More than 600 individuals visited the "How Do I Decide?" online Catholic voter aid prior to the Primary Election on February 5, 2008.  For those who used it, the OSM staff hopes the online aid was useful in preparing for the election. 

The OSM will revise the voter aid and make it available online at www.osmelink.org/vote prior to both the June 2008 Primary Election and the November 2008 General Election.  

The OSM will also make a paper version of the aid available for purchase by parishes and other institutions prior to the November 2008 General Election.  The paper version should be ready by mid-September.  Watch for links to an online order form for the paper version in the mid-summer e-link bulletins.

As always, we remind current members and inform new members that past e-link bulletins and this current bulletin can be viewed at www.osmelink.org.

God Bless!

Tuesday, February 26, 2008   OSM e-link Bulletin #65

Table of Contents 

Remarks  a Meditation by Auxiliary Bishop Salvatore Cordileone - given at the Eucharistic Adoration on the Occasion of the Visit of the Pilgrim Statue of Our Lady of Fatima on January 20, 2008 at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in San Diego, CA 
 

Key Upcoming Culture-of-Life Gatherings/Projects (please join us)

     1. "Get acquainted with Detention Ministry" Information and Training
          Seminars - Wednesday, March 5, 9:00 a.m. to Noon or Monday,
          March 10, 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Pastoral Center

     2.  Two Lectures on Catholic Social Thought and Environmental
             Sustainability by Professor John Hart of Boston University on 
          Thursday, February 28, at the University of San Diego at 12:15 p.m.
           and at 7:00 p.m.  --  Second Notice

     3.  Fourth Annual Good Friday Pro-life Stations of the Cross, Friday, 
          March 21, Noon to 1:30 p.m. starting at St. Joseph Cathedral -
          participants will meet on 4th Ave. and Beech St. on the East side
          of the Cathedral - procession is to Horton Plaza and back to Cathedral

     4.  17th annual Good Friday Walk with the Suffering in Downtown San Diego
          on March 21, starting at the San Diego Rescue Mission on Elm Street and
          Second Avenue - from 8:30 a.m. to about 11:00 a.m.

     5.  Special meeting for all active Catholic "Voices for Children" volunteers to
          discuss recruitment strategies involving volunteers' parishes -- to be 
          held on Monday, March 3, 2008, at 7:00 p.m. at the Pastoral Center

       6.  National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) "NAMIWALK" set for
          Saturday, April 19, 2008 at Balboa Park - Registration opens at 6:30 a.m. - 
          Walk begins at 8:30 a.m.  Join with Diocesan Disability Facilitators
          to raise awareness, hope, and resources for NAMI San Diego

      7.  The USD School of Leadership and Education Sciences to host lecture, 
           "Not on Our Watch: Citizen Action in Confronting Crimes Against
              Humanity" by John Prendergast, author and Scholar in Residence at USD's
           School of Peace Studies, on Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 3:00 p.m. to
           5:00 p.m. in Hill Hall, executive classroom MRH-102  --  RSVP required

       8.  San Diego Organizing Project to hold Year of Our Youth Sunday on
            March 9, 2008 at 3:00 p.m. at St. Jude Shrine of the West - come
            make a commitment to serve the youth of San Diego County 

       9.  Laugh your Way to a Better Marriage series, sponsored by the OSM
            and Rachel's Hope, to start on Friday, March 28, 2008 and runs through
            Friday, May 2nd - spend six weeks improving your marriage with laughter -
            meetings start at 7:00 p.m. and will be held at the Diocesan Pastoral
            Center, 3888 Paducah Drive in San Diego



Short Reports on Office for Social Ministry Related Issues/Events

    1. Catholics filled St. Joseph Cathedral and processed for life on January 20,
        2008 -- the group was led by Auxiliary Bishop Salvatore Cordileone

    2. Successful 35th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade Candlelight Prayer Vigil held
        on January 22, 2008 on North Harbor Drive in San Diego

    3. New billboard directed to families experiencing crisis pregnancies at SDSU
 

Web and e-mail-based Resources

     - Visit Life Perspectives' new web site, www.abortionchangesyou.com, designed
        for anyone who has been affected by an abortion decision and feels the need
        to explore feelings and begin eliminating barriers to living a full life - please
        share this important tool with anyone who may find it helpful
 

Local and Regional Events/Gatherings/Projects

     1. Attend the San Diego Friends of Fair Trade meeting on Wednesday,
         March 12, at 7:00 p.m. at the Open Door Book Store in Pacific Beach     

     2.  North County prayer witness at the Carlsbad Planned Parenthood Clinic
          scheduled for every third Monday of the month from 10:00 to 10:30 a.m.

     3. Prayerful witness for life at two locations in San Diego County - every
         Saturday at 7340 Miramar Road, directly above Metro Flooring in the complex
         with the Pyramid Building, adjacent to Carroll Road and the second Saturday
         of every month at 15546 Pomerado Road in Poway

Article/Statement for February 26, 2008

     - Essay by Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, The Place of Religion in Public Life

Remarks from Bishop Salvatore Cordileone 

This meditation was offered at the Eucharistic Adoration on the Occasion of the Visit of the Pilgrim Statue of Our Lady of Fatima by the Most Rev. Salvatore Cordileone, Auxiliary Bishop of San Diego

January 20, 2008

The LORD tells us through his prophet Moses: “Here, then, I have today set before you life and prosperity, death and doom.  If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving Him, and walking in His ways, and keeping His commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.  If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen, but are led astray and adore and serve other gods, I tell you now that you will certainly perish; you will not have a long life on the land which you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.  I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding His voice, and holding fast to Him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land which the LORD swore He would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

Dear Lady, Mother of our Savior and our Mother: we thank you for choosing life, and for choosing to serve the God and Creator of all life, the one, true God whom you bore in your womb.  The Eternal, All-powerful and All-holy One took on the weakness and corruptibility of our human flesh, and the mystery of that flesh you carried within your own flesh, so that, in his flesh, he might die, nailing our sins to the cross, and he might rise incorruptible to hold out to us the path to holiness and the promise of incorruptibility.

Oh most blessed Virgin, please intercede to your Son for us, that he may forgive us, our entire nation, of the sins and crimes we have committed against the sanctity of human life, especially in these last 35 years.  He came to sanctify our flesh, to ennoble our human nature, and how have we responded?  Have we obeyed the commandments of the LORD, our God, which He has enjoined on us, loving Him, and walking in His ways, and keeping His commandments, statutes and decrees?  Have we treated the least of our brothers and sisters with the dignity with which your Son has endowed us, cherishing and welcoming them as you did your divine Son?  Or rather, have we not turned away our hearts from Him and closed our ears, to be led astray to adore and serve other gods, strange gods who make strange promises, who induce us to sacrifice the most vulnerable in our midst on the altars of greed, expediency and self-indulgence?

And not only this.  Immaculate Virgin, even in your sinless state you knew the embarrassment and pain of bringing a life into this world which you did not anticipate.  Be present now to all of those new mothers, carrying new life within them, who feel frightened, alone and desperate.  Cast upon them the light of your Son, that they may find the path that leads out of the darkness which envelopes them, that they may be given the support they need to make the choice which will bring them happiness and peace.  Holy mother, so many of your sisters feel trapped in a darkness which seems to never end because of the life they once bore within them and is no more.  These are your sisters who have been subject to the deepest and most violent transgression of their feminine dignity.  Lead them to your Son, in whom they will find forgiveness, healing, reconciliation and welcome back into the arms of their loving eternal Father.

The toll of human suffering, the unspeakable carnage that shames us, is a weight too heavy for us to bear.  And yet, we rejoice, we rejoice because your Son took all of our sin, all of our shame, guilt and disgrace upon himself.   He told us, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” and he lived these words in the flesh which he took from you, loving Mother.  And he invites us to do the same: “you are my friends, if you do what I command you.”  What greater hope, what deeper joy can we have than to be his friends, to lay down our lives for him?  In the midst of the suffering of this world, he paves for us the way to salvation, the way to be happy with him forever.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.”  Thus spoke the LORD to His prophet Jeremiah, calling him to his sublime vocation.  Dear Mother, may you, along with your most chaste spouse, St. Joseph, Patron Saint of your Son’s Church and of a happy death, intercede for us, that we, whom the LORD knew and called from the moment of our conception in our mother’s womb to be happy with Him forever, might be His prophets in the world of this time and place, messengers of His light, peace, healing and joy.  May He help our nation to be a people that chooses life that we may live; may He help our nation to be a beacon to all the world, a beacon of the Good News that to love Him, the LORD, our God, to heed His voice and hold fast to Him means life, not simply a long life in this world, but life eternal in the world to come, in his Kingdom where, in communion with all the saints, we will behold, face-to-face, the glory of the one, true God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Who lives and reigns forever and ever. 

Amen.