Peruvian Cardinal Will Be Praying to El Señor de los Milagros for the Unborn

Note: The month of October is dedicated to El Señor de los Milagros (The Lord of Miracles). Every Catholic Peruvian household has an image like the one above, prominently displayed in their home.

During Sunday Mass at the Cathedral of Lima, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne prayed to the Lord of Miracles for protection of “the lives of the weakest and most innocent, of those who are in the wombs of their mothers.”

In the presence of Peru's President Alan Garcia and other officials, the cardinal said, “The world is going through a very particular situation. Lord of Miracles, protect the wombs of these mothers, protect the legal realm, confuse those who threaten human life in order to prevent them from causing harm...”

Read the rest here

ACN News - ACN offers emergency help in the Philippines

ACN-USA News

10/5/2009
ACN offers emergency help in the Philippines



Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) will provide emergency aid to the Philippines as the region grapples with a natural disaster of epic proportions.

Responding to a desperate appeal for help, the charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians is dispatching funds to provide food, clean water, blankets, clothes and hospital beds amid reports of millions of people in urgent need. The aid package of $19,800 is being sent to the Dominican Sisters of Regina Rosarii for distribution in the Philippines’ Dioceses of Cubao and Antipolo.

At least 250 people have been reported dead since Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) hit the Philippines on Saturday, September 26th, and more than two million are thought to be affected by the disaster.

In a message to ACN, Sister Mary Brasil, Superior General of the Dominican Sisters of Regina Rosarii, said, “We are in distress. We can only cry at the pain our people are experiencing here.” Sr. Mary went on: “Please come to our aid. This is an emergency.”

The Dominican superior reported that their relief work is overshadowed by the threat of a second typhoon – far worse than the first. Typhoon Pepeng was first spotted Thursday, October 1st, and has stronger winds than Ondoy, reaching up to 95mph near its center. Sr. Mary said, “As if the previous typhoon is not enough, we have another super typhoon coming. This gives the people so much fear. We can only pray.”

Supported by Bishop Honesto Ongtioco of Cubao, the work of the Sisters has concentrated on the people worst affected by the disaster. Sr. Mary said, “Since day one of the typhoon that flooded our streets and houses, we have served hot meals and soup to wet and hungry victims in Quezon City, particularly the street families who also lost their shanties.”

She went on, “We have had no sleep practically since the big flood last Saturday. We are helping first of all…the street families who are also displaced. We serve meals.”

As well as supporting flood victims in Quezon City – the country’s most populated city and former capital – the Sisters are helping those affected in the municipality of Tanay Rizal.

In her message to ACN, Sr. Mary wrote, “God bless you all for your compassion, Fr. Werenfried [ACN’s founder] surely has a heart for people ‘where God weeps.’ Thank you very much.”

She went on to describe how in one village, Tanay Proper, most houses were washed away by the flood, leaving 51 villagers injured. 20 people are still missing.

The Sister singled out for special mention villager Menardo David who lost his parents, wife, two sons and a grandchild when the typhoon struck. Sr. Mary told ACN, “It is bad enough to lose a home, property and things – how much more to lose a loved one or whole members of their family.”

Stunned by the scale of the devastation, the Sisters have prioritized those areas overlooked by the media and thus especially short of help. She said, “We have gathered, through the efforts of our members, food and clothing. It is not enough, however.”

The Sisters will be organizing a retreat to provide psychological and spiritual help to families whose loved ones drowned in the flood.

Aid to the Church in Need is also committed to providing long term help, including repairs to church buildings and other infrastructure devastated by the typhoon.


With pictures of Sisters helping typhoon victims



Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy Father, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity - helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Father Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity,” the organization is now at work in over 145 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 43 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information contact Michael Varenne at michael@churchinneed.org or call 718-609-0939 or fax718-609-0938. Aid to the Church in Need, 725 Leonard Street, PO Box 220384, Brooklyn, NY 11222-0384. Aid to the Church in Need

Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary

Picture Source

The Rosary

"Together we confirm that the holy rosary is not a pious practice banished to the past, like prayers of other times thought of with nostalgia. Instead, the rosary is experiencing a new springtime. Without a doubt, this is one of the most eloquent signs of love that the young generation nourish for Jesus and his Mother, Mary.

In the current world, so dispersive, this prayer helps to put Christ at the center, as the Virgin did, who meditated within all that was said about her Son, and also what he did and said.

When reciting the rosary, the important and meaningful moments of salvation history are relived. The various steps of Christ's mission are traced. With Mary the heart is oriented toward the mystery of Jesus. Christ is put at the center of our life, of our time, of our city through the contemplation and mediation of his holy mysteries of joy, light, sorrow, and glory.

May Mary help us to welcome within ourselves the grace emanating from these mysteries, so that through us we can 'water' society, beginning with our daily relationships, and purifying them from so many negative forces, thus opening them to the newness of God.

The rosary, when it is prayed in an authentic way, not mechanical and superficial but profoundly, brings, in fact, peace and reconciliation. It contains within itself the healing power of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, invoked with faith and love at the center of each 'Hail Mary'".

Pope Benedict XVI

October Issue 2009 Magnificat

New Blog Added to the Side Bar - Humbled Servant in Hawaii

...and the blog belongs to none other but one of Hawaii's own seminarians, Alfred G. Humbled Servant in Hawaii

He is one of (I lost count now...10...?)seminarians in the Diocese of Honolulu. My family and I had the privilege of meeting Alfred the evening of the Mass for our priests on the Feast day of St. John Vianney. He is a wonderful young man. Please keep him and all our seminarians in your daily prayers.

The Faithful Traveler on EWTN Promo Clips

I cannot wait until The Faithful Traveler premiers on EWTN in March 2010. Diana was kind enough to let me post two clips from the upcoming show here.

The first one is a promo clip of the Faithful Traveler series. The second clip is a show featuring the Blue Army Shrine (World Apostolate of Fatima) in beautiful Washington, New Jersey.

Top 10 Influential Men of the 2000's; Who are Yours?

Jean wants to know Who are your 10 Ten Most Influential Men of the 2000's

Here is my list:

1. My late Father. Now that he is gone I realize more and more how much he influenced me my entire life. He was seldom wrong about reading people and situations.

2. My husband. He may be soft-spoken and gentle but I have learn that he is very wise when it comes to important decisions.

3. Pope Benedict XVI. He is so wise and intellectual. You see the Holy Spirit inspiring him.

4. Archbishop Charles Chaput

5. Father Benedict Groeschel

6. Fr. Frank Pavone

7. Scott Hahn

8. David Bereit National Director 40 Days for Life

9. Archbishop Raymond Burke

10. Eduardo Verástegui

Who would you pick for your list?

EWTN Celebrates the Eucharistic Adoration: Bl. Seelos

My mom and I caught most of a very interesting documentary on Blessed Francis X. Seelos, CSsr.

This week we air the Worldwide Holy Hour for Youth, Blessed Seelos documentary, and a new series on Europe and the Eucharist

Feast Day of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska

Born: August 25, 1905

Died: October 5, 1938

Canonized: April 30, 2000, by Pope John Paul II

Feast Day: October 5

Patron Saint of: mercy

Source

Prayer of St. Faustina before the Eucharist

I adore You, Lord and Creator, hidden in the Most Blessed Sacrament. I adore You for all the works of Your hands, that reveal to me so much wisdom, goodness and mercy, O Lord. You have spread so much beauty over the earth and it tells me about Your beauty, even though these beautiful things are but a faint reflection of You, incomprehensible Beauty. And although You have hidden Yourself and concealed Your beauty, my eye, enlightened by faith, reaches You and my soul recognizes its Creator, its Highest Good, and my heart is completely immersed in prayer of adoration.

My Lord and Creator, Your goodness encourages me to converse with You. Your mercy abolishes the chasm which separates the Creator from the creature. To converse with You, O Lord, is the delight of my heart. In You I find everything that my heart could desire. Here You light illumines my mind, enabling it to know You more and more deeply. Here streams of graces flow down upon my heart. Here my soul draws eternal life. O my Lord and Creator, You alone, beyond all these gifts, give Your own self to me and unite Yourself intimately with Your miserable creature.

O Christ, let my greatest delight be to see You loved and Your praise and glory proclaimed, especially the honor of Your mercy. O Christ, let me glorify Your goodness and mercy to the last moment of my life, with every drop of my blood and every beat of my heart. Would that I be transformed into a hymn of adoration of You. When I find myself on my deathbed, may the last beat of my heart be a loving hymn glorifying Your unfathomable mercy. Amen.

Prayer Source EWTN

EWTN PRESS RELEASE - EWTN Foundress Mother Angelica and Deacon Bill Steltemeier Receive Papal Honor

PRESS RELEASE

For Information, Please Contact:

Michelle Johnson

Director of Communications

EWTN Global Catholic Network

5817 Old Leeds Road
Irondale, Alabama 35210-2198 USA

(205) 795-5769 – Office

(205) 441-6248 ­– Cell

(205) 795-5781 – Fax

mjohnson@ewtn.com

EWTN Foundress Mother Angelica and Deacon Bill Steltemeier Receive Papal Honor

Irondale, AL (EWTN) –Pope Benedict XVI has awarded EWTN foundress, Mother Mary Angelica, and Deacon Bill Steltemeier, Chairman of EWTN’s Board of Governors, the Cross of Honor for distinguished service to the Church. The medal, officially known as “Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice” (literally “For the Church and the Pope”), is the highest honor that the Pope can bestow upon laity and religious.

Bishop Robert J. Baker of Birmingham conferred the awards in a brief ceremony following Sunday benediction at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Alabama.

“The Holy Father’s recognition of Mother Angelica and Deacon Bill Steltemeier is a much-deserved honor. It acknowledges the tremendous faith, hard work and incredible sacrifices that each of them have made throughout the years in founding and building up the Network,” said EWTN President and CEO Michael P. Warsaw. “Their recognition is also a great honor for EWTN and is a clear sign of the importance of the Network’s mission for the Church and the Pope. We are grateful to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI and to Bishop Baker for this honor.”

Mother Mary Angelica, 86, is a Poor Clare Nun of Perpetual Adoration. She came to Alabama in 1961 to found Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Irondale. In 1981, she began Eternal Word Television Network in a garage on the monastery property. In 1999, Mother Angelica relocated the Monastery to the grounds of the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Alabama. She continues to reside there with her community of Nuns.

Deacon R. William Steltemeier, 80, was a successful Nashville attorney who left his law practice to join Mother Angelica with her fledgling television network. He served as EWTN’s President for many years and continues to serve as Chairman of the Network’s Board of Governors.

EWTN Global Catholic Network, in its 28th year, is available in over 150 million television households in more than 140 countries and territories. With its direct broadcast satellite television and radio services, AM & FM radio networks, worldwide short-wave radio station, Internet website EWTN and publishing arm, EWTN, is the largest religious media network in the world.

-end-

A Franciscan Tradition Regarding Devoted Souls

My sister shared with me today that it is a Franciscan tradition that those souls in Purgatory who had a devotion to St. Francis of Assisi, are taken to heaven on this day, his feast day.

Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

Act of Love

O I believe Thou art present in the Blessed Sacrament, O Jesus.
I love Thee and desire Thee.
Come into my heart.
I embrace Thee, O never leave me.
I beseech Thee, O Lord Jesus,
may the burning and most sweet power of Thy love absorb my mind,
that I may die through love of Thy love,
who wast graciously pleased to die through love of my love.

- St. Francis of Assisi

Vision of St. Francis by Vicente CarduchoPicture source

Our Lady of the Trinity

Holy Virgin Mary,
there is none like you among women
born in the world.
Daughter and handmaid of the heavenly Father,
the almighty King.

Mother of our most high Lord Jesus Christ,
and Spouse of the Holy Spirit,
pray for us to your most holy Son,
our Lord and Master.

Hail holy Lady,
most noble Queen,
Mother of God, and Mary ever Virgin.
You were chosen by the heavenly Father,
who has been pleased to honor you
with the presence of his most holy Son
and the Divine Paraclete.

You were blessed with the fullness
of grace and goodness,
Hail, Temple of God,
his dwelling place, his masterpiece, his handmaid.
Hail, Mother of God.
I venerate you for the holy virtues which-
through the grace and light of the Holy Spirit-
you bring into the hearts of your clients
to change them from unfaithful Christians
to faithful children of God.

- St. Francis of Assisi

Death of St. Francis by Giotto

Prayer to St. Francis of Assisi

Dear Saint, once worldly and vain,
you became humble and poor for the sake of Jesus
and had an extraordinary love for the Crucified,
which showed itself in your body
by the imprints of Christ's Sacred Woulds.

In our selfish and sensual age,
how greatly we need your secret
that draws countless men and women to imitate you.
Teach us also great love for the poor
and unswerving loyalty to the Vicar of Christ.

Prayer Sources: New Saint Joseph People's Prayer Book, Catholic Book Publishing Co. and The Prayer Book, The Catholic Press, Inc.

Respect Life Sunday Check-List

Mary Ann Kreitzer shared a checklist for tomorrow Respect Life Sunday here.

Tomorrow is Respect Life Sunday in the Catholic Church and a good time to reflect on what you will do to help end abortion. Prayer and fasting always provide the foundation, but where to go from there?

Here is my quick baker's dozen:

1) Participate in the Life Chain tomorrow.

2) Spend at least one day at a 40 Days for Life prayer vigil.

3) Give a donation to a crisis pregnancy center.

4) Share your pro-life values with someone to whom you've never mentioned it.

5) Wear the little feet pin on your lapel and be prepared to explain why.

6) Spend time with your children or grandchildren reading them a pro-life book like Angel in the Waters.

7) Use pro-life checks. (Note: Don't order from Life Checks whose parent company also prints checks for Planned Parenthood.) Try Heritage House. X (DONE)

8) Write a letter to the editor supporting the right to life of the unborn or the conscience rights of medical personnel not to participate in abortions.

9) Visit a nursing home and make friends with someone who gets no visitors.

10) Vote pro-life. Support for murdering the innocent is a disqualifying issue. No politician who supports killing the weak and helpless should get your vote - EVER.

11) If your state has a Choose Life license plate, get it. If not, put a pro-life bumper sticker on your car. X DONE

12) Have Masses said for the intention of ending assaults against life.

13) Encourage parents of big families; they get plenty of criticism from the worldly.

First Saturday - Immaculate Heart of Mary

Picture Source

Act of Reparation

O Most holy Virgin and our Mother,
we listen with grief to the complaints
of your Immaculate Heart surrounded with the thorns
placed therein at every moment by the blasphemies and ingratitude
of ungrateful humanity.
We are moved by the ardent desire
of loving you as our Mother
and of promoting a true devotion
to your Immaculate Heart.

We therefore kneel before you
to manifest the sorrow we feel for the grievances
that people cause you,
and to atone by our prayers and sacrifices
for the offenses with which they return your love.
Obtain for them and for us the pardon of so many sins.
Hasten the conversion of sinners
that they may love Jesus
and cease to offend the Lord, already so much offended,
and will not fall into hell.
Turn your eyes of mercy toward us,
that we may love God with all our heart on earth
and enjoy him forever in heaven.

- New Saint Joseph People's Prayer Book, Catholic Book Publishing

Padre Pio and the Guardian Angels

Padre Pio and the Guardian Angel by Guido Reni

The Guardian Angel

- An Italian-American, who lived in California, sometimes entrusted his Guardian Angel to report some messages to Padre Pio. Once, after the confession, he asked Padre Pio “if he really had received his messages from his Guardian Angel?” Father Pio asked him: “What do you think? Do you think I am hard of hearing?” After that Padre Pio repeated the messages that were sent him some days before by his Guardian Angel.

- A Father Lino said: “I was begging my Guardian Angel to bring padre Pio a request of prayer for a lady who was very sick, but it seemed that nothing changed. When I met Padre Pio I told him: “Father, I begged my Guardian Angel in order to bring you a request of prayer for a woman who is very sick...is it possible he didn’t do it? And Padre Pio answered: “Do you believe your Guardian Angel to be disobedient as you and me?

- A Father Eusebio said: I was going to London by plane, against Padre Pio’s suggestion not to use this mean of transport. When we were flying over the Channel, a violent storm put the aeroplane in danger. Amid the general terror I prayed and, without knowing what to do, I sent my Guardian Angel to Padre Pio. When I went back to St. Giovanni Rotondo I met Padre Pio who said to me, “Are you well? Is everything OK?” I answered; “I thought I’d die,” the saintly padre responded, “then why don't you obey? I responded “But I have sent you my Guardian Angel... Padre Pio then said, “Fortunately he arrived just in time!“.

- An Italian lawyer was driving coming back home from Bologna. In his FIAT 1100 were also his wife and their two children. At one point, he wanted to be replaced in driving the car because he was very tired. He asked his son Guido to drive instead of him but he didn’t answer because his son was sleeping. Some kilometres later, next to the gate of St. Lazzaro, the lawyer fell asleep too. When he woke-up he realised he was not far from Eternity. That meant that while he was sleeping he had run on the railway for several kilometres. He was very frightened so he cried: “who was guiding the car? And what has happened?” but nobody could answer him. His son, who was on his right side, woke up and told him he had slept deeply. His wife and the smaller child were incredulous and marvelled. They said he had driven differently than usual. They said, “At one time the car was going to crash into another car but at the last moment it avoided the crash with a perfect manoeuvres. The way it took the curves was also different. But above all - his wife said: “you have been immovable for a lot of time and you have not answered our questions.” The lawyer said, “I could not answer because I was asleep. I have slept for fifteen kilometres. I haven’t felt anything because I slept...but who was driving the car? Who has prevented the catastrophe? After a couple of months the mystery was disclosed, the lawyer went to St. Giovanni Rotondo. As soon as Padre Pio saw him, he said him, “You slept and the Guardian Angel drove your car.”

- One of Padre Pio’s spiritual daughters was walking along a country road to the Convent. There Padre Pio was waiting for her. It was one of those winter days, bleached by the snow in which it was even difficult to walk. The road was so full of snow that the woman had the certainty she would not reach the Convent in time for the appointment with the director. Full of faith, she charged his Guardian Angel to tell Padre Pio she would have arrived at the convent late because of the snow. When she reached the convent she saw with enormous joy that the monk was waiting for her behind a window. He greeted her smiling.

- A man told: “Padre Pio often, stopped in the sacristy greeting his spiritual children and friends by kissing them. I looked with holy envy on those so fortunate and I thought: “Blessed him! If I were him! Blessed! Blessed him! On Christmas 1958, I knelt, in front of Padre Pio for confession. Afterwards, I looked at him and while full of emotion I asked him: “Father, today is the Christmas day, can I wish you Merry Christmas by giving you a kiss? And he, with a sweetness that I am not able to describe with the pen, smile at me and said: “Hurry up, my child, don't make me waste time“! He also embraced me. I kissed him and as a bird, joyful, I went toward the exit full of celestial delights. And what can I say about some slaps on the head? Every time, before leaving from St. Giovanni Rotondo, I desired father Pio gave me a sign of particular predilection. In fact I also wanted two small slaps on the head as two fatherly caresses. I have to underline that he never refused me anything I wanted to receive from him. One day, there were a lot of people in the sacristy of the small church and father Vincenzo exhorted, with his usual severity: “don’t push, don’t shake Padre Pio’s hands go back“! I sadly thought: “This time I will leave without having the blows on the head.” I didn’t want to resign me and I begged my Guardian Angel to become a messenger and to repeat these words to Padre Pio: “Father I desire the benediction and the two blows on the head, as usual, one for me and the other for my wife”. Padre Vincenzo was still repeating “don’t push Padre Pio...stay far from him!” when Padre Pio started walking. I was in anxiety. I looked at him but I was sad. Suddenly Padre Pio came to me, he smiled and he gave me two taps and it made me also kiss his hand, “I would like to give you a lot of slaps...a lot of slaps, “ he told me the first time that I asked him for the small slaps.

- A woman was sitting in the square of the church of the capuchins. The Church was closed. It was Late and she prayed with the thought, and she repeated with the heart: “Padre Pio, help me! Guardian Angel, please, go to tell father Pio to help me, otherwise my sister will die“! From the window above her Padre Pio’s voice came: “Who is calling me at this time? What is the problem? The woman told about her sister’s illness. Padre Pio went in bilocation, to the sick woman and healed her.

- A guy told Father Pio: I cannot come and see you very often. My salary doesn’t allow me such expensive trips. Father Pio answered: “Who has told you to come here? You have your Guardian Angel, don’t you? You tell him what you want, you send him here, and you will have the answer.”

- When father Pio was a young priest he wrote a letter to his confessor in which he said: “when I close my eyes and the night comes, I can see the Heaven that appears in front of me. I am encouraged by this vision so I can sleep with a sweet smile on the lips and with a perfect calm on the forehead waiting my small companion of my infancy came to wake up me and start praying together prayers to the beloved of our hearts.”

- One day Padre Alessio approached Padre Pio with some letters in his hand in order to ask him something but Padre Pio told him abruptly, “Don’t you see that I am busy? Leave me alone.” Padre Alessio went away mortified. Padre Pio later called him and told him, “Have you seen all those angels that were near me? They were the Guardian Angels of my spiritual children that came to bring me their messages. I had to report to them the answers they needed.”

- A doctor asked Padre Pio, “So many angels are always near you. Do they bother you?” “No, they don’t,” he answered simply, “They are very obedient.”

- Father Pio said to a person: "We will pray for your mother, so that the Guardian Angel will be with her in company."

- One of the spiritual children of Padre Pio said: “ It seems that Padre Pio always listens to everybody who calls him.” One evening, a group of friends arrived to St. Giovanni Rotondo. They summarized the graces that they would have asked of Padre Pio, and they asked their Guardian Angels to bring their request to Padre Pio as soon as possible. The next day, after the Holy Mass, Padre Pio reproached them: “You do not leave me in peace even at night!” Watching Padre Pio’s smile they understood their prayer had been accepted.

- A person asked Padre Pio, “Father, are you able to hear what the Guardian Angels tell you?” And Padre Pio answered: “Of course! Do you think Angels are disobedient as you? Send me your Guardian Angel!”

- Don’t write to me because I cannot answer you. Send me your Guardian Angel and I will do everything.

- Your Guardian Angel has reported to me some sentences that have made me understand your mistrust.

- Invoke your Guardian Angel that he will illuminate you and will guide you. God has given him to you for this reason. Therefore use him!

- If the mission of our Guardian Angel is a great mission, the mission of mine is for sure greater than the others, because he has to be a teacher and explain to me other languages.

- Send me your Guardian Angel - he doesn’t have to pay a ticket for the train and he doesn’t wear out his shoes.

- For people that live alone there is the Guardian Angel.

Source Saint Pio of Pietrelcina

Thanks to Sue

Feast of Our Guardian Angels

Picture Source

Prayer to One's Guardian Angel
Daily Protector throught Life

Dear Angel,
in his goodness
God gave you to me
to guide, protect, and enlighten me,
and to bring me back to the right way
when I go astray.
Encourage me when I am disheartened,
and instruct me when I err in my judgment.
Help me to become more Christlike,
and to some day to be accepted
into the company of Angels and Saints in heaven.

-New Saint Joseph People's Prayer Book, Catholic Book Publishing.

Pope Benedict XVI Recommends Spiritual Direction

Everyone -- priests, religious, laypeople -- and especially youth, should have a spiritual director to help them in the Christian life, says Benedict XVI...

Read the rest over on Zenit

ACN News - No safety for Christians in Iraq?

ACN-USA News

9/29/2009
No safety for Christians in Iraq?



Christians in Iraq are beginning to flee the only place where they thought they were safe – their ancient homelands in the Nineveh plains.

Reports have come in from clergy in the north of the country that in the past few months a slow but steady emigration has gotten under-way from the villages and towns close to Mosul city, which trace their heritage back to the earliest Christian centuries.

The reports are coming after warnings of another blow to the Church expected in the immediate run-up to the January 2010 general elections.

With government ministers publicly expecting a surge in violence as people prepare to go to the polls, Church leaders fear that a new security crisis could spark another mass exodus of Christians, which in some areas may mean the departure of the last remaining faithful.

In an interview with the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), leading Iraqi priest Fr. Bashar Warda made clear that Christians in the Nineveh region are now beginning to feel threatened by the kind of security problems which have blighted the lives of people in so many other parts of the country.

Speaking from northern Iraq on Monday, September 28th, Fr. Warda told the charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians, “I am sad to say that the emigration of Christian families that we have seen in places like Mosul and Baghdad has now begun to affect the Nineveh area.” He continued, saying, “We are not seeing – at least not yet – a large emigration from places like Alqosh and other [Nineveh] villages, but it is definitely happening.”

Fr. Warda said he could not give precise estimates of the number leaving the region but he said that a number of exclusively Christian villages have each been losing 30 or 40 faithful every month, sometimes more.

The news has added significance because the many almost completely Christian villages in the region had become a refuge for faithful under threat in other parts of the region. When thousands of Christians fled for their lives following a spate of killings and anti-Christian propaganda in Mosul about a year ago, many took refuge in the Nineveh plains.

Fr. Warda, who is Rector of St. Peter’s Major Seminary in Ankawa, outside Erbil, the provincial capital of the Kurdish north of Iraq, went on to say that the emigration from Nineveh is expected to speed up after a popular doctor was kidnapped at her home in Bartala, one of the most important towns in the region. Dr. Mahasin Bashir was freed on Sunday, September 27th, from the town of Baashiqa, about 10 miles from her home in Bartala.

The abduction of the gynecologist has, according to Fr. Bashar, “sent major shockwaves” across the region, which until recently has been largely free from the kidnappings, explosions and other incidents affecting other parts of the country.

Concerns that the violence has spread to Nineveh will be a challenge to many Iraqi observers who report that terrorists linked to radical political movements have deliberately kept the region safe to encourage Christians to stay there in a bid to create a so-called safe haven for the faithful.

Christians in Iraq, who numbered 1.4 million at the last census in 1987, are now down to less than 400,000, according to latest estimates. At least 800,000 Christians – proportionately far higher than other religious groups – have fled the country since the security-breakdown of the immediate post-Saddam years.

Fr. Warda went on warn that a sudden escalation in violence in the run-up to the general elections due on the January 30th, 2010, elections may prove catastrophic for the future survival of the Church with yet more Christians leaving the country.

“Of course it would be dangerous to speculate, but if the violence becomes worse, it will seriously endanger our situation,” the priest said. “It is clear that whenever a problem suddenly gets worse, the first solution the Christians look for is emigration.”


With library picture of Christians in the Nineveh plains, northern Iraq


Editor’s Notes:

Your browser may not support display of this image.

Directly under the Holy Father, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity - helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Father Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity,” the organization is now at work in over 145 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 43 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information contact Michael Varenne at michael@churchinneed.org or call 718-609-0939 or fax718-609-0938. Aid to the Church in Need, 725 Leonard Street, PO Box 220384, Brooklyn, NY 11222-0384. Aid to the Church in Need

St. Michael, Defender of Children

St. Michael, Defender of Children
by Joseph Meaney

I was struck by a passage in scripture showing St. Michael the Archangel defending children. The Old Testament Book of Daniel relates the following:

But at that time Michael shall rise up, the great prince, who standeth for the children of thy people: and a time shall come, such as never was from the time that nations began, even until that time. And at that time shall thy people be saved every one that shall be found written in the book. - Daniel 12:1

In what period of history have children, especially those waiting to be born, faced such tremendous threats to their lives? How is it possible that almost 2 billion children have been killed by surgical abortion worldwide since 1960 and the response of even pro-life people is so muted? Today there are countries like Russia where 52% of pregnancies end in abortion. Evil on this gigantic scale has to have a satanic origin, and St. Michael is the one who first defeated the Devil's plans.

Please join HLI in our prayer campaign to St. Michael the Archangel using the powerful prayer first given to the Church by Pope Leo XIII. The response so far has been extraordinary. We have had to print over 2.5 million prayer cards just to keep up with the requests from our website.

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My Mom's Pilgrimage to Kalaupapa and Kalawao

My mom on the road to Kalawao
Blessed Damien, Sacred Heart and St. Francis Xavier
seen through the front door at St. Francis
The altar of St. Philomena taken through the outside Chapel window
St. Francis Church, Kalaupapa
Thanks to my hardworking and generous husband, my mom and I were able to take a day trip to Molokai yesterday. We met our pilot and the rest of the passengers early in the morning. We were a little late in taking off because of the concern on the overall weight. But thanks to a little sacrifice on everyone's part, all of us were able to fly over to Kalaupapa.

Our pilot could not have been nicer or friendlier. He was also a gentleman. I highly recommend Big Island Dave of Iolani Air if you ever want to fly to another island.

Our fellow passengers were great! There was a couple from New Zealand. They were friendly and just plain nice. They were also good-natured considering the teasing the had to endure by our playful pilot.

There was also a fellow from South Jersey who was a pilot himself.

Then there was a couple from Belgium. The husband spoke English and he patiently answered our numerous questions about Father Damien and his home town of Tremeloo. Apparently, out of all the celebrities, sports heroes, etc. in Belgium, a recent poll results came in that Father Damien was the most important and famous person in Belgium.

This couple also had a newspaper clipping of a Belgium paper with an article on Father Felix Vandebroek, the pastor of St. Francis on Kalaupapa. Fr. Felix is also from Belgium.

Well, because we were late, we missed our tour bus. Only in Hawaii can a pilot land the plane, run over to get a pick up truck, get the passengers on the pick up truck and then drive the passengers over to meet the tour bus. Well that is exactly what Big Island Dave did for us.

Just up the road we saw our tour bus. The tour guide Norman (same one who showed us around last year) and the hikers we were joining, warmly greeted us.

Someone explained that we had to leave our water bottles behind (because of the weight concern) Norman drove around looking for someone to open the store for us.
Then we took the following tour. Since most of the residents were getting read to leave for the canonization pilgrimage, no one was available. Norman did make a final stop and found water bottles for us. What a nice gesture! I must say everyone was nice. The hikers offered to share their water with us too.

Our tour:

1st stop: Blessed Mother Marianne Cope's gravesite

2nd stop: St. Francis Church

3rd stop: drive over to Kalawao

4th stop: lunch

5th stop: Blessed Damien's gravesite and St. Philomena's Church (Unfortunately it was again off limits to us because of the newly refinished flooring).

As usual, we did not want the day to end. It was an incredible feeling to be able to walk were a holy man had walked. Even though the sights were magnificent to us, I tried to imagine the horror the people brought over must have felt because of the sense of imprisonment and banishment through no fault of their own.

They were however, blessed to have Father Damien there and eventually, that forbidden place became a sacred place of love and security for its inhabitants. And next Sunday, Father Damien (Joseph) de Veuster of Belgium, will be canonized a saint in the Catholic Church. Something that most of us already knew.

Feast Day of St. Therese of the Child Jesus

"Ah! my Jesus, pardon me if I am unreasonable in wishing to express my desires and longings which reach even unto infinity. Pardon me and heal my soul by giving her what she longs for so much!

To be your Spouse, to be a Carmelite, and by my union with you to be the Mother of souls, should not this suffice me? And yet it is not so. No doubt, these three privileges sum up my true vocation: Carmelite, Spouse, Mother, and yet I feel within me other vocations. I feel the vocation of THE WARRIOR, THE PRIEST, THE APOSTLE, THE DOCTOR, THE MARTYR. Finally, I feel the need and the desire of carrying out the most heroic deeds for you, O Jesus. I feel within my soul the courage of the Crusader, the Papal Guard, and I want to die on the field of battle in defense of the Church.

I feel in me the vocation of the Priest. With what love, O Jesus, I would carry you in my hands when, at my voice, you would come down from heaven. And with what love would I give you to souls! But alas! while desiring to be a Priest, I admire and envy the humility of Saint Francis of Assisi and I feel the vocation of imitating him in refusing the sublime dignity of the Priesthood.

O Jesus, my Love, my Life, how can I combine these contrasts?

How can I realize the desires of my poor little soul?

Ah! in spite of my littleness, I would like to enlighten souls as did the Prophets and the Doctors. I have the vocation of the Apostle, I would like to travel over the whole earth to preach your name and to plant your glorious cross on infidel soil. But O my Beloved, one mission alone would not be sufficient for me, I would want to preach the Gospel on all the five continents simultaneously and even to the most remote isles. I would be a missionary, not for a few years only but from the beginning of creation until the consummation of the ages. But above all, O my Beloved Savior, I would shed my blood for you even to the very last drop.

Saint Therese of Lisieux

October 2009 issue of Magnificat