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.

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.

…some excess baby items that we’d be happy to give to a good home (we’re having some storage issues at the moment). These are: 2x baby carriers, 4x baby walkers, 3x door swings, also several toilet traing seats, potties, booster seats (for sitting at the dinner table) and bath seats.

If you’re in the Glasgow area and interested or know someone who might be, get in touch on 0141 433 2680.

Thank you and God bless.

UPDATE 26/06/08: All items are now gone.

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.

Many, many thanks to Colin for all his technical assistance.

Apologies for the somewhat intermittent nature of recent posting, we’re having some technical difficulties which will hopefully be resolved soon.

In the mean time here’s a link to the recently uploaded ‘Seven Last Words’ meditations fromGood Friday at  St Mungo’s in Townhead.  Sr Andrea joined members of the Passionist community, giving the reflection on “Today you will be with me in Paradise”. You can hear all of the meditations here, courtesy of Sermo Crucis.

A brief piece featuring Sr Andrea appeared in the Observer a few weeks ago, amid discussion of the HFE bill. Sr Andrea gives the ‘religious view’ as part of a larger collection that included the ‘medical view’ and first hand, if generally fairly one-sided, testimonies from women who’ve had abortions.

Sr Andrea’s part is pretty good, though the opening line “Sister Andrea Fraile devotes her life to persuading pregnant women not to have an abortion…” is perhaps not how we would have chosen to phrase it, but on the whole it’s a bit more balanced, a rather more accurate than most of the media coverage we receive.

You can read the whole article here.

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.

Some time ago, we (along with half the world it seems) signed up as something as an experiment. Unfortunately that experiment has come to an end.

This is not an ideological statement - we’re just not very good at this Facebook business, and as we don’t really spend that much time online, we don’t check it very often. This isn’t fair to those who attempt to contact us, so we’ve decided to return to more familiar means of communication.

Thank you to all who added us as friends and do keep in touch - the Initiative’s Facebook group will remain active and we’ll still be updating the blog (hopefully a bit more regularly!) so keep watching. If you want to get in touch it can be done either through this blog or using the contact details in the sidebar.

We told you some time ago about Nicola, a young woman facing extremely difficult circumstances and family pressure to abort her unborn child. We’re thrilled to let you know that Nicola is determined to have her child and her pregnancy is progressing well. She’s still having problems with her family so do please keep up the prayers.

Furthermore, please pray for C. and P., neither of whom wish to be identified, both seriously considering abortion. As ever we’ll keep you updated if and when this is possible.

Thank you and God bless!