Visit from St Kentigern’s, Blackburn

Last week we had a group of thirteen students and two teachers from St Kentigern’s in Blackburn, West Lothian. The school has a very active pro-life group, and students have visited the Initiative in the past.

After a talk from Elain, our Education officer, they were given a tour of the building and then put to work…

 

Thank you to all of the students and to their teachers for a lovely day, and for all their support.

Thomas Joseph Cardinal Winning

Last week (while we were offline) marked the seventh anniversary of the death of Cardinal Thomas Winning, Archbishop of Glasgow and founder of the Pro-Life Initiative.

As our local ordinary, it was Cardinal Winning who endorsed the foundation of the Sisters of the Gospel of Life, and when he died on Father’s Day 2001, we lost a true and faithful friend.

This wonderful video was put together by Martin Ketterer of STV. The narration comes from an 1994 interview marking Archbishop Winning’s elevation to the College of Cardinals, making him only the second cardinal resident in Scotland since the Reformation.

 

Tiny Feet Friends: update

Thank you to all who’ve asked for information on the Tiny Feet Friends Project Pack.

Just to make things easier, if you’re interested all you have to do is email us your postal address. The pack contains lots of different ideas and resources which can be used as you feel appropriate with your children, and as this is a new scheme, we’re very eager for feedback so do let us know how you get on.

Tiny Feet Friends

A few months ago we received the following note:

Dear sisters,
We would like to join your convent but we’re only 5 and 7 years old. So can you send us some information to tell us how we can be sisters of the gospel of life at home? Thank you very much.
We will pray for you.
From Maria. Age 7. Margaret-Mary. Age 5.

For some time we’ve been thinking about a project aimed specifically at younger children. Most of our education work is focused on the high school-agegroup but we feel it’s increasingly important that children are made aware of pro-life issues at an earlier age in such a way that being pro-life becomes a natural part of who they are and how they view the world.

To this end we’re about to launch the ‘Tiny Feet Friends Project Pack’ for children of primary school age. The pack provides ideas and resources, helping each child to pray, to learn and to give.

Here’s an excerpt from the introduction:

Thank you for becoming a Tiny Feet Friend.

It’s great that you want to do something special to support our work with mums and babies who need special help to be born safely and happily.

As a Tiny Feet Friend, you will walk all the way in your prayers, in your heart, and in your actions with one very special unborn baby and its mum.

Every week for 40 weeks you will set aside a special time to pray for, think about, and support a pregnant mum and unborn baby in need.

The project involves the spiritual adoption of an expectant family, praying to Jesus that the family will be happy and loving, to Our Blessed Mother that the mother and child will be kept from all harm and to St Joseph that the baby’s father may have the strength and wisdom to be a good dad.

Each week the child will follow the development of the baby, relating it to the experiences of their own family and keeping a record of all that they learn. Each week as they pray and learn, they’ll raise money in different ways to support the work of the Initiative.

The pack contains all the resources, information and ideas needed to follow a spiritually adopted child from conception to birth. We’re assuming a fairly significant degree of adult support each week, and each parent or guardian is of course free to decide how much their child is ready to know and the level of detail they want to go into.

If you think that this is something your family, or a family you know, might be interested in getting involved in you can phone us on 0141 433 2680 or email us at gospeloflifesisters(at)googlemail(dot)com.

Thank you and God bless!

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09/07: Many thanks to Mac for publicising the scheme on her blog.

10/07: Thank you also to Fr Tim.

Deliveries

With many thanks to Anne who’s letter and parcel arrived today.

For a mother needing your help and encouragement, and a baby needing love.
With love from Anne

Thank you and God bless you!

Barbies!

We’ve received this letter in response to our Barbie post and felt that we just had to put it up…

Dear Sisters,

We saw on your website that you needed some Barbie clothes. We are not good enough to make them yet, but we are sending some of our Barbie clothes and we hope they will help.

We are glad that sister Andrea is well.

Love and prayers from Maria (age 7) and Margaret-Mary (age 5)

 

Thank you to both girls - that was an incredibly kind and generous thing to do. The clothes are lovely and some of the other little girls we help are going to love them. God bless you both!

Sponsor a Mum for a Month

One of the ways we help some of the women who come to us is to provide a small monthly cash allowance (usually between £60-£100) for the first two years of life, to help pay for things like nappies and toiletries, which are very expensive.

Raising money for this allowance would be a great way to get involved in the work of the Pro-Life Initiative. You or your group for example, could undertake to sponsor a particular mum for the whole or part of the period, or for a month as a one-off .

This would be a great activity for a pro-life group, a school or a parish, or as a sustained commitment for an individual looking to help us in our work. If you’re interested, get in touch and we’ll work out an individual plan to suit you or your group’s needs.

Thank you and God bless.