DAY 1
DAY 1
Amazing reports are flooding in from all across the nation about the start of 40 Days for Life.
Kickoff events drew crowds ranging from several dozen to several hundred people, and peaceful vigils commenced outside abortion facilities and Planned Parenthood offices in more than 80 cities today.
We’re also hearing reports from people in many other cities and towns that are experiencing dramatic new levels of pro-life involvement as people are joining in solidarity with 40 Days for Life.
I am with my amazing wife Margaret, my 9-year-old daughter Claire, and 5-year-old son Patrick in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where we are joining the local 40 Days for Life campaign shortly.
Earlier today, we stopped in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, to encourage the dedicated group that is holding down the vigil outside of a Planned Parenthood abortion facility that currently can’t find an abortionist. The believers there are praying fervently during these 40 days that an abortionist is never found for that office!
Between fielding radio and newspaper interviews all day today, I was deeply inspired by the thought of YOU… the faithful people across the country united together in one common purpose: ending the tragedy of abortion!
God bless you for your prayers and participation in this history-making endeavor!
Here’s your devotional for DAY 1, written by Carmen Pate:
SCRIPTURE:
“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sin and heal their land.” — 2 Chronicles 7:14
REFLECTION:
God was responding to Solomon’s prayer for the people of Israel, during the dedication of the newly built temple. The people of Israel had repeatedly turned from God and each time, God would turn them over to an enemy.
The people would cry out to the Lord and God would deliver them, only to see them turn away from Him once again. This cycle was repeated over and over, demonstrating the amazing mercy of Our Lord on each occasion. (See 2 Chronicles 6: 36-40)
Not unlike God’s chosen people of Israel, the body of Christ, which is His church, must humble ourselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways, if we expect God to hear from heaven, forgive our sin, and heal our land.
The need for repentance has not been greater since the Supreme Court decision of Roe vs. Wade in 1973.
The number one cause of death in America is the needless sacrifice of our children at the altar of convenience called abortion. Conservative estimates put the number of deaths at nearly 47 million in America alone.
And lest we think this is an issue outside the church walls, 43% of women obtaining abortions identify themselves as Protestant, and 27% identify themselves as Catholic. One in four women has at least one abortion by the age of 45 — both non-Christian and Christian alike.
Where was the voice of Truth — the church?
Mary Comm of In Our Midst Ministries, Inc. sums up the issue best as she writes, “We (the church) have been an unintentional accomplice to the millions of lives lost and to the multiplied millions of lives devastated by abortion. We didn’t want them to abort. We didn’t mean for them to abort. But, because of our lack of knowledge, because of our fear, we have continued to stand by and do nothing. We, God’s hands and feet in this dark and hurting world, have been unintentional, unknowledgeable accomplice, but an accomplice nonetheless.”
May today mark the beginning of change within the church, as God’s people, in unity, seek His forgiveness.
PRAYER:
Heavenly Father, as our sovereign and powerful Creator, You have blessed this nation because of our Founding Fathers intentional plan to worship You alone.
We have turned our backs on you and your principles in your Word. We have allowed man to usurp Your role as God over life and the number of our days. You are justified in removing your hedge of protection and turning us over to our decadence.
But we come to you in brokenness and repentance over our sin. We cry out for Your mercy and ask you to remove the scourge of abortion from our land. Use us as your vessels, Lord, to bring the light of Your Truth to our nation once again.
Because of Christ we pray, AMEN
October 1st, 2007 at 3:07 am
I live in The City Of Fresno and I Know That here is a PP Clinic.
I haven’t heard of anything about you guys’ movement here.
are you guys going to do anything here?
I would even take a day off from college if and work to go.
October 2nd, 2007 at 5:17 pm
I heard your urgent plea for prayers last night for Aurora, Ill.
I stayed up to pray 15 decades of the rosary. God bless you always.
Rita Hobbs
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:56 pm
We are doing the vigil in Sacramento, and would love you to help.
Call 916-955-1577 to find out how and when you can participate.
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:40 pm
It is awesome to see so many praying for life!!!! Here in Sacramento we are praying the rosary by Sunrise Mall on the 13 October. I will be praying for Life!!
God Bless!
Anastacia
October 4th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
I encourage all of you to translate this Campaing of 40 Days for life to different languages and send it to your family members and friends in other countries like I did into Spanish and sent to diferent countries in America even Mexico and Spain in order to pray and fasting for the United States and their own countries, so we support each other to end this horrible practice to kill babies.
May God and the Our Lady of Guadalupe, bless all of you,
Lucia
October 4th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
I borrowed this prayer from something I pick up about prayers to Counteract Abortion. Eternal Father, in union with the Blood of your divine Son, Jesus, I offer the blood of these little martyrs of abortion for the conversion of their fathers and mothers, and for all who, directly or indirectly, participate in abortions. Amen.
October 4th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
So that all my brothers and sisters in America and abroad may be strengthened in the belief that God does truely answers prayers, I give you this testimony. The year is 1989, I come out of the bathroom and as I cry, I tell my relative that I heard him and his wife talking about terminating the life inside of her. They look at me like I have three heads and say “what are you talking about; we are going to have this child?” She did give birth to her baby boy, but in 1991, she was pregnant again. While I was at a retreat (retreat #291) and at the precise time I was rededicating myself to the Lord and the abortion battle, she was at an abortion mill terminating the life of the child within her.
In 1993, I began to go to the abortion mills in the Hudson Valley Area in Upsate New York and prayed the rosary every Saturday alongside some elderly people. One day I went to the regular place I had visited for several Saturdays in a-row in Nanuet, New York and there was no one there, so I decided to kneel down and pray the rosary on my own. As I finished my prayers, I looked up at the enterance to the abortion mill and to my surprise the place had shut down. There was now a reality company operating out of the place where so many babies had been killed. God answered my prayers right before my eyes. Oh and as I got into my car and started to drive away, I took one last look at the address of the place where I had prayed over and over again for God’s mercy. And what was the number of the address at the abortion mill? It was #291 Middletown Road, the same number, #291, as the retreat I went to in 1991.
My relative died in 1997 (God rest his soul) and just before he died I recanted the above story to him and told him that when I spoke in 1989 about a child that was going to be terminated, I was not talking about the one in 1989 but the one that was to come in 1991. He looked at me and said, “oh my God, you are right; God is with you!”
May God Be with you and yours always and may God Bless all our efforts!
October 5th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Today, I arrived at Planned Parenthood on Wayne Ave., Westchester, PA. There was one other lady praying the rosary and speaking to the women as they arrived or sat on the porch of PP.
I began with speaking to the Escorts. There were 2 older men and a Security Guard. One woman in about her 30’s came out crying. Soon after another woman in her 40’s to late 40’s sat on the porch with a younger woman for a long time. She was crying visibly. I told her of Post Abortion prayer meeting to heal the pain of abortion. Sh was very disrought.
I prayed and read aloud from some meditations from the “Our Lady gives the World the Rosary of the Unborn to conquer abortion”, published by Archangel Gabriel Enterprises Inc. (website: http://www.holylove.org). I also blessed the building with exorcism water, and Mary’s tears, claiming it for Jesus to become a center for life.
I then got my 5′x2′ banner of Our Lady of Guadelupe (given in 1999 by http://www.olguad.org) and explained to the 3 men and a woman why we pray under the banner of Our Lady of Guadelupe, that this is the only time Mary appeared with Jesus in her womb. That she promised to save 10 million Aztec Indians from sacrificing their children to Satan. That 10 million indians converted to Catholicism, thus ending the sacrifice of children to Satan. The young Afro-American man listened attentively.
I leave it in the United hearts of Jesus and Mary to complete the work I have begun, along with my other brothers and sisters throughout America and throughout the world. To God is the Victory! Blessed be God.
October 6th, 2007 at 8:45 am
i pray that our one and true sovereign God will speak to these women who are thinking about aborting their blessing from Him. i pray that they will hear Him speak. i pray that they will seek alternatives to abortion. abortion is the works of satan. i pray that God will protect these babies whose lives are in peril. in Jesus’ name i pray.