- Archives -

Apostles for Life News May-June 2001

• Meeting to establish Helpers at Tweed Heads

• Pro-Life Doctor Under Attack over Morning After Pill

• Food for thought - The Legacy of Planned Parenthood

• Hope And Healing After Abortion – Project Rachel

• Pray AND Act – Fr Frank Pavone

• Helpers at the Spring Hill Abortuary

On Friday night, 4th May, twenty people gathered in Tweed Heads, for the purpose of setting up a group of the Helpers of God’s precious infants. This was the first step in a long and arduous spiritual battle.

We thank, encourage and support those who are preparing now to take up the fight. There is much to overcome - fear, indifference, ignorance and hostility but we know that we are doing God’s work, so we cannot fail (even though it may appear to be lost cause). Please keep up your prayers for courage and persistence for those at the forefront of the battle. We will keep you informed of developments.

Recently our family joined a new on-line Catholic Home-schooling network and there I found the following letter, which I am passing on to you.

Increasingly pro-life doctors are under attack. If things keep going the way they are, it will be very difficult to even find a pro-life doctor. Please keep this man and all of his profession in your prayers. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monthly meetings are held on the third Saturday of each month between l0am and 12noon at the Cathedral. If you would like to take part but are unable to because of the time factor please let me know. Maybe we could consider all extra meeting time. Our meetings consist of an hour of prayer in front of the Tabernacle, where we pray the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet, accompanied by hymn-singing. Our prayer is modeled on the program followed by those who pray outside abortion clinics and is dedicated for fruitfulness in their work. Then we adjourn for sharing of ideas over a cuppa, and maybe an inspiring and informative video. If distance keeps you away, please pray with us at home. We will be happy to send you a copy of our prayers and if you are visiting Lismore, please feel free to make contact at any time.

Food for thought

An excerpt from George Grant’s Grand Illusions - The Legacy of Planned Parenthood - Chapter 5: Machiavellian Medicine - The Scientific Legacy

One hundred years ago - before the Golden Age - the medical establishment led a valiant crusade to criminalize the flourishing abortion & birth control enterprises of the day. They led the crusade, not just because they thought they were immoral but because they knew they were unsafe. They fought abortion & birth control because death and barrenness are the antithesis, not the ambitions, of medicine. As a result of that dear and uncompromising stand, their profession flourished - and the Golden Age dawned.

Today because the medical establishment has embraced Planned Parenthood’s morbid fascination with death and barrenness, the Golden Age is coming to a close and we are seeing many of the gains of the lost century slip out of our grasp: incurable retroviruses ravaging whole sectors of the population in plague proportions, mutating strands of cancer cutting wide swathes through each new generation, and surprising reversals, in undeveloped nations, of once conquered foes like small pox, malaria & polio.

But that is not the worst of it. Horror story after horror story – a veritable litany of abuse - has begun to emerge from the hollowed halls of medicine: fetal harvesting, women serving as breeders in surrogate motherhood programs, euthanasia, genetic manipulation in test-tube baby experiments, infanticide, genetic engineering………………….. They are stories that make the Nazi medical atrocities pale in comparison.

How could this come to be? How could modern medicine - fresh on the heels of the Golden Age - have gone wrong? The fact is medicine has always been a special legacy of God’s people. Whenever & wherever biblical faithfulness has been practiced, medical arts have flourished, but whenever & wherever biblical faithfulness has been shunned, medicine has given way to superstition, barbarism, and shamanism.

The earliest medical guild appeared on the Aegian island of Cos, just off the coast of Asia Minor. Around the time that Nehemiah was organising the post-exilic Jews in Jerusalem to rebuild the walls, another refugee from the Babylonian occupation, Aesculapius was organising the post-exilic Jews on Cos into medical specialists - for the first time in history moving medical healing beyond folk remedies and occultic rituals. It was not long before this elite guild had become the wonder of the Mediterranean world under the leadership of Hippocrates, the son of Panacea, the son of Hygeia, the son of Aesculapius, the son of Hashabia the Hebrew, in exile from fallen Jerusalem.

In other words, the great Greek school of healing that gave us the Hippocratic oath, that gave us the scientific standards for hygiene, diagnosis, & systematic treatment that formed the basis for modern medicine wasn’t Greek at all. It was Hebrew, the fruit of biblical faith.

And so the story goes all throughout history. Medicine always has been, and always will be, the special legacy of God’s people - provoked by scriptural compassion, fuelled by scriptural conviction and guided by scriptural ethics. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HOPE AND HEALING

Project Rachel is a confidential healing ministry for both men and women who suffer from the experience of abortion. This includes family, members, those who recommended, or even forced, abortion on another, and abortion providers.

Project Rachel offers Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat, a weekend retreat facilitated by a person who has experienced post abortion healing, and a compassionate and understanding priest. The next one at the end of May is already booked out, but there will be another in December.

Project Rachel also offers training for priests and counsellors through workshops. You can phone Project Rachel leave a confidential voice mail message on 02- 9440 7980 and a non-judgmental, compassionate counsellor will contact you.

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PRAY AND ACT

Prayer is not just asking God to do something. That’s part of it, but it’s more. Prayer is union with God. Prayer means we open ourselves so wide to God that He comes in and does something through us! Prayer and action are not two separate options, but rather two aspects of the same reality: union with God. When we come to prayer, we come to the living God, a consuming fire, the source of all activity.

When we come away from prayer we should not feel rested but restless. We should not feel we have done our duty, but that we’ve been given our duty. Be careful when you ask God to end abortion. His response may well be to reach down from heaven, lift you up by the back of the neck and throw you into the battle! God is not going to rip open the sky, come down, and tell our nation to stop abortion. Instead He is going to put conviction in your heart and words on your lips and command YOU to speak and act!

Let us never use prayer to escape action. Instead, let us immerse ourselves in true prayer, which enables us to act in union with God, who destroys death and restores life~ Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life

Apostles for Life News is free, but donations are welcomed, as are contributions to the content in letter or article form.

Wera Bellack writes from Tweed Heads:

On 12th May a friend and I attended the Helper’s of God’s Precious Infants Vigil for Life. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Bathersby at St. Brigid’s Church, Red Hill. The Mass was very well attended, and I was struck by the large number of young parents with their small children, and many teenagers were there too.

After Mass 80 of us prayed the Rosary as we processed to the Spring Hill Abortuary. It was so peaceful and prayerful, showing love and offering hope to people desperate enough to consider abortion of their children their only option. Seeing so many people of all ages, but mostly young ones, has given me great hope. With God’s help and Mary’s intercession, we can win and stop this killing.

Standing in front of an unmarked building with no sign whatever, and knowing what is going on behind those walls, was very traumatic for me. With people waiting up to 10 years to adopt a child, and with zero-population growth in Australia and other western countries there is no need for abortion We really need those children………..