If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. – Mother Teresa
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ABORTION THE GREATEST
DESTROYER OF PEACE
– Blessed Mother Teresa
‘But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child – a direct killing of the innocent child – murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us. So the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love – that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion’. <www.gargaro.com/mother_teresa/quotes.html>
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Pro-Life Philippines
www.prolife.org.ph is the website of Pro-Life Philippines which received two of the Catholic Mass Media Awards for 2006. One, the Jaime Cardinal Sin Serviam Award for Individuals, went to Sr Mary Pilar Verzosa RGS, and the other, the Jaime Cardinal Sin Serviam Award for Institutions, to Pro-Life Philippines Foundation, Inc.
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A Tremendous Event
Dorothy Day
Even the most hardened, the most irreverent, is awed by the stupendous fact of creation. No matter how cynically or casually the world may treat the birth of a child, it remains spiritually and physically a tremendous event.
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First keep the peace within yourself,
then you can also bring peace
to others. –Thomas Jefferson
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Peace is not the product
of terror or fear.
Peace is not the silence
of cemeteries.
Peace is not the silent result
of violent repression.
Peace is the generous,
tranquil contribution
of all to the good of all.
Peace is dynamism.
Peace is generosity.
It is right and it is duty.
– Oscar Romero
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Former Bishop of Dili, East Timor, Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo
1996 Nobel Peace Prize Awardee
‘Some scientists believe there is something in the human person deeper than ethics and reason. We have the capacity to be moved by the suffering of others. This inherent power serves as the foundation for respect for others and the relief of their suffering. Humans are compassionate beings.’
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Detachment From Things
Thomas Merton
The importance of detachment from things, the importance of poverty, is that we are supposed to be free from things that we might prefer to people. Wherever things have become more important than people, we are in trouble. That is the crux of the whole matter.
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The importance of the family meal
Research by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University consistently finds the more often children eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use drugs. (www.gracebeforemeals.com)
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There never was a
good war or a bad peace.
– Benjamin Franklin
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How to ‘destroy’ our enemies
‘When Abraham Lincoln was criticized for being too courteous to his enemies, and reminded that it was his duty to destroy them, he gave a lovely reply: Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends? ’
Fr Paul Andrews SJ
The Sacred Heart Messenger, April 2007
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It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time,
of playful deeds and jokes. – Thomas Aquinas