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November 2, 2015

 
First I'd like to extend a big thank you to all the parishes who participated in the 40 Days for Life campaign that ended yesterday.  I know it was a challenging campaign with many of you having difficulty filling your adopted day.  But God rewarded your efforts with a record 33 lives saved!! Please be sure to join us this Thursday, November 5 for the Victory Celebration beginning at 7 p.m. at Dallas Children's Theater featuring the inspiring, and always entertaining New Wave Feminists, as well as Omar Aguilar with Latinos por la Vida.
 
As we begin November, we celebrate National Adoption Awareness Month. Adoption is a loving alternative for mothers who are not prepared to parent but willing to offer the incredible, priceless gift of a precious new life to another family. The CPLC encourages the option of adoption through our Project Gabriel ministry, blessed with the expert help of our Parenting Options Advisor Carolina Salazar, who has 25+ years of adoption counseling experience.
 
The annual  Christ Child Luncheon  will be held  on November 14 at the  DoubleTree Hotel in Richardson . If you haven't yet reserved your luncheon ticket, be sure to visit  prolifedallas.org/luncheon  to do so now. Our guest speaker will be Father Tom Cloherty, pastor of Prince of Peace Catholic Church. In addition to the luncheon, the CPLC hosts a Christmas Gift Market which is free and open to the public from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. (You don't have to attend the luncheon to shop the market.)  Please spread the word about this festive event, proceeds of which benefit the CPLC as well as the White Rose Women's Center and Birth Choice Counseling Center, and the soon-to-open maternity home Mater Filius. 
 
Saturday, November 7 is our next Parish Pro-Life Coordinators meeting , held in Rooms 211 and 212 at St. Monica, Dallas. The Knights of Columbus will have a wonderful breakfast for us beginning at 8:30 a.m. For the first time, our meeting will be completely bilingual, with one room presenting in English and the other in Spanish. This is being done to facilitate communications in our increasingly multi-cultural diocese.  We will also provide important information (including promotional materials) for the  January 2016 Roe Memorial Events  on January 16, 2016 with Bishop Farrell at the convention center in Dallas!  If you cannot be there, please send a representative from your parish.
 
In addition to these events, please be sure to mark your calendar for: 
Also this month, we celebrate the feast of St. Martin de Porres on November 3. St. Martin was the son of a freed woman of Panama and a Spanish grandee of Lima, Peru. His parents never married each other. Martin inherited the features and dark complexion of his mother. That irked his father, who refused to acknowledge his son for eight years. After the birth of a sister, the father abandoned the family. Martin was raised in poverty, locked into a low level of Lima's society.

"Father unknown" is the cold legal phrase sometimes used on baptismal records in these cases. "Half-breed" is the cruel name often inflicted by the public. Martin might have grown to be a bitter man in these circumstances, but even as a child he gave his heart and his goods to the poor and despised. When he was 12, his mother apprenticed him to a barber-surgeon. He learned how to cut hair and also how to draw blood, care for wounds and prepare and administer medicines.

After a few years in this medical apostolate, he applied to the Dominicans to be a "lay helper," not feeling himself worthy to be a religious brother. After nine years, the example of his prayer and penance, charity and humility led the community to request him to make full religious profession. Many of his nights were spent in prayer and penitential practices; his days were filled with nursing the sick and caring for the poor regardless of color, race or status. He was instrumental in founding an orphanage, took care of slaves brought from Africa and managed the daily alms of the priory with practicality as well as generosity. Side by side with his daily work in the kitchen, laundry and infirmary, Martin's life reflected God's extraordinary gifts. He became the procurator for both priory and city, and when his priory was in debt, he said, "I am only a poor mulatto. Sell me. I am the property of the order. Sell me."  

Racism is a sin almost nobody confesses. Like pollution, it is a "sin of the world" that is everybody's responsibility but apparently nobody's fault. One could hardly imagine a more fitting patron of Christian forgiveness (on the part of those discriminated against) and Christian justice (on the part of reformed racists) than Martin de Porres.   At Martin's canonization in 1962, Saint John XXIII remarked: "He excused the faults of others. He forgave the bitterest injuries, convinced that he deserved much severer punishments on account of his own sins. He tried with all his might to redeem the guilty; lovingly he comforted the sick; he provided food, clothing and medicine for the poor; he helped, as best he could, farm laborers and Negroes, as well as mulattoes, who were looked upon at that time as akin to slaves: thus he deserved to be called by the name the people gave him: 'Martin of Charity.'"

In these days of abortion on demand, I cannot help but wonder if there are any persons that are lost who could be saints. Let us remember to pray for them daily as we battle against the culture that has ensnared them and victimized so many.
 
Thanks for all you do for Life and God bless, 

David Carr
CPLC Director of Parish Coordination
Catholic Pro-Life Committee of North Texas | 972-267-LIFE (5433) | cplc@prolifedallas.org 
P.O. Box 803541, Dallas, TX 75380