Featured Saved Baby

featured baby

"Saved" Baby Theresa

(born in 2009)

Often young women who are pregnant and in High School worry about how they will ever graduate. Nalesha and proof that it can be done. When her family found out she was pregnant, she was told to leave. She found us on the Internet and the next thing you know she was living at our shelter in NJ, enrolled in school and the student who never got a grade higher than a C and was always skipping classes was getting straight A's. Now she has a beautiful daughter (Theresa), is in college in Manhattan and living back home with her very proud parents.

Mother in Hand

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Jesus
  • Make me a channel of your peace
  • Where there is hatred, let me bring Your love.
  • Where there is injury, Your pardon, Lord.
  • And where there is doubt, true faith in You.

  • Oh Master, Grant that I may never seek
  • So much to be consoled, as to console,
  • To be understood, as to understand,
  • To be loved, as to love with all my soul.

  • Make me a channel of Your peace,
  • Where there's despair in life, let me bring hope,
  • Where there is darkness, only light,
  • And where there is sadness, ever joy.

  • For it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
  • In giving of ourselves that we receive,
  • And in dying that we are born to eternal life.

  • Amen.

Dear Lifecall Members,

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi has a special meaning to our Founder,Kathy DiFiore, and our members because it parallels in many ways the philosophy of the work of the Several Sources Shelter. Recently one of our members asked if we would describe a bit about the life of St. Francis and we thought it might be helpful to include the following description:Francis Bernardone, the founder of the three Franciscan Orders, was born at Assisi, Italy in 1181.

His father was a wealthy merchant of the town. During a year's imprisonment at Perugia due to participation as a Knight in an unsuccessful campaign against that town, and again during a prolonged severe illness, Francis became aware of a vocation to a life of extraordinary service to the Church of Christ. Inspired by the scriptural passage in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25, verses 35 and 36. "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me."

Francis abandoned his affluent life and began to live a life of radical poverty. Disinherited by his father, Francis went penniless to wed "Lady Poverty" and to live a life that was poorer than the poor whom he served. His example soon drew followers to his way of life.

One day as he was praying in the church of St. Damian, outside the walls of Assisi, he seemed to hear a Voice coming from the Crucifix which said to him three times, "Francis, go and repair my house which is falling down." As time passed Francis learned that Jesus was asking him to rebuild His church by returning to the Gospel message and living the words of Christ's service to the poorest of the poor.

Tradition calls the above prayer, "The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi" since it summarizes his philosophy, although there is no proof that Francis actually wrote these exact words. He most certainly lived them each day of his life. And as such serves as an example of how we too, can serve the Lord Jesus through helping those most in need of our help... the preborn, innocent children of God, who are in danger of abortion. By 1219, over 5,000 Franciscans gathered at Assisi for the famed Chapter of Mats.

Worn out by his tremendous apostolic efforts, pained by the stigmata he had received in 1224, and blinded by eye disease, Francis died at sunset, October 3, 1226, while singing the eighth verse of Psalm 142: "Lead me forth from prison that I may give thanks to Your Name." Francis of Assisi has captured the heart and imagination of men of all religious persuasions by his love for God and man, as well as God's creatures, by his simplicity, directness, and single-mindedness, and by the lyrical aspects of his multifaceted life. St. Clare and St. Anthony were also his followers and friends. He was a man possessed of vast spiritual insights and power; a man whose all-consuming love for Christ and redeemed creation burst forth in everything he said and did.

We at Several Sources Shelter hope to live up to the ideals he has set and through sharing his philosophy of the Gospels, we hope to inspire others to action for the poorest of God's poor children in need today.

  • Your Sister in Christ Jesus,
  • Kathy DiFiore