Let's ALL be catholic (universal) - Say no to the birth control mandate!

We are facing critical times. It's important to take a stand and truly defend our religious freedom - if you are Catholic, Christian or just know that the government should not take away our freedoms in such a way. We've all read the articles and this blog is to provide you with links of petitions and important news sources.

Cardinal Dolan. Photo credit: Newsmax

Please sign the petitions and SPREAD THE WORD.

Today, let us all be catholic (universal), and stand up against the birth control mandate!

Bishops vow to fight  http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/conscience-protection/index.cfm

Sign Petition - Stop HHS Mandate https://www.stophhs.com/

Email your Senators and representatives here http://www.nchla.org/actiondisplay.asp?ID=292

Subscribe to LifeSiteNews.com for the most recent updates: http://www.lifesitenews.com/subscribe

CatholicVote http://www.catholicvote.org/index.php?/site/actions_details/oppose_contraception_coverage/

feel free to repost and share

Don't be afraid. Father Frank Pavone said, "Be ready to fight. Be ready to sacrifice."

Komen dumps Planned Parenthood

I was on a plane Tuesday evening when I found out that the Susan G. Komen foundation defunded Planned Parenthood. (There was wifi on the plane!!) Anyway, I wanted to scream for joy. 

With this entry I want to clear up a few things. 

The Komen Foundation decided to give no grant money to "organizations that are under local, state or federal investigations." Read the article here: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/the-inside-story-on-komen-split-from-planned-parenthood 

Why would a group such as the Susan G. Komen foundation want to be affiliated with an organization that aids sex trafficking of young girls and falsely claims they provide mammograms to women?? Planned Parenthood does provide breast exams, but ANYONE can do that and you can get that done at your city health clinics. 

Before you go off defending Planned Parenthood you have to first do your homework and find out that PP does NOT provide mammograms. Watch this undercover investigation:

This article on LifeSiteNews says it well: 

“Planned Parenthood does not do breast cancer treatment and does not do mammograms, contrary to what some news outlets, including Fox News, are reporting,” Karen Malec, president of theCoalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, told LifeSiteNews.com. “They just do the manual exam that women can do at home, and then they charge women for it.” 

On another note, Komen still does not admit the abortion-breast cancer link. This article says a lot and I recommend it, http://www.lifenews.com/2010/09/21/nat-6718/ 


I understand that there is research that says abortion increases your risk of breast cancer and other research says it doesn't. When I first heard that abortion increases your risk of breast cancer it made sense to me. When a woman becomes pregnant, lots of changes occur in her body. There are crazy amounts of hormones and is preparing to have a baby.  So what happens when pregnancy is interrupted through abortion? Where do all those hormones go? How does her body recover from a process that was stopped? Abortion has a lot of physical consequences. I'm not going to get into the specifics of the breast cancer cells but here is website that explains it and makes a lot of sense to me http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/The_Link.htm 
If you believe it or not is up to you. But I am convinced. 

So my message here for everyone is to do your own homework before you make false statements. Women will not die because Planned Parenthood is being defunded. There are other clinics and places that help women. Don't forget to thank the Komen foundation here: http://istandwithkomen.com/  Let's show Komen some support and like one of my favorite activists, Patrick Mahoney, mentioned a comment on his fb, "It's Komen's choice." So let's respect their right to choose where their funding goes. Let's not support shady groups that harm women!!! 

There is Hope and Healing

When was the last time you checked your MySpace page? Well, I did yesterday. It had been a loooong time since I was on it. I was looking around and I found a blog I wrote years ago. I want to share that with you today. The blog is about an incident that happened with a very young couple at the abortion clinic. A good friend of mine spent all day at the clinic waiting for this young couple giving them love and hope. I still remember many details of it. Even their license plate is engraved in my memory. Here it is:

Things 16 yr olds shouldnt worry about    September 28, 2005

Current mood:crushed

Wow, had such a crazy day.   I spent my breaks at the abortion clinic today and it was just so overwhelming. Clinic was packed, no place for patients to park.  When I got there, my friend was talking to a sixteen year old couple that had just gotten out of the car.  If only you could see the look on their faces, confused, frightened, helpless, hopeless.  We offered them information, and offered them help to make a better decision.  We talked to them for about 10 minutes.  The girl was pregnant and frightened to get an abortion.  She said she didn't want to.  The boyfriend on the verge of tears pleading us for help.  Did no good, the girl went right in.  I dont know what she based her decision on, or if the nurse that was working as a security guard that day made her change her mind.  

We expected her to come right out, because on the first visit, you have to get a pregancy test and by law wait 24 hrs before you make your abortion decision.  One, two hours passed.  I left for class. Came back afterwards and the car was still there.  As we waited and waited, we were of course suspicious.  It was evident they were going to give her an abortion.  So as we usually wait for the women to come out after their abortion to help them out, we waited for this one girl.  After most patients left, the main nurse, comes out.  Looking out to see if we were there, she approaches the 16 yr old's car and turns it on.  So we went to the other side exit of the clinic and the two kids were there. The girl was by the door, and the boy approached us to the sidewalk.  I can still picture their faces of "What did we do??" "What now??" such frightening expressions.  You could tell the boy had been crying, and my friend gave him a hug.  In this one hug, probably one of the most heart-felt and compassionate, you could just see the pain flowing out of this kid.  Thats when all of a sudden the main nurse drove up in their car.  She ordered them to get in the car quick and to stop talking to us.  We gave the guy a phone number he could call for help and my heart broke to pieces even more when she tore up the information we gave the guy.  The nurse's aggressive behavior towards us just shocked the teens and they left without knowing where to go to next. 

This is something a 16 year old shouldnt have to worry about.  Should i abort my baby or not? What if my parents find out i'm pregnant? What if my parents find out about my abortion? What will people say at school? What if I dont have the funds? Will i be condemned? Will I be forgiven? Who can help me?

There is help.  Thats why we're at the clinic, offering absolutely ANYTHING the person might need. 

This is something a 16 year old specially shouldnt have to worry about. We all make mistakes, two wrongs dont make a right.  There is help.  Free help. 

8:33 PM

Rosaries, Rosaries and More Rosaries!

Friday was the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary. A day where I witnessed so many miracles of faith, hope, love, healing, perseverance, patience, humility and the list can go on and on. Three lives were saved at the abortion clinics.

Recently, I've been getting nudged by God to take a step further in evangelization. Nudged to not be afraid to talk to others about God and his mercy. I feel that God has given me the courage I needed to straight up talk to people about confession and seeking God's forgiveness and mercy. It's hard talking to random strangers about God and try to evangelize them and fight for their souls. Doing what you can so they don't fall into the sin of abortion.
I know that God has revealed this special grace to me because I literally could not believe the words that were coming out of my mouth on Friday. I was speaking words that only the Holy Spirit could ever say. And I definitely felt the Holy Spirit flow through my mouth and gave me chills the whole morning.

So what made me meditate on all this? Easy answer.

Praying the Rosary.

For the past year, I've been getting from 1-3 packages a month in the mail full of rosaries from people from all over the country. The original purpose of these rosaries was to give them out to women and men we sidewalk counsel at the abortion clinic.
These past few days, God has challenged me for more. I always end up with tons of rosaries in my purse, so I figured that I need to step it up, and give rosaries to people and encourage them to pray.
Story:
A lady walking by on the street walked right by me (at the abortion clinic) and looked at the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and a picture of an 8 week baby in the womb. She stopped for a few seconds and said hi. She looked at the baby with a lot of pain in her eyes and said, "They abort them and here are others," (almost pointing at herself), "who struggle to have a child." I asked her if she was Catholic and she said yes. All I could tell her was to keep praying and not lose hope. I gave her a rosary and a "How to Pray the Rosary" pamphlet.

Moral of this blog:
God has given me the tools and it's my mission to get others to pray the Rosary.
What I learned: don't suppress the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Day 1 – Spring campaign 40 Days for Life - El Paso

It was a beautiful and warm morning for the kickoff day! We didn’t know how many people to expect, and Our Lord sent us 50+ prayer warriors. What a sight!

Just as people started arriving to pray, a woman named Priscilla arrived for her abortion appointment. Her car windows were closed and she did not take our information pamphlets. Priscilla was playing at full volume a heart break song in Spanish, but stayed in her car. She kept playing the song over and over. From time to time, she would lower the volume and use her cell phone. Clearly, she was in distress and crying helplessly.

Meanwhile the vigil participants started arriving. I asked Virginia, one of the prayer warriors who was there to please help coordinate the persons by asking them to pray in front of the sidewalk. When Alfonso arrived, he handed out signs to the vigil participants. Everyone was praying for Priscilla who was sitting in her car.

Priscilla stayed in her car in what seemed like an eternity, but in reality it was close to two hours. Gaby and I alternated waiting to sidewalk counsel her in case she got out of her car. At one point one of the abortion clinic nurses approached her and attempted to entice her to go inside the clinic. Gaby told the nurse to ask her if she needed to speak with a priest (there were 2 priests on the sidewalk). The nurse was nice and let her know. Thank God, that Priscilla remained in the car.

Finally Priscilla started to back out of her parking space. I thought, "Praise God Almighty, she is leaving!" As I stood waiting to talk to her, one of the clinic owners drove in and honked her car at me really loud. This startled Priscilla and she drove back into her parking space. I prayed, “Please Lord; don’t let her go inside the clinic.”
As the clinic owner drove past her, Priscilla backed out again and I got to talk to her a bit. With tears in her eyes she told me, “I want to keep my baby.”
We talked a bit and she gave me her name. I mentioned to her, “Do you realize how many people have been praying for you and your baby?”
You see, up to this point Priscilla had not seen how many persons had been praying so close to her. She had gotten there just before the bulk of the people started arriving. And all the time she was sitting in her car the vigil participants had been out of her line of sight.

As we talked some more, I gave her my name and cell in case she needed to talk. I also gave her the literature we normally hand out. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw the clinic owner heading our way. I told Priscilla, “You should leave now; they are going to try to get you to go inside the abortion clinic.”

Priscilla understood and nodded, then drove off, but not before she stopped and talked to Gaby further down the alley. They talked for a good while. Gaby gave her a rosary and a baby gift.

The one thing that made the difference between life and death in the life of Priscilla and her baby is that YOU took the time to pray. YOU took the time to show Priscilla that there are good people out there who care for her and her baby. Yes, your prayers are helping to change hearts! If you are praying from home, from your work or are out there in front of the abortion clinic, your prayers are being heard.

For the Greater Glory of God!
Miguel
Pro-life El Paso/Cruces/Juarez

P.S. We had a turnout of about 33 people at the candlelight vigil tonight. We sang praises to God and thanked God for all the blessings of the day. Thanks to all who showed!

Church Life Bulletin February 2009

On January 22, 1973 abortion was legalized with 2 court decisions, Roe v. Wade and

 Doe v. Bolton. With Roe, states can prohibit abortion under

 certain

 circumstances unless the pregnancy threatens the woman’s life or health. Doe defines what “health” means but so broadly

 that it literally covers any

 circumstance in which a woman might be pregnant.

 Therefore, abortion on demand. January 22 is the national day of penance for violations to the dignity of a human person committed through acts of

 abortion and day of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life. We are called to stand up for the innocent and put our faith into action. 

But how? Here are a few ways especially during this month. Get involved with 40 Days for Life, www.40daysforlife.com/elpaso 915-544-LIFE (5433) prolifegaby@gmail.com. Obama will be in office and the campaign is starting so let’s pray to end abortion!

Pregnancy Help Center of El Paso is taking donations of new formula, gently used and new baby clothes (sizes newborn to 2T), new or gently used maternity clothes, lotions, baby wipes, baby shampoo, blankets, cribs, car seats, financial contributions, etc. are always appreciated and can be dropped off at 2301 N. Lee Trevino on Mondays (4pm – 7pm), Tues, Thurs, and Friday (9am – 4pm).

Check out their website www.pregnancyhcep.org or the new outreach to Dads at www.fatherhoodhelp.org  (Fatherhood Help Services).

Also we would like to invite all believers to come pray with us at the abortion clinics these babies need our prayers at the moment of their death. Call 915-544-5433 for more details.

That’s it for now, visit online www.40daysforlife.com/elpaso or call 544-5433 for more pro-life events. Lastly, if you or anyone know someone who is pregnant and scared or had an abortion, the can call 24 hours 915-591-1343, or 915-564-4444. God bless you!

Miracles on a Hill

Below is a message from my friend Miguel, who has been so faithful to the unborn and our Lord fighting as hard as he can to defend life. 

February 12, 2009

Last Saturday January 17 was an unusually difficult day at the hilltop abortion clinic. People with Texas, New Mexico and Mexico license plates filled the parking spaces. A new nurse that we believed gone was now back. A woman with a possible blood clot returned to have an abortion despite the risks associated and despite hearing from us that there was no doctor on the premises. The gardener turned security guard was picking on one of the sidewalk counselors. He also did everything in his power to “break” the conversations we established with abortion minded persons. And the saddest part was that no one had decided to give a chance for life to their babies.

 

Earlier that morning, I had placed the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe by the wall next to the abortion clinic. There are several things I always ask Our Lady as I unroll her image: That she bless the ground where her image is being placed. I ask her to lend me that beautiful, loving, motherly heart, so I can transmit that love she has for her Son Jesus to all the persons going into the clinic. And that she accompany us and intercede for the children in danger of an abortion. Finally I remind her that I am an unworthy mecapal ¹ at her disposal.

 

At around 10:30 the abortionist arrived and by 11:10 a.m. he had left. By now the only persons left praying were the 3 ladies that always go there Saturdays and myself. We wanted to leave, but decided to stay longer because we were worried about the lady that had gone in with a possible blood clot. More cars started arriving at the clinic and we gave all the information that we always give and we noticed that our prayers had became more and more intense. Perhaps it was because we felt agony for those mothers and their children? There were two young ladies in particular that had expressed second thoughts when going into the clinic, but unfortunately they came out already having aborted. You could see and feel their pain as they left the abortion clinic.

 

At noon we signed off by doing our exit prayers. I proceeded to start rolling the image of Our Lady so I can put her in my car. Halfway I stopped and felt compelled to place my right hand on her chest, right next to her prayerful hands and to thank her for accompanying us that day. I started feeling a heartbeat! I froze for a few seconds and did not know what to do or how to react. Finally I composed myself and calmly asked one of the ladies who is a wonderful sidewalk counselor to feel Our Lady’s heart. She did and after a few seconds she also felt the thump, thump, thump of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s heart! The other two ladies did the same and also felt that beautiful thump, thump, thump, of the heart of the Blessed Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ!

And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? (Luke 1:43)

I think that Our Lady asked her Son to let us know that she was there praying with us and that she was feeling that anguish we had. I think that she wanted all sidewalk counselors, and prayer warriors everywhere to know that she is one of us.

Have you ever asked for something extraordinary in prayer and God grants what you asked for? Then you are shocked because He did? I think that’s a sign of a weak faith. It happens to me over and over. I pray for something and then I’m shocked to see it happen. This causes anguish, because I fell like I pray as a hypocrite and not as a person of faith.

Although I didn’t ask for this, I was shocked just the same. I felt ashamed and embarrassed with Our Lady for my lack of faith. At home later that day, I prayed and asked for the grace of a stronger faith.  I have an image of our Lady of Guadalupe at home and again I felt the need of placing my hand in the same place as earlier that day. It happened again! Thump, thump, thump…

I always keep the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and all the other posters and literature that we hand out in my car, but because of what had happened that day, I was uncomfortable leaving Our Lady in the car. Later that night I went to get her from the car. It was pretty cold like it’s in the mornings and the plastic her image is on gets really hard. This time it was warm just like the touch of a human being.

Since then I have touched her heart only once outside the abortion clinic. That time was more out of curiosity. It didn’t happen, but I know that Our Lady of Guadalupe is watching over the babies in danger of abortion, their parents, the prayer warriors and sidewalk counselors and she specially watches over you. You still are her “little girl!”

 

In Christ,

 

Miguel

 

 

¹Mecapal:

When Our Lady appeared to Juan Diego and asked that he talk to the Bishop. Juan Diego was reluctant and said:

Spanish - “Porque en verdad yo soy un hombre del campo, soy mecapal, soy parihuela, soy cola, soy ala; yo mismo necesito ser conducido, llevado a cuestas, no es lugar de mi andar ni de mí detenerme allá a donde me envías, Virgencita mía, Hija mía menor, Señora, Niña;”

English - Because I am really (just) a man from the country, I am a porter’s rope (mecapal) I am a backframe, a tail, a wing, a man of no importance: I myself need to be led, carried on someone’s back, that place your are sending me to is a place where I’m not used to going to or spending any time in, my little Virgin, my Youngest Daughter, my Lady, Little girl;

Náhuatl - “Ca nel nicnotlapaltzintli, ca nimecapalli, ca nicacaxtli, ca nicuitlapilli, ca natlapalli, ca nitco ca nimamaloni, camo nonenemian, camo nonequetzayan in ompa tinechmihualia, Nochpochtziné Noxocoyohué, Tlacatlé, Cihuapiilé.”