Respect Life and The Road to Emmaus

This past Saturday, my parish hosted the Archdiocese of Miami Respect Life Ministry's Annual Luncheon.  It was an all day affair complete with speakers, video presentations, mass, a catered lunch, and awards presentations.  Since I am the Respect Life representative for my parish, that meant I was in charge...even though I know full well God is always in charge!  It was a beautiful day even though we were in the beginning stages of a tropical storm named Isaac - currently about to hit New Orleans as a hurricane. The rain and wind only kept about 25 people away - which isn't bad considering our diocese is so large; including Dade (Miami) and Broward (Ft.Lauderdale) counties.

It went off without a hitch.  I had a team of volunteers comprised of adults and teenagers (my son and his friends) come in and serve lunch to each table, pour water and iced tea, clear it all away, and then break it all down at the end of the event and reset the hall for mass, as our church is also the parish hall. To see the willing adults and teens give up their Saturday for an opportunity to serve the Lord in this way was truly awesome to witness.

During mass, my pastor asked me to come up to the pulpit after communion and say a few words of thanks.  I knew I'd be a little nervous, but when I got up there and looked at the multitudes of beautiful pro-life faces, I became overwhelmed.  Here I was on the altar getting ready to speak to some of Christ's soldiers, and who was I to address them?  I surely felt Christ's presence on the altar.  We had all just consumed him in the Eucharist.  He was now flowing through our blood and we were as one body.    I got choked up, but thanked everyone for fighting for the truth and for fighting for Him - not just in their parishes, but everyday in every aspect of their lives.   I saw truth and beauty staring back at me in the faces of young and old, male and female all fighting for LIFE.  

For months, I had been concerned about our event coinciding with another event at our parish on the same day - one that would need the kitchen as well.  It was a bit of a scheduling snafu and I was a little upset at first, but then I gave it over to the Lord and trusted in His ways.  The day would be the way He wanted it to be.  The other event I'm speaking of is one called Emmaus.  It is a Catholic weekend retreat, based on the "Road to Emmaus" story in the Bible, meant to deepen your relationship with or begin your relationship with Christ. I had actually gone through Emmaus two years ago, and as a result I became the Respect Life Ministry head for our parish where we had not really had a ministry there before.  So, as the morning preparations were underway, people were filing into the Church, and volunteers were diligently working in the kitchen, it struck me that the scheduling snafu would not even be occurring if it hadn't been for me going through Emmaus.  Wow!  This Archdiocesan Respect Life luncheon would not even be occurring at our parish this year had I not gone through the Emmaus retreat two years earlier.  How awesome our God is! Someone told me that the Emmaus retreat is like an onion - you keep peeling away layers as time goes on.  True in my case; very true.

How wonderful our Lord is that He would wait on a lowly servant such as myself, put me to work at this life-saving ministry, only to put these two programs (Respect Life and Emmaus) head-to-head.  I almost wonder how sad it would be had I not realized the connection.  What if I had just been upset about the two events coinciding on the same day - even though I had scheduled my event before the Emmaus weekend.  What if my pride had stood in the way of recognizing what God had used me for and how He continues to use me?  What if I had been selfish and demanded Emmaus move their weekend?  I trusted in the Lord.  I knew it was happening for a reason, and that reason became evident to me Saturday morning.  It's difficult to put our pride aside and stop trying to rule the roost, but I can tell you it never ends well if you don't.  God is clearly in charge and He has a mission for each one of us if we listen!  

Bratzillaz...MORE Dolls from Hell

"What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, to keep Satan from gaining the advantage over us; for we are not ignorant of his designs."

2Corinthians 2:10-11

I have been wanting to write about these dolls since they came out, so here goes!

Last year I wrote a blog posting about the very popular Monster High Dolls.  You can read that posting here:
"As If Sexualization of Tweens Wasn't Enough, Here Come the Dolls From Hell"
Now we have a whole new crop of evil dolls to deal with - the Bratzillaz dolls.  I know parents in the general population not only don't see these as harmful, but encourage their daughters to collect and play with them.  These dolls ARE harmful, and I am NOT afraid to say it.  Parents need to stay as far away from these dolls and other toys like them as possible.  Why would anyone invite danger into their households?  Most wouldn't...which shows that people don't realize the danger that is inherent in these toys.  When anyone dabbles in anything that is tied to the occult, you are opening a door that can be very difficult to close.  I personally have spent much of my adulthood trying to close all the doors that were opened by family when I was a child.  The blessing of our house a few months ago finally did the trick I think.  There is a war going on out there for our souls.  Don't hand yours or your kids' over to people you don't know who are running large companies for large profits.  Right now, our young girls are obsessed with anything that is remotely like "Twilight".  Vampires are selling like hotcakes.

Our culture is currently obsessed with young girls looking as provocative as possible.  We are so obsessed, in fact, that there is jealousy among mothers to look as young and sexy as their daughters, nieces, next door neighbor's daughters, etc.  Is it just me or has anyone else noticed the LARGE amount of moms out there dressing and acting inappropriately - for the attention of....whom?  This is, of course, a part of the dark side's master plan to ultimately completely tear apart the family unit.  Why not encourage women to look trampy - they will literally be wearing a billboard that says, "Hello, I've sold myself."  Why not encourage their daughters to sell themselves - or give themselves away also - at a very very young age?  Have you taken a good look at what these dolls are wearing?  They are wearing clothes that fifteen years ago you would have said looked like something a street walker would be wearing.  These Bratzillaz dolls even have tattoos.  Great!  Trampy clothes aren't enough - let's brainwash the little buggers into stamping trashy things all over their bodies...permanently!  The body was made by God as a sacred vessel to bring forth life - not something to be disrespected and mutilated.

Before birth control, it seems Satan was finding great success at working on man's sexual desires by encouraging promiscuity, alcoholism, abuse, pornography, etc.  After the advent and widespread acceptance and use of the pill, Satan had an inroad into ripping apart the women in our society.  The pill was wrapped up and labeled innocuously as a savior, really...something that would save the family by giving the husband and wife (really just the wife) complete control over when to conceive and how many babies to conceive.  It was freedom - finally!  Not innocuous.  The pill has torn apart the family unit by taking away the reason married couples make love.  We are made to bring forth babies - God's children.  The devil stopped the "bringing forth" through the pill and then the legalization of abortion.  Actually, abortions not only have stopped the "bringing forth", but have convinced mothers worldwide that murdering their babies is okay if the timing isn't right, or if there might be a birth defect, etc.  Women have and continue to aid in the destruction of their own precious homes - their nests.  We cry out for stable homes, loving husbands, and beautiful children, but the dark side tells us that we should avoid our husbands because of a horrible thing called pregnancy and a new addition to the family.  The dark side tells us to use our sexuality in the bedroom with our husbands, but use the pill religiously, and then stuff down that little feeling each month of "what if".  We grow up as little girls dreaming of the large house, the white picket fence, and a yard filled with children playing in it, but the dark side convinces us that the yard should be filled with an adult-like swimming pool, or fancy gardens, and children might mess those things up.  Satan is the great deceiver and his demons are constantly working hard on us.  They want us to suffer as much as they are.  They want us going down with the ship with them.

So, let's take a really close look at these dolls.  They are attractive, sexy, wear fashionable clothes, and have multiple "powers".  They look like demons or vampires or witches - whatever you would like to call them.  Why on earth are mothers and fathers allowing their precious daughters, the future nurturers of our society, to have fantasy play with dolls from hell???  Parents, you had better wake up and begin seeing the war that is going on.  There is a war for your daughters' souls - our daughters' souls - our future mothers' souls.  You had better fight for those souls and tell your daughters, "NO, you cannot have those dolls because who would want to play with such ugly horrible evil looking things?"  That is what our daughters must hear about toys like these.  You cannot cave in on this one.  You must stand your ground or else another demon wins another battle.  The dark side is working on the family from all sides.  Why let it creep into your house through something that is so easy to say no to?

Please watch the latest Bratzillaz video and see what our young girls are being exposed to.  Young girls all over the world are clamoring for the Monster High and Bratzillaz dolls.  Don't let any of your daughters be any of those young girls.  While watching this video, pay special attention to the marketing (hot clothes, great song, pretty girls, power to bring forth a hot guy, large mansion) as well as the imagery i.e. very dark background.  Perhaps the most disturbing aspect is that every one of the girls is shown "walking on water".  Again, it may seem innocuous, but an adult producer or director or writer came up with that idea.  Why would an adult come up with that particular idea and make it such a prominent part of the video?  Could it be that the dark side's ultimate goal is to make sure that humans don't believe in Christ as our Savior?  Christ didn't walk on water any more than these silly women in this silly video, right?  It's all poking fun at such a ridiculous notion anyway.  Open your eyes...Christianity is being attacked and souls are at stake.
Watch here: