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Happy Feast Day, Saints Hannah and Juan Diego, Intercessors for Life

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December 9th

Saint Hannah and Blessed Juan Diego are remembered in our hearts today as they both suffered with fertility problems within their marriages. Hannah begged God at the foot of the altar for a child and Juan Diego and his wife would be called in another way to bear fruit. To each soul God has a different plan.

May each of us accept God’s holy will for our lives today and give thanks.

St. Hannah bringing Samuel into the temple

The Holy Prophetess Hannah dwelt in marriage with Elkanah, but she was childless. Elkanah took to himself another wife, Phennena, who bore him children. Hannah grieved strongly over her misfortune, and every day she prayed for an end to her barrenness, vowing to dedicate her child to God.

She went to the Temple and prayed fervently, but the priest Heli thought that she was drunk and began to reproach her. But Hannah poured out her grief, and after she received a blessing, she returned home. After this, Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son, whom she named Samuel (which means “Asked from God”).

When the child reached the age of boyhood, his mother presented him to the priest Heli, and Samuel remained with him to serve before the Tabernacle (1 Kings/1 Samuel 2: 1-21).
By permission of www.wikipedia.org

Bl. Juan Diego

Prayer to Blessed Juan Diego

Blessed Juan, you faced the skepticism and rejection of a

bishop and the crowds to bring Mary’s message to Mexico.

Pray for us that when we are faced with obstacles to

our faith we may show that same courage and commitment.

Amen

Splenda Health Warning

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Please check out this article about the harmful side effects of “Splenda” .

Good choices for digestible sweeteners are stevia (purchased from the health food store) and of course honey (check out the benefits of honey… there’s tons of info, that you may find very informative).

*Ok, here are the links I have found for Splenda. Seems that the link I placed on this post the other day is being interrupted, so, here are the links for you to see for yourself.

http://www.healthmyths.net/view_learning.php?learning_id=14

http://www.steviacafe.net/dangers-of-splenda

http://www.womentowomen.com/nutritionandweightloss/splenda.aspx

The Great Event of Advent – from HLI

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Spirit & Life®
“The words I spoke to you are spirit and life.” (Jn 6:63)
Human Life International e-Newsletter
Volume 03, Number 43
Friday, November 21, 2008
………………………………………………………………………
The Great Event of Advent
One of the less appealing characteristics of American culture is that it doesn’t seriously prepare for many things. We are an instantaneous culture. We don’t like to wait for things: we have fast food, fast delivery, fast cash and on-demand banking. We have Fed Ex “when it absolutely has to be delivered overnight” and instant just-about-everything. Patience is not a virtue in this culture because we can have it all and have it now – or at least we think so.
But God isn’t that way.

He has a time for everything under the sun, and no one rushes Him to meet deadlines. His Plan has been stored up for an eternity and presses on to completion with divine serenity. All things operate in their proper order and arrive at their completion in His time. Most importantly, God prepared this Plan of salvation with divine foresight. The Archangel Gabriel told Zechariah with utter certitude, “All I have said will come true in due course.” But the question is always the type of reception God’s Plan will find in our world. As the Virgin Mary and Joseph prepared a manger with swaddling clothes to receive the Son of God into the world, so every man must prepare his heart to receive the Son spiritually.The Church gives us the great event of Advent to help us get over the cultural sloth and make our hearts ready for Christ. Here are three simple but effective ways to prepare the throne of your heart to better welcome the King on the great Feast of Christmas:

  • Walk with Mary: the best preparation for the feast of the Son is to live well the feasts of the Mother. Ah, if we would only treat the Immaculate Conception (this coming Monday) not as a day of dutiful “obligation” but as a chance to bind ourselves to this pregnant mother in purity and faith. We need to see the sublime Mystery of Christ through Her eyes. Next Friday is the feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the evangelizer of the Americas. How we need Her zeal for Christ to conquer our culture of death just like She did for the Aztec culture in the 16th century! Let us walk with Her this Advent, and She will help us in the preparation of our hearts. Show your desire for preparation by praying the Rosary regularly or making a consecration to the Virgin this Advent.

  • Pray more: there is no better antidote to cultural lethargy than to admit to ourselves that we are not spiritual enough. Yes, we have to live in this world but often we are too much of this world! Prayer pulls us out of the work-a-day world of instant everything and places us before the serene Plan of God to see that all reality is not material. Faith grows, hope strengthens and charity inflames when we are prayerful. We just need to pray more in Advent, and we will be more spiritually prepared to receive Him. Why not make special visits to the Blessed Sacrament or, lacking that, dedicate a time each day for silent prayer.

  • Devotion to duty: finally, and not least, is the need to do what God has asked us to do with deepest fidelity and zeal. Are there natural responsibilities that you have been neglecting? Now is the time to renew your fervor for them. Have you been apathetic or cowardly towards the difficult dimensions of your Christian duty? Has your family suffered because you have been involved in too many trivial matters that put family in second place? Return with all your heart and increase your enthusiasm toward those things He asks you to do for His Kingdom. A season of grace and favor awaits those who dedicate themselves with blessed ardor to their God-given callings.
Thank God for Advent! We are purified and challenged by the message of salvation preached to us by the Church in this great season. If we live it well and prepare our hearts to receive Him, we will know the Truth in a new way at Christmas and beyond, and the Truth will set us free.

Sincerely Yours in Christ,
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,


President,
Human Life International

Copyright 2008 – Human Life International
Permission granted for unlimited use.
Credit required.
Human Life International
4 Family Life Lane — Front Royal, VA 22630 U.S.A.
Phone: (540) 635-7884 Fax: (540) 622-6247

Our Lady of America

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Dearest Readers of Hannah’s Tears,

Did any of you know that the patroness of the America’s is the Immaculate Conception? Our Lady of America desires us to practice “Purity of Heart”. She leads us to bring the sanctity of the family to our homes on this earth.

The ministry of Hannah’s Tears has been unfolding through the graces of the Holy Spirit and the Immaculate Conception. During the last nine months that this blog site has been running it has come to my heart that this ministry is to serve and support each Catholic couple and family in support of the sanctity of family and married life. We give thanks to the Lord for His promptings of love as we seek His eternal will for our lives today. May we all grow in love with the words Our Lady of America has for us all today.

Here are a few words Our Lady of America told Sister Mildred:

I desire that my children honor me, especially by the purity of their lives. . . . I wish [America] to be the country dedicated to my purity. . . . I desire that they be children of my Pure Heart. I desire, through my children of America, to further the cause of faith and purity among peoples and nations. Let them come to me with confidence and simplicity, and I, their Mother, will teach them to become pure like to my Heart that their own hearts may be more pleasing to the Heart of my Son.

(Diary 6-7).

Our Lady of America Site:

Miracles of Saint Nicholas

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Recent Miracles of St Nicholas the Wonderworker through his myrrh-streaming icon – 2000
Miraculous Myrrh-streaming Icon of St. Nicholas

courtesy of CulturalUniverse at en.wikipedia
Check out “Devotion and Use of the Manna of Saint Nicholas”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Nicholas

The Gift of Life

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Here’s a note I would like to share with all of you from my our friend Barbara Curtis. Thanks Barbara for this beautiful note of life!

Dear Friends:

(I’ve been sending this out in small bursts because my email list is large and because Tripp’s recovery from his knee replacement and subsequent infection has been so complex and demanding. You may have already seen it. And I’m not sending it to toot my horn but because I was so amazed at the main theme the reporter pursued – that babies with Down syndrome don’t have to be aborted)

This article – with the picture of the Curtis and Li families saying grace at dinner – appeared on the front page of the early edition of the Washington Post on November 9, and on the front page of the Metro Section in subsequent editions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/08/AR2008110802462.html?sub=AR

The first interview for this was done October 7, the day before Tripp went back to the hospital the first time. The second was done the next day, when Justin’s birth parents arrived from Taiwan to visit and the photos were taken.

I thank God that perhaps some baby with Down syndrome might be saved to live a full life and to increase the fullness of all the surrounding lives. That’s the beauty of God’s work – I don’t even know how or when it happens. I just know it will.

Love,
Barbara


Barbara Curtis
www.mommylife.net
www.barbaracurtis.com
www.mommyteachme.net

More Stories on the Miraculous Medal

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The Medal and the MI Movement

In January 1917, while at the Conventual Franciscan Friars’ seminary in Rome, young Maximilian Kolbe heard the Miraculous Medal conversion story of Alphonse Ratisbonne. This wonderful account inspired him to recognize the powerful role that God had given Mary in the work of leading people to conversion and growth in holiness. He understood that the Miraculous Medal symbolized her active presence in the Church as Mediatrix of all the graces that flow from the Heart of Christ. For the next nine months Maximilian meditated upon the Miraculous Medal, the apparition of Our Lady to St. Catherine Laboure and the marvel of Ratisbonne’s conversion.

On the evening of October 16, 1917, the seminarian was ready to put these Marian insights into a concrete plan of action. He gathered six Franciscan companions in a room at the seminary on Rome’s Via San Teodoro to establish the Militia of the Immaculata (whose members are called MIs). This movement, which now numbers millions worldwide, would bind people together around one compelling and fruitful spiritual union with Mary Immaculate. The MI would embrace all ages and all vocations in the church-clergy, religious, lay men and women stirring each to form a person-to-person relationship with Mary by means of the “Act of Total Consecration.”

St. Maximilian made the Miraculous Medal the insignia of the MI movement. He recommended that people wear it as an external sign of their consecration to Jesus Christ through his mother. Mindful of Mary’s promise to St. Catherine that “all who wear it will receive great graces,” St. Maximilian saw the medal as a means of safeguarding the consecration.

Daily Miraculous Medal Prayer of St. Maximilian Kolbe

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you, and for all who do not have recourse to you, especially the enemies of the Church and those recommended to you.

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We pray that these beautiful stories about the Miraculous Medal will draw you ever closer to Our Lady who is the Immaculate Conception. Wearing the Miraculous Medal is a beautiful devotion of love and devotion to Our Blessed Mother.

The Miracoulous Conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne

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Father Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne & The Miraculous Medal

The conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne is truly a remarkable and beautiful testimony to the power of the Blessed Virgin Mary, through whom it pleases Our Lord to give all graces to humanity, and well worth reading.
Alphonse Ratisbonne was an agnostic Jew. He was a virulent anti-Catholic as well and blamed the Catholic Church for the suffering of the Jewish people.

Ratisbonne was given a Miraculous Medal as a test by a Catholic friend and asked to pray the Memorare of St. Bernard.
Here is a brief description of the events which caused Alphonse Ratisbonne to agree to wear the Miraculous Medal:

“Since you abhor superstition and espouse such liberal views,” he asks Alphonse, “would you consider submitting to a simple test?”
“What test?”
“To wear something I’m going to give you. It’s a medal of the Holy Virgin. It appears quite ridiculous to you, no doubt. But as for me, I attach great importance to it.” And he shows Alphonse the Miraculous Medal attached to a cord.

Alphonse is dumbstruck. He can scarcely believe the baron’s impertinence. But as a man of the world, he doesn’t want to seem to be making too much of a trifle. So he consents, breezily quoting a line from The Tales of Hoffman: “If it does me no good, at least it will do me no harm.
“This is too much. “Laissons ces sottises!” exclaims Alphonse — “Let’s stop this foolishness!” For the mention of St. Bernard has reminded him of his brother, Abbe’ Théodore Ratisbonne, author of a biography of the Cistercian saint. Anything that reminds Alphonse of his traitor-brother arouses his rage. [Note: Théodore Ratisbonne, Alphonse’s older brother, had converted to Catholicism]
However, the baron persists. If Alphonse refuses to pray this short prayer, he insists, he’ll thereby render the whole “test” null and void. So, Alphonse consents. At the Baron’s behest, he even agrees to copy out the Memorare. Then he pockets it and leaves, greatly amused at the entire absurd episode.

But later that night, when he mechanically copies the prayer, something happens. He can’t get the words of the Memorare out of his mind. They haunt him, he recounts later, like an annoying tune one can’t dislodge from one’s head. Over and over again, with mounting irritation, he murmurs this obtrusive prayer of St. Bernard.
Our Lady appeared to Ratisbonne at the church of Sant’ Andrea delle Fratte in Rome in 1842. After the vision of Our Lady, Ratisbonne was instantly converted to the Catholic faith.
You can find the whole story here: The Miraculous Conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne
Learning of Ratisbonne’s conversion through this medal was one of the events that inspired St. Maximilian Kolbe to found the Militia Immaculata.

Fr. Alberto Arzilli, OFM Conv., a fellow friar with St. Maximilian, related the story on April 26, 1942:
“Fr. Maximilian . . . was convinced of what he had to do [regarding the founding of the MI] on the [75th] anniversary day of the apparition of Our Lady to Alphonse Ratisbonne, January 20, 1917. The inspiration came to him during the morning meditation conducted by the . . . Father Rector Ignudi. In the meditation Father Ignudi told the story of Ratisbonne’s miraculous conversion and commented on it.”
“With a face beaming and bubbling with joy at the power of Our Lady shown in the conversion of Ratisbonne, Friar Max spoke to me of his inspiration. Smiling, he told me we had to crush the Devil and all heresies, and especially the error of Masonry.”