“My Baby’s Name will Be Gabriel”

The Gabriel Project set to Celebrate 10 Years of Active Ministry

Did you know the Gabriel Project has been actively offering pregnancy assistance in the Diocese of Arlington for ten years? We wanted to share with you what some recent parents have had to say about the difference this ministry has made in the lives of their families.

Please pray for these expectant parents, for their babies and for all those who are involved in this life-supporting ministry. If you want to become more involved, check out the Gabriel Project website.

The Gabriel Project Assists Parents:

With the Heart of Christ, making a difference to expectant mothers

One mom came to visit us some weeks ago to pick up an Easter basket donated by Blessed Sacrament Church’s Gabriel Project.

She told us: “When I didn’t have any other options for my pregnancy, I saw a Gabriel Project ad in the Herald and I called you. And you were really kind and sweet and showed me that there was hope and options.  You guided me to different resources, and I have been so grateful. Thank you for all you have done for me, especially for taking the time to listen to me.”

“That is the reason my baby’s name will be Gabriel”

In their faith journey

We recently had a conversation with a mom we are assisting who has no family in the state, just lost her job, has no money for rent, and was struggling with feelings of desperation.

Gabriel Project volunteer: “We talked about the importance of having a good relationship with God and the power of prayer. We encouraged her to pray to Our Lady and to entrust all her concerns to Mary.”

“Two days later, she called back and said that she has been doing her homework (praying) and that she feels more peaceful. She wants to start going to Mass.”

In their family – promoting values

Some month ago, we received a call from “Rosa” who was looking for prenatal care and didn’t know where else to go. She was feeling sick, had just been in the hospital because of pregnancy complications, and was really worried for her baby.

The Gabriel Project used their resources to help her: prenatal care at Tepeyac Family Center, a Gabriel Angel (parish-based volunteer) for transportation, and a Gabriel Angel for translation services.  Things began to fall in place, and she began to have more peace and confidence.

One day, she asked one of her Angels about sterilization, because she wanted to have the procedure done immediately after her baby was born. When the volunteer called, we started to pray for this mother.  In the meantime, the volunteer explained to the mother about the beauty of family and love. From the Gabriel Project office she received a mailing with NFP information as well as resources about the importance of marriage and God’s loving plan for her and her family.

After a month or so of prayer, conversations, material and, most of all, love and care, the mother relayed that she and the father of the child were planning to talk with a priest after the baby is born, so they could learn more about NFP and also about marriage.

More recently, the mother told us that she had been talking with the father of the child about the possibility of marriage and believed they were moving towards it. She said, “Thank God that people like you exist. You all have been a blessing in my life.”

In their womanhood – acknowledging their dignity

After talking with a mom about the dignity of her body and her life, as well as the importance of being chaste and living according to Christian values, she said, “thank you for sharing with me this thought. You don’t hear good things frequently, and you tend to forget what is good and right.”

Lenten Sacrifices, Not Goals or Resolutions

            If you are anything like me, you may be guilty of thinking about Lent as a second chance at New Year’s resolutions. In years past, I have been known to think “I want to lose a few pounds…why don’t I give up sweets for Lent – kill two birds with one stone?”
            While there certainly would be nothing wrong with my health goals – somehow abstaining from sweets primarily for this purpose misses the point of Lent.
            During Lent, we recognize that Christ died for our sins. When we give up something during Lent, we make an offering as a sign of repentance. Each time that we, for example, drive in silence instead of playing our favorite radio station, we are expressing our desire to unite with Christ in His sacrifice.
            In our American culture, so focused on goals and self-improvement, it can be difficult to remember the reason for our sacrifices. For some, giving up chocolate, wine or television sports each year may truly bring to mind Christ’s sacrifice for us. Others may find (as I have) that it is helpful to focus on something that would be a particular sacrifice at this specific time in our life. In this way we recognize that Christ came specifically for each one of us, personally.

Some of the unique sacrifices I have heard recently include:

• From the Shopper: giving up shopping for oneself (and tithing the money saved)
• From the person who forgets to keep in touch: Calling one person per day, usually someone whom he/she hasn’t been in touch with for some time, and asking how he/she can pray for them, then sharing some way that they can pray for him/her
• From the Fashion conscious: Picking out only five outfits and wearing them the entirety of Lent
• From the Late-Riser: Giving up pressing the snooze button!
• From someone who easily criticizes: Refraining from speaking negatively about family members
• From someone who means to pray more…: Eating lunch at one’s desk in order to have time to attend daily Mass on lunch breaks
• From the Socialite: Giving up Facebook/Twitter/My Space and instead spending the time doing spiritual reading
• From the person who forgets to be grateful: thanking God each night for five new positive things

These are just a few examples of Lenten practices that are particularly sacrificial to the people who chose them. Have you heard of others to add to the list?

How does Silence Lead to Effective Communication?

Last night, I ate at a diner with a friend. It was one of those long dinners where there were many topics of conversation, each truly important to our lives. Sometimes I talked and she listened and sometimes she talked and I listened. Those conversations, and even the silent moments in between while appreciating our meals, seemed to light up the day and to leave me contemplating our conversation for hours afterwards.

This harmony between talking and listening, chatting and silence, is a topic that Pope Benedict XVI highlights for this year’s World Communication’s Day.  His unique perspective rings startling true to me: “the relationship between silence and word: two aspects of communication which need to be kept in balance, to alternate and to be integrated with one another if authentic dialogue and deep closeness between people are to be achieved.”

When I think about communication, the first thing that comes to my mind is not silence. With an office phone and a cell phone, work email and personal email, Facebook, Twitter and Skype, communication can seem overwhelmingly noisy sometimes. And yet, I think we all have experiences where we know what the Holy Father means.

Sitting across from us at that same dinner was a couple. They weren’t looking at each other, weren’t talking, but were both busily “communicating” on their respective Smart Phones. I immediately reflected how communication tools can often get in the way of authentic communication with one another. Especially with all of these tools at our finger tips, too often I can be reticent to put my phone away, close my computer and simply enjoy another person’s company.

The Pope writes, “In silence, we are better able to listen to and understand ourselves; ideas come to birth and acquire depth; we understand with greater clarity what it is we want to say and what we expect from others; and we choose how to express ourselves.”

In other words, spending time in silence (disconnected from the many modes of communicating), whether with another or alone, enables us to communicate more deeply and more effectively.

How do you find time for a silence? Here are just a couple of ways I’ve been trying to increasingly integrate it into my life:

• Taking a walk around the block, without a cell phone or an Ipod, and using those moments to reflect
• Disconnecting from my computer while eating lunch at work, reading a book or article I’ve printed out
• Focusing on truly listening to those I’m talking to, not engaging in distracting thoughts about things I need to accomplish
• Putting my phone on silent and in my pocket for the duration of a visit with a friend
• Spending some time in silent prayer each week

Giving the Gift of Time

Did you know that 150 people coordinate and serve meals at Christ House, Alexandria, in the evenings? Did you know that many struggling to find work are aided by volunteers? Did you know Catholic Charities in Arlington serves 35,000 people a year?

During this first month of the year, many of us are prioritizing our goals for 2012. If one of your goals is finding time to help others in need (whether it be serving a meal, stocking a food kitchen, helping coordinate donations or helping to fund raise), I’d encourage you to read this great outline of all that volunteers at Catholic Charities do.

If you want to help, there is a place for you!

Devoting our hearts to Christ’s heart

Christ reveals the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary

Several weeks ago, as a diocese and in individual parishes, we consecrated ourselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We said to the Lord “We give Your our actions, our desires, our troubles, our joys and our sufferings” and that “It will always be our heart’s desire to love You more and more.”

It was a beautiful prayer, but I have to admit that actually fulfilling these pledges is more difficult than it first appears. What is my heart’s desire? What does that really mean?

Saint Josemaria Escriva preached a homily which certainly cuts to the chase about what it means to devote our hearts to Christ’s Heart. He writes,

“When holy Scripture refers to the heart, it does not refer to some fleeting sentiment of joy or tears. By heart it means the personality which directs its whole being, soul and body, to what it considers its good, as Jesus himself indicated: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matt 6:21)

So when we talk about the heart of Jesus, we stress the certainty of God’s love and the truth of his commitment to us. When we recommend devotion to the sacred heart, we are recommending that we should give our whole self to Jesus, to the whole Jesus — our soul, our feelings and thoughts, our words and actions, our joys.”

So if Christ is my heart’s desire, then I really should give Him everything…my struggles, my joys, the details of each day. According to Saint JoseMaria this devotion does not go unrewarded; after all God (the Author of love) loves us unreservedly, He is committed to us, we can trust Him.

Each day, then, through our consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I should strive to know myself and offer myself fully to the Lord. As Saint JoseMaria tells us:

“That is what true devotion to the heart of Jesus means. It is knowing God and ourselves. It is looking at Jesus and turning to him, letting him encourage and teach and guide us.”

Focusing on our hearts this Advent

Here in the Central Administrative Offices of the Diocese, there are no Christmas decorations to be seen. Though this may seem strange since it is well into December, it is our small way of focusing on the season of Advent. In fact, instead of a staff Christmas party, we’ll celebrate nearer to the Epiphany so that we might more fully enter into Advent during these weeks.

While certainly many of us are decorating our homes and preparing gifts for family and friends, it is helpful for me to be reminded that it is still the season of Advent – a season of hopeful expectation. How blessed we are that the Church gives us these distinctive liturgical seasons – times to step aside and look at our spiritual lives, to rely more heavily on the Lord.

I am always particularly struck by the readings during Advent, which shed so much light on the path to which I am called. Today’s reading, from Isaiah says:

light on dark water

Thus says the LORD, your redeemer,
the Holy One of Israel:
I, the LORD, your God,
teach you what is for your good,
and lead you on the way you should go.

What a wonderful question for Advent: where are You leading me? How can I better listen to You? Why did You become Man for me?

This week, Bishop Loverde writes about the interior state of our hearts. He asks us:

“Are we losing our zeal, our willingness to stand out from the crowd, our ardor for the truth of the faith?” His column seeks to inspire us to examine our hearts, to truly embrace our faith once again this Advent season.

Consider taking a few moments to reflect on Advent and read the entirety of Bishop Loverde’s column here.

Illegal Immigration: A Catholic Perspective on Law, Policy and Pastoral Practice

By: Father Stephen F. McGraw, J.D., and Father Donald J. Planty, J.C.D.

Frs. McGraw and Planty provide a thorough look at the debate over illegal immigration in our country and how we can begin to grapple with the ethical questions involved. The rest of their article may be found by following the link at the end.

In the context of the debate over illegal immigration, most of us are by now familiar with the query, “What is it about ‘illegal’ that you don’t understand?”  This saying may be said to betoken a fair point, inasmuch as it is an arresting way of exposing the tendency to disregard the rule of law, perhaps in favor of sentimentalism, in the context of illegal immigration.  But at the same time this saying, if the truth be told, betrays an oversimplification that begs the question:  Is there something about “illegal”—about law and the violation of law, about how and when and why law binds us—that needs to be better understood, and might such a better understanding be of help in resolving this issue?

From a Catholic perspective, grappling with the ethical questions raised by the current debate over illegal immigration requires an honest scrutiny of the Church’s social teaching on this issue, the main lines of which are traced out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:  on the one hand, “[t]he more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin”; on the other hand, “[p]olitical authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2241).  There is then a summons to us, as individuals and as a nation, to human and Christian solidarity towards immigrants to our country, although the Catechism significantly notes that this obligation of solidarity is limited according to the extent that a nation is “able”—that is, what a nation is not reasonably able to do, consistent with the common good it is charged with promoting, it is not morally obliged to do.  Moreover, in furtherance of the common good, the right to immigrate may justly be made subject to various laws, and to these laws there corresponds a moral obligation of respect and obedience.  But the duty to uphold the rule of law, to be properly understood, requires an adequate context and the making of some critical distinctions, if we are ever to arrive at a proper resolution of this tension.

This essay doesnot pretend to cover the many aspects—social, political, economic—relating to the question of illegal immigration.  Nor even, although it is concerned with ethics, does it claim to exhaust all the ethical dimensions that bear on this question.  There is no intention to formulate specific policy proposals.  The aim is to provide, in the area of law and ethics, of pastoral practice, and of public policy, some clear principles and a foundation, upon which a reasoned discourse on this issue can be solidly based.

Read more here.