El hombre de Villa Tevere. Chapter XI

In Opus Dei St. Josemaria is called, from the very beginning as The Father. and this is not just a beautiful poetical or figurative way of doing so. This chapter is full of examples of why he was called the Father.

Being a very busy man, never felt it was a waste of time to spend a few minutes with his 'children'. Once a daughter of his asked him to draw a duck for her while she played the violin for him, just like that, in the middle of the corridor.

He was very attentive to the needs of people; while a son of his, Carlos, was reading, because of his work, very heavy stuff (theology, philosophy, etc), the Father suggested him he could read 'El Quijote de la Mancha' for his spiritual reading.

He would respect freedom but would help people to live with human tone. He saw an elderly fellow dressing like a youngster, thus he asked to be told delicately to improve his way of dressing to his age. Another fellow, a young man, who had long hair he told him he thought it was good for him: "una muestra de sinceridad" [a token of sincerity].

He had to correct when he had to, but always looking at that the person corrected was not hurt. A daughter of his who lost an important document had to be strongly (but tenderly) corrected by the Father. But later on, he made sure that she wasn't hurt. A few days or weeks afterwards, he called her to thank her for giving a class about the love and care for that kind of documents (el catecismo).

He did not like being a tyrant, thus, he would always ask "please" without giving strong orders, even for the minutest detail.

He was always with good humour, looking for ways to help people have a good time, enjoying the time he spent with his children and enjoying when they "cheated" him so as to spend more time with him. Once he told a fellow after looking into his watch to tell him after 5 minutes to stop the get-together. After 15 minutes he realized that that son had not told him, and the fellow reacted "that watch sometimes goes too fast, don't trust it" and he had a good laugh.

He would go out of his way not to loose anybody. For instance, one day he spent the whole day at a station with Don Alvaro, waiting for a lady of the Work from an Italian city who had decided to "run" away. When she saw him waiting for him, showing his love for his daughters, she decided to stay. And another time he was found crying because of a son of his who was about to loose his vocation because of not struggling far away from the "muros capitales de la fortaleza" [capital walls of the fortress].

HE REALLY WAS A FATHER.

Friday Fax appeal.....Help us stop Hillary Clinton and her global abortion plans...‏

Friday Fax sent on 28 April by Austin Ruse, telling of the atrocities which Hillary Clinton is going to do in her pro-abortion campaign. Not much time to summarize it, so I just copy-paste the message:

Only a few days ago Hillary Clinton appeared before the US House of Representatives and in sworn testimony said the following. Keep in mind, she promised all these things in her official capacity of US Secretary of State!

• Clinton praised Margaret Sanger, the racist and eugenicist founder of Planned Parenthood Federation. She compared Sanger to Thomas Jefferson!
• Clinton praised the UN Population Fund, the UN agency that helped set up and run the Chinese one child policy which is responsible for millions of forced abortions.
• Clinton said the US would ratify the pro-abortion CEDAW treaty, meaning the last meaningful CEDAW holdout will now fall.

These things are awful and dangerous enough but she also said this:

• The full force of the US government will be used to get governments to change their laws on abortion all over the world.

You likely know that the US has the most radical abortion laws in the world: abortion for any reason and no reason through all nine months of pregnancy. Hillary Clinton wants this for the entire world.

You likely know that most of the world has abortion either against the law or heavily regulated. Radical pro-abortion feminists like Hillary Clinton cannot stand this. They hold abortion to be a kind of secular sacrament, a sacrament that everyone must worship!

I know Hillary Clinton. My staff and I did battle with her throughout the 1990's when her husband occupied the Oval Office. I watched her work at Cairo+5, Beijing+5 and I can tell you first hand that Hillary Clinton is among the most radical pro-abortion advocates in the whole world.

I truly fear that with Hillary Clinton as US Secretary of State and with Barack Obama as President of the United States, and with their allies at the UN, we are in for the most wicked four years in our global battle to protect the unborn child from abortion.

Mr. Ruse says that they are the only ones reporting and fighting first-hand this issue. I hope they aren't. But whether they are or not, I hope they get all the support they require.

Lent: 40 Days, 40 Thoughts from the Pope

An article published at the Opus Dei web-site.

The article gives a series of 40 thoughts from the Pope in the last 4 years about lent.

Is hard to summarize that, but something that remains clear in my mind is that lent should be a time of fasting that helps us to get closer to God and to the people around us, family, friends, society.

Two points which talk about poverty and detachment:

16. We are not owners but rather administrators of the goods we possess: these, then, are not to be considered as our exclusive possession, but means through which the Lord calls each one of us to act as a steward of His providence for our neighbor. (2008)

17. In those countries whose population is majority Christian, the call to share is even more urgent, since their responsibility toward the many who suffer poverty and abandonment is even greater. To come to their aid is a duty of justice even prior to being an act of charity. (2008)

In an obese world, children obsessed with thinness

From the blog Family Edge

Author Carolyn Moynihan

Anorexia and eating disorders is highly increasing in kids 10-12 years old, both boys and girls.

They say the reason is because of the obsession in the media about the obesity problem. And they suggest that the outlook to it should be changed to a positive one, say "running around all day". Also the reality shows seem to be a cause for this.

But Carolyn adds:

There’s a deeper issue, though: a focus on the self that has been building for several decades and probably owes something to small families and over-solicitous parents who want to give their children everything -- except the opportunity to forget themselves and look after others.

The World is Flat. Chapters 5 to 9

Book Title: The World is Flat. A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
Author: Thomas L. Friedman
Edition: Published with updates 2006
First edition: 2005
Publisher: Penguin books

Section: America and the flat world

After he has given support to "prove" his hypothesis that the World has gone flat, Tom goes on to analyze what's the position and what should America do to thrive successfully in this new world.

America has all the qualities to thrive, including the edge of being the most powerful economy and the right kind of people to do so. However, America is in "crisis", a quite crisis which is not being noticed but which is making them loose ground to other economies.

The people who will succeed in this world are those he calls untouchables. they are people who are able to adapt themselves to new situations, to update themselves often and quickly, always improving and always looking for new edges, thus they are untouchable because they never become obsolete.

He gives the example of a lady, who even though she dropped College and never went back, she went on adapting herself, always seeking new things to learn so that, the moment her job became not needed any longer, she would be able to give a leap before falling into unemployment. Thus, she was a great adapter.

America's problem is that they aren't educating their people to be that untouchables which they require to be. Their system is not good because of lack of basics; because they have too many lawyers and too few engineers and mathematicians. is no tjust that of course, but certainly is a problem in education.

He ends by saying that "this is not a test". America is loosing ground and ahs to wake up soon to the reality and start working for it.

Mother Teresa, The Glorious Years. Chapter IX

Book title: Mother Teresa, The Glorious Years
Author: Edward Le Joly, S.J., 1989
Edition: 3rd print, 1998
Publisher: St. Paul's

"The Pope's Ambassadress-at-large"

As a woman in love with Jesush, she was deeply united to the Church, thus to the Pope. But for John Paul II, Mother became a trusted collaborator.

He used her (asked for her help, usually her presence and words):

for his campaigns, for peace, for prayer, for respect of the holiness of family, for the right of unborn child to life, for the union of all Christians, etc.

There was a great friendship between the two of them, due to their very close friendship with Jesus Christ. He called her to support his campaign to rekindle the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to Synod of bishops, to the Marian Year procession in Rome with him (first he had asked her to go be in Poland).

At Paray-le-Morial, where the devotion to the Sacred Heart started she told th pilgrims without mincing her words:

Let your purity be purse, lt your chastity be chaste, let your virginity be virgin, do nothing to sully your soul and your bodies that belong to the Lord. And when you marry, if you do, there is no more beautiful gift you can bring to your spouses than a body and mind that have remained pure and chaste.

Le Joly says:

She knows that the young like straight talk better than anything else.

What Obama has done so far. Friday Fax

Message through e-mail from Austin Ruse on 14 April 2009 from c-Fam.

Obama is the president which is most pro-abortion in history. He is doing a lot of harm to the unborn child. In just a few months:

• Restored US funding for the UN Population Fund, the UN's population control agency that helped set up and run the Chinese forced abortion program.
  
• Overturned the US ban on funding International Planned Parenthood Federation and the Center for Reproductive Rights, aggressive pro-abortion and anti-family groups that are deeply involved in forcing abortion on unwilling people all over the world, especially in Latin America.
  
• Obama's negotiators at the UN have already made aggressive pro-abortion and anti-family statements at the UN including signing a French declaration that seeks to make homosexuals a specially protected class at the expense of religious freedom.

After that, Mr. Ruse goes on to tell us about the big expenses in producing the Friday Fax and asking for help to continue doing it.

The Friday Fax now costs $177,000 per year to produce. This includes salaries, rent, expenses, printing of the hardcopy edition, and exploding email expenses.

A real lot of work which the Friday Fax team is doing. I do hope they get more support.