TOWARD INCLUSION THIS CHRISTMAS—AND BEYOND

I came across this photo of Santa interacting with an autistic child. It nearly brought me to tears. For most of my adult life, I have worked for inclusion—particularly as it relates to chronically ill people, those with disabilities, and women in crisis pregnancies.

Inclusion! It just happens. It happens in small ways and small gestures that may seem insignificant yet make significant differences in the daily lives of people. Disability inclusion doesn't happen because of government programs (as helpful as they may be), legislation, or fashionable "progressive" thinking at any point in time. Real inclusion begins in the hearts of ordinary people. It is expressed in their places of work, their schools, their churches and neighbourhoods in cities, towns and villages all across the nation. Inclusion opens doors that were previously closed to relationships. Inclusion is interactive and changes a noun into a verb. 

Inclusion embraces every member of the human family—born and unborn, the very old and the very young, every ethnicity, the abled and the disabled, the poorest and the rich, the addict, the homeless, the deranged, and those who are not even loved by anybody. Inclusive communities are life-affirming, never life-denying. They do not kill each other. There is no place for abortion, assisted suicide or euthanasia in truly inclusive communities. Inclusion involves a nurturing of minds and spirits of people. It cares. Authentic inclusion encourages people to rise to their full potential that God intended for them. Inclusion begins in the womb and ends at the tomb. It involves every stage and state of life between those two points. Inclusion is what it means to be PRO-LIFE. 

MDP

TRANSGENDER INSANITY

This morning, an important email letter came across my desk from Brian S. Brown, President of the
National Organization For Marriage, based in Washington, DC. You can read Mr. Brown's letter below. I urge readers of this blog to support the National Organization for Marriage in their critically important work. You can contact them here: 

National Organization for Marriage
2029 K Street, 
Washington, DC,
U.S.A., 20006 
Telephone: (888) 894-3604
email: contact@nationformarriage.org 

(NB: This post may result in Google suspending the HumanLifeMatters blog account.)

_______________________________________________

Dear Friend—A couple of years ago the liberal government of Canada under Justin Trudeau passed a law enacting the LGBT extremist gender ideology agenda that is having disastrous consequences. Bill C-16 adds “gender identity” and “gender expression” to Canada’s Human Right Code. This, in part, is effectively what the grossly misnamed Equality Act pending in Congress would do here in the United States.

Of course, the entire idea of “gender identity” is a made-up concept that does not exist in the real world in which we live. It’s a creature of the elites who have been seeking to impose it through indoctrination, intimidation and political correctness. In the real world, we live by a set of immutable rules that help define our physical reality – there’s a thing called gravity, the body requires food and water to survive, we must breathe to oxygenate ourselves, etc. One of those immutable rules in the real world is that each of us are born either male or female. Our sex is a biological reality that cannot be changed by identity, expression, desire or feelings.

Despite the utter incongruity of the concept of gender “identity,” the movement to impose it is powerful, well-connected and influential. Many people who disagree with it are not interested in publicly talking about the issue for fear of being labeled a hater. So, they quietly roll their eyes, go about their business and hope that it won’t affect them.

One group of people in Canada has quickly figured out how they can game the system and use the insanity of “gender identity” to serve their own interests. Male prisoners. Men in prison have caught on that the law allows them to declare a female gender “identity” and then assert their right to be housed in an all-women prison facility. That’s what many of them have done. And some of them are the worst criminals around – child rapists, murderers and sexual predators.

The reason the men are doing this is obvious: they want to force themselves upon the women inmates. And that’s exactly what they’ve been doing. A Canadian prison advocate recently told a media reporter, “They currently have three ‘trans’ inmates [at Grand Valley Institute (GVI) in Ontario], and I use the term 'trans' loosely here because they are openly telling the other female inmates they are not really trans. They are only at GVI to have sex with the females.”

Sadly, the response to this situation by prison authorities reflects the enormous influence that the LGBT community exerts over liberal institutions of government. The GVI Warden reportedly told the female inmates that those who have a problem with the situation “could go to psychology.” Prison advocates report that medical staff distribute the morning-after abortion pill to female inmates.

It’s understandable that some people may want to just keep their head down when it comes to challenging the advent of gender ideology, but that will only make things worse. Before long, the ability of men to force themselves on girls and women will be happening in every facet of society – schools, hospitals and medical clinics, intimate facilities such as showers and spas, development programs for girls, etc. We are already experiencing the beginning of this trend.

Even worse, if we don’t fight now while we can, this situation won’t be a trend, it will be federal law. The Equality Act (which we call the InEquality Act because of the one-sided way by which it imposes the LGBT agenda) has already passed the US House of Representatives. Every Democrat in the US Senate supports it (as does at least one Republican), and every candidate for president has endorsed it.

You can be sure of this: if the Democrats win the presidency and take over Congress, they will find a way to impose gender ideology on the American people. Having men worm their way into female prisons will be the least of our concerns then.

NOM is fighting hard to alert the American people to the dangers of gender ideology and the many problems that would be created if the InEquality Act becomes law. We’ve produced many communications about this issue and generated tens of thousands of grassroots contacts with members of Congress to oppose this agenda. But still, the legislation is pending in the Senate and could come up at any time... .

... It’s a crazy world that we live in these days where insane concepts like “gender identity” are taken seriously and advance at a rapid pace. But we can exert great influence and reverse this course if we all work together and have the courage to stand up and be counted.

Thanks for standing with us on this critical issue.

Faithfully,

Brian S. Brown
President

CANADIAN VALUES?

As we approach the end of 2019, I have looked at the traffic of this blog. Two-thirds of its 820,000+ hits are American and rising. Canadian interest has fallen to just over 28%. Am I being too hard on liberal progressive snowflakes who dominate Canada's governments and media? Perhaps my posts reflect how disenfranchised I feel toward the country of my birth. 

I keep hearing about Canadian values after dispensing what we used to refer as community standards which were loosely based upon a previous Judaeo-Christian moral consensus. What are Canadian values? Nobody has clearly defined these celebrated new Canadian values other than syrupy references to embracing differences (everybody is embracing now), a spirit for celebrating and funding everything multi-cultural (except our British heritage). 

I know Canadian values include unfettered abortion for any reason

at all or no reason whatsoever, all paid by government. I know Canadian values want to bar pro-Life citizens from seeking elected public office in Canada's parliament. I know that new Canadian values jailed Linda Gibbons for more time than many armed robbers. Her high crime? Daring to pray outside abortion clinics, within a pro-choice court ordered injunction, and offering women in crisis pregnancies life-affirming help for themselves and their babies. I know Canadian values include lethal injections for the terminally and incurably ill who become suicidal. (We refer to it by the innocuously deceptive euphemism "medically assistance in dying." Lethal injections are more accurately called medical killing or euthanasia). I know that new Canadian values are generally anti-Christian, ambivalent to anti-traditional marriage, and apparently we have about sixty different genders from which people can choose to become. 

I know that people who embrace our new Canadian values re-

elected a Prime Minister whose government has tons of money for everyone else (see chart to the right), will pay $10.5 million to a convicted terrorist, but apparently does not have enough money to properly care for our veterans and seniors. 

I don't fit very well in 21st Century Canada (and I don't want to). I prefer to live on the fringes of the brutal and Brave New World that's part of Canadian values. It's a bit too sinister for me. I suppose that may be one reason why the HumanLifeMatters blog is losing Canadian readers.  — Mark

THANKSGIVING THOUGHTS REMEMBERED

As America prepares to celebrate Thanksgiving, I am reminded of a Thanksgiving post I wrote 4 years ago “Thoughts About Syrian Refugees.” So many Syrian Christians have been murdered since then. You can read the post here. To my American friends and family: May God bring peace to your home as you contemplate all your blessings of living in the greatest nation on earth. — Mark

IT'S LIKE A POST-BIRTH ABORTION

CORRESPONDENCE REGARDING BILL 207

Below is the text of an email I sent tonight to Dan Williams, Alberta MLA who sponsored Bill 207, as a legislative committee is studying the bill in Edmonton

To Dan Williams, MLA for Peace River

CC. The Hon. Jason Kenney, Premier of Alberta, Brad Rutherford, MLA for Leduc-Beaumont

Mr. Williams: Thank you for calling me the other night. As I stated, I am happy to appear before the legislative committee examining Bill 207, CONSCIENCE RIGHTS (HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS) PROTECTION ACT. As you noticed, and commented, I am blunt with my language. After more than 30 years appearing before federal, provincial and state (US) legislative committees studying assisted suicide bills, I am no longer prepared to play word games with euphemisms designed to make evil appear good. I am an old man and don’t have time or patience for dishonesty and deceit perpetuated by euphemisms used by special agendas of left leaning secularists who do not ascribe to the sanctity of human life. 

Medical Assistance In Dying is palliative care—not lethal injections. That’s what we have in Canada. We do not have physician assisted death or medically assisted death, we have medical killing. We do not have death with dignity, we have euthanasia. Death with dignity comes from having lived with dignity, it is not bestowed by lethal injection, poison or starvation and dehydration. Abortion is not just the termination of pregnancy, it is the killing of an unborn child. People who say they  support the right choose don’t finish the sentence. Why? Because to finish the sentence with any modicum of honesty would require them to say what they really support: The right of a woman to choose to kill her unborn child.  

Issues of access are red herrings and the NDP know it. If I were to appear before the committee I would tell them that. Many Christian and Muslim doctors consciences and religions prohibit them from killing.  To require them to refer patients to doctors who will euthanize them makes them accomplices to the killings. That is also untenable and a deep and serious violation of their religions and they believe may damn them in the after-life. It is wrong to force them to refer suicidal patients, who meet the criteria under federal legislation. Bill 207 seeks to address this. Physicians may not be required to refer patients for assisted suicide now but there’s nothing to stop the Alberta Medical Association from passing a policy in future that does make them do it, such as the Ontario Medical Association did. Bill 207 would simply codify into law the assurance that Christian and Muslim doctors will not be faced with that possibility in the future.  It provides them with the security that they can continue to practice medicine that heals and never kills. Peace of mind.

Christian and Muslim doctors who want no part of medical killing are the minority who need their conscience rights protected. There are plenty of physicians who are prepared to kill or refer patients to killer doctors. Physicians whose consciences or religion prohibits them from killing patients must be allowed to opt out COMPLETELY from the process and that includes being forced to refer patients for euthanasia now or some future date. This can often be accommodated and accomplished through simple approaches such as signage in doctors’ offices identifying a doctor who has opted out of the “Medically Assisted Death or referral” process, so patients can find another doctor who will, if that’s something they may want. 

The LGBTQ issue is another issue completely in a different category. Why? Gender reassignment surgery is never done by a physician to kill the patient, MAID is always intended to kill the patient. From the perspective of a Christian physician, only the second involves murder and has eternal consequences that may jeopardize their very soul. Regardless of whether politicians believe that to be true, the physician (or nurse) does, and that must be respected. Section two of the Canadian Charter states under the heading of Fundamental Freedoms: 

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

(d) freedom of association.

Bill 207 seeks to ensure that physicians are not compelled to refer patients for abortion or euthanasia. It rightly presumes that “expression” includes actions and behaviour and not just verbal expression. Bill 207 simply gives Christian and Muslim doctors peace of mind that they will not be compelled to refer patients for MAID (euthanasia) in future by a changed policy of the Alberta Medical Association, The Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons or any other regulatory body. 

As an Albertan with a serious, degenerative disease of multiple sclerosis, I want to be able to choose my physician who does not ascribe to, or support euthanasia. For your information, I have attached a copy of a letter I gave to my physician prior to Canada enacting its Medical Assistance In Dying legislation in 2016. The name of the physician has been removed so not to identify him/her.

Feel free to share this email and attachment with the committee examining bill 207.

Sincerely,

Mark Davis Pickup

Beaumont, Alberta

Att.

Mark Davis Pickup

4417-51 Street, Beaumont, AB, Canada, T4X 1C8

Tel: (780) 929-9230, Email: MarkPickup@shaw.ca

                                                                                    

30 December 2015

XX XXX XXXXXX

XXXXXXXXX

XXXXXX, XX

XXX XXX

Dear Dr. X:

I can hardly bring myself to write these words but a dark reality in Canada requires it. I am referring to legalizing physician assisted suicide scheduled to begin in 2016.  For over 20 years I have feared that a time such as this would come to my country and the common good of society at large.  I have spoken across Canada and America against euthanasia and assisted suicide. 

Should I ever request assisted suicide, I want you to refuse to help me. On this point I am emphatic. Presume that I am speaking out of depression or that multiple sclerosis has begun to affect my mental state. I would not make such a request in my right mind. If, in your judgment, I am suffering from depression please get me the counselling I need.  If the MS is affecting my mind, protect me from myself or others who would take my life before my natural death. Regarding my end of life care I ask you to provide treatment in accordance with my Roman Catholic faith (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos 2276-2282).

I have such deep respect for you and the proper application of your profession (in its Hippocratic tradition) I would not ask you to stop being my healer and become my killer, unless my mental faculties were impaired by depression or disease.

Sincerely,

Mark Davis Pickup

ALBERTA'S BILL 207 AND CONSCIENCE RIGHTS

The Canadian province of Alberta is considering a bill to fully protect conscience rights of health care providers: Bill 207. Alberta physicians are not required to perform euthanasia (lethal injection) to patients meeting the criteria laid out in Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) legislation.  But many Christian doctors are afraid they might be compelled to refer suicidal patients, who meet the legal criteria for MAID, to physicians who are prepared to kill them. Who might compel them to refer? Perhaps the Alberta Medical Association—much like the Ontario Medical Association has done, or some other regulatory body. Bill 207 would simply protect Alberta doctors from that possibility. The bill is being met by the usual suspects from the progressive looney left of the New Democratic Party (NDP) and their allies. 

The NDP want doctors who refuse to participate in euthanatize to be compelled to refer patients to killer doctors who will—which makes them complicit in their patients' suicides.  This is abhorrent to many Christian (and Muslim) physicians. They believe euthanizing people or assisting in their suicides (which referral is) is a grave sin (pardon the dreadful pun) has eternal consequences. 

Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees of freedom of religion, thought and belief, and the expression of personal beliefs. Expression does not merely involve what one says but also involves how he/she behaves.

Over the next few days Bill 207 will be examined by a legislative committee comprised of United Conservative (UCP) and New Democrat (NDP) MLAs. I expect the UCP MLAs to rightfully deal with conscience rights (which is what the bill is about) and the NDP to focus on bogus access issues. It's bogus because there are plenty of amoral doctors willing to engage in euthanasia. If the bill passes—which is uncertain—access issues can be addressed by such things as signage in doctor offices stating which physicians at the clinic do not provide euthanasia or referrals. In hospital settings, scheduling can ensure killer doctors are available or on call for lethal injection requests. 

Leave pro-Life doctors (and nurse practitioners) to practice medicine in peace, without fear of being forced to provide euthanasia referrals. That's what Bill 207 would codify into law: Reassurance, peace of mind, and protection for health care providers now and in the future. I don't think that's asking too much. 

Below is a poster advertising a conscience rights and duties lecture being held at Saint Joseph's Basilica in Alberta's capital city of Edmonton tomorrow. I trust the speakers will not contradict or offend Catholic teaching about euthanasia, suicide, proper end of life care, or murder. I'm sorry for the short notice but it only came across my desk by email this morning.  -- Mark 

WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO HEAL OUR NATIONS?

https://www.lifenews.com/2019/11/15/ohio-bill-would-ban-abortions-declare-unborn-babies-

human-beings-under-law/?fbclid=IwAR1bc99OE2sV3nWZ8f5cugGpYeXZ3zToe1wP5SlQe9yHxWbu9C2eTBo90rk

The article above reports that a bill has been introduced into the Ohio state legislature that would ban abortions and declare unborn babies human beings under law.

Could this mark the beginning of society reclaiming the right to call itself civilized? Does this bill represent the first inkling of a change in cultural mindset in how the youngest members of the human community are considered? Could this bill codify—at least in one U.S. state—what we knew in our hearts all along? We all know in our heart of hearts (even if we won't admit it) that the unborn child is a human being, deserving our protection, love and care, and to be valued as an indispensable part of the human family. 

These are questions that spark hope in my breast that the holocaust of abortion will end in the not so distant future in America.  What about Canada? I fear my nation may be a lost cause for embracing the right to life as the first and highest right. All abortions (and now lethal injections of the sick and dying) are all fully funded with tax dollars.

I am reminded of something one of America's Founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, said: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever." If America tempted God's justice over slavery, how much more does America (and Canada) offend Divine justice with the systematic murder of more than 60 million children before birth! 

Perhaps Ohio is leading the way for a national repentance for the

evil of abortion, that may yet stay God's hand of justice. Dare I pray for the same change of heart for my secular nation of Canada?  

REMEMBRANCE DAY AND OUR DYING CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION

The article below was originally posted on the

 HumanLifeMatters blog three years ago.

__________

School children rose from their desks to stand for two minutes silence in memory of soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in

two World Wars. We Canadian children stood tight-lipped and gazed at the Red Ensign flag at the front of the classroom. Every creak, children shuffling, even slight noises from the school’s ventilation system became magnified during our solemn silence. It happened every November 11^th. We were told to remember.

But how could we “remember” when the last World War ended eight years before most of us were born?

My father
in England in 1942

As an elementary school student during the early 1960s, I gave the brief ceremony all the respect I could muster in my small mind. I knew something terrible had happened. My father was a veteran of the Second World War. He occasionally told me about the desperate struggle that occurred during 1939-1945 against the Nazis. 

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had summed up the stakes in his 1940 address to the government and the British people about what became known as the Battle of Britain:

British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill

“I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. ... If we can stand up to him, [Adolf Hitler] all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science.”

These words conveyed the desperate hour in which they were spoken. We can tell that there was a Christian civilization that was threatened. I can find no record of howls of protest in the British House of Commons decrying Churchill’s assertion that western civilization was Christian. It was. And my father’s generation was prepared to put everything on the line – even their lives – to defend it. In fact, 400,000 American, 326,000 British and more than 43,000 Canadian soldiers did just that. Such a terrible sacrifice!

The Christian civilization Churchill spoke of had spawned the institutions, religion, laws and legal traditions, culture and mores that made western civilization great. But within two generations after the Second World War, that Christian civilization to which Winston Churchill referred has been largely destroyed. It hasn’t been destroyed by guns but by ideas. Secularism has dismantled it. 

The baby-boomer generation that immediately followed the War years are largely responsible for what the Third Reich could not do through armed conflict. I am told that much of Europe has forsaken Christianity, their great cathedrals sit empty. Large portions of European populations no longer seem to care for the things of God. 

The poison of liberal secularism is changing America and Canada too.  We have gone from being Christian countries to being anti-Christian. The new liberal establishment in government and the media and secularists are even trying to revise history by saying we never were Christian.  The “broad sunlit uplands” we inherited at such a great cost are marred by threatening storm clouds of a new Dark Age of steely secularism. We are sinking into its abyss.  What’s shocking is the new Dark Age looks remarkably similar to Winston Churchill’s prediction. The old man was right!

We have our own holocaust of rampant abortion that has claimed millions more lives than the Nazi holocaust against the Jews. Euthanasia against the sick and disabled is being practised. The perverted science like cloning and embryonic stem cell research is upon us ― and some of it is even funded by governments we elect!

Any semblance of a previous Judeo-Christian moral consensus that guided previous generations is all but gone and western civilization is being left to drift in relativism and vague but dangerous shifting ground of unfettered personal license.

Institutions previously held dear and cherished (like marriage) are being redefined, disassembled or abandoned. 

We should not be surprised. This is what happens when people and nations abandon God. That’s the bad news; the good news is that there are still people, within the wayward culture, who have not forsaken Christ or Christian morality.  It is up to those people to strengthen the things that remain and reclaim that which has been lost.

This is a darkening time when faithful Christians are called to hold up the light of Christ and point the way back to a culture that has lost its Christian moorings.  Do not lose heart when people who prefer darkness speak ill of you. They spoke ill of Christ too. Great is your reward in heaven.

IMPLICATIONS OF EXISTENCE

Think about the implications of 'you'. If one genetic, geographic or even timing had been different, nothing you love would be because you would not exist. Your world would not exist. The same is true for me. As that profound children's philosopher Winnie the Pooh once said, "We would not be."

Somebody may respond that it's all abstract because we would not know we don't exist if we did not exist. That's my point: You and I DO exist. It was God's will that you and I—and all we know and love—would exist.* 

My wife's name is LaRee. When I think of our lives together from that perspective, my responsibility to nurture, protect, love and care for the lives God has given me (including my own) becomes clear. Love bears a cost and a responsibility—an awesome and serious responsibility! I wouldn't have it any other way.

Love expands. Out of my romantic love for LaRee came children and parental love sprouted and began to grow. We wanted them to grow-up in a good place so our love for community expanded. Our children had children and our love as grandparents started. Grandparental love is slightly different than parental love. LaRee and I had to learn to love intensely but slightly removed—love from the sidelines in a supportive role to our adult children. In some ways I found grandparental love more difficult than parental love because we have little control. These are the lessons of love as we prepare to meet the Author of love. 

Now, as two lovers preparing for old age, LaRee and I enter our last phase of love in this world. We find ourselves back at romantic love where it all began. When does learning to love and be loved stop? I don't think it does in this world. It is a preparation for the next world and eternity.

Mark

_____________

* If you don't believe in God then you're reading the wrong blog.

AS LONG AS SHE LOVES ME

My wife, LaRee, and I just celebrated our forty-sixth wedding anniversary. I wasn't exactly the best choice for a husband. LaRee married me for better or for worse. Thirty-six of those years have been very trying. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and became seriously disabled. Then, in 2012, I was diagnosed with cancer. And yet LaRee chose to continue loving me. 

Young couples just starting out on their life-journey together,

should not be discouraged when they hear that half of all marriages fail and end in divorce—half of all marriages succeed! If they place Christ at the very centre of their marriage and lives, as their first and highest love, they will discover that Christ gives love and makes love grow to heights they did not know were possible! Why? Because Christ is the definition of love. 

About a year ago, I started hand-writing LaRee a love-letter each morning to accompany her medications that I put beside her favourite chair before she gets up.[1] My dilemma is this: How do I express the inexpressible? How do I put in words my immense love for LaRee?  Our love is what matters to me in this world. My place is with her and her place is with me. We. I am content with life as long as she loves me.

If I dream, let be about LaRee. If I laugh or weep, let it be with

LaRee

LaRee. I want her to be the first person I see every morning and the last person I see before I go to sleep at night. I want her in every part of my life. "LaRee" is the sweetest word in my vocabulary. Having LaRee in my arms makes me whole: One flesh. Two people united for one lifetime in marriage. LaRee.

If our family turned on me and ceased to love me, it would break my heart. But I would get through it, as long as she loves me. If I became a pariah or an outcast in society, I could still walk with my head up, as long as LaRee loved me. 

And if my dramatic MS remission (that allowed me to walk after 16 years in an electric wheelchair) was to end, and I was forced to return to my wheelchair again, I could accept it, as long as she loves me. If LaRee were to pass away before me, I could carry on knowing that she still loves me, and is waiting for me, and resting in God's perfect love. 

Our love and life together has been blessed by God. I am loved.
Mark
________________
[1] I lost the use of my right arm and hand for twenty years and was not able to hold a pencil to write.

HUMAN OPINIONS AND DETRACTORS

Human Opinions and Detractors—by Father Jim Canova

When Jesus went into the house of Zacchaeus many people complained at his association with a sinner. He has gone to stay at a sinner’s house!  Meanwhile, the Lord responded to the conversion of Zacchaeus with some of the most beautiful words of the Gospels: Today salvation has come to this house…

Do not care too much about who likes you and who does not. Why waste time worrying about who is for you and who is against you? Besides, you would be startled at what people really think of you! Just do your best to please Our Lord, and He will be on your side. He will stand by you as long as you hate sin and try to avoid it in your daily life. When He is with you, what does it matter who else is against you?

Never be disturbed when others say things that hurt. If you thought more often of your sins, you might even agree with some of their remarks.

Speak often with Our Lord, and people will impress you less than they do now. The more you advance in prayer, the less will you be tempted to talk against others. What they say or do against you, will seem so trivial when you have learned to join Our Lord through prayer and recol­lection.

Our Lord knows what you really are. What people say about you, will not change what you are nor what Our Lord thinks of you.

Just do your best for Our Lord’s sake, and do not worry what anyone may think or say of you.

Do not fear the judgments of those around you. Live for Our Lord by trying to please Him in your daily life. Then will you enjoy His peace – a peace which only He can give!

In God alone will you find true peace and joy. You must not desire to please others, and when there is question of doing what is right, do not fear to displease them! Only God’s judgment is important. All will agree with God’s opinion of you at the Last Judgment.

This article was  submitted by Fr. Jim Canova to ProLife Corner, and online presence of Stephenson County Right To Life, Freeport, Illinois. Link here. 

CULTURE OF LIFE AND BEAR FOOD?

Businessman Mac Brydon
of Macron, Georgia

American Life League's Culture of Life Studies Program has teamed together with Macron Georgia entrepreneur, Mac Brydon, in support of his peanut business called Bear Food. Mr. Brydon has Down's Syndrome and employs people with special needs. Well done, Mac! Well done American Life League and their Culture of Life Studies Program! Click on the words Bear Food above for a link to an article about this partnership.

A SPEECH ABOUT FAITH, FAMILY, COMMUNITY AND THE VALUE OF EVERY HUMAN LIFE

LaRee Pickup addressed the
United States National
Right to Life Prayer Breakfast
about what really matters in life:
Life itself

Nine years ago, my wife LaRee addressed the United States National Right To Life Prayer Breakfast. She spoke to an audience of over 800 people about her experience with the heartbreak of abortion, serious degenerative disease and disability of a loved-one, end of life issues, and how love (both human and divine) can transcend it all, if we let it. She spoke of the innate value of every human being for no other reason than we are all made in the image of God and deserve to be loved, included, nurtured, and protected. Her story captivated the audience from all 50 states. She spoke from her heart to their hearts about the importance of faith, family and interdependent community. You could have heard a pin drop. People openly wept at the simple yet profound truths of which she spoke—truths that build and sustain every civilized society. 

A BRIEF THOUGHT FOR TODAY ON THE SOURCE OF MEANING

Your connection with God, and your connection with other people is the most important thing you can do in life. Love is where meaning is found.

I AM A PARIAH IN MY OWN COUNTRY!

It’s federal election season in Canada. Canadians have the Liberal Party, the Conservatives, the New Democratic Party (NDP), the Peoples’ Party, Bloc Québécois (Quebec's separatist party) and the Greens to choose from as the next government. The Liberals and Conservatives are in a dead heat for 1^st place. On the 7th of October 2019, we were treated to a English debate amongst the leaders. A pretty motley group but there’s our choices. They shouted over, er, I mean debated about the economy, each others’ faulty characters, the economy, energy, the environment, immigration and so forth—the usual topics one would expect in such an election forum. At one point, the topic turned to abortion. 

The only pro-Life candidate is the Conservative Andrew Scheer. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported: 

“The debate turned briefly to the subject of abortion and a woman's right to choose, which saw Scheer facing attacks from all on the stage. 

"The laws of access on this issue have not changed for 30 years under Liberal prime ministers, under Conservative prime ministers, they will not change when I am prime minister," Scheer said.” [1] 

Pretty soft pro-Life! What’s the point of Scheer saying he is pro-Life if he’s has no intention of trying to extend Canada’s constitutionally guarantee of the right to life to the youngest and most vulnerable members of Canadian society?

What I found revealing is that the Liberals, the NDP and the Greens will not allow a pro-Life candidate to run for Member of Parliament in their parties. Liberal Leader, Justin Trudeau, challenged Scheer about why he would even sign the nomination papers of any pro-Life candidate? To 21^st Century progressive thought, it’s unthinkably to the Prime Minister that the Conservatives would allow any candidate for Parliament who would not wholeheartedly embrace a woman’s right to choose death for her unwanted or inconvenient unborn child. After all, it’s a Canadian value.

In Canada, a woman can have an abortion for any reason at all, or no reason whatsoever; and she can have as many abortions as she wants—all paid by the Canadian taxpayer. All she needs to do is call her friendly neighbourhood abortion clinic and make an appointment. Remember, It’s a Canadian value. The unfettered right of women to kill their unwanted pre-born children is so deeply ingrained into the Canadian political psyche; anyone who might give any modicum of concern to the child’s life is anathema. We are unfit for public office and should not be allowed to be Members of Parliament. The People’s House is now only for those people whose views do not offend the sensibilities of Canada’s new progressive elite in government and the media.

The pressure is on Andrew Scheer to close the door to pro-Life people in Canada’s Parliament. Our mainline secular media are fully supportive of the idea and are prepared to shame Andrew Scheer into not allowing pro-Life candidates within the Conservative roster of candidates for Parliament. I predict he will cave to the pressure.

The allure of power corrupts people and the Conservatives are no exception. They want back in power. They will throw anybody under the bus who dare speak for protecting the most voiceless of the Canadian family: Unborn children. It's an affront to the progressive ideal of Choice even when it involves killing another or oneself. Choice and autonomy trump all other considerations.

In "Canadian values" it’s now wrong to oppose euthanasia. Progressives like to use the flowery innocuous sounding euphemism Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) for lethal injection of our sickest and most disabled citizens. After all, Canadians are a polite people even when embracing what previous generations called murder. We like euphemisms that disguise ugly and unpleasant truth or deeds.

The concept of the sanctity of human life is passé—so hopelessly old fashioned for Canada’s Brave New World. Dinosaurs like me who still hold dear the concept that every life is worth living and deserves protection and care, has no place in public office or even the arena of public discourse. My views are unwelcome with Canada’s political elite. Indeed! 

I refuse to pledge my allegiance to this new Canadian value of unfettered choice, regardless of how barbaric it may be. People like me are effectively shut out. I do not fit into the country of my birth. I am a pariah.

Mark Davis Pickup 

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[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/six-leaders-debate-english-live-1.5312479

CANADA'S RESPECTABLE BIGOTRY AND "SOFT AUTHORITARIANISM"

There is a respectable bigotry amongst Canada's liberal and progressive elite. It is a prejudice against people of faith, and particularly a  prejudice against Christians. American author Wesley J. Smith has just written a penetrating article about this politically correct bigotry in an article entitled "CANADA GOES SOFTLY AUTHORITARIAN: Morality now begins and ends with government," in The American Spectator, 03 October, 2019.

MDP

WHEN YOU STAND ON HOLY GROUND

Here is holy ground. Where is that? It is that special place where we happen to be when we find ourselves at the end of our resources; our hearts are broken, and there’s no more pretending we are okay. We are not okay! It is that place in the broken human heart where we are about to give up. We desperately cry out to a yet unknown God in a universe that seems empty and without meaning. And yet we dare to hope, as though we are making our last stand with a last inkling of hope against hope. That is when we stand on holy ground, although we don’t know it. It is holy ground because that is the place where God can finally reach us.  We discover that there really is a God who can and does intervene in human affairs and even the lives of individuals, like you and me.  We discover that the universe is not empty—there is a Word that created it all and somehow that Entity is concerned about an insignificant tiny being like you and me in that insignificant place we sit in an immeasurable, vast universe. 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”— John 1.1-5

Somehow, a spark of hope appears and shines through our despair where it was only darkness.  Slowly, yet wonderfully, that spark breaks into an open flame that leads us out of our darkness into the light of the Entity to which we desperately cried out. We discover that that Entity has a name: Jesus Christ.  He is the ‘He’ who was with God in the beginning.  Once we have encountered Him, we know we will never be the same again. 

The Word encompasses the idea of Divine love and is found in the person of Jesus Christ, just like those fanatical street evangelists, preachers, popes, and Christian praise and worship songsters keep saying.

“… but in these last days he [God] has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. ³ The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. ⁴ So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.” – Hebrews 1.2-4.

If creation is God’s general revelation, then Jesus Christ is the personal revelation of God’s love.  It is hard to believe there is a Cosmic Truth and that Cosmic Truth is the very definition of love. We are astounded to discover that we have access to that Love through Jesus Christ. But there it is: Truth.  So simple yet so utterly profound and vast.  I believe this truth of Love is simple so it can include imbeciles like me yet profoundly vast —beyond human understanding—because God is love. The experience doesn’t make sense and yet it’s the only thing that does makes sense in a way that is inexplicable but makes us weep with a child-like Joy. We discover that we are not insignificant at all! 

When we first encounter God through Christ, who is the light of the world, His light does what light always does: It drives back darkness in our lives. If you are anything like me, that light with its intense purity, reveals what men of older times called sin. Sin is what separates us from a perfect God. God takes you and me just as we are, but He does not leave us as we are. He wants us to be perfect just as He is perfect and be with him forever.  A perfect God must do that or He would not be perfect. Imperfection and perfection cannot co-exist any more than light and darkness can occupy the same place at the same time. God does not want us to remain where we are; He wants the best for us. But how can we move toward His perfection when we are so imperfect? 

We have and will continue to fall short of His perfection. We know (in our hearts) we don’t deserve to be in the light of Christ. How do we become worthy of God perfection and love? Well, on our own, we can’t.  We have fallen short of the glory of God and we will always fall short of the glory of God—if left to our own means and devises.  We know it!  That is no reason to fall back into despair. We are justified before a holy and righteous God through Christ’s righteousness.  

“… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” —Romans 3.23-26.

If our sins make us unworthy to stand before a perfect, holy and righteous God, why would He give His Son for us? Love.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.  But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” — John 3.16-21.

Real love involves both mercy and truth. Mercy is grace. Truth involves righteousness. 

If God is all about love then why isn’t He willing to just forgive and forget our sins?  He is, that’s what the cross is about. Christ takes away your sins and mine through faith, confession of our sins and repentance. Like love, it’s that simple, so simple even a small child can understand and accept it. In fact, Jesus said that unless we become as a child we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. 

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Sonfrom the Father, full of grace and truth.” — John 1.12-14.

Through faith in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, we become children of God. Small children are totally dependent and trusting of their parents. That is how we are to be with God, our heavenly Father: Child-like faith that trusts, not childish faith that demands. We rest in the assurance that our heavenly Father knows what is best for us, and so we surrender to His will—whatever that might be. We pray Thy will be done, not my will be done. Surrender.

That is a place of holy ground. We discover a beautiful and heart-rending mystery. It is in surrender to God that we find freedom and liberty. That is holy ground. -- Mark