From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Excuses that hold us back from pursuing the things of God   
      
   Jesus probes the reasons why people make excuses to God's great   
   invitation to "eat bread" with him at his banquet table. The first   
   excuse allows the claims of one's personal business or work to take   
   precedence over God's claim. Do you allow any task or endeavor to   
   absorb you so much that it keeps you from the thought of God? The   
   second excuse allows our possessions to come before God. Do you allow   
   the media and other diversions to crowd out time for God in daily   
   prayer and worship? The third excuse puts home and family ahead of   
   God. God never meant for our home and relationships to be used   
   selfishly. We serve God best when we invite him into our work, our   
   homes, and our personal lives and when we share our possessions with   
   others.  (Luke 14:15-24)   
      
      
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   April 28th – St. Gianna Beretta Molla   
   (1922-1962)   
      
   On April 24,1994, Pope John Paul II declared “blessed” a present-day   
   Italian woman physician who accepted death rather than undergo an   
   operation that would imperil the life of her unborn child. In   
   beatifying this contemporary pro-life heroine, the Holy Father gave to   
   the world a saintly intercessor against the international cruelty of   
   abortion. Gianna Beretta Molla was canonized on May 16, 2004.   
      
   Gianna Beretta was born in Magenta, Italy, on October 4, 1922. She was   
   tenth of the 13 offspring of admirable parents, who gave to their   
   children a strong sense of prayer and trust in God’s providence.   
      
   Gianna, a highly talented young woman, called, as she felt, to the   
   medical profession, won doctoral degrees in medicine and surgery in   
   1949 at the University of Pavia. The following year she opened a   
   clinic at Mesero, near Magenta. Two years later she took advanced   
   studies in pediatrics at the University of Milan. Thereafter Dr.   
   Beretta specialized in the care of mothers and babies, and also the   
   elderly and the poor.   
      
   Gianna undertook the medical profession not simply as a means of   
   support, or even as simply a philanthropy. For her the practice of   
   medicine was a spiritual “mission”. All during her student years she   
   had done volunteer service to the needy and aged as a member of the   
   St. Vincent de Paul Society. As a physician she increased her generous   
   service as a form of “Catholic Action”: lay volunteerism according to   
   the mind and needs of the Church. But there was nothing of the   
   “fanatic” about Dr. Beretta. She was a young woman of vigor and good   
   cheer, a daring skier and mountain climber.   
      
   Marriage in 1955 merely gave Dr. Gianna a chance to expand her   
   “missionary” efforts. Gianna and Pietro Molla were a joyful couple.   
   She bore him three children in the next four years. A woman of balance   
   and common sense, she successfully harmonized her careers of mother,   
   wife, and medic.However, when she became pregnant again in 1961, the   
   doctor suddenly learned that a fibroma was developing in her womb. The   
   baby was now in its second month.   
      
   Scientist and pediatrician as she was, Dr. Molla appreciated the   
   threat that the growing tumor presented to her life if she did not   
   undergo an operation. But the uterine operation would have meant death   
   for the unborn baby. It was a classic case that the Church has always   
   pondered. Moral theology, although forbidding direct abortion, has   
   taught that while surgeons should try to save both mother and child,   
   it is permissible to remove a diseased womb to save the mother, even   
   though the child is thus indirectly deprived of life.   
      
   Gianna at once pleaded with the surgeon to save the life of the child.   
   During the next seven months she forced herself to keep busy with her   
   various duties, meanwhile praying as never before that God would   
   preserve the little one. She added a special prayer that the child   
   itself would suffer no pain from the malignancy.   
      
   A few days before the birth was due, Gianna told her doctors, “If you   
   must decide between me and the child, do not hesitate; choose the   
   child. I insist on it. Save the baby.” The baby, Gianna Emanuela   
   Molla, was born in good health on April 21, 1962. But despite every   
   effort to save Dr. Molla, who bore her unspeakable pain in constant   
   prayer, she died on April 28. A sad end, but a glorious one: Is not   
   mother love essentially a vocation of self-giving?   
      
   At the beatification ceremony, the Holy Father greeted and blessed at   
   his throne those whom the heroic pediatrician had left behind in God’s   
   good hands: her husband Pietro, one of their older children, and   
   Gianna Emanuela Molla, just turned 22. The pope blessed the young   
   woman, but Gianna Molla knew she had already been blessed from   
   conception by the hand of God.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   What a weakness it is to love Jesus Christ only when He caresses us,   
   and to be cold immediately once He afflicts us. This is not true love.   
   Those who love thus, love themselves too much to love God with all   
   their heart.   
    --Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. For our   
   heart shall rejoice in Him, Because we have trusted in His holy name.   
   [Psalm  33:20-21]   
      
      
   THE LORD FORGIVES   
   (Psalm 32)   
      
   Happy those whose offence is forgiven,   
   whose sin is remitted.   
   O happy those to whom the Lord   
   imputes no guilt,   
   in whose spirit is no guile.   
      
   I kept it secret and my frame was wasted.   
   I groaned all day long,   
   for night and day your hand was heavy upon me.   
   Indeed my strength was dried up   
   as by the summer's heat.   
      
   But now I have acknowledged my sins;   
   my guilt I did not hide, I said:   
   "I will confess my offence to the Lord."   
   And you, Lord, have forgiven   
   the guilt of my sin.   
      
   So let faithful men and women pray to you   
   in the time of need.   
   The floods of water may reach high   
   but they shall stand secure.   
   You are my hiding place, O Lord;   
   you save me from distress.   
      
   Rejoice, rejoice in the lord,   
   exult, you just!   
   O come, ring out your joy.   
   all you upright of heart.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)