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New reports are showing that the number of children seeking help for gender identity problems has been rising steadily.

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Just hours before being elevated to Cardinal, New York's Archbishop Timothy Dolan addressed the College of Cardinals and offered seven pointers on evangelization for reflection.

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“Only the joy that stands the test of pain and is stronger than afflictions is authentic.”

                                Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)

For Reflection:             

Consider the paradox of joy and pain co-existing. What joy might Mary have been experiencing at the foot of the Cross even in the midst of her great suffering? How might this joy help her to stand there? Recall a time when you were experiencing a suffering marked with an underlying joy. How did it help you to stand there – actually or metaphorically? Can you identify the joy in her current sorrow – what is it? How does it help you to stand?

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“When the hour came the disciples fled, but Mary remained at the foot of the Cross, near her Son, she was prepared, she was ready for anything, even this.”

                                                                       Federico Suarez

For Reflection:                            In light of Matthew 7:14, how did the narrow way prepare Mary for Golgotha? How has each contradiction and sorrow of your life prepared you for the next? With supernatural outlook, see how these sufferings and difficulties have formed the path of your own Via Dolorosa. Giving your fiat at the foot of this, your cross, unite them to the Cross of Our Lord. Journal your insights.

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“To drink the chalice with the Lord (Mt. 20:21) means dying to one’s natural self – both in the sensitive and in the spiritual part. Only in this way can one enter the narrow way.”

                                                     St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

                                                                                    (Edith Stein)

For Reflection:              Recall again that Scripture and Tradition tell us that Mary stood at the foot of the Cross. What is the significance of this stance and what does it indicate about Mary? How was this a “dying to one’s natural self,” in the sense and emotions as well as in the spirit? Read Matthew 7:14. Mary’s fiat gained was her gate to the narrow way, a way she followed all her life. What is your current sorrow? How can it be a narrow way for you?

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The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) issued a powerful statement today listing its objections to the imposition of the HHS mandate on religious employers, saying the president actually made no "accommodation" at all to the mandate last Friday, nor is there any truth to oft-repeated claims that "a number of states" already have such mandates in place.

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In spite of media claims that a majority of Americans support President Obama's new HHS mandate "accommodation," some their own polls show that public sentiment is against the intrusive law.

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Father Denis Wilde, OSA, associate director of Priests for Life, was among six people arrested yesterday while peacefully protesting the HHS mandate outside the White House.

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                                        Mother!

In a garden Mary stood when Springtime’s radiant beauty Wrapped the world in sunlight and filled her heart with joy. Down the garden-path there ran a slender little Figure Bringing her a gift of love - He, her God, her Boy! Mary opened wide her arms to take her sheaf of lilies: "Mother!" called her little Son, and never had she heard In the angel’s message, in brooklet, or in bird-song, Music half so lovely as that one tender word.

On a hill-top Mary stood one sadder, later Springtime. All the earth was wrapped in gloom beneath that blood-stained Cross; Memories thronged about her, memories of His Childhood, Adding to her loneliness, her pain, her sense of loss. Mary opened wide her arms but His were nailed securely "Mother!" breathed her dying Son, and never had she heard In her sword-pierced heart that knew the very depths of sorrow Anything approaching the pathos of that word.

"Mother! Mother Mary!" a million hearts are calling, "Open wide again those arms, and in their warm embrace, Take the children Jesus gave you on that darkened hill-top When He named you Mother of the sin-stained human race."

Sr. Maryanna. Robert, Cyril. Our Lady’s Praise in Poetry. Poughkeepsie, New York: Marist Press, 1944. From the Mary Pages, University of Dayton.

For Reflection:              Today’s poem gives one person’s reflections on what Mary could have been thinking and feeling as she watched her Son die. What aspect of this poem helps you to enter most deeply into Mary’s fifth dolor? Why do you think it touches you so.  Prayerfully read St. John’s account of the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus (19:16-30). Stand beneath the cross with Our Lady. What are you thinking and experiencing in that moment? How do you show solidarity with Our Lady? She with you? What suffering of your own life do you seek to unite to hers?

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A February 15 publication of the Catholic Health Association's Catholic World Health carried an article from Sr. Carol Keehan expressing profound disappointment upon learning that the definition of a religious employer was not broadened to include her hospitals.

Unfortunately, we have learned that this letter was written prior to the announcement of President Obama's "accommodation." Apparently,  the print version of the CHA publication "didn't get the memo" that Sr. Keehan had changed her mind and was now backing the mandate.

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