The Gift of Youth and Beauty

It's a very Catholic idea. Give God your youth and your beauty. When you see young men and women, in the prime of life, handsome, beautiful, smiling, raidiant with joy, and they give it all up to be united with God as a priest or religious, what do you think? Catholics see it as a gift of something precious and beautiful. Some folks might sigh and say, "What a waste," but Catholics see it as giving it all to God. These courageous, generous men and women have chosen to give everything they have to God. They even give the things we think belong to us alone, like youth and beauty.

Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist 2010 Aspirants (From the Sisters' Web site)

Thankfulness: Day 4--Life

This morning I woke up to an aching lower back; sore and stiff muscles in my legs, abs, and rear; one painful jammed big toe; the other big toe with the beginnings of an ingrown toenail; and a right hamstring that hasn't quite healed from being torn this summer. And I'm feeling pretty darned good about all this.

Maybe it's my unusually high threshold for pain after eight non-medicated labors and deliveries. Maybe it's because I've already strained or torn so many muscles that I've forgotten what it's like to not have them. But I think my aches and pains are gentle reminders that I am ALIVE. No, I've never had a near death experience--unless you consider the two times I THOUGHT I was going to die, but in reality I wasn't.* No, I just consider the aches and pains and sore muscles are part of the normal course of life and are reminders that I can touch, see, hear, smell and taste all the wonders of this world. In short, I'm alive.

Urgent! Email Dept of Health and Human Services Today

The public is allowed 30 days to comment on the Obama administration's proposal to rescind the regulation which forbades the coercion of health care workers to violate their consciences when providing "health care" such as birth control, abortion, euthanasia, sterilizations and gender re-assignment to patients.

Please inform yourself about this anti-freedom, anti-life, ANTI-CHOICE proposal and make your comments known.

As Susan Wills, the assistant director for education and outreach, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, writes in her article, Conscience Rights: From Choice to Coercion:

Despite all their talk of "choice," the abortion industry and its supporters are determined to eliminate the choice of medical professionals and entities to not become accomplices in killing unborn boys and girls. Despite all their talk about "privacy," the abortion industry and its supporters are determined to trample on healthcare professionals' innermost zone of privacy, that "secret core and sanctuary" known as conscience. It is no longer enough, in their eyes, that women and girls can obtain potentially abortifacient drugs in virtually every pharmacy in the U.S. or that women and girls can have abortions on request in every city where there's a profit to be had. They will not rest until every pharmacy, hospital, healthcare provider, and taxpayer collaborates in the culture of death.

Amen.
The 30 days for public comment is coming to a close this Thursday, HOLY THURSDAY, April 9, 2009. Just go to the Regulations.gov website to electronically submit your comments. (Click on the little yellow balloon next to the "Add Comments" tag).
Here's what I submitted electronically:

I would like to strongly voice my concerns that the provisions to allow for a conscience clause NOT be removed or amended in any way. Health care workers MUST have the freedom of conscience to be allowed to recuse themselves from any procedure OR REFERRAL which in any way conflicts with their personal, moral or religious beliefs. Birth control, sterilization, abortion, euthanasia and gender re-assignment are all examples of the types of so-called health care that should not be coerced upon medical workers. No health care worker of any type should be forced to violate their conscience. Please DO NOT remove this clause.