I am...

Where Two Enter, Only One Leaves

Respect Life Apostolate

The 40 Days for Life Campaign continues through Nov. 6.

MQP's Focus Day at the campaign was Oct. 21.  Several of our parishioners showed up to pray, counsel and offer life-giving resources.

Watching women being driven in and out of the parking lot is heartbreaking.  Sometimes it was very obvious that where two entered, only one left.  Women in leaving in tears and covered in blankets puts a face on the horror of what happens 3,500 times a year at this facility for "reproductive resources."

However, at least one woman had her heart turned that day.  She told a sidewalk counselor that she was being pressured to have an abortion, but she didn't want to.  She did not know about the resources available to her.  So instead of going inside for the appointment that would end the life of her baby, she went to ThriVe, just a couple of blocks away to pursue life-giving options.  

A few more women said that they were just coming into PP for an ultrasound.  They were cautioned that this is a dangerous place to come for prenatal care and offered free alternatives.  Seeds are being planted.  The current campaign is 40 days, but the monster remains all year.  There is much more to come on our activities and resources.

To sign up or for more information, contact Mitch Murch at mitch.murch@gmail.com, 314-308-6741 or visit:

www.MQPLife.blogspot.com

www.twitter.com/MQPLife

Facebook - search MQP Life

www.40daysforlifestl.com

229 Babies Saved at Halfway Point / MQP Focus Day

From Shawn Carney at 40 Days for Life:


Today marks the midpoint of this 40 Days for Life campaign. The blessings are more than we can count!
One thing we HAVE been able to count is the number of turnarounds reported by local campaign teams.
So far, there have been …
… 229 babies saved from abortion — that we know of!
Here is one of the amazing stories:
——————————————————-
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
——————————————————-
As two volunteers began praying at the 40 Days for Life vigil were praying, a woman drove up and started yelling at them.
“You’re not helping anything,” she screamed. “These women need someone to care for them, not harass them.”
One of the volunteers tried to explain the vigil, but the woman wasn’t interested. She just shouted some more — and drove off.
That was a bit unsettling, but the pair continued to pray — specifically for the young woman they were watching. She was sitting with her mother in a parked car.
Neither woman got out of the car. About 20 minutes later, they started the engine and headed towards the exit.
One of the volunteers walked in their direction and asked them if they needed help.
The young woman said she had arrived for an abortion. “But because of you on the sidewalk, I’m not going to go through with it.”
What a testimony to this volunteer’s commitment to stick with it even in the face of persecution!
_______________________________________



Mary Queen of Peace will be participating in the 40 Days for Life campaign Friday, October 21.  Parishioners are welcome to participate any time they want, but our focus day is the 21st.


40 Days for Life is a peaceful effort to change the hearts of those who might otherwise choose something dreadful for their child.  We will go to the Planned Parenthood clinic at 4251 Forest Park Avenue to pray, counsel and offer resources to those in need.  You may register here, or if you cannot go in person, please pray to make a difference.

That Man is You

That Man is You (TMIY)* is a program at MQP that is open to any man who wants to arrive at 6:00 a.m. on Friday mornings.   I was asked to address the group this morning in regard to the Respect Life Apostolate.  There were about 70 men in the group this morning and I was awed by the group's response to the information and resources that are available through the ministry.  Our quiet little ministry is picking up steam and passion!  


The simple platform of the RLA is to make a difference in the lives of the born and the unborn.  


Father Bob expressed to me that many well-meaning pro life Catholics struggle when faced with unanticipated situations personally, in their family or with someone that is close to them.  Some turn a blind eye or go into 'hands off' mode and then find themselves alienated from their true convictions and the Church.  


His hope:  that through prayer God will turn the hearts of those who might otherwise choose something dreadful.  


This is where the TMIY tenets of Leadership and Integrity of Action meet the RLA.  


One of the men was emotional as he told me of his transformation from being life-long pro-choice to being completely pro-life.  God turned his heart.  


Many men said they wanted more information.  Several more expressed interest in getting involved.  


While I do not ask for a time commitment from anybody that is interested, I want them to have information and know what resources are available to those in need.  


From elementary programs that affirm the sanctity of life to post-abortion healing, there are a lot of programs available to help.  


Next Friday, October 21 will the the MQP focus day for 40 Days of Life.  Several have already indicated their interest in going to Planned Parenthood to peacefully pray, counsel and disseminate resources to those who may choose life for their child.


* That Man is You! is transforming men, families and society as it presents the vision of man fully alive! Combining the teachings of the Church and wisdom of the saints with the best research from modern science in an interactive, multimedia format, That Man is You! puts this vision within the grasp of every man.  http://www.paradisusdei.org/tmiy/

Lives are being saved!

Baby Saved

On this Tuesday afternoon there is more good news from Brian Westbrook, of the 40 Days for Life Campaign in St. Louis:

We just received news from Mary Maschmeier, a long time sidewalk counselor, relating the story of a baby saved from abortion last week.

"The first mom was noticeably upset going in. She was crying. They never got out of the car. When they were leaving I approached them to offer her help. She told us that she wasn't able to do it. We talked and before the conversation was over we all were crying, the mom, the dad and myself."  Their baby was 8 weeks old.

Healing

Although the stories of babies saved are always very exciting the blessings don't stop there. I received a powerful message from Julie Leber who was praying and counseling on the sidewalk.

She tells a story about a woman named Evonne. Julie says, "We started talking about the Cardinals and after that I offered her an Options brochure. She said she would take it, as she lived in an apartment and while it was mostly older people they did have younger help. Great! I replied and turned it over to share with her about Project Rachel and Joseph for anyone who has been affected by an abortion." The woman's eyes teared up. "She continued that her daughter had an abortion ten years ago and it has just now begun to hit her-- 2 children later."Please pray for Evonne and her daughter as they recover and find healing.

Just think, you'll never know how God is going to use you when you humble yourself and pray.

---

"Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."
~John 15:2

Steve Jobs' Parents Had a Choice to Make

The passing of Steve Jobs has brought a flood of memories, thoughts and emotions from so many.  There were many things to admire about him and he will be missed.  

What if he had never been born?  What would we do without the iPhones, iPads and the other scores of technology that have influenced our world over the last 35 years?  

Faced with an unplanned pregnancy in college, Steve Jobs parents chose life.  You can read about it in this link to Jim Daly's blog at Focus on the Family:

http://www.focusonlinecommunities.com/blogs/Finding_Home/2011/10/07/because-paul-and-clara-jobs-said-yes

More on Steve Jobs:

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create theworlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.