for financial gain.

The Catholic Church is sympathetic to all infertile married couples.  However this does not mean that anything goes in order to achieve a baby.  Any methods employed to enhance the chances of having a baby should be morally sound, such as learning to identify the fertility markers (symptoms), in the woman’s body, which may occur far less often in women who are experiencing the problem of infertility than in other women, and then using that information to advantage, to improve the chances of achieving a pregnancy.

Many people throughout the ages have prayed to the saints for help regarding infertility problems, and have had their prayers granted.  Adopting a child sometimes has been known to bring about an end to an infertility problem. Some previously infertile couples have gone on to have several children of their own, after the generous act of adopting a child.