Among Women ReadHER 1.28.12 ...HHS ruling... Mom stuff... Pope quotes... Stuff to make us think...Nags!

Among Women ReadHER

1.28.12

HHS ABC Rule: Anybody but Catholics Has Religious Freedom
By Sr. Mary Ann Walsh at the USCCB Media Blog
Read this and stay informed on this issue. 

Prayers for Women Approaching Labor
By Lisa Schmidt at The Practicing Catholic
Pray!

To the Mother With Only One Child
By Simcha Fisher at her blog at National Catholic Register
This struck a chord with me, and many other women, judging by the combox at the end of the post. Oh, and Tom Hoopes gives the Dad's version.


Talk to Your Mother!
By Simcha Fisher at her blog at National Catholic Register
Yes, a double-header from Simcha. There are no rules here, I link what I like each week. (Re the post: If you're like me, you wanna write a post that challenges us to do a test study on the rosary's power to break bad habits. I bet others have stories like this. Go Momma Mary. Go Rosary.)

March for Love
By Tim Muldoon at Patheos
Read this one slowly. Then listen to your heart.

Girl Scout Leadership: Pro-Choice, Pro-Gay Ideologues
By Mary Hasson at Catholic Lane
I was a GS for years. It was a great organization back in the day when I was young. But I've seen a slow decline in the moral values that were once characteristic of the organization. So I'm very troubled by the links on this post that just underscore that even more. 


Silence and Word, The Path to Evangelization
By Pope Benedict XVI
For those of us active in new media evangelization, these World Communications Day messages are important to read. But let me say that what strikes me as profoundly simple about this message is the implicit call to go deeper still in our personal communication via the dynamics of love, friendship, and  Communion. 

Pope Stresses Role of Spiritual Guides in Discernment (for vocations)
Posted by Zenit
The Pope emphasizes importance of priests and parents in presenting vocation options to young people.


Meet the Marriage Killer
By Elizabeth Bernstein at the Wall Street Journal
All about nagging. Some good suggestions for avoiding it, at the end of the article.


A City's Soul in the Balance
By Elizabeth Lev at Zenit
Commentary on the good, the bad and the ugly in NYC.


Lunch with the Girls
By Lisa Hendey at Faith and Family Live
Book it! 


Forgotten Relics Found in Buffalo
Posted by Fox News
Cool news story. Hope there is follow-up!


2 VIDEOs: Fr. Robert Barron comments on the recent viral video dealing with "Why I love Jesus and hate religion."


Miss the March for Life? Here it is in hyperdrive summary form...

Among Women Podcast #115 -- Virtuous Women

Among Women 115 features the voices of two bloggers.

First, there is Kathy Schiffer whose writing supplements our "Blessed Are They" segment. Her post, from her blog Seasons of Grace, features a look at the life of Blessed Marianne Cope, a saintly woman who served Christ in the United States both in New York and Hawaii.

Second, there's Julie Robison, a blogger at The Corner with a View and a writer for Virtuous Pla.net, a website reaching out to the JP2 and BXVI generations. 

And frankly, I just love women who strive to make the internet a more virtuous place by offering their witness to the world in and through their lives, and the stories they tell. It's another podcast for women by women, here on Among Women. 

It Makes Me Think... (30 years ago today!)

30 years ago, I was a 19-year old youth minister who brought my youth group to see Pope John Paul II at Madison Square Garden in New York City. He was there to speak to youth. He was rather youthful himself in those days. 

His call to "Look to Christ..." has stayed with me all these years.... I thought the memory was worth sharing. Enjoy!

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II

TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Madison Square Garden, New York

Wednesday, 3 October 1979

Dear young people,

I am happy to be with you in Madison Square Garden. Today this is a garden of life, where young people are alive: alive with hope and love, alive with the life of Christ. And it is in the name of Christ that I greet each one of you today.

I have been told that most of you come from Catholic high schools. For this reason I would like to say something about Catholic education, to tell you why the Church considers it so important and expends so much energy in order to provide you and millions of other young people with a Catholic education. The answer can be summarized in one word, in one person, Jesus Christ. The Church wants to communicate Christ to you.

1. This is what education is all about, this is the meaning of life: to know Christ. To know Christ as a friend: as someone who cares about you and the person next to you, and all the people here and everywhere—no matter what language they speak, or what clothes they wear, or what color their skin is.

And so the purpose of Catholic education is to communicate Christ to you, so that your attitude toward others will be that of Christ. You are approaching that stage in your life when you must take personal responsibility for your own destiny. Soon you will be making major decisions which will affect the whole course of your life. If these decisions reflect Christ's attitude, then your education will be a success. We have to learn to meet challenges and even crises in the light of Christ's Cross and Resurrection. Part of our Catholic education is to learn to see the needs of others, to have the courage to practice what we believe in. With the support of a Catholic education we try to meet every circumstance of life with the attitude of Christ. Yes, the Church wants to communicate Christ to you so that you will come to full maturity in him who is the perfect human being, and, at the same time, the Son of God.

2. Dear young people: you and I and all of us together make up the Church, and we are convinced that only in Christ do we find real love, and the fullness of life.

And so I invite you today to look to Christ.

When you wonder about the mystery of yourself, look to Christ who gives you the meaning of life.

When you wonder what it means to be a mature person, look to Christ who is the fullness of humanity.

And when you wonder about your role in the future of the world and of the United States, look to Christ. Only in Christ will you fulfill your potential as an American citizen and as a citizen of the world community.

3. With the aid of your Catholic education, you have received the greatest of gifts : the knowledge of Christ. Of this gift Saint Paul wrote: "I believe nothing can happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him" (Phil 3: 8-9).

Be always grateful to God for this gift of knowing Christ. Be grateful also to your parents and to the community of the Church for making possible, through many sacrifices, your Catholic education. People have placed a lot of hope in you, and they now look forward to your collaboration in giving witness to Christ, and in transmitting the Gospel to others. The Church needs you. The world needs you, because it needs Christ, and you belong to Christ. And so I ask you to accept your responsibility in the Church, the responsibility of your Catholic education: to help—by your words, and, above all, by the example of your lives—to spread the Gospel. You do this by praying, and by being just and truthful and pure.

Dear young people : by a real Christian life, by the practice of your religion you are called to give witness to your faith. And because actions speak louder than words, you are called to proclaim, by the conduct of your daily lives that you really do believe that Jesus Christ is Lord !

© Copyright 1979 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana