(Will be added to throughout the day as I clean out the emailbox. Michael the Baby is home today. He had a bad day yesterday – feverish, restless, sleepy..so he gets a "stay home day" today)

Heidi Hess Saxton has started a blog for writers who might be interested in writing for Canticle Magazine.

It’s all about the O! No, it’s all about the CO! Catholic Overstock.com

Not going quietly: The proposed move of Ave Maria School of Law and its problems:

By speaking of the move as a done deal, they may be getting ahead of themselves.

The law school received accreditation in 2005. Administrators will need to petition the American Bar Association for a transfer of accreditation.

Lee said officials from the American Bar Association are planning to visit the law school next month to investigate what he would only refer to as “governance issues.” The investigation could postpone or even strike the move, Doran said.

“It’s nice to talk about going to Florida, but if they pick up and go to Florida without accreditation, there will be some serious problems,” Doran said.

The Board of Governors commissioned a feasibility study last March to examine the possibility of a move to Florida. In October, professor Joseph Falvey was asked to give a report outlining the school’s financial situation if funds from the Ave Maria Foundation, consisting mostly of donations made by Monaghan, aren’t available to support the law school.

For life: You really should regularly check out the "From the trenches" feature at the California Catholic Daily – the stories of sidewalk counselers and pray-ers outside of abortion facilities in southern California. It is heartbreaking and sometimes…hopeful.

A homeless man stopped and prayed a Hail Mary with us on his way into the plasma clinic.

The 21-year-old mother in the military came down from the mill. I asked her if she decided what she was going to do. She hadn’t yet, but found out that she is 16 weeks along, not 12. “Even if I wanted to, they couldn’t do it today.” I offered to take her to Dr. Delgado on Monday, but she had to check her schedule on the ship. We looked at more pictures of babies and she accepted a Rosary as I encouraged her to pray it.

The Helpers prayer warriors had prayed the three-hour vigil and were now praying the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary about 10:15 when a teenage girl and her mother came down from the mill. They received information from one of the sidewalk counselors on their way in and had been inside FPA for about 20 minutes. The girl, in her late teens or early 20s, had tears streaming down her face. I asked her if she changed her mind, and she nodded yes, unable to speak. Her mother was behind her smiling. Then the girl, Vanessa, said, “I couldn’t go through with it.”

I gave her a baby blanket that my friend Ann and her mother make for the women who choose life. As the mother, Blanca, and I hugged, she said, “I was praying for her the whole time.” We referred them to Dr. Delgado at COLFS as the prayer warriors began a Divine Mercy Chaplet in thanksgiving. Vanessa could not stop crying, and I asked her mother if I could request prayers for them by name and she said, “Oh yes, please!”

Members of the Catholic Peace Fellowship will be traveling to Rome in March – here’s a page with the plans for their journey.

Vatican Radio recently interviewed CPF leadership – here’s the audio.

Rich Leonardi interviews the Vocations Director for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati at Catholic Exchange.

As we continue to pray, fast and give alms…don’t forget the list we compiled a couple of weeks ago of grassroots efforts to aid the poor and those in all kinds of need. As well as Aid to the Church in Need and Food for the Poor – linked over on the right.

I can’t remember if this particular group is linked in that post (because you know it would take so much time to just…look), or if it was in an email I’ve not yet mentioned, but check out The Hatian Project – begun by a single parish in Rhode Island, touching thousands of those most in need:

The Haitian Project was founded in the early 1980’s by St. Joseph’s parish in Providence, RI, to provide humanitarian aid and relief to the people of Haiti. Louverture Cleary School began as a response to one of the greatest needs of Haiti: education. Once a school with a handful of students and big dreams for the future, Louverture Cleary School has now grown to feed, house, and educate 350 bright and enthusiastic students from the poorest neighborhoods of Haiti.

In response to their free education, LCS students are active leaders in service to their community. Each day, students can be found cleaning their neighborhood, caring for sick and orphaned children and disabled adults, and challenging the notion that theirs is a country devoid of hope. LCS students receive a top-notch education – a tool that will help them as they seek to rebuild Haiti. The Haitian Project operates by a simple and powerful motto:

"What you receive as gift, you must give as gift." — Matthew 10:8

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