Day of Prayer for The Legal Protection of the Unborn

 

The Love of Life
    Love is not merely a feeling, but is rather the desire for the best possible good for those whom we love.
Through our natural intelligence and through Divine Revelation, we become aware of the value of this most basic of all gifts which is life.
    Mere reason leads us to comprehend that it is better to be alive than never have had been in existence. The knowledge of the value of life that comes through revelation leads us to understand better this gift and to appreciate it: as a result, we worship and love more and more the Giver of this gift. 

    This love is what moves us to protect the life of the unborn -  or any who might be unjustly treated.

And certainly if any are unjustly treated, it is the innocent and unborn child.

We are also led to protect women that might feel compelled to commit abortion, as we know the devastating consequences that abortion will have in THEIR lives and souls, and the spill over effect it brings to all of us.

    Last, but not least, we have to love the many perpetrators of abortion - even if most of them seem to be utterly unlovable:

Medical personnel
Pro-abortion activists
Misled ideologues
Politicians

    We have to do what we can to convince them of their errors, so that they repent and change their ways, both for their own benefit and for the benefit of society.

Who We Are   
    All human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. Using a traditional scholastic term, we can state that He is the exemplary cause of every human being..., in other words, He is the model on which all human beings are created. He looked upon himself and wished that other beings would share in His own happiness.
    So, if we reflect upon ourselves, we can begin to understand our participation in the greatness of our Creator.
This participation in His greatness leads us to comprehend that He has brought us out of nothing with a purpose, because knowing His intelligence and His loving nature, it is clear that all His actions are guided by a magnificent purpose.

    The first intention for which He has created us is that we should enjoy for an eternity His loving company in Heaven. All human persons are called to this eternal and loving company;  no one is excluded, save those who, through their own actions, exclude THEMSELVES.
    This manner of creation brings us to understand the unique essential dignity of every human being. A dignity that remains, despite any deprivation we might find in a human person. A person might be born with a disability, or may suffer disability through injury or disease, but these deprivations do not affect his basic dignity. A Christian also has the hope that one day when the doors of Paradise will be opened for those children, all their human imperfections will be healed and they will enjoy forever the beatific vision that we all long for.

    We are also created to be collaborators in the salvation of the World. The Lord normally does not intervene directly in the world; He does it through OUR free collaboration in his plans of salvation.
    He gives to us the saving truths through Holy Scripture, our natural reason, and the mediation of the Church, and WE have to manifest them in our daily lives.
    If we love those truths we are impelled, we are thrust forward, to share them with all whom the Lord places in front of us. So when we speak with love and conviction of those truths, accusations of exaggerated rhetoric in defense of human life (from its biological beginning to its natural end) cannot stick.        Nobody in his right mind can call it, "vitriolic rhetoric" when we denounce that millions upon millions of unborn babies have been killed in the womb in the U.S., and in the rest of the world.
    It is literally a question of life and death, for the victim, for the mother of the baby, and for the perpetrator of abortion, assisted suicide, or euthanasia.
    The victim will have his earthly life terminated; the mother will suffer greatly in heart and soul for her actions, and the perpetrator and the mother will live under the shadow of the unhappiness of having rejected the loving truths of their Creator and certainly they will place their eternal salvation in jeopardy.
    
    The fact that so many are NOT in their right minds, and accept this slaughter as, "their right", and "normal," suggests just how deeply the curse of modernistic selfishness has pervaded our cultures.

    However, our main solidarity has to be always with the victim of the crime, because if the conscience of the nation is not moved by this growing injustice, we know that a growing number will be victimized in the future.
    Our solidarity is also with the mothers of those babies because often they have been misled, coerced, or even forced into committing this terrible act.

    Last, but not least, we wish and pray that all abortionists will understand the terrible consequences of their actions and be converted.

--Adapted from, "Spirit & Life," Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro-Carámbula, Interim President, Human Life International