_ On October 18 our parish hosted the annual diocesan White Mass, offered for doctors, nurses, and allied healthcare professionals. We offer the White Mass annually on St. Luke’s Day to honor our dear physicians and their assistants in the healing arts.

  After the Mass we were all invited to a banquet sponsored by the local chapter of the Catholic Medical Association. Dr. George Delgado, a physician from San Diego, spoke at the banquet. The discussion after his address turned to the question of the recent California law that mandates public schools to offer vaccinations for sexually-transmitted diseases without the parents’ knowledge or permission. A local pediatrician informed us that from the age of 12, upon her request, a girl must be informed by her doctor without her parents’ knowledge on various sexual topics, such as how to have sexual intercourse without getting pregnant or contracting sexual diseases. By law, the parents must be escorted out of the room when the physician discusses sexual issues with the girl. In other words, the state and the physician have more authority than a 12-year-old girl’s own parents when it comes to sex. The pediatrician who related this to us was not at all happy about this law.

   A grandmother recently told me that she brought her 12-year-old granddaughter to see her doctor about irregular cycles. The physician tried to make the grandmother leave, but grandma insisted on staying. The physician then tried to prescribe hormonal contraceptives for the girl. The physician was only following the law of this state.

   Did you know that the hormonal contraceptive that our state routinely prescribes for girls was declared a Group One Carcinogen by the World Health Organization in 2005? The Group 1 classification is the highest classification of a cancer-causing substance, used only “when there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in humans.” Why don’t we know about this in the United States? Why are school physicians prescribing a Group One carcinogen to pre-teens? If you are a parent, I beg you to look into this, for the sake of your children.

_ Tomorrow is All Hallows Eve (Halloween), and the Day after that is All Hallows itself (All Saints), and the Day after that is All Souls (the Day of the Dead). Where did all these  Festivals come from, and what do they mean to us?

   Halloween, of course, means the eve of All Hallows/All Saints Day, and the feast of All Saints goes back to the year 740 AD in Rome. Liturgically, we will solemnly celebrate “All Hallows Eve” with a Vigil Mass on Tuesday evening at 5:45pm. Isn’t it ironic that a celebration of eternal light and perfect happiness, a celebration of all the saints in heaven, became a celebration of darkness, horror, death, gore, and evil? The modern Festival of “Halloween” indeed celebrates “life after death,” only it focuses on Hell rather than Heaven. We must lend all our energies to reaching Heaven, but never forget the reality of Hell.

   Hell is a very real possibility for any of us, and this I think drives our annual obsession with “Halloween.” The only reason to fear death is the possibility of going to Hell. If we simply ceased to exist after death, or if we all went to heaven, no one would fear death. But if we might possibly endure a form of living death after we expire, then we have good reason to fear death.

   Jesus promises that those who believe in Him will not go to Hell (John 11:26). But what of us who die believing in God, yet still need to expiate our earthly sins? For that, God has given us the gift of Purgatory, where we are given the time and grace to completely cast off our sinful habits. The Bible has many examples of sinners who were forgiven, but still had to expiate their sins, such as King David after he had been forgiven his sin with Bathsheba. We should always pray for the dead, and offer some sacrifices that they may quickly pass through Purgatory. November is an entire month dedicated to prayers and offerings for the holy souls in Purgatory. I encourage you to make an offering in the All Souls envelopes, fill out the back, and return it in the offertory. I always make an offering and write in all the names of my deceased relatives. These names will be kept at the foot of our altar all month. Writing them on the envelope, and making an offering, remind me to pray for them no less than I pray for those of us still living!

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