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Apostles for Life News Advent - Christmas 2001

• Editorial - How do we prepare?

• Living in the Now

• Muslims Shocked by Western-led Genocide in Refugee Camps

• How does Australia fit into this picture?

Dear Lover of Life,

We are now in that time of preparation we call Advent when we celebrate the first coming of Jesus into our world, and prepare For His Second Coming. His first was accompanied by the slaughter, in Bethlehem and its surrounding district, of all the male children of two years or less. (Matthew 2:I6) We now call these first martyrs for Christ the Holy Innocents and celebrate their feastday on 28th December.

Today we are sad witnesses of the slaughter of our own little brothers and sisters who are today victims of abortion and abortifacient birth control sacrificed on the altar of “Choice”. These little ones will never have the chance to enjoy Christmas with their families.

As we prepare to celebrate His first coming as the dependant child of a poor family, what will you resolve to do to make the world a safer place for those little lives He has planned - from all eternity - to share in His Life, in this world, and for all eternity?

There’s much you can do; all we need is the will and the grace to act on it. If you are a writer – write! If you are a speaker – speak! If you are you a helper — Help! If you are a prayer — Pray! The more helpless you may think yourself, the more God can show His power through you, so no excuses. If you’re looking for ideas we have plenty! For information, we’ve got it - or will find it!

Thank you to all those who have kept in touch, and shared in the pro-life apostolate this year. Your encouragement is greatly appreciated in this isolating work. It’s great to know there are others out there fighting the good fight for Life. May the Peace, Love and Joy that only Jesus Christ can bring, reign in your hearts this Christmas.

Angela

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Living in the Now

This is an excerpt from ‘The Sure Way’, an old book, author unknown, on the spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux. I thought you might find it helpful, as I do, in our approach to life and our work. In this time of great upheaval in the Church and in the world, when there is so much work to be done and the task seems so formidable, it may help to keep, remembering that Perfect Love casts out fear.

One of the great secrets of the spiritual life is that of living in the present moment, without allowing the mind to be disturbed with vain regrets about the past, or useless fears about the future.

The past is past, with all its good and ill, success and failure. All the thinking and all the weeping in the world cannot change a single happening in the very slightest degree. Yet my waste precious moments on this useless reflection on the past…...Ah! If only I had acted in this way! If only I had not done or said this or that, how different things would be! If only l could have that time over again! If only I had seen things then as I see them now!

But you did and said what you have done and said, and although it may be true that, if had then possessed the light you have now, you would have acted very differently, as a matter of fact you did not have it or if you did, did not correspond to it, consequently, you have acted in the way you have. We must leave the past absolutely to the loving mercy of the Saviour, asking Him to make all well, and out of our mistakes and failures, to bring the greater good.

And we must so work that, immediately the duty on hand has been accomplished, we turn from it to the next work without allowing our mind to dwell as what has just been done, because if we do, a hundred better ways of doing it will appear, and the mind will be arrowed and distracted and driven off the duty of the moment, to that which is past. Once you have finished a work, leave it and think no more about it.

Do not anticipate future trials and difficulties. Once we begin to anticipate the future, a thousand terrors will lay hold of us. Always, remember, the things we fear never happen; what happens is something we have not foreseen, and consequently have not feared. Leave the future in the Divine Hands. He will give you all, yes all, the strength to meet each happening when it comes: As the day so shall thy strength be, strength just for today. God has not promised tomorrow’s graces will be given today, and let is what so many desire - a sort of spiritual insurance against future events. No, live just for the present moment, live for the work you have on hand, without any thought except that of accomplishment. When you awake to find the day so crowded with various duties that it seems impossible that you can get through half of them, do not distract and disturb yourself by thinking how you can possibly get through them, but begin the first thing that demands your attention with great calmness and deliberation, as if it was the only thing you have to do that day - all your energies concentrated on it, without a thought as to the work that is to succeed it. Then taking each work in due order, at the end of the day you will he surprised to find you have got through the day, completed everything with ease, and that each task has been done, not only more perfectly, but also more speedily, than would be the case if the mind was torn with conflicting emotions concerning things past and to come.

So it is with suffering, trials, and difficulties of all kinds: if we begin to anticipate the future, we shall fall into despair, as St. Therese remarked on one occasion near the end of her life: I just suffer from moment to moment; otherwise I should be quite disheartened. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Muslims Shocked by Western-led Genocide in Refugee Camps

Steve Mosher - President of Population Research Institute, which is dedicated to debunking the overpopulation myth, & to ending human rights abuses under the guise of “family planning”

In 1999, PRI investigators discovered that UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) was distributing abortifacient chemicals and suction abortion machines called manual vacuum aspirators within Kosovar refugee camps - despite fierce opposition from the Muslim women who were its intended recipients.

When PRI investigators confronted the head of UNFPA’s Kosovo operation, Olivier Brasseur, with questions about the hand-held suction abortion machines, he claimed that the device was being used for safe delivery. Such a claim is medical nonsense: local Planned Parenthood personnel confirmed that the machine could only be used for abortions.. In kits marked “safe delivery,” PRI found subkits containing not only abortion machines, but abortifacient chemicals and outdated IUD’s lacking provision for safe removal. When PRI inquired of UNFPA on whose authority they were in Kosovo, we discovered that the invitation had been issued by none other than the Milosevic regime, which wanted help in lowering birthrates among the Kosovars!

So we were suspicious when the UNFPA recently announced they are launching another “reproductive health” campaign to target refugees. This largest ever campaign - UNFPA has budgeted $20 million - will target the flood of Afghans now seeking refuge in Pakistan, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Uzbekistan. The head of this new population control program is none other than Olivier Brasseur.

At a PRl press conference in Washington this week, I raised the question of whether this “reproductive health” campaign, like the Kosovo campaign, would include abortion machines, morning-after pills, and unsafe lUDs. If so, UNFPAs campaign will rightly be seen by Afghan women as being, not health care, but a form of population control directed at them, their families, and their people.

UNFPA supports forced abortion and sterilization in China. Pakistan, which outlaws abortion, should take a close look at UNFPA operations within its borders. The Islamic community is already beginning to voice concern over UNFPA plans for Muslim women. The spokesmen for the Islamic Institute has publicly warned, ‘‘the values of the recipients must be considered” when providing humanitarian aid to Afghans displaced by tie Taliban. “One reproductive health kit containing abortion machines, unwanted IUDs, and abortifacient contraceptives, could undercut the good will that millions of food packets would generate. The whole country would never trust you again.”

The president of Concerned Women for America, Sandy Rios, echoed these concers,: ‘‘These ‘safe delivery kits’ contain a draconian method of abortion, called a manual vacuum aspirator. Thus a diseased, desperate, already sad and hopeless woman can have the ‘freedom’ to find a corner somewhere in the filthy, unsanitary camp to hike her skirts and allow a worker to suction the new life from her body. Imagine that for a moment.” Rios estimated that 90% women of childbearing age suffer desperately from malnutrition. Yet, ignoring the desperate need for nutritional supplements and basic health supplies, UNFPA will focus its effort on preventing Afghan refugees from conceiving and bearing children.

Population control programs directed at traumatized Muslim refugees will not be popular in the Middle East. To the extent that the US (Australia - ed.) is seen as supporting these anti-natal programs, the shock waves could threaten the fragile coalition between the US (Australia – ed.) and the Islamic nations that the Bush Administration has striven so hard to build.

There is only one thing to do. We should immediately distance ourself from the UNFPA, cut all U.S. (Australian – ed.) funding, and publicly condemn its population control programs among Muslim refugees.

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How does Australia fit into this picture? Is Australian money funding this program? The people of Papua New Guinea are presently being subjected to a government “safe sex” (including the deadly condom) campaign. Boldly displayed on the large posters advertising this campaign are the words, “Supported by the Australian Government”. Imagine! Our scarce funds being used top promote the spread of promiscuity and consequent disease on our near and dear brothers and sisters in PNG. Please write to our Prime Minister asking him about Australia involvement with UNFPA, and protesting the cultural insult to and abuse of our Papua New Guinean neighbours.

Your prayers are asked for:

• The repose of the soul of Father Giovanni Battaglini, who was killed in a head-on collision in Peru in August. Father had preached last year at Masses in Lismore appealing for his mission work. At one time he had been jailed in his native Canada for praying outside an abortion clinic. In his lifetime he brought much joy and love to the poorest of the poor. May he rest in peace.

• Five-year-old Laura, who is undergoing chemotherapy, and waiting to have a kidney removed. Laura and her parents attended our meeting in Murwillumbah and her Granny is one of our original Apostles. Please keep the family in your prayers.

• The conversion of Cecile (a sister of a friend) who is an intern specialising in gynecology in a Paris hospital. Tragically Cecile does abortions (not every day!)’ because she ‘has to’.

• The Martello to find a suitable new home in Lismore.