We Choose Life

You won't hear about the March for Life on the news because of the media's agenda, but more than a quarter of a million of us were prayerfully walking the streets of D.C. on Friday. The overwhelming majority of the marchers were teenagers. It is so amazing to feel their energy as they sing and chant about loving babies and choosing life. After witnessing the youth ablaze with the Holy Spirit, I'm so hopeful that in my lifetime I will see the tides turn. We collectively thirst for a culture of life. Do you know that for the first time since Roe v Wade, pro-lifers compose the majority in our country? Yes, the voice is growing stronger! Praise be to God! People are recognizing that this culture of death is not fulfilling us. It is stifling and smothering out love. The pro-life agenda embraces truth alone; it allows for the movement of God's love. As I marched in our nation's capital, it struck me that without a doubt to be anything but pro-life is to be pro-death. Hiding behind a label of pro-choice is such a copout. Choice is "which pizza topping should we get?". Choice is not "should this baby live?".

"Recognition of someone as a human being can never be made based on the awareness or experience we may have of him or her, but by the certitude that they have an infinite value from conception, which comes to them from their relationship with God. A human being has primacy over all the ideas others have of them, and their existence is absolute and not relative. "

-Pope John Paul II

Thank you for yours prayers of support as we took this pilgrimage with our youth group. Along with our 8th graders we received an indescribable gift. We were a part of something so powerfully right. Take one of the five Masses we attended as an example: 20,000 pro-lifers holding hands while praying the Our Father. Together we lifted our hearts to God as one body of believers, as His children asking Him to hear our plea to end abortion. Perhaps in moments like these the students did not fully unwrap the gift with complete understanding. I am encouraged by their enthusiasm though and am thus confident that if not today then someday they will completely unwrap this great gift given them at the March for Life. And when they do unwrap it, they will shine even more brightly to lead others in the crusade for life. Won't you join in? ...

Lord God, I thank you today for the gift of my life,

And for the lives of all my brothers and sisters.

I know there is nothing that destroys more life than abortion,

Yet I rejoice that you have conquered death by the Resurrection of Your Son.

I am ready to do my part in ending abortion.

Today I commit myself

Never to be silent,

Never to be passive,

Never to be forgetful of the unborn.

I commit myself to be active in the pro-life movement,

And never to stop defending life

Until all my brothers and sisters are protected,

And our nation once again becomes

A nation with liberty and justice

Not just for some, but for all,

Through Christ our Lord. Amen!

At both of these Masses (pictured below), the procession of seminarians, deacons, priests, bishops, archbishops took half an hour! Is that not a visible testament to the Catholic faith being strong?