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God Gives Everyone a Biography - Choose Life!

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By Julie Anderson
Member, Hosea Board of Advisors


While talking with a friend last week, she mentioned her weekend plans included a trip to our local blood bank. Her comment brought to mind a childhood memory.

When I was in grade school, Mom let me wander around the children’s section of the local library and choose an assortment of books to take home with us. When I finished, Mom reviewed my choices, making sure I was reading age-appropriate material. As my reading progressed, I remember being fascinated with biographies.

I still recall one of the first biographies I ever read. It was about Dr. Charles Richard Drew, an African-American surgeon and researcher born in 1904 who developed a method for storing blood plasma. His discoveries led to the establishment of blood banks. Today, he is known as “The Father of the Blood Bank.” 

Because I have received transfusions, I am grateful for Dr. Drew’s work. Without his discoveries the first blood banks would not have been established in the 1940s. By the time I was born in the 1970s, blood transfusions had become routine. As my mind wandered, I started wondering if Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, had had her way earlier,  whether Dr. Drew, an African-American, would have ever been born.  

Planned Parenthood is responsible for the vast majority of abortions within the United States. According to multiple websites I checked, Planned Parenthood performs more than 332,000 annually. Although the number is staggering and should move all of us to action, just one abortion can affect the lives of so many. For example, what if Dr. Drew had been aborted? How many lives would have been lost without his lifesaving work?

As I sat with that unpleasant idea, I also thought about Sanger’s “Negro Project” and its effect on the African-American population. Started in 1939, the “Negro Project” was Sanger’s justification to promote eugenics in an effort to eliminate those she deemed unfit. Although the project didn’t start until the late 1930s, Sanger had long advocated for eugenics.

For example, in 1919 she wrote an article titled “Birth Control and Racial Betterment” which appeared in the Birth Control Review.

The article begins, “Before eugenicists and others who are laboring for racial betterment can succeed, they must first clear the way for Birth Control. Like the advocates of Birth Control, the eugenicists, for instance, are seeking to assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit. Both are seeking a single end but they lay emphasis upon different methods.”

Just whom did Sanger and others around her consider unfit?

An excerpt from a letter she wrote to Dr. Clarence Gamble might shed some light on her thoughts. (Dr. Gamble encouraged Sanger to merge the Clinical Birth Control Research Bureau with the American Birth Control League. In 1939, it became known as the Birth Control Federation of America. Today it is known as Planned Parenthood.)

“It seems to me from my experience … that while the colored Negroes have a great respect for white doctors they can get closer to their own members and more or less lay their cards on the table which means their ignorance, superstitions and doubts.

We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal.
We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out the idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

It’s worth noting Sanger relied upon the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to promote her work. His niece, Dr. Alveda King, full-time director of Civil Rights for the Unborn, an outreach of Priests for Life, says she grows weary of the organization’s arguments.

In 2011, she wrote, “"Sometimes I wonder if Planned Parenthood will ever get tired of lying about my Uncle Martin, and then I remind myself that a business built on the lie that a baby isn’t a baby is a stranger to the truth. Just to be clear one more time, there’s no way Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were he alive today, would support an organization that has helped destroy one-quarter of the African-American population."

One man who might understand the impact of the “Negro Project” is Dr. Ben Carson, secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. During an interview in 2015, he said, “And one of the reasons you find most of their clinics in black neighborhoods is so that you can find a way to control that population. I think people should go back and read about Margaret Sanger who founded this place.”

Maybe we should all heed Dr. Carson’s advice. 
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Julie Anderson is a member of the Hosea Board of Advisors, a freelance journalist of 20 years and a pro-life advocate. She writes from her home state of Kansas. For her full bio, see hosea4you.org.
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Poster Child of Divine Mercy

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Today’s Catholic.org
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By Clare Ruff


​Major Christian celebrations had octaves by the end of the fourth century. It seems rejoicing could not fit into one 24-hour period.  So, octaves were established to prolong the festivities, first for Easter, then Pentecost, Christmas and Epiphany.  The eighth day echoed the first day theme but with greater emphasis, just as an octave on the musical scale repeats the same note only one pitch higher.
 
On April 30, 2000, in the Jubilee Year of Redemption, Pope John Paul II declared that every Octave of Easter would be designated Divine Mercy Sunday.  He was motivated by the true story of a Polish nun and Christian mystic named Faustina Kowalska who lived in Warsaw, Poland as a member of the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy.  She died on October 5, 1938, but warned her religious sisters to pray much for a terrible war that would start in their homeland. Nazi Germany invaded Poland  September 1, 1939. 

Sister Faustina was instructed by her superiors to record the appearances of Jesus Christ to her; she penned the mystical experiences in her diary called Divine Mercy in My Soul.  Christ gave her a mission in these apparitions:  remind the world of the truth revealed in Holy Scripture about God’s infinite Mercy, introduce a 3 o’clock prayer recalling Christ’s agony on the cross, promulgate the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and promote an annual liturgical feast of Divine Mercy.  Sister Faustina was a contemporary of Pope John Paul II, once archbishop of Krakow, Poland; he established the Feast of Divine Mercy and greatly assisted the worldwide expansion of this devotion.

Mercy in the Old Testament is expressed by two basic words:  Hesed and Rahamim.  Hesed references a reciprocal, covenantal love, alluding to God’s nuptial relationship with his people.  Rahamim is derived from the root rehem, which means literally “from the mother’s womb.”  This kind of mercy recalls a love radical in bond and unity, the relationship between a mother and the child of her womb.  This love is not earned, but one of pure gift.   It invokes tenderness, patience, compassion, readiness to forgive -- a universal identification with maternity.  Mercy, the Old Testament authors propose, comes closest in expression to a mother’s love.

That was then.  This is now.  In light of the abortion-on-demand culture, God offers, “Even should a woman forget her child, yet I will not forget you” (Isaiah 49:15).  These ancient, biblical texts emphasized relationships when describing Divine Mercy, the act of sparing someone’s guilt, wiping away transgressions, washing the slate clean.

Perhaps, no one more desperately needed his slate cleaned than Bernard N. Nathanson, MD.  He is the poster child of Divine Mercy!  The son of an emotionally sterile father and equally emotionally battered mother, the young Nathanson was extremely intelligent and desired to pursue medicine.  When he attended his father’s alma mater for medical school, he lost more than faith in God.

Dr. Nathanson describes in his 1996 autobiography, The Hand of God, how he was introduced “into the satanic world of abortion.”  In his third year of medical school, his girlfriend was about 16 weeks when Nathanson sent her via cab to a physician with $500 in her purse. “We lost our innocence that spring,” he said.  Their trust in each other irrevocably broken by the brutal reality of abortion, they parted ways.

Years later, Nathanson crossed paths with Lawrence Lader and co-founded NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, now NARAL Pro-Choice America).  Together they plotted the extinction of legal protection for the unborn.  Nathanson set records in the destruction of human life.  He personally performed more than 5,000 abortions, trained abortionist on an additional 10,000, and supervised another 60,000 abortions during the two years he directed the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health (CRASH) in Manhattan. 
 
Those numbers should shock you.  That is the work of ONE man.  Try to comprehend for a moment the bloodshed this represents.  It’s staggering.  I’ve met people in my pro-life work who find it hard to forgive Dr. Nathanson for what he initiated – even though he eventually converted to a prolife position.  Thankfully, they are not God.

Jesus spoke to Sister Faustina and said, “My daughter, write that the greater the misery of a soul, the greater its right to My mercy; urge all souls to trust in the unfathomable abyss of My mercy, because I want to save them all.” (Diary, 1182)

After 10 years of spiritual blindness, what he called his “decade of darkness,” Dr. Nathanson discovered God’s abundant MERCY could encompass even a sinner responsible for the death of 75,000 little souls. 

Cardinal John O’Connor baptized Bernard N. Nathanson on December 8, 1996, in the basement, the “catacombs,” of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.  Afterward, Dr. Nathanson handed out a memento card to the guests in attendance.  It read: “God, who is rich in Mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive in Christ” (Ephesians 2:4).

Mercy doesn’t mean God is morally neutral or sin is irrelevant.  If we betray the code of love, deviate from the path of righteousness, defile ourselves or another, we find wholeness only through humble repentance and God’s gratuitously gifted Mercy.

What’s the appropriate response to such ineffability?  Gratitude!  

Dr. Nathanson himself articulated it after his baptism:

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am, what an unrequitable debt I have to those who prayed for me all those years when I was publicly announcing my atheism and lack of faith.  They stubbornly, lovingly, prayed for me.  I am convinced beyond any doubt that those prayers were heard.”  

“Who loves more?” Jesus questioned his Pharisee host.  “The one for whom he canceled the greater debt,” came the reply (Luke 7:43). “You have judged rightly,” Jesus affirmed.  And in that spirit and knowledge we rejoice this Octave of Easter, and remember the Poster Child of Mercy, Bernard Nathanson, because no one is beyond God’s pardon. And, if our “sins be like scarlet, they can be white as snow”(Isaiah 1:18).   There is rejoicing in heaven over each repentant sinner because God is truly rich in mercy!

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World Press.org
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Bernard N. Nathanson: The Poster Child of Mercy
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WorldPress.org
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St. Maria Faustina Posted by quotesgram.com
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World Press.org

​Clare Ruff earned her BA in Theology from University of St. Thomas, Houston, TX
and serves as Director of Events and Outreach for the Hosea Initiative.
She writes from her home in southeastern Minnesota.
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Imitate the Angel at Christ’s Tomb: Be a Messenger of Truth

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Mary Magdalene and women at the empty tomb of Jesus on day of Resurrection, relief on the baptismal font, church of Saint Matthew in Stitar, Croatia
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The photo depicts the Resurrection of Christ and was taken by my husband during a passion play in 2017.


By Julie Anderson
Member, Hosea Board of Advisors

​
Recently while researching the role of angels in the life of Christ, I stumbled across a lesser known celebration of the Easter season, that of Monday of the Angel. Curious, I took a few minutes to learn more about it.

Celebrated as what is known as “little Easter” in many European and South American countries, the day after Easter is a public holiday in countries such as Germany, Croatia and Italy. In Italy, the day is known as Lunedi dell’ Angelo and honors the angel’s role in proclaiming Christ’s resurrection. 

St. Matthew writes, “After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning,* Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow. The guards were shaken with fear of him and became like dead men. Then the angel said to the women in reply, “Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ Behold, I have told you.” Then they went away quickly from the tomb, fearful yet overjoyed, and ran to announce this to his disciples (Matthew 28:1-7).”

Did you catch that last part? The women ran from the tomb. They ran with joy in their hearts. They ran, announcing the good news of Christ’s resurrection as shared with them by the angel.

Of Greek origin, the word “angel” translates as “messenger” in English. The women who visited the tomb that first Easter morning heard the message of truth as heralded by the angel. Then, they ran to tell everyone around them. In doing so, they became messengers of truth and life.

In today’s world, we don’t necessarily think about messages in the same way. We send email messages and text messages to family and friends on a daily basis. In fact, most people get inundated with hundreds of messages every day. Still, I wonder if we received a message directly from an angel if we would give it our full attention? Would we rush to share the message with everyone around us? 

The message of Christ’s resurrection is the single greatest message the world has ever been given throughout all of history. Christ conquered death, and because he died for us, we have the opportunity to live with Him forever in heaven!  

As I reflected on Christ’s resurrection as a central tenet of the Christian faith, the words of St. Paul came to mind. He devoted an entire chapter of one of his epistles to Christ’s resurrection and what it will mean for everyone on the last day. “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise again incorruptible: and we shall be changed (1 Corinthians 15:58).”  

To me, the verse implies trumpets will continue to herald a message of truth, life and love until Jesus comes again in glory. Yet, how?

The word “herald” can be a noun or a verb. As a noun, it refers to official messengers or those who proclaim news. As a verb, herald means “to give notice of” or “announce” something.

Given the definition, it’s no surprise trumpets and similar-sounding instruments are often used to announce someone or something important. Take, for example, the United States Army Herald Trumpets who serve as the official fanfare ensemble for the president of the United States or the shofar, the Jewish horn used to awaken and inspire people to repentance and change on Jewish holy days such as Rosh Hashanah.

Getting back to St. Paul’s words about the last trumpet, I think believers everywhere are called to be messengers of truth and heralds of the Gospel of Life until the last day. We should all heed the words of the prophet Isaiah who instructs us to, “Raise your voice up like a trumpet (Isaiah 58:1).”

Here at Hosea Initiative we encourage all prolife-minded individuals to raise their voices up like trumpets in defense of the most precious gift God has ever given us-the gift of life, the very gift he gave us by virtue of His resurrection. In fact, Isaiah’s rallying cry served as the theme of Hosea Initiative’s first “Life is Beautiful” gala held this past December. 

The gala reminded those in attendance this year is a pivotal one, especially here in the United States. As our nation prepares to elect a president and vice-president, it is important that we, as faithful believers in the resurrection of Christ, raise our voices up like trumpets for life each and every day leading up to the election.

How will you “raise your voice up like a trumpet” for the unborn?  How will you serve as a messenger of truth and a herald of the Gospel of Life?


ACTION ITEM
Order your "Raise Up Your Voice Like a Trumpet" ornament HERE!!
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Julie Anderson is a member of the Hosea Board of Advisors, a freelance journalist of 20 years and a prolife advocate. She writes from her home state of Kansas. For her full bio, see hosea4you.org.

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The Pieta – A Window onto Holy Week

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Cathedral St. Paul, St Paul, MN Photo by Clare Ruff
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Photo source “ wga.hu” online.

By Clare Ruff

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On August 27, 1498, a 23-year-old Italian artist was commissioned to create a life-sized rendition of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  For the next two years, the relatively unknown sculptor chiseled from a single slab of Carrara marble an artwork of unparalleled beauty.  His mournful Madonna, co-mingling pity with piety, was unveiled in the Jubilee Year of 1500, and for the next  520 years has drawn millions of admirers to St. Peter's Basilica to be inspired by La Pietà.

When the masterpiece was first revealed, the author mingled incognito in the crowd and overheard spectators trying to identify the artist.  His name was never suggested.   In pride and anger, he carved front and center into the sash crossing the Madonna’s gown:  MICHAEL ANGLEUS BONAROTUS FLORENT FACIEBAT, translated:  “Michael Angelo Buonarroti of Florence made this”.  He swore never again to sign a work of his art.

If you cannot travel to Rome to take in its grandeur, authentic replicas of the Pietà are displayed throughout the United States.  The Basilica of Our Lady of Sorrows, in Chicago, Illinois is home to a replica sculpted by Spartaco Palla from 6600 pounds of the same Carrara marble.  The Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, Minnesota, and  St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church in Corona, California have Vatican-approved exact replicas made of crushed marble dust cast in the official bronze mold made in 1931 of the original Pietà.  When Christ the King Catholic Church in Topeka, Kansas was dedicated in 1985, it was gifted an exact replica of the Pietà by the parents of our own Julie Anderson, another Hosea Initiative Blog contributor. 

Michelangelo immortalizes the drama of Holy Week in his Pietà.  These are sacred days for both Christians and Jews.   The Jewish people memorialize the first Passover in Egypt and exodus from slavery.  Christians recall the events of the “new Passover” where the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, is immolated on the wood of the cross to redeem humanity from sin. 

Holy Week

Palm Sunday opens with triumphant cries from a fickle populace lining the road with branches to welcome the Messiah.   Monday’s grand betrayal rewards Judas with 30 pieces of silver.  Thursday’s sacred meal initiates a new manna and a new covenant.  The disciples wonder:  Why do we celebrate the Pasch a day earlier than Moses required?  Where is the lamb for the feast?  What did the Teacher say about going to prepare a place for us?  

The new Adam is also in a garden; here, anguish and swords climax with a blasphemous kiss.   Interrogations relent until the full moon sets, as chief priests and jeering soldiers demand, “Are you the Christ, Son of the Blessed?" (Mark 14:61)   The civic authority, Pontius Pilate, cowardly washes his hands of Truth when history presents him a singular opportunity for courage and nobility.  Scourged at a pillar of pain, then flanked by two criminals, the condemned man stumbles through the cobblestone streets of Jerusalem carrying the weight of a fallen world on his shoulders.  

Outside the walls of David’s city, the Lamb of God is sacrificed; the torture is legal, according to civil law.  Pierced and fixed to a tree, he utters astonishing words, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they are doing." (Luke 23:34) Finally, beneath a total eclipse of the sun, Jesus whispers, “It is finished." (John 19:30)

Most Good Friday spectators stood at a distance, fearing the soldiers and contamination from the dying bodies and outpouring of blood.  But, Mary stood near the cross on which her Son hung.   Hardship was not new to her.  She had endured false judgment and ridicule at Jesus’ conception, incarnating a mystery the town gossips could never image.  She experienced persecution, homelessness, and exile.  Perhaps, the sublimity of her motherhood is magnified precisely because of these sorrows.

 From the moment of the angel’s greeting and her assent to God’s will, her DNA was part of His.  Her blood nourished His body.  Once, she sheltered His body and soul in the safety of her womb.   Now, she wipes away the blood falling from his wounded limbs, and watches soldiers cast lots for garments she wove and mended.  Simeon’s prophecy is fulfilled as an invisible sword pierces her own soul—“that the thoughts of many might be revealed." (Luke 2:35)

She cannot offer Him even a cup of water, but she offers the unique gift of her maternal love, and nourishes him with unmeasured compassion.

Nature prepares women to be life bearers, but she carried Life itself.   “I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life," (John 14:6) Jesus told Martha and Mary before raising their brother Lazarus from the grave.  The Life-bearer watches as shadows fall-- across the face of her Son as across the Israeli sky.  When the trauma finally ends and Jesus is removed from the cross, tradition tells us His lifeless body is placed in the arms of His mother. 

Is there any greater sorrow?   Any mother losing her child suffers a tremendous loss, but this Mother parting from this Child?   It is unimaginable. 

Michelangelo captures the moment of the icon of maternity grieving the loss of her child.  However, her face is serene in suffering, radiating acceptance, hinting at the surety of what will follow in three days.  She epitomizes all who have ever lost a child, or suffered violence, sickness, or death.  She embraces death with the same faith with which she welcomed His life. 

 What consolation it is that at least one sufficiently mourned the King of Calvary.   Her tears are our tears.   We pray: Holy Mother, weep for your Son, weep for us all.  The Pietà. 

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Photo source: Oneonta.edu
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Photo source: BLOGSPOT Pieta in St. Peter’s Basilica
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Cathedral St. Paul, St Paul, MN Photo by Clare Ruff
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Julie Andersonand her husband Marc at their Christ the King parish in Topeka, KS Photo by Larry Katsbulas

Clare Ruff earned her BA in Theology from University of St. Thomas, Houston, TX
and serves as Director of Events and Outreach for the Hosea Initiative.
She writes from her home in southeastern Minnesota.

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