When the widow made her contribution, it was a very heroic act because her donation was truly sacrificial. For our Lord, the amount of the gift itself matters less than the actual cost to the donor. The real value in giving is not the actual gift itself but the sacrifice it imposes on the giver. True sacrificial giving hurts. It is difficult for most people to reduce personal spending so as to contribute to the needs and the works of the Church. In our own time, we even see an increase in the unwillingness to give to the Church unless there is a quid pro quo arrangement involved.

The widow’s contribution was two mites — worth barely a penny. Jesus places greater weight on her gift because while others contributed more in actual monetary value, it cost the widow everything she had. There is a certain type of recklessness in sacrificial giving. The widow might have decided to keep one of the two mites for herself. Instead, she didn’t hold back. This type of total self-giving is a challenge for every person, no matter what vocation they are called to live. It is often assumed that priests and religious need not be generous with their limited incomes because they have already given their lives. Yet, even priests and religious are expected to give generously to the works of the Church. A newly ordained priest on the day of his ordination asked an elderly priest for some sagely advice, just minutes after the ordination Mass was complete. The elderly priest said to the newly minted priest, “Father, you just gave your entire life to Christ. Don’t spend the rest of it trying to earn it back.”

Finally, we do well to ponder the fact that the person Jesus chose to give us as a pattern of generosity was a person who made an almost valueless contribution to the temple, insofar as actual monetary value goes. This should remind us that whenever we think that we have very little to give to God, He can do plenty with almost nothing, as long as we are willing to give it all away. When true sacrificial giving takes place, Jesus is never outdone in generosity.

Last Saturday afternoon, as she studied for an anatomy test at the kitchen table, I sat across from her, typing on a laptop computer. Working feverishly on an article that had a Monday morning deadline, my glasses kept falling down on my nose. As I pecked out paragraphs, the computer keys clicking, Rachael began memorizing the names of facial muscles, repeating each multi-syllabled term, out loud.

“Buccinator…it’s the muscle that makes the lips whistle” she said. Her eyes were fixed on a thick textbook entitled, Human Anatomy . Wearing an oversized school sweatshirt, her long hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

As I tried to concentrate on writing my article, she slurped coffee from a ceramic mug and kept reciting terms.

“Zygomaticus…the smiling muscle…” she called out while mimicking a pseudo grin. I kept right on typing. “Frontalis…it raises the eyebrows and wrinkles the forehead…” From the corner of my eye, I watched as she purposely furrowed her brow.

I turned off my computer. I was distracted. “Are you hungry for lunch?” I asked.

“Thanks mom…” she said without looking up from her book.

While I stood at the counter, fixing turkey sandwiches, Rachael continued studying anatomical diagrams on the pages before her. Then, suddenly, she turned and made eye contact with me, her face glowing with enlightenment.

“Mom…Come here and look at this drawing…” she said while pointing to a sketch of a human skull. I drew near, set her lunch on the table and glanced at the sketch. Though I had taken anatomy in college and was familiar with the sutures she spoke of, I found myself overcome with a new-found sense of wonder.

“The sutures look just like stitches…” Rachael said as she took a bite of her sandwich.

“You’re right.” I said, adjusting my glasses. Sure enough, the thin connective tissues that held together the bones of the skull had the appearance of thread. I couldn’t take my eyes off the picture.

Words from Psalm 139 whispered to me:

“You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are your works!

My very self you knew, my bones were not hidden from you,

When I was being made in secret, fashioned in the depths of the earth (13-15).

As Rachael continued studying, I found myself thinking back on the months that I carried her in my womb. So many years ago, God had fashioned every part of her perfectly, a myriad of tiny muscles, tendons, and tissues that now enabled her to smile, whistle and wrinkle her brow. Before I even saw her, her little bones were being stitched together, the threads of God’s love, fastening her humanness, forever, to heaven.

“Mom…Will you help me memorize the neck bones? Rachael said as she handed me her textbook. She was completely unaware of the gratitude that was welling up inside of me. “You can read the names of the bones and I’ll tell you what their function is…” she added.

I turned off my computer. I could work on my article later. This was a holy interruption, a sacred moment to recall my daughter’s beginnings and to praise God for the person she was becoming, a woman who now understood the miraculous power of grace.

Today, if your children distract you, be sure to stop, look and listen. God may have something to say.

Everyone has something that gets their inner fires burning, and thankfully, these things generally coincide with gifts that have been bestowed upon them from God. The combination of our talents and our passions is the fuel which keeps us going in life. It is the impetus for civilization and relationships and contributions to society. The women whom I am lucky to call friends are all passionate people, yet when we got to the question “Describe a passion you have, for example, a desire to achieve some goal or work on a particular project which gives you lots of energy. What can you do to develop this passion?” the room became eerily silent. We are all mothers, and homeschooling mothers at that. There are so many things we would like to do, some desires admittedly more noble than others, yet they are squashed by a lack of time. There is only so much “emotional energy” that one can muster after a full day of parenting. Even when the energy is there, the time and opportunity are not.

It is true – we mothers do have ample opportunity to practice things like love, patience, kindness, generosity, and self-control. Motherhood is a noble pursuit. I know some women who were truly made to be mothers. I, however, am not one of them. I love my children with all my heart and do all I can for them. They were given to me by God and I treasure the gift and acknowledge the responsibility. I was called to homeschool, despite my initial reluctance. It was definitely the right decision for our family. I’m trying to be the very best mom I can be. I know that I am lucky to have this opportunity. Yet, I am more than that. I am more than the person who takes care of the kids and cleans the house (and I admit, I don’t do that chore particularly well). God gave me other gifts. I was also blessed with the opportunity to obtain an advanced education.

Like my friends, I do try to make use of my passions and talents to contribute to the world at large. It is always in small doses, however. I’ve had older mothers assure me that the day will come when I will get the opportunity to make more use of my gifts. That may be true, or it may not. There is no guarantee that I will live to see that day. Even if I do, there may very well be other people who will need my time and attention – sick parents or caring for grandchildren, for example. The future is a great unknown. All I have is today and the circumstances I find myself in. The unfulfilled desires are frustrating. I sometimes wonder why God made me, what my purpose is in the big scheme of things. I have to trust that he knows better than I do my reason for being here. All I can do is keep going, praying and trying to do the best I can with the time I have. Another wise woman at Bible Study (I told you I was lucky to be among these women!) reminded us all of the importance of acceptance. I need to work on that. I need to be happy where I am and let God take care of the restlessness in my heart.

If you have ever read it and wondered why this corny little book was in the Bible, read it again with the knowledge that God has written you a song of adoration, filling it full of the same metaphors He uses for Himself elsewhere in the Scriptures: a shepherd, a banner, paradise, the rock, myrrh, a king, the mountain, living water, fire. An intimate relationship between God the Lover, and His beloved soul, is the song of songs about a “love as strong as death” (8:6).

What kind of love is this? It must, in some way, include a profound intimacy, for the context of this song is marital intimacy between the king and the common girl, illustrating the oneness and fulfillment God intends for His relationship with you. The first consummation of a marriage is sex, but more than skin on skin, it is the “becoming one” of two, and according to St. Paul, more a spiritual mystery than a physical fact (Eph. 5:22-32).

The language of the Scriptures is startlingly earthy, raw, and splendid. The Bible uses the word “know” for the description of physical intimacy: “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD”; “Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch” (Gen. 4:1, 17). It means a total and intimate knowing, a co-mingling of desire, longing, fulfillment, and spirit. God Almighty, the creator of galaxies, souls, elephants, and atoms, longs for you to acquaint yourself with Him and explore His depths in the most unembarrassed and intimate of ways!

It is these terms with which He describes intimacy with you in Song of Solomon, and this choice of language communicates something shocking about how civilized and unconventional and approachable He is. The Scriptures, the mystic Saints, and the Church, have always maintained that the marriage relationship is illustrative of God’s relationship to His people. The goal, Jesus said, is the two, you and God, becoming one: “And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect . . . “ (Jn. 17:22-23). This spiritual intimacy is what perfects, completes, and/or consummates, us. It is a participation in the glory of God.

He wants you to want Him. He desires that you escape from the embrace of “self” and offer yourself to Him, even to the separation of the joints and marrow of your soul (Heb. 4:12). Your truest, most vulnerable and hidden self must be naked and open to His love, reaching unreservedly to Him from out of the deepest wells of your heart, applauding His strength, beauty, and intelligence. He asks that you seek an unspeakable familiarity with Him as that of a spouse, such that there is always something to say, nothing to hide, perfect comfort, acceptance, profound touch.

Yet He does not bless us with this intimate communion for its own sake. This expression of intimacy and pleasure is also necessary for the generation of new life. God told Abram, “I will bless you and you will be a blessing” (Gen. 12:2). He blesses us so we can spiritually multiply: “Then God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’” (Gen. 1:28). Part of God’s blessing on Adam and Eve was the pleasure of physical intimacy and procreation. In the Church’s Rite of Matrimony, it is said that this marriage relationship is the only blessing left undestroyed by Eden’s catastrophe and Noah’s Flood, so that spiritual intimacy and procreation continues as part of God’s blessing for you from the foundation of the world.

Do you dare to risk vulnerability in the effort to find God in this world of cynics and scoffers? Every soul who has heard the Lover sing to him the loveliest of songs, has felt their ridicule. “What is your beloved more than any other beloved,” they ask (Song. 5:9). Though we attempt to answer, the heart is barely able to write the words on our lips, for He is inexplicable, wild, and dangerous, a fathomless mystery. Yet Jesus warns us not to stand on the fringes of intimacy with Him: “And I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me’” (Matt. 7:23). We must fall into the bed of our soul, ready to be known by the Truth, each one alone with God, yet all furiously alive with the same eternal Song.

The very pleasure that I find in their music is the thing that saddens me about their lives. The immorality, drug abuse, even the knee-jerk liberalism. I listen as an adult, not some teenage fan. I’ve followed news about them long enough — the marriage failures, addictions, arrests, even ego-driven dust-ups with each other — to know that as much as I enjoy their artistic output, we’d likely have little in common and much to clash over were we ever to sit down and talk. “Uh, Mr. Crosby, now about this business of donating sperm to lesbians to produce offspring…. ” No, it wouldn’t go well.

So I can separate the men from the music.

Kids have a very hard time with this. They take very personally any criticism of the lives of the musicians and singers they like. Even when the flagrancy of the delinquency is so obvious (a la Miley Cyrus) good, and otherwise reasonable kids, have a hard time making that separation. And I remember being a kid and wanting, longing for, the singers and musicians I liked to be good people. I remember hating to find out anything negative about them, especially that they acted immorally – and they all did, or so it seemed.

Kids have to be led to this understanding. To move beyond being fans to being critical listeners. To ask of the lyrics whether they are true. To ask of the lives of the musicians whether they are worthy of emulation. We find that they only with great reluctance engage in this critical thought. They hate it. They do not want to ask these questions, even if they must learn to do so.

And I think the kids have it right, albeit that my jaded and more sophisticated adult understanding permits me to make a necessary distinction, it is a distinction made necessary by the Fall, like the recognition of a lie. What the young hearts want — and what I want too, when I am recalled to my senses — is for the good to beautifully express truth.

When beautiful music is used to express lies, or is produced by people who manifestly do not lead good lives, we feel in our souls that something is askew in the fabric of the universe. We sense that Goodness, Truth, and Beauty have suffered a rupture and we are quite rightly disturbed.

In heaven, where the saints make music, those who are flawlessly Good use Beauty to expresses Truth. The beauty of music will never insidiously poison us with the expression of lies. We will never have to fear to find out some disappointing secret about a singer that tips every enjoyable moment of his performance with a tinge of shame.

I hope David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash make it there. I want a front row seat.

But imagine this scene.  You are an unborn child who has lived in cozy but cramped quarters with your twin for nine months.  But now you both are experiencing tremendous pressure, and your twin is squeezed through a narrow opening leaving you alone in the darkness.

Now think of it from the point of view of little one who just was squeezed through the bottleneck of the womb.   He has to learn to breathe the air of this new world.  His eyes now must adjust to blinding light and his skin to much cooler temperatures.

But what if he was born premature?  What if his body was not ready for this new, challenging environment?  What if he emerged from the womb with a dangerous infection?  Would he not have to stay in an incubator in the hospital for a while until he was infection-free and strong enough to endure the challenges of life on planet earth?

On the first two days of November, as daylight shrinks in the Northern Hemisphere and frost turns vegetation brown, the Church leads us to confront the mystery of death.

These days remind us that love is stronger than death, that Christ’s death for us means that our beloved deceased who believed in Christ are very much alive.  They may be among those whose lungs breathe the exhilarating air of heaven and whose eyes gaze upon the glory of God.   In this case, they help us through their prayers.

Yet they may also be among those whose lungs were not ready for breathing and whose eyes were not ready for the brilliance of the beatific vision, whose body carried an infection that needed to be eliminated.  In which case, we must help them through our prayers.  Our loving intercession can hasten the purification and preparation necessary for the full enjoyment of their inheritance.

The Catholic Church has always been very reserved in its teaching about the mystery of life after death, including the mystery of purgatory.  Here’s what we know.  Christ’s death and resurrection won eternal life for everyone.  Yet the fruit of his redeeming work needs to be personally appropriated.  Each person must say yes to Christ, and yield to the liberating power of his grace which progressively breaks the sin’s power and heals sin’s wounds.  Everyone is obliged to actively participate in this process and to renounce all sin, great or small.  God, through his church, provides all the means of grace necessary to facilitate this purification and healing.

Yet what about people who say a fundamental yes to Christ, but drag their feet, clinging to some “small” sins, nursing some attachments to the evil that they’ve supposedly renounced?  Purgatory is the process after death where these attachments, the umbilical cord which binds people to the old world, are cut so that people can be free to enter into the life to come.  It is the hospital where the infection of sin is eliminated.  It is the incubator where heart, lungs, and vision are made ready for a much larger life.

Purgatory is not a temporary hell.  The Church does not teach that there is physical fire there (how could fire hurt spirits, anyway?) or that people spend a certain number of years or months there (after death, how do we measure time?) or that everyone but the greatest saints must go there after death (all the means are provided for purification to happen here!).

We can’t know for sure where our beloved deceased are, unless they happen to be canonized saints.  So when in doubt, we pray for them.  If they happen to need our help, our act of kindness can have great impact on them.  If not, this kind act still has great impact on us, exercising our love muscles so that we will be ready to enter directly into the wedding feast of the Lamb when our own time inevitably comes.

Francis de Sales wrote in Introduction to the Devout Life, “Imagine yourself to be in an open field, alone with your guardian angel. … Imagine that he shows high heaven open before you with all its joys … and that he then shows you hell lying open beneath you with all its torments … Each of these lies open to receive you according to the choice you make … the choice of one or the other that we make will last eternally in the life to come. … God desires with an incomparable desire that you choose heaven.”

As the liturgical and calendar years draw near an end, the Church invites all of us to carefully reflect on what we call the four last things: death, judgment, heaven and hell. In the weeks to come, his is a theme that will feature prominently in some of the readings at Mass. It all begins, however, by going straight to the top.

It is with joy that we celebrate the feast of All Saints. In celebrating this feast, we give thanks to God for raising to the glories of heaven the souls of all His faithful ones. We also give thanks for the communion we share with the saints through Christ.

If we should wonder how such a communion is possible, we have only to listen to the words of Our Lord: “I am the vine, you are the branches.” He goes on to say that the branch which bears no fruit is pruned away and cast into the fire. Fruitful branches remain upon the vine.

In other words, in death and in life, faithful witnesses of Christ whose lives bear fruit in works of faith, hope and charity remain upon the vine and form one body in Christ. We remain in communion with the saints of heaven and they with us through Christ. To use the words of the Letter to the Hebrews, the saints of heaven make up the vast cloud of witnesses which surrounds us and spurs us on to victory. They have run the race, and they know that the race — with all its trials and tribulations — is worth running, the prize worth striving for.

The saints of heaven are the poor in spirit who have inherited the kingdom. They are the ones who once mourned with us in this valley of tears, yet now know peace and rest. They are the ones who showed mercy and forgiveness and through God’s mercy have obtained true pardon peace of their own. In other words, they are the ones who lived the Eight Beatitudes and desired to have the mind and heart of Christ. In the words of St. Bernard, “Calling the saints to mind inspires, or rather arouses in us, above all else, a longing to enjoy their company, so desirable in itself. We long to share in the citizenship of heaven, to dwell with the spirits of the blessed, to join the assembly of patriarchs, the ranks of the prophets, the council of apostles, the great host of martyrs, the noble company of confessors and the choir of virgins. … We must rise again with Christ, we must seek the world which is above and set our minds on the things of heaven.”

Of course, living the beatitudes is about as counter cultural as you can get. Sanctity involves being clean of heart, having no attachment or desire for sin. We live in a culture that seems to pride itself on its sinfulness. In fact, we want to deny the very reality of sin. That is no way to be a saint.

To be a saint means to be poor in spirit, desiring nothing more that what is pleasing to God and knowing that we are only passing guests in this world. We live in a culture that is rooted in self-indulgence. I want what I want when I want it. I want this world to be my paradise.

To be a saint means that we will be persecuted or insulted simply because, as disciples of Christ, we set ourselves against the ways of the world.

As Francis de Sales, Bernard — and every other saint would tell us — we do have a choice about who we aim to please above all. If being a saint means possibly bringing trouble on ourselves, perhaps it is not all that attractive a proposition. Considering the joys of all the saints in heaven, hopefully we will begin to realize that the race is worth running.

A great witness.

But it occurred to me, briefly, that our enemy probably didn’t much care for his witness.

A few months later, I noticed him at Mass with a band-aid on his head.  The rumor mill churned out the story that he had been bashed by a hit-and-run driver, his car totaled after crashing nearly head-on into the concrete median.

I wasn’t too surprised.  A blatant pro-life stance can be dangerous to your safety!

Today at CCD, he pulled me aside.

“Pray for me tomorrow, please, it’s my court date.” “Court date?” “Yeah, for the accident.” “I thought it was a hit-and-run!” “It was, but the police officer didn’t think so, and he’s charging me with reckless driving.” “Someone’s not happy about all your pro-life bumper stickers,” I quipped.

He replied with a wry grin.  We turned to look at the statue of Our Lady, a serpent beneath her foot.  He stomped and made a grinding motion with his heel.  We laughed.

But as I sat down in front of the Blessed Sacrament, a picture rose in front of my closed eyes.

Our enemy, in heaven before God, violently demanding permission, day and night to hurt, kill, or maim us.  To make us suffer disease, temptation, disability.  His hatred for those made in God’s image and likeness could not be assuaged.

God, on his throne, denied request after request.  No, you may not kill him.
No, you may not strike him with AIDS.  No, you may not cause a tornado to rip through his house.  No, you may not tempt him to murder.  No.  No.  No.
A thousand nos every hour, and more because of his pro-life stance.  His guardian angel holding a bubble of protection around him like Violet from The Incredibles, holding up a force field to protect her family.

And then one small yes.  Yes, you may allow his car to be struck.  No, you may not kill or maim him.  Yes, he may have a small injury.  No, it may not affect him permanently.  Yes, you may cause legal trouble and force him to seek the services of a lawyer.

The triumphant sneer of the enemy, and the instant enactment of the accident.

Then, for a moment, the picture behind my eyes changed, and it was me and my children with a similar force field held in place by vigilant angels, enacting the will of God.  Fending off everything evil unauthorized by Our Lord.  The requests for injury were too numerous to count and yet each day I drove thoughtlessly, somewhat carelessly, through the maze of potential injury.  Each day with its errands and events, each day ceaselessly protected from the myriad, malevolent petitions of our enemy.

“Thank you!” I exhaled, opening my eyes.  “Dear God!  You save us from so much!” For a moment, I was scared to move.  Scared to drive.  Scared to live.  Every second held a trap, the possibility for harm from the vast and endless hatred of a violent foe.  It’s a miracle we’ve lived this long!

And then I remembered.

Childlike faith.  Like my children rely on me to take care of them, I can rely on God to take care of me.  He always has.  Occasionally, he allows one small evil, one grain in a rice paddy of potential evils, to occur.  A minuscule fraction of the constant requests for our demise.

And then, God takes the evil and works it all together for our good.  A good we can’t even see yet.

The court exonerated my friend.  And, since he offered up the pain and inconvenience for the soul of the driver, we have every reason to hope God will use such efficacious prayers to bring that soul to Heaven.

He is a good God.

This week’s Gospel is one of many illustrations of Jesus’ power to heal. These miracle stories usually share some common elements. The person approaches Jesus with firm conviction that Jesus can fix whatever it is that ails him or her. Jesus then performs this service, healing not only the body but also the soul. Lastly, Jesus comments on the person’s faith. It is the faith that saves the person. The person believes.

I am reminded of Jesus’ words to Thomas in the Gospel of John “You believe because you can see me. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” (John 20:29) Obviously, those of us who practice our Christian faith 2000 years after Jesus walked the Earth fall into the second category, but believing without physical proof is not always easy. I’ve heard it said that faith is a gift given from God. That may be true. Perhaps some are given a greater capacity for faith than others. I think that all are capable of some measure of faith, however. God would not have created a person and made him or her incapable of believing in God. That doesn’t make sense, especially in light of the fact that our main purpose for being is to know, love, and serve God. Therefore, it has to be possible to intellectually choose to have faith, to believe even when one doesn’t have the feeling of belief. St. Therese did this in her last days. She doubted there was a heaven. Yet, she still chose to believe. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta did this as well. She had no consolation from prayer, yet she continued to do it and continued to believe in her mission from Christ.

I have heard so many takes on this Gospel. We all have blindness in our lives that needs to be removed. We are blind to the beauty of the world around us. We go through life with blinders on - looking, but not really appreciating the magnificent creation around us. We are blind to the needs of others. We focus on our own needs and wants and somehow miss how we can help those who share our lives who are in pain. We are blind to our own faults. We choose to overlook the shortcomings in ourselves, but are quick to point out the failings in others. Oh yes, we are all blind in some ways.

Sometimes, however, I think that our greatest blindness is our failure to see God in our everyday lives. A spiritual director that I once had used to ask me “Where was God for you today?” It is such an important question, and one that we often overlook. We get so busy in the minutia of life, in the chores and the work and the responsibility, that we fail to notice God amidst the rhythm of daily life. Then, when the world comes crashing down around us, we wonder “Where is God?” God is there all the time, in both the good and the bad, but we need to open our eyes and quiet our hearts to see. We need to choose to believe even when we don’t feel like it.

Dear Lord, please help me in my blindness. Help me to see you in each and every day, and to acknowledge your presence in my life. Lord, I believe. Please help my unbelief.

What she taught, besides reading, arithmetic, history, English, and geography, was the Catholic religion. She taught us about meeting Jesus in Holy Communion each day at Mass, and about being strengthened by the Holy Spirit in our ordinary little lives. God, not man, is the Creator of all things, she reminded us. Our immortal souls were made to be with God in heaven, but, she warned us, our immortal souls could be lost to hell forever. We had to be ever watchful and avoid the devil’s temptations.

With great sincerity and detail she told the stories of Mary’s appearances at Fatima and Lourdes. As the liturgical calendar unfolded during the year she told us about the lives of the saints, making the Communion of Saints as real as the sixth graders down the hall. And, she intently assured us, each one of us had our own angel assigned to us. It was as Jesus said in the Bible: “I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my Heavenly Father” (Mt. 18:10).

For many persons, their spiritual and earthly lives are like two parallel lines that never meet. But a believer’s earthly life intersects and is interwoven with the supernatural, and Sister Justina’s life was a grand example of this! Her life exuded a sacramental dimension that was, as it is for all children of God by virtue of their Baptism, no less real than her time-bound earthly existence. Jesus. Mary. The saints. Guardian angels. They are amongst us here in the present. The cosmic is local. The immanence of the Incarnation dissolves the rigid earthly concepts of time, place, and distance.

Pouring out of Sister Justina’s sacramental life, like water pouring out from a fountain, was a great dedication to the missions. “Go forth and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19). She took those words to heart, and was uncorrupted by any notion of accommodating the truth to advance cultural sensitivities or ecumenical niceties. Jesus is the Savior of the entire world, He loves all of us, and He wants us to be with Him forever. The Catholic Church — One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic — is the true Church, and the way to eternal life. The children in foreign lands needed this good news just as much as we needed it. Some little pagan child, with God’s mercy, might make it to heaven outside of the Church, but it would be a lot easier if he was inside with all of the extra graces, and any Catholic 5th grader worth his baptismal candle would do what it took to get that kid baptized.

Her concern for the missions included her constant pleas to contribute to the “pagan baby” collection. Sister told us in her soft voice how our money was absolutely essential to save souls. The money we collected would go to pay for food, clothing, medicine, prayer books, and books on the saints. Our failure to do our part would result in suffering, and, more importantly, lost souls who might never know the love of God and the comfort of the sacraments of His Church.

She sadly related to us that in some cases parents would come to a missionary for food and clothing, and would bring an” unwanted child,” asking for money in exchange for the life of their baby. The missionaries needed our help, she said. Our nickels, dimes, and quarters would provide them with money to help the parents with their material needs, and give the missionaries an opportunity to teach the parents and their children about God. If necessary, our money could be used to buy a poor child’s life, and that child would be protected and baptized.

Sister Justina’s pleas for the pagan babies have come to mind several times over the years while working to protect the unborn in this country from the abortionist’s knife. Her stories made the sad plight of those babies so far away very real to the 10 year old children in her class. But sadly, after 50 years things have changed. The far away is now very near. To be exact, it is right here in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I stand on sidewalks in front of abortion mills every week begging for the lives of children who are brought there to be killed. And like the missionaries in Sister Justina’s appeals to her 5th grade students, I and my fellow pro-life workers plead with the parents to love and protect their children. We offer them financial assistance, clothing, medical and legal referrals, and counseling and support. The parents sometimes will stop and take our brochures, and sometimes listen to our pleas and our offers to help them. Some, through, and only through, the grace of God, will even decide to not have an abortion and save their child. Mostly though, the mothers and fathers go into the abortuary and “terminate” their unwanted children.

Sister never gave us any reports on the number of “saves” of those pagan babies in lands so far away, but, original sin being what it is, I suspect that the missionaries experienced from the pagans over there pretty much the same hardheartedness, interrupted by an occasional example of grace filled generosity, that we do from the neo-pagans over here. But like those missionaries and Sister Mary Justina OSB, we can do no less than keep trying to save the babies, pagan or otherwise.