Most municipalities have a center that cares for and works to help pregnant women – especially women facing crisis pregnancies. We pray for them all, and today, in this podcast and blog, we especially honor MAGGIE’S PLACE. It’s an idea which was born out of Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. And on this podcast, we introduce our listeners to Mary Peterson, co-founder and Executive Director of Maggie’s Place (MP). 
MP was started in the year 2000, and has recently celebrated another milestone: over 500 women have been helped. Each of them, regardless of faith has been welcomed into the loving environment of a home — a place where no one criticizes past mistakes. MP invites the moms-to-be to become a member of a new family and to start over. Babies (and mothers) are ‘born again’ in love.
Maggie’s Place has grown from a single location in the Phoenix valley into multiple homes, and has now branched out into another state, with possibly more locations in the near future. And how does MP describe their mission?
“Maggie’s Place provides for the immediate physical and emotional needs of the mothers including shelter, food, clothing, and a supportive community. In addition, Maggie’s Place connects the mothers to the appropriate agencies and resources including prenatal care, health insurance, low-cost housing, and education programs.
“Women can join the Maggie’s Place community at any point in their pregnancy and stay until the child is at least six months old. Often in difficult and complicated situations, the backgrounds of the mothers might include previous drug use, rape, abusive relationships, poor understanding of self-worth, no employment experience, limited education, bad relationships with family members, poor support networks, or mental illness.
“Women that are parenting or placing their child with an adoptive family are welcome. Women must be at least 18 years old and unfortunately, we are not able to assist women with other dependent children in their care. Women in the early stages of recovery from addictions or in physical danger are more appropriately served by other community agencies.”
You can reach Mary Peterson at her email address: mpeterson@maggiesplace.org
And of course, you can see that they have their own website – a wonderful website found at www.maggiesplace.org PLEASE CONSIDER A DONATION to MAGGIE’S PLACE. They are truly doing God’s work in supporting new life, new faith and new hope.
I did a mini-reflection on our podcast and I’d like to repeat it here.
DEACON TOM’S REFLECTION (For Vitamin E: Eagerness)
Dear friends, if you listen to us fairly often, you’ve probably heard us talk about Madonna House… it’s the lay community co-founded by Catherine Doherty up in Canada. There are now Madonna House locations in about 20 countries and locations within north America.
I mention Madonna House because there is a statue – a wonderfully crafted statue done by a famous sculptress, the late Frances Rich. The statue has been designated as Our Lady of Combermere — Combermere is the headquarters location in northern Canada for Madonna House. 
The statue of Blessed Mother is a beautiful image of Mary running with her arms outstretched to wrap them around her children. We are her children — and Mary is running in great eagerness to embrace us.
This imagery is similar to the parable Jesus told of the Prodigal Father who went rushing — racing to embrace his son who was returning home… returning to the love of home.
Our Catholic Vitamin is E for EAGERNESS — devoted to God and our heavenly intercessors who are so anxious for intimate union with us… union here on our journey like on the road to Emmaus… and union when our earthly journey is complete.
Mary Peterson and her story of an eagerness to love those who may have lost their way for a while… that’s what this show is about on Catholic Vitamins.
MUSIC ON THIS SHOW
We played a snippet from one of a couple CD’s produced by musician and singer Teresa Smith and her husband David. It’s called GREGORIAN CHANT FOR KIDS and it is so beautiful.
Through the kindness of our Irish correspondent Fergal O’Neil, we closed the show with THOUGH WE ARE MANY — that is the theme for the 2012 International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, Ireland. Thank you Fergal.