What a great story! It just goes to show – God can use ANYONE – if we only LET Him! If we only open our hearts to grace, and just LISTEN!


Speedskater Races Towards Grace


VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Twelve years ago at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, a 17-year-old speedskating prodigy named Kirstin Holum was tapped for future greatness.


When Holum placed sixth in the 3,000 meters – one of the most grueling disciplines in the women’s program, a lung-scraping four-minute bust of lactic acid torture – speedskating insiders predicted a golden future and speculated she may not even reach her peak for another decade.


Like many of the longer distances, the 3,000 is regularly dominated by older athletes, as it can take years to build up the requisite reserves of aerobic capacity and deep-tissue resilience. At Nagano, 32-year-old Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann of Germany claimed the gold.

Holum was born into speedskating royalty. Her mother Dianne was a world-class speedskater who won Olympic gold in 1972 and reached even greater heights as a coach, mentoring the legendary Eric Heiden to his clean sweep at Lake Placid in 1980.

Despite an ongoing battle with exercise-induced asthma, Holum was a champion waiting to happen. Instead, Nagano would signal the final time she would pull on a pair of skates with competitive intent.

From that point on, her life began an entirely different journey.

“Speedskating was such a huge part of my life,” Holumn said in a telephone interview with Yahoo! Sports. “I still loved the sport, but I had this incredibly strong calling that it was time to move on and take a different path in life.”

There is no television and no internet at St. Joseph’s Convent in Leeds, England, meaning Holum won’t get to watch the Winter Olympics where she was supposed to become a star.

The peaceful surrounds of the convent is where Holum, now known as Sister Catherine, devotes her life to religious service as a Franciscan nun.

That calling had begun on a trip to Our Lady of Fatima, a holy site in Portugal famed for a series of religious visions that appeared nearly a century ago. It was outside the Fatima basilica where Holum decided that a path of religious dedication, not frozen skating lanes, would be her destiny.

“It is funny now to think of how different my life is now,” she said. “I had the wonderful privilege of being able to compete as an Olympian, and now I am blessed to able to serve God and help those less fortunate.”

After completing an art degree, including a thesis on the Olympics at the Art Institute of Chicago, Holum joined the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal, a faith whose mission is “work with the poor and homeless and evangelization.”

Read the rest here:  U.S. speedskater took leap of faith

This is Matt Abbot's latest column. Please copy it and send it to all your
prolife friends. If this is happening in Chicago and Albany, then it's
coming soon to a PP death-mill near you. And take note of what Scheidler
says - a couple of things, actually - the police are NOT reading the
ordinances - they are clearly annoyed, frustrated, and not paying
attention - to them these are nuisance calls - they don't want to come out
and deal with this "nonsense" - so they will NOT deal kindly with anyone
"violating" such ordinances - and they are not actually reading the
ordinances very carefully. And they ARE taking sides. Be aware. Arm yourself
with rosaries, prayer, and copies of the actual ordinances in your area.

=========================================

'Bubble' trouble: Planned Parenthood called S.W.A.T. team on pro-lifers

By Matt C. Abbott

From Joe Scheidler, national director of the Pro-Life Action League:

http://prolifeaction.org/contact.php

'It's been three months since the City of Chicago began enforcing the
hideous new 'Bubble Zone' law, and we're really taking a beating.

'Since the first day it took effect, the police have demonstrated profound
confusion about the law, and their orders and threats have been
unpredictable. My sidewalk counselors never know what they're going to hear
next.

'One Saturday, Planned Parenthood even called out the S.W.A.T. Team to
confront the peaceful pro-life sidewalk counselors at their north side
abortion mill — including a mother counseling with her five-year-old
daughter in her arms.

'I've really got my hands full dealing with the Chicago Bubble Zone. I've
been training my sidewalk counselors how to keep saving babies under the new
restrictions, working with my attorneys to build a strong case against the
Bubble Zone and handling crisis after crisis out on the street.

'And now I've learned that the City Council in Rockford, Illinois — 90 miles
west of Chicago — is considering following Chicago's example and enacting a
Bubble Zone of its own.

'The first problem recorded with the new Bubble Zone occurred the first week
the Bubble Zone was in effect. It happened to my wife, Ann, at Albany
Medical-Surgical Center, only a mile from my office.

'Ann was sidewalk counseling near the entrance at Albany, when the clinic
administrator, Diana Lamon, came out to tell her that she was violating the
Bubble Zone. Lamon insisted Ann had to stand at least fifty feet away from
the clinic.

'Wrong. What the Bubble Zone law actually says is that anyone trying to
counsel within fifty feet of a medical facility has to get permission to
approach closer than eight feet. It says nothing about how close you can
stand to the entrance.

'But part of the purpose of this law, from the pro-aborts' perspective, was
to cause confusion. It's a confusing law, with its eight-foot bubble inside
of a fifty-foot bubble. So Lamon decided to try spreading the confusion to
the police.

'Three squad cars soon arrived at Albany, and three police officers headed
into the clinic. Ten minutes later, they came out, and one of them
approached Ann holding a copy of the ordinance. He pointed to the phrase
'within fifty feet of the entrance' and told Ann she had to move way down
the block.

'Ann was unable to convince the officer he was mistaken about the law. She
couldn't even get him to read the entire sentence he was pointing to! She
had no choice but to obey his false interpretation of the law.

'But of course, Ann wasn't going to leave it at that. After her counseling
stint, she contacted the city attorney who had drafted the ordinance — who
verified Ann's reading of the law — and then faxed a copy of the ordinance
and the correct interpretation of it to every police station in Chicago
located near an abortion clinic.

'Since then, thankfully, none of the counselors at Albany have had any
problems. But it's another story at Planned Parenthood, as I'll tell you
below.

'I knew right from the start that the true purpose of the Bubble Zone was to
give the clinic escorts — the 'Deathscorts' — at Planned Parenthood a tool
for harassing the strong pro-life presence there every Saturday morning,
their main abortion day. Our sidewalk counselors have been saving a lot of
babies, and it's been driving the Deathscorts crazy.

'Now they've got this confusing new law on the books, and they're having a
field day with it.

'The first Saturday under the Bubble Zone law, a police officer told the
sidewalk counselors outside Planned Parenthood they 'could not approach or
even stand within eight feet of a woman' and that no signs could be placed
within fifty feet of the door. When the pro-lifers tried to explain what the
ordinance really says, the police officer said if he had to go back to
the station to get a copy of it, he would arrest any of the pro-lifers still
at the clinic when he returned!

'Eventually the pro-lifers convinced the police to let them stand fifteen
feet away from the clinic entrance, though the number fifteen isn't anywhere
in the ordinance.

'Since then, the police keep changing their interpretation of the Bubble
Zone from week to week. Here are just a few examples of the rules they come
up with on the spot:

* Police have forbidden [would 'tried to forbid' be better?] pro-lifers
to display graphic abortion signs on the sidewalk outside Planned
Parenthood, declaring that the signs cannot touch the sidewalk because it is
public property.

* Police have told sidewalk counselors they cannot speak to anyone
entering the clinic unless that person first asks them for information.
Desperate, abortion-bound mothers are somehow supposed to know some of the
people standing on the sidewalk outside Planned Parenthood happen to be
pro-life counselors!

* Police have insisted that pro-lifers cannot stand within eight feet of
the door of the clinic — as if the door has been granted a special bubble
all its own.

* One police officer, right after claiming he's only enforcing the law
with strict neutrality, told a pro-lifer that 'you all are here to harass
women, and this clinic is here to help them.'

* As I mentioned above, one Saturday, they even called out the S.W.A.T.
team! The peaceful sidewalk counselors — including a mom counseling with her
five-year-old daughter in her arms — were confronted by an armored squadron!

'As soon as I realized that the Planned Parenthood abortion mill on
Chicago's near north side was going to be the Bubble Zone hot spot, I
dispatched my staff member Corrina Gura to monitor the situation on the
ground.

'Every Saturday, Corrina has been going out to Planned Parenthood equipped
with a video camera to record the arbitrary and confused directives coming
from police. Every Monday she reports back to me and my attorneys with the
latest developments.

'With Corrina's help, my attorneys and I are putting together a strong case
against the Chicago Bubble Zone. In fact, all this outrageous behavior from
the police should end up helping to get the law struck down.

'As it's written, the Chicago law conforms to the Supreme Court's dubious
ruling upholding such free speech zones. But the way it's being enforced is
beyond the pale.

'What's more, I think we have a real shot at knocking down all the other
Bubble Zone laws out there in other U.S. cities. The makeup of the Supreme
Court has changed since they ruled that some Bubble Zones are okay. And now
the first-rate legal team from NOW v. Scheidler is on the case.'