Monday, March 9, 2009

Pro-life Attitudes

A Story for Lent
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A worried woman went to her gynecologist and said:
'Doctor, I have a serious problem and desperately need your help!
My baby is not even a year old and I'm pregnant again.
I don't want kids so close together.' So the doctor said: 'Ok, and what do you want me to do?'
She said: 'I want you to end my pregnancy, and I'm counting on your help with this.'
The doctor thought for a little while, and after some silence he said to the lady:
'I think I have a better solution for your problem. It's less dangerous for you too.'
She smiled, thinking that the doctor was going to accept her request.
Then he continued: 'You see, in order for you not to have to take care of 2 babies at the same time, let's kill the one in your arms. This way, you could rest some time before the other one is born. If we're going to kill one of them, it doesn't matter which one it is. There would be no risk for your body, if you chose the one in your arms. The lady was horrified and said: 'No doctor! How terrible! It's a crime to kill a child! 'I agree', the doctor replied, 'But you seemed to be ok with it, so I thought maybe that was the best solution.The doctor smiled, realizing that he had made his point. He convinced the mom that there is no difference in killing a child that's already been born and one that's still in the womb. The crime is the same!
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Reflection: Allow the story to reflect in you...
This story will have any number of applications in our personal life-situations... The story, then, works as a symbol...
It is an instrument, a starting point, that helps us to look into ourselves and discover our own life-denying patterns of thought and actions... Mirroring the story in our personal life enables us to see our life as it is
and take some pro-life decisions...
Whether it's through health, relationships, study or work, daily life can be an opportunity
to explore meaning and wholeness. Daily life can also be a constant turning around the same loop of habits, wounds, beliefs, feelings, life-destroying patterns of thought that are repeated in everyday interactions, decisions and projects.
The process of learning how to choose the ways in which we make an option for whatever protects and sustains life can lead us into a developing consciousness of what we are and what we are called upon to become.
The human person is blessed with the immense possibility of combining the practical with the spiritual to help her/him to learn as to what is happening in mental, emotional, physical and spiritual levels.
Through attentive listening to and re-framing personal processes, we can create an atmosphere where we can begin identifying patterns that inhibit growth in our lives. We can develop awareness of our everyday experiences.
Each experience is an opportunity to discern, practice and learn. In this process we are not alone. It is here that personal prayer understood as an interpersonal relationship of love and life can come to our help.
The Spirit of God is there ever ready to intervene and just waiting for our “FIAT”, “YES”. Discovering our own way to developing methods of tapping and entering into authenticity and inner authority becomes a common enterprise that is marked by the three dimensional relationship between God, the human persons and the rest of the universe.
RECONCILIATION -> HEALING -> WHOLENESS
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