Pray with Me: Mega Novena

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Come, Holy Spirit,
send forth the heavenly
radiance of your light.

Come, father of the poor,
come giver of gifts,
come, light of the heart.

Greatest comforter,
sweet guest of the soul,
sweet consolation.

In labor, rest,
in heat, temperance,
in tears, solace.

O most blessed light,
fill the inmost heart
of your faithful.

Without your divine will,
there is nothing in man,
nothing is harmless.

Wash that which is unclean,
water that which is dry,
heal that which is wounded.

Bend that which is inflexible,
warm that which is chilled,
make right that which is wrong.

Give to your faithful,
who rely on you,
the sevenfold gifts.

Give reward to virtue,
give salvation at our passing on,
give eternal joy.
Amen. Alleluia.

Emergency Novena to the Infant Jesus of Prague

O Jesus, Who said, “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock
and it shall be opened to you,” through the intercession of Mary, Your most holy Mother,
I knock, I seek, I ask that my prayer be answered.

[List Requests]

O Jesus, Who said, “All that you ask of the Father in My Name He will grant you,”
through the intercession of Mary, Your most holy Mother,
I humbly and urgently ask Your Father in Your Name that my prayer be granted.
[List Requests]

O Jesus, Who said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My word shall not pass,”
through the intercession of Mary, Your most holy Mother,
I feel confident that my prayer will be granted.

[List Requests]

Novena Prayer to Mary, Undoer of Knots

O HOLY MARY, full of the presence of God, during your life you accepted with great humility the holy will of the Father, and the legacy of your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and evil never dared to entangle you with its confusion.

Since then, you hast interceded for all our difficulties as you didst at the wedding feast of Cana. With all simplicity and with patience, you hast given us an example of how to untangle the knots in our complicated lives. By being our Mother forever, you arrange and make clear the path that unites us to Our Lord.

HOLY MARY, Mother of God and ours, with your maternal heart, please untie the knots that upset our lives. We ask you to receive into your hands our finances, careers and housing, and deliver us from the chains and confusion that restrain us.

O BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, through your grace, your intercession, and by your example, deliver us from evil and untie the knots that keep us from being united to God, so that free of every confusion and error, we may find Him in all things, keep Him in our hearts, and serve Him always in our brothers and sisters.

O MARY, Undoer of Knots, pray for us who have recourse to you.

Amen.

Novena to St. Jude

May the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, loved in all tabernacles until the end of time. Amen.
May the most Sacred Heart of Jesus be praised and glorified now and forever. Amen.
St. Jude pray for us and hear our prayers. Amen
Blessed be the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Blessed be the immaculate Heart of Mary.
Blessed be Saint Jude in all the world and for all eternity. Amen.

Our Father
Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Amen

Hail Mary
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen

Prayer to St. Jude

O glorious Apostle, St. Jude, true relative of Jesus and Mary, I salute you through the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Through this heart I praise and thank God for all the graces He has bestowed upon you.

Humbly prostrate before you I implore you through the Heart to look down upon me with compassion. Despise not my poor prayer, let not my trust be confounded. To you God has granted the privilege of aiding mankind in the most desperate cases.

Oh come to my aid that I may praise the mercies of God. All my life I will be grateful to you, and will be your faithful client until I can Thank you in Heaven. Amen

Veni Creator Spiritus

Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest,
and in our hearts take up Thy rest;
come with Thy grace and heav’nly aid,
To fill the hearts which Thou hast made.

O Comforter, to Thee we cry,
Thou heav’nly gift of God most high,
Thou Fount of life, and Fire of love,
and sweet anointing from above.

O Finger of the hand divine,
the sevenfold gifts of grace are thine;
true promise of the Father thou,
who dost the tongue with power endow.

Thy light to every sense impart,
and shed thy love in every heart;
thine own unfailing might supply
to strengthen our infirmity.

Drive far away our ghostly foe,
and thine abiding peace bestow;
if thou be our preventing Guide,
no evil can our steps betide.

Praise we the Father and the Son
and Holy Spirit with them One;
and may the Son on us bestow
the gifts that from the Spirit flow.

Why Can’t Liberals at Least Respect Our Right to Protest?

In America, the land of the free, a great debate arose about the nature of freedom.  Was freedom the right to be morally excellent without constraint on one’s conscience?  Or was freedom the license to do whatever one wanted without *any* constraints?  Evangelical Christians decided it was the former and organized to fight against what they believed to be grave moral evils in society, hoping to use the law to limit some smaller freedoms in promoting the greater cause of moral freedom.  So they fought to outlaw things ranging from public indecency to a situation where they believed that human beings were deprived of legitimate personhood.  The latter situation was a multi-billion dollar industry that the entire economy had come to depend upon, and the evangelicals were in the minority.  People called them religious fanatics who were trying to force their morality on other people and establish a theocracy.  The evangelicals in turn argued that their opponents were forcing their immorality on Christians, and that they were just trying to protect the basic human rights of those being deprived of them.

This was the situation in America in the 1840s and 1850s, and the issue was slavery.

The other day, the Susan G. Komen Foundation announced that it will stop funding Planned Parenthood–temporarily.  The cessation is not because of pro-life pressure.  It’s not because Lila Rose showed PP is fraudulently taking money from Komen to provide “free mammograms” that it doesn’t actually provide or even refer to.  It *is* because Komen won’t fund organizations that are under investigation, and there are federal and state level investigations against Planned Parenthood inspired by Live Action’s work (and while I’m among those who questioned the ethicality of Lila Rose’s work, I never questioned its efficacy).

This has led to an uproar among the feminazis.  Interestingly, when it was, until a few days ago, pro-lifers who said, “We won’t fund Komen if our money is being passed on to Planned Parenthood,” we were horrible people who didn’t care about women’s health because we should put aside our petty concerns about abortion to support the more noble cause of fighting breast cancer.  Now that the shoe’s on the other foot, the same people are *still* accusing pro-lifers of not caring about women’s health, but they’re the ones saying they won’t give money to Komen.  And I never saw any pro-lifers attacking Komen per se, only its policy of supporting Planned Parenthood, but the pro-deathers are putting up Internet images of a “No” sign over the Komen logo, etc.  See the following example:

How about supporting all women equally by not getting into a controversial area that has nothing to do with breast cancer? (Except that abortion causes breast cancer, if you believe the majority of studies done on the subject, versus one exception that is touted by the Population Control establishment).  There are lots of places women can go for free health care, and Planned Parenthood doesn’t even provide free “health care”.  It provides abortions for profit, and its own reports show that that is 99% of its activity.

And, of course, the other big news in the pro-life community is the HHS mandate that all insurance companies, including religious employers, not only provide coverage for contraceptives and abortifacients but actually provide them for free.  The US Bishops are finally taking a stand, after sitting by while contraception was legalized, and sitting by while abortion was legalized, and sitting by while no fault divorce came out, and sitting by while IVF was invented, and sitting by while gays were allowed to adopt, and not speaking out against same sex marriage until after it was already allowed in several states–NOW they decide to take a stand in the Culture Wars other than “both parties are right in some respects and we don’t endorse politicians,” even while they actively endorse Democrats.

What really gets me in these situations is how people don’t respect our right to protest what we believe to be grave evils.

Liberal anti-war protestors throw fits at Ft. Benning and other places.  Liberal OWS protestors “occupy” poor people’s apartments.  PETA activists shut down Mepkin Abbey’s organic chicken farm because, they admit, they want it as a symbolic gesture to work towards banning all chicken husbandry.

All this is noble activists working for the common good, but when pro-lifers protest something, they’re horrible religious fanatics forcing their moral views on other people.

If pro-lifers compare abortion to slavery or the holocaust, we’re told that the comparison is offensive, that it’s violent political rhetoric, etc.

At least in the case of slavery, however, it’s an extremely valid comparison.  As  _Roe v. Wade_ notes, abortion was legal in the colonies and later  US until the mid-1800s.  It’s not so much that abortion was legal that matters, though; it’s why abortion became illegal.

The antebellum era, as noted, the situation was much the same as it is today.  Evangelicals were politically active, fighting evil on a variety of fronts, including trying to outlaw slavery, a practice where African Americans were being deprived of basic human rights, denied legal personhood, for the sake of the economy.

The abolitionists were unpopular in their day, a very vocal minority, who, again, were criticized for trying to force their morality on other people–nevermind that the slavers were forcing their “morality” or lack thereof on the slaves, nevermind that the slavers were forcing everyone to participate in an economy based upon slavery.  That situation, as far as the latter, was nowhere near as bad as abortion.  At least the slavers were arguing purely for their “freedom to own slaves”, states’ rights, etc.   The so-called “pro-choice” movement today is not merely arguing for the liberty to kill babies at will–they’re arguing to make it a right that we have to pay for with our tax money and our insurance money, and they’ve now achieved that end through President Obama, whom many Catholics and African Americans voted for because they thought, somehow, he was “pro-life”???–or at least they argued that he couldn’t be any worse on abortion than a lame Republican like McCain: yeah, right.

In terms of individual liberty, Abortion is now a worse threat than slavery was, because it’s no longer “just” about the personhood of the unborn babies; it’s not just about the conscience rights of medical practictioners; it’s about the conscience rights of every one of us who don’t want to pay for other people’s abortions.  The supposed advocates of “freedom” and “choice” don’t seem to care about that.

Again, what really irritates me is that the people who support PETA protestors and boycotts, the people who support anti-war protestors and boycotts, the people who support their *own* protests and boycotts, will not support *our* right to protest and boycott on issue we feel is of grave importance.  They accuse pro-lifers of not really believing in the cause we claim to believe in but rather having ulterior motives (such as oppression of women), which only casts doubt on their own commitments, if that’s what they think.  They accuse us of trying to force our morality on them even on a matter such as asking them *not* to force theirs on us.

I really wish they could just give us that much credit–but, again, that just proves their own hypocrisy.