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Human Fertilization
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Take My Hand
Take my hand , my Jesus.
Here I am, Your child,
Too small to stand on my own,
Yet welcome before Your throne.
It is, You, My Cause,
Who sets me upright,
Through and through,
To be like unto You.
All my life called,
And marked by Love Divine,
Under Your Shadow, sun shining above,
One command only, Love!
Who can love without You?
This, too, You supply.
You spend Your Life’s Blood
To draw me from mire and mud.
All from Adam
In human chain,
Hold hands to be set free,
Man from Sin in loving Thee.
Copyright 2013 Joann Nelander
Holy See
I was looking at Your Heart,
Alight with rays,
Gushing from Your parted Breast.
I realized that heart was just like mine,
Human,
Yours aflame,
Shooting forth on wings of Holy Dove,
And mine,
Still learning how, what
And Who to love.
Love You are, and Love You give,
Bursting upon Time and Space, and Me,
And myriads akin to me,
Merely mortal, and yet more.
Heart rays, sacred emanations
Of Who You Are,
Enflame, to fire fleshly hearts
In Your Eternal Streams
Giving Your Life all
Who dare in hope
To welcome and adore.
Who but God could conceive
So great a good;
Your Heart is mine,
And mine is Thine
And I , at long-last, see.
©2014 Joann Nelander
Argument from Size
When we step on an ant,
An ant smaller than a fetus,
We acknowledge killing an ant.
We may not fret,
After-all, it’s an ant!
Haven’t we the right to kill an ant?
We do confess, we killed an ant,
Though it be smaller than a fetus.
When a mother, a nurse,
A doctor, a bio-scientist,
Or technician trained in the art,
When “we the people, a nation,
Cut short the life of a fetus,
All deny the killing.
"It’s too small to matter."
Do we really believe,
We are doing good?
Have we a care beyond convenience and profit?
Do we have the right?
Are we in the right?
How big does Truth have to be?
Let us Wash Each Others Feet in Love
Pope Francis said: “There is much that we can do to benefit the poor, the needy and those who suffer, and to favor justice, promote reconciliation and build peace. But before all else we need to keep alive in our world the thirst for the absolute, and to counter the dominance of a one-dimensional vision of the human person, a vision which reduces human beings to what they produce and to what they consume: this is one of the most insidious temptations of our time.”
The Crisis of the Western World
“The crisis of the Western world exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God.” Whittaker Chambers
William F. Buckley Jr.called this Russian spy, Whittaker Chambers, “the most important American defector from Communism.” Whittaker had lived under such indifference and saw its consequences. Empirical evidence led to his change of heart and country. He warned us to be vigilant. Are we vigilant?
We are living in a society that prides itself on its humanity, and credits itself with such as its accomplishment, all the while, being unaware of the source of such blessedness. We are living and enjoying the vestiges, perhaps,the last vestiges of Judeo-Christian ethic, morality and virtue.
Do we yet recognize the Western world’s indifference to God? Let’s start with the image of God. Where do we find it if not imprinted on every child created within Woman? Look at the way that child is provided for, by God’s design, within the woman’s womb. “Love”, “nurture”, “protection”, all these words and more come to mind. How do we recognize God, if not primarily in His creation.
Many think themselves, their thought and policies, humane, yet act in a way that can only be characterized as “sub-humane” toward the image of God in the womb. Where are we in our Western thought and society? Can we recognize Crisis when confronted with it. Do we even care?
Perhaps, God is confined to the box with such as the Sunday morning sermon, forgotten as we get back to “the real world.” God, the Creator of All, a matter of indifference!? His life and image in the flesh and substance of every innocent human procreation goes unrecognized in our law and land. Where the sublime humanity of this age?
Church Believes in Cures That Don’t Sacrifice Life – Catholic Culture
There is a great deal of confusion in our society about stem-cell research. An important distinction must be made about embryonic stem-cell research that kills innocent human life and adult stem-cell research that doesn\’t.
The Catholic Church opposes embryonic stem-cell research but strongly supports adult stem-cell research. Opponents of the Church have branded us as being opposed to science and indifferent to those who suffer from illnesses. But we support ethically responsible scientific research and are very committed to searching for cures, as long as it doesn\’t kill human life.
This is indeed a pro-life issue. We believe that there are strong ethical issues involved here. Even a small embryo is a human being. We all started out as embryonic stem cells. To harvest embryonic stem cells — even to help human life — is wrong because it kills the embryo. It means in effect using tiny human body parts for scientific purposes.
The end does not justify the means.
We know that the genetic package is really complete when conception takes place and sonar pictures of the living infant in the womb clearly show human life as it grows and develops.
Human-life issues are the bedrock of our faith. Respect for life is central to Catholicism, and thus we defend every life where it is threatened — from conception to natural death. We are committed to a consistent ethic of life. Hence, we oppose abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, euthanasia and capital punishment. As a religious leader I have a serious obligation to share this teaching with others. I am aware that some will not agree.
Some will say that human embryos are in frozen storage and ultimately will be discarded anyway so why is it wrong to try and get some good out of them? Well, in the end we will all die anyway, but that gives no one the right to kill us.
These embryos will not die because they are inherently unable to survive, but rather because others are choosing to hand them over for destructive research instead of letting them implant in their mother\’s womb. The idea of experimenting on human beings because they may die anyway also imposes a grave threat to convicted prisoners, terminally ill patients and others.
We can all support many kinds of exciting and forward-looking avenues of stem-cell research, like umbilical cord and adult stem-cell research, with a clear conscience. These treatments have been a great help to people with Parkinson\’s disease, spinal cord injury, sickle cell anemia, heart damage, corneal damage and dozens of other conditions. There are scholars and experts who would say there is much more hope to develop cures from adult stem-cell research than from embryonic stem cells.
Embryonic stem-cell research will certainly lead to the creation of cloned human embryos — which also raises serious ethical problems.
via Library : Church Believes in Cures That Don’t Sacrifice Life – Catholic Culture.
Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference (full video)
Tough As Nails – Open Letter to God
We are willing to discard the person for the part.
“We’ve made great strides”, “…a long way, Baby.”
You and Your creation shall serve us.
Yes, that is our “Way”.
It makes perfect sense to us.
After all, You are invisible,
As invisible as a child within the womb,
That is, until the flesh is torn away.
We have the technology.
See, no cringing here. “Just do it!”
We’re tough as nails.
You are familiar with nails?
Yes, tough as nails.
In this world you have to be!
Hello. Knock, knock. Are You there?
…. See, He doesn’t care.
You hold Your anger, so we say,
“Where is this God of yours?”.
Our world crumbles,
Chaos all around.
Evidence of Your absence or Your ire?
It doesn’t matter.
You are the Past. We are Now!
If I pull Your beard, will You awaken.
Are You like us?
Will You take a poll
Or turn Your blind eyes?
In Your retirement or death,
We’ve found our voice. We’ve found our fist!
Not to worry. We’ve come a long way.
Crowned ourselves God!
©2010 Joann Nelander
Take My Hand
Take my hand , my Jesus.
Here I am, Your child,
Too small to stand on my own,
Yet welcome before Your throne.
It is, You, My Cause,
Who sets me upright,
Through and through,
To be like unto You.
All my life called,
And marked by Love Divine,
Under Your Shadow, sun shining above,
One command only, Love!
Who can love without You?
This, too, You supply.
You spend Your Life’s Blood
To draw me from mire and mud.
All from Adam
In human chain,
Hold hands to be set free,
Man from Sin in loving Thee.
Copyright 2013 Joann Nelander
Participating in the Sin of Abortion
Nine ways of participating in the sin of another:
1. by counsel
2. by command
3. by consent (“I’m personally opposed to it but” )
4. by provocation
5. by praise or flattery
6. by concealment
7. by being an accomplice
8. by partaking
9. by Silence!
Once you snuff out a child in its mother’s womb you have crossed the line and there is no sin off-limits to you. Society can’t hide behind our laws and our complicit politicians. Yes those in positions of authority bear the greater responsibility but their accountability does not set us free! How deafening the silence. Silence in our churches, our schools, our universities, our laboratories and the halls of government.
The fact that a law was passed to enable the atrocity of abortion, does not pour clean water over the scarlet decision. It simply makes our culpablility national and places our country in the cross hairs of retribution. You can declare a human being a non-person, but the DNA, the blood and the flesh, the substance and the soul witness against our immoral “Law.” Relativism may allow our society to lie to itself, but the law written on our hearts will condemn us. We do have freedom of choice. God’s law commands we choose life and not death. So there is a reason the right choice matters.
“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” – Deuteronomy 30:19
This sin too was nailed in Christ to the Cross. It is time to leave the darkness and live in the Light.
Science on Human Life – Quoting the Voice of Science
******
The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 6th ed. Keith L. Moore, Ph.D. & T.V.N. Persaud, Md., (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1998), 2-18:
“[The Zygote] results from the union of an oocyte and a sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being. Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm … unites with a female gamete or oocyte … to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.”
******
From Human Embryology & Teratology, Ronan R. O’Rahilly, Fabiola Muller, (New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996), 5-55.
“Fertilization is an important landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed… Fertilization is the procession of events that begins when a spermatozoon makes contact with a secondary oocyte or its investments… The zygote … is a unicellular embryo..”
******
Essentials of Human Embryology, William J. Larsen, (New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1998), 1-17.
“In this text, we begin our description of the developing human with the formation and differentiation of the male and female sex cells or gametes, which will unite at fertilization to initiate the embryonic development of a new individual. … Fertilization takes place in the oviduct … resulting in the formation of a zygote containing a single diploid nucleus. Embryonic development is considered to begin at this point… This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development.”
******
Life Begins – Science of the Womb
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/national-geographic-channel/all-videos/ngc-in-the-womb-1/
Four statements seem particularly interesting, but the entire video is worth watching:
“Once within the egg wall, the sperm’s nucleus is drawn toward the egg’s. The two cells gradually and gracefully become one. This is the moment of conception – when an individual’s unique set of DNA is created – a human signature that never existed before and will never be repeated.”
“The mother provides the shelter and the basics – food, water and oxygen. But the real star of the show is the fetus herself – building, dividing, growing according to an intricate set of plans created at the moment of conception.”
“The genes she’s [the girl shown in the womb] inherited already predetermine her looks and much of her character. Whether she’s stubborn or intelligent, a thrill-seeker or good at music and even her vulnerabilities to certain diseases like cancer, schizophrenia and diabetes. The exact course of her life will depend on such things as her friends, family and environment. But at the instant of fertilization, much of her future is predetermined.”
“Where it once seemed that the mental development of a baby began at birth, now it appears that birth could be a relatively insignificant event in developmental terms. She may have to support herself after birth, but as for the process of thinking, learning and remembering, she’s already been hard at it for three months [before birth]. And her brain will continue to grow at the same rate for the next year.”
Purification in the Paschal Mystery
From the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world of the Second Vatican Council
(Gaudium et spes, nn. 37-38)
All human activity is to find its purification in the paschal mystery
Holy Scripture, with which the experience of the ages is in agreement, teaches the human family that human progress, though it is a great blessing for man, brings with it a great temptation. When the scale of values is disturbed and evil becomes mixed with good, individuals and groups consider only their own interests, not those of others.
The result is that the world is not yet a home of true brotherhood, while the increased power of mankind already threatens to destroy the human race itself.
If it is asked how this unhappy state of affairs can be set right, Christians state their belief that all human activity, in daily jeopardy through pride and inordinate self-love, is to find its purification and its perfection in the cross and resurrection of Christ.
Man, redeemed by Christ and made a new creation in the Holy Spirit, can and must love the very things created by God. For he receives them from God, and sees and reveres them as coming from the hand of God.
As he gives thanks for them to his Benefactor, and uses and enjoys them in a spirit of poverty and freedom, he enters into true possession of the world, as one having nothing and possessing all things. For all things are yours, and you are Christs, and Christ is Gods.
The Word of God, through whom all things were made, himself became man and lived in the world of men. As perfect man he has entered into the history of the world, taking it up into himself and bringing it into unity as its head. He reveals to us that God is love, and at the same time teaches us that the fundamental law of human perfection, and therefore of the transformation of the world, is the new commandment of love.
He assures those who have faith in Gods love that the way of love is open to all men, and that the effort to restore universal brotherhood is not in vain. At the same time he warns us that this love is not to be sought after only in great things but also, and above all, in the ordinary circumstances of life.
He suffered death for us all, sinners as we are, and by his example he teaches us that we also have to carry that cross which the flesh and the world lay on the shoulders of those who strive for peace and justice.
Constituted as the Lord by his resurrection, Christ, to whom all power in heaven and on earth has been given, is still at work in the hearts of men through the power of his Spirit. Not only does he awaken in them a longing for the world to come, but by that very fact he also inspires, purifies and strengthens those generous desires by which the human family seeks to make its own life more human and to achieve the same goal for the whole world.
The gifts of the Spirit are manifold. He calls some to bear open witness to the longing for a dwelling place in heaven, and to keep this fresh in the minds of all mankind; he calls others to dedicate themselves to the service of men here on earth, preparing by this ministry the material for the kingdom of heaven.
Yet he makes all free, so that, by denying their love of self and taking up all earths resources into the life of man, all may reach out to the future, when humanity itself will become an offering acceptable to God.
Life – Not An Abstraction!
Pro-choice and Moral Schizophrenia
Nine ways of participating in the sin of another:
1. by counsel
2. by command
3. by consent (“I’m personally opposed to it but” )
4. by provocation
5. by praise or flattery
6. by concealment
7. by being an accomplice
8. by partaking
9. by Silence!
Once you snuff out a child in its mother’s womb you have crossed the line and there is no sin off-limits to you. Society can’t hide behind our laws and our complicit politicians. Yes those in positions of authority bear the greater responsibility but their accountability does not set us free! How deafening the silence. Silence in our churches, our schools, our universities, our laboratories and the halls of government.
The fact that a law was passed to enable the atrocity of abortion, does not pour clean water over the scarlet decision. It simply makes our culpablility national and places our country in the cross hairs of retribution. You can declare a human being a non-person, but the DNA, the blood and the flesh, the substance and the soul witness against our immoral “Law.” Relativism may allow our society to lie to itself, but the law written on our hearts will condemn us. We do have freedom of choice. God’s law commands we choose life and not death. So there is a reason the right choice matters.
“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” – Deuteronomy 30:19
This sin too was nailed in Christ to the Cross. It is time to leave the darkness and live in the Light.
In the Guise of Human Rights
H/T Anchoress, who hopes for conversion of President Obama on issues of life. I’ll pray for that! I’m sure Obama now knows who Mary Ann Glendon is and may give ear to what she has to say he only out of curiousity, due to a well publicized run in with this woman of integrity.
From the text of the address of Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, to Pope Benedict XVI and reported by Zenit:
“We have also been mindful of the fact that in today’s world, ironically, many threats to the dignity of the person have appeared in the guise of human rights. As you pointed out in your memorable speech to the United Nations last year, there are mounting pressures to ‘move away from the protection of human dignity towards the satisfaction of simple interests, often particular interests.’ “……………
“We have paid special attention to rights that are currently under assault such as the right to life, the right to found a family, freedom of conscience and religion, and to rights that have too long awaited fulfillment such as the right to decent subsistence.”
From Pope Benedict’s response: (Full text here)
“The Church’s action in promoting human rights is therefore supported by rational reflection, in such a way that these rights can be presented to all people of good will, independently of any religious affiliation they may have”. At the same time, “insofar as human rights need to be re-appropriated by every generation and by each individual, and insofar as human freedom … is always fragile, the human person needs the unconditional hope and love that can only be found in God and that lead to participation in the justice and generosity of God towards others”.
"Moving Our Country from Democracy to Despotism,"
A call to action delivered by Cardinal Francis George:
As Catholic bishops and American citizens, we are deeply concerned that such an action on the government’s part would be the first step in moving our country from democracy to despotism. Respect for personal conscience and freedom of religion as such ensures our basic freedom from government oppression. No government should come between an individual person and God–that’s what America is supposed to be about. This is the true common ground for us as Americans. We therefore need legal protection for freedom of conscience and of religion–including freedom for religious health care institutions to be true to themselves.”
Full text follows:
“Hello. I am Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. I’d like to take a moment to speak about two principles or ideas that have been basic to life in our country: religious liberty and the freedom of personal conscience.
On Friday afternoon, February 27, the Obama Administration placed on a federal website the news that it intends to remove a conscience protection rule for the Department of Health and Human Services. That rule is one part of the range of legal protections for health care workers–for doctors, nurses and others–who have objections in conscience to being involved in abortion and other killing procedures that are against how they live their faith I God.
As Catholic bishops and American citizens, we are deeply concerned that such an action on the government’s part would be the first step in moving our country from democracy to despotism. Respect for personal conscience and freedom of religion as such ensures our basic freedom from government oppression. No government should come between an individual person and God–that’s what America is supposed to be about. This is the true common ground for us as Americans. We therefore need legal protection for freedom of conscience and of religion–including freedom for religious health care institutions to be true to themselves.
Conscientious objection against many actions is a part of our life. We have a conscientious objection against war for those who cannot fight, even though it’s good to defend your country. We have a conscientious objection for doctors against being involved in administering the death penalty. Why shouldn’t our government and our legal system permit conscientious objection to a morally bad action, the killing of babies in their mother’s womb? People understand what really happens in an abortion and in related procedures–a living member of the human family is killed–that’s what it’s all about–and no one should be forced by the government to act as though he or she were blind to this reality.
I ask you please to let the government know that you want conscience protections to remain strongly in place. In particular, let the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington know that you stand for the protection of conscience, especially now for those who provide the health care services so necessary for a good society. Thank you and God bless you.”
acertainslantoflight writing in Catholics in the Public Square reports the meeting of President Obama with Cardinal Francis George. “The statement from the USCCB said: “The meeting was private. Cardinal George and President Obama discussed the Catholic Church in the United States and its relation to the new administration. The meeting lasted approximately 30 minutes.”
Private, yes, but one can guess that Obama’s attack on conscience issues in health related fields had to be in mind and mouth. The meeting followed by one day Cardinal George’s warnings of emerging “depotism” with the removal of conscience protection.
EWTN report here
That They May Be One, Father
As the 14th day of Lent draws to a close, Nelson shares these thoughts from the letter of Patriarch Gregorios III of Antioch (Melkite) for Lent that I’m passing on:
“Indeed, if the cross, with all that it represents, with all that it signifies, symbolises and indicates, of sufferings, sicknesses, disasters, various afflictions, catastrophes, pains and injuries to which all people are subject, if the cross is a constituent reality of all human life, there is an obligation for all people, like Jesus, to carry the cross together, in order to disburden the one charged with it and together to bear it with love and solidarity. In this letter, I am urging my faithful sons and daughters of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in the Arab world and throughout the world to be in solidarity with each other and stand shoulder to shoulder with their brethren, friends, neighbours and fellow-citizens to bear the cross together on the way of the cross, especially during these days of Great Lent on our common spiritual Lenten way towards the Feast and the joy of the glorious Resurrection.”
I pray that all Christians may be one and bear faithful witness to the One who is all in all.
No People
“They are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not know my ways. So I swore in my anger, “They shall not enter into my rest.”
Little Ones, you who are robbed of life this day by those who should have nurtured and protected you, if God says to His people in the desert, “You shall not enter into my rest, ” what is He saying to our generation. We are entering the desert of our Time; we, whose hearts go astray and do not know His way.
In our desert, we cry out, “Lord, save us! Save our homes, our jobs, save our Nation!” Yet, we’ve settled for gods of convenience. We hail as progress what Mary Shelley would call a Frankenstein. Human life for sale, for profit and for manipulation! We say, “But God, the end justifies the means. Does it not?” As if we didn’t know. “They will service the good of humankind,” we say. While God says, “They are MINE!”
We dare to answer God, “Just building blocks for health and well being, a boon to mankind, these. You have so many more. We will by ourselves bring about a new order of audacious Hope.”
The hallowed parts of the so, so young, and, oh so destroyed, devoured on the altar of irreverent “Progress,” bereft of human dignity or worth, save to fire an industry of blood, cry out! The fifth seal waits it’s Time…….. This Time?
“You are a people whose heart go astray.” You silent people, you unethical Congress, you President No People, call to your gods to save you. I look for My Son in you. Show Me My Son.
Merit for the Unborn
They will never see the light of a birth day. Yet accomplishment will be theirs. Because God created them, because they exist, because they have mother and father, ancestors and life, because I want eternity as much for them as for myself, I pray God grant them merit and reward.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, through Whom and for Whom all things were created, I pray the blessings of mercy and forgiveness, redemption and conversion, be bequeathed to the lineage of the Little Ones soon to die; aborted, reduced, researched and materialized. Amen.
In the world to come, may you be thanked for the mercy that flowed in answer to this prayer straight from the throne of God to your fore-bearers countless in number. May you be embraced in eternity as you never were in life, save for the Heart of God.
Searching with Mary
Paraphrased from The Holy Rosary Narrated, distributed by Keepthefaith.org and narrated by Fr. Hugh Thwaites:
A reflection on the Fifth Joyful Mystery – The Finding of Jesus in the Temple
“The whole human race are either Mary’s children or potentially her children because when we’re baptized, we are baptized into Jesus and become her children. For the rest, her motherly heart searches, and cannot rest until she sees her children safe in Heaven.”
If you look closely at an icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, you will notice the small sandal hanging from the foot of the Infant Jesus, who is safe in His Mother’s arms. This represents those who Mary also holds if only by a thread.
Into Stillness 