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Apostles for Life News                           

Advent - Christmas 2004

Dear friends,

Often it’s hard to keep going in the pro-life movement and I’m late in getting started on this edition because I just didn’t have the motivation to keep going. So yesterday morning I wrote a quick note telling a holy friend of this blockage and my need for her prayers.

Wonder of wonders! That same day I had a phone call from a person who has received the newsletter for about 2 years, but whom I had never met nor heard from. Now this person is concerned about the teaching of contraception in Catholic schools. We chatted for a while, comparing notes and encouraging each other in our mutual battle that Truth should prevail. I have been spurred on by that phone call. It doesn’t take much but it came at the right time.

In Sept-Oct edition, I blithely made the promise that “this subject - actual grievous bodily harm caused by contraception to at least one of the spouses - will be discussed in a later edition”. I thought that I had said “the next issue” so decided to leave it that way.

This is a huge issue – and for a practicing Catholic should not be an issue at all. However many of us have family and friends who are at risk for their health and even their lives (not to mention the danger to their eternal lives) especially the young who are not being told the truth about the danger they put themselves in when they swallow the lies and half truths that they are getting in schools. So if you are able to help to inform them you will be doing a great act of Charity and Justice. Our young people have a right to know the Truth and be taught the Fullness of the Catholic Faith if they attend a school which calls itself Catholic.

As we prepare for the return of Jesus we are filled with hope for a world where His Will is done in all things, and we work and pray to bring about His Kingdom of Justice and Love. May each one of you experience all the joy that the Holy Season of Christmas can bring.

Angela

CONTRACEPTION

Risks To Health and Wholeness

When we mention the health risks of contraception we tend to think about:

to mention just a few^[1]. However, if we really think about it, these effects are nothing less than what we should expect when we come to see how unnatural and irrational contraception really is.

Normally doctors prescribe medicine and perform operations to cure disease and correct abnormalities. Contraceptives do neither of these things. Rather they create an abnormality where there was none or, if there is an abnormality - infertility - they mask it, so delaying treatment where it is possible.

Contraceptives are NOT medicine! They are toxins designed to paralyze the reproductive system and render it inoperative. Medical practice is supposed to be based on the principle: “First do no harm”, but contraceptives (and sterilizations) are designed intentionally with the purpose of inflicting bodily harm_.^[2]

Dr. Ellen Grant, a prominent English physician, became alarmed after enthusiastically prescribing the Pill in the early 60s. Many of her patients developed pathologies, physical and mental, and a number gave the break-up of their marriage as a reason for ceasing to come to her clinic. Grant came to the conclusion that a woman’s delicate sexual chemistry is too deeply connected with her psychic well-being to handle constant steroid hormones. She wrote “The Bitter Pill” which richly documents G.K. Chesterton’s early intuition that the whole birth control movement smacks of “quack medicine and smelly science”^[3]

Why is it then that so many pretend that contraception is not a form of violence against women? Why are women being kept in the dark like mushrooms? Are young Catholics getting the picture, or are they being fed with the poisons of the “quack medicines and smelly science” of Family Planning and their ilk? These Qs need As. What do you think?

Please write to as many of these as you can manage:

Prime Minister Mr John Howard, Minister for Health, Mr Tony Abbott Federal Senators (listed below) Your Federal MP (named below)

All letters: C/o Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600

Tell them you want the funding of ALL abortions to STOP!

The most effective is a short polite handwritten note in your own words. The time is opportune. Remember we only have the present!

Points you could make:

Medicare funds 75,000 abortions per year. You do not want YOUR money spent on killing babies. You do not want YOUR money spent on injuring women. Abortion causes all sorts of physical and mental health problems for mothers. Abortion causes all sorts of mental health problems fathers and siblings. Australia needs more children. Childless couples are unable to adopt because children are routinely killed.

What To Avoid

Please don’t mention partial birth abortion. Singling out partial birth abortion illegal will not improve matters. The issue is ABORTION, whether early or late, Whatever the method used, the result is a dead baby. Don’t request a change in the law. Abortion is already illegal in NSW. The law is already there to protect babies. It needs to be applied. If the present law is ignored why would a new law work.

Members in Lismore Diocese Area

      Page - The Hon Ian Causley              Cowper - Mr Luke Hartsuyker

Richmond - Mrs Justine Elliot           Lyne - The Hon Mark Vaile

Federal Senators for NSW

Senator George Campbell                               Senator John Macdonald

The Hon Helen Coonan                                   Senator Kerry Nettle

The Hon John Faulkner                                   Senator Marise Payne

Senator Michael Forshaw                                Senator Aiden Ridgeway

The Hon William Heffernan                           Senator Ursula Stephens

Senator Steve Hutchins                                    Senator John Tierney

Dear Angela,

I received your newsletter and passed Pat’s on to her. I have put the Pregnancy Support cards all around Laurieton at Doctors, Chemists, and Health Centre etc. Do hope it will help someone. We will be doing the Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet on the first Monday of each month. Please put us down for this day. The people who come along are quite happy for this cause. We always included the protection of the unborn in our weekly Rosary. Praise God for your good work in this cause, Yours in Christ Dorothy Goody ===================================================

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a monthly Rosary dedicated to the protection of human life being said in at least one parish in the diocese on each day of the month?

So far it is happening to my knowledge in three parishes:

 Camden Haven on the 1st Monday

 Tweed Heads on the 2nd Friday

 Lismore Cathedral on the 3rd Saturday

Please let us know if you are already doing it,

or if you will organize a monthly Rosary for Life in your parish Church. Maybe, like Dorothy, you already have a weekly Rosary going but would like to dedicate one day per month at which you could pray specifically for the pro-life cause.

We would love to hear what you are doing in your parish to promote the

Gospel of Life.

OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE

Patroness of the Unborn Child

Celebrated 12th December

One of the most extraordinary events in Church history occurred in Mexico between 9th & 12th December1531, when Our Blessed Lady appeared four times on the Hill of Tepeyac, outside Mexico City, to an Aztec, Juan Diego. He saw a young woman clothed in a light brighter than the sun and dressed in the robes of a royal Aztec princess. She was, she said, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother of the One, True God.

On December 12, she also appeared to his uncle, Juan Bernardino, and proclaimed herself to him in the Aztec tongue as the one who crushes the serpent. The word she used sounded to the Franciscan Bishop like the name of the Shrine of Guadalupe in Spain. Ever since, she has been known in Mexico and throughout the world as Santa Maria De Guadalupe.

Our Blessed Lady asked Juan Diego to ask the Bishop to have a sanctuary built at Tepeyac and in it she promised she would give all her love, compassion, help and protection to the people. Prior to the conquest of Mexico by Cortez, Tepeyac had been the site of a temple of the Aztec pagan mother of the earth, Tonantzin, the goddess Coatlicue.

On her last appearance, the Blessed Virgin sent Juan Diego to gather on the barren hillside, flowers as a sign for the Bishop who had asked for confirmation of her appearance. They were Castilian roses, flowers not known in Mexico at that time. She arranged them in his tilma (cloak) and off he went to the bishop. When he was admitted and he showed the bishop the roses, something even more remarkable caused the bishop to fall on his knees. For what had appeared on the cactus-fibre cloak was much more beautiful and heavenly – a life-sized image of the Blessed Virgin-Mother, surrounded by the rays of the sun, cloaked in a blue-green mantle, the colour of royalty, with the 46 stars configured in the sky for 12th December, in an attitude of prayer – not a goddess but a servant of God. A sash around her waist is a sign that she is pregnant – an honoured condition among Aztec women.

The Tilma of Juan Diego comprises two straight lengths of fabric; so coarse as to appear almost transparent, is sewn together in the center. The Virgin-Mother’s head is inclined slightly to the right, so avoiding the seam which otherwise would have disfigured her face. Her eyes are downcast, but the pupils are clearly visible and full of life; her whole expression is one of tenderness and love for those on whom she looks.

No one at the time saw what photographs revealed in the 1950s - multiple images in the cornea of both eyes were identified as reflections of Juan Diego, and two other figures, one of whom was later recognized as the interpreter. These reflections, seen as they would be in any normal eyes acting as a mirror reflecting whatever is before them, show that this discovery is clearly a phenomenon which defies explanation.

The weave of the fibre seems to embrace the depth of the face as though the image has sprung mysteriously out of the fabric itself. The image quite simply cannot be explained. After 473 years, it shows not the slightest sign of decay in a fabric with a short lifespan, the colours of the sacred image remaining fresh and vibrant.

Our Lady in her image is seen as the pregnant Mother of God. This is the only time in Marian history that she has left a true image of herself, and the only time we are privileged to see her carrying Jesus in her womb. In as much as her body did not suffer corruption in the grave, being assumed body and soul into heaven, so she is truly alive in her image. In the same way, the unborn child in her womb, Jesus, the Light of World, is also truly alive.

The Shrine of Santa Maria De Guadalupe, built near the site of the appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Juan Diego in 1531, is a place now visited by an estimated 14 million pilgrims annually. For over four and a half centuries, it has been a beacon of hope and light for all to see and experience.

In the 8 years that followed the apparitions, it is said that about 8 million Indians were converted to Christianity. Our Lady came to offer faith, hope and consolation to the oppressed Aztecs and to put an end to the practice of bloody human sacrifice. She will do the same for us if we co-operate with her.