A unique approach to ending abortion
September 23, 2009 (St. Padre Pio's Feast Day) - November 1, 2009 (All Saints Feast Day) , our community will be one of more than 212 cities in 45 U.S. States, 5 Canadian Provinces and Denmark joining together for the 40 Days for Life campaign.
40 Days for Life is an intensive effort designed to raise awareness, save lives, bring healing, and lead our nation to repentance for the sin of abortion through three components:
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40 days of prayer and fasting
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40 days of peaceful vigil - 12 Hours from 8:00am to 8:00pm
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40 days of community outreach
http://www.all.org/downloads_videoStream.php?ref=4073
PRO LIFE COALITION - View the video highlighting the largest Pro Life coalition ever assembled to fight against the abortion mandate in the current nationalized health care legislation.
Learn more about the national 40 Days for Life campaign.
1. Pray and fast
Christ told us that some demons can only be driven out by prayer and fasting. The two go hand in hand. Prayer keeps us rooted in the fact that it is our desire to carry out God's will. Fasting is a sacrifice that helps us reach beyond our own limitations with God's help. Fasting is not a Christian diet; it is a form of physical prayer. You can fast from food, TV, alcohol ... anything that separates you from God.
Each day between now and the end of the campaign, please commit to pray and fast for the nationwide effort, and for the efforts here in our community.
Fr. Pavone re: 40 Days for Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEvCFKz3bX4&feature=related
"This kind can only come out through prayer and fasting." Mark 9:29
During a visit to the Dachau Concentration Camp, the then-Bishop John J. O'Connor placed his hands inside the red brick crematoria oven and “felt the intermingled ashes of Jew and Christian, rabbi, priest and minister.” Struck to the heart, he proclaimed, “Good God, how could human beings do this to other human beings?” In that instant, he received a life-transforming grace and vowed to do all he could, from that moment forward, to protect and enhance the sacredness of every human life, wherever it was most vulnerable.
Several years later, now John Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop of New York and the leading voice for life within the Church, he prayed to understand why the efforts of the pro-life cause were not gleaning the results expected. His eyes fell upon the passage from Scripture, “This kind of demon can only be cast out by prayer and fasting,” and another, life-transforming, grace was his. This time, though, the grace was not just a personal one, but one for the whole world; it was the grace that gave birth to a new charism, a new religious community in the Church, the Sisters of Life.
Get Your Copy of "My Chance,” a Pro-Life Song So Powerful It Will Save Lives
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Jaime Thietten, sings "My Chance" |
You can summarize Jaime Thietten's marvelous "My Chance," as you can anything, in a handful of words. But short does not mean simple. As pro-lifers we know that "abortion," while only three-syllables long, packs as much emotional freight as any word in the English language. Early in "My Chance" we learn that the woman has had an abortion which, as an older woman, she grievously regrets. "My Chance" is as beautifully sung as it is emotionally wrenching.
When you send in a check for just two gift subscriptions to NRL News, we will immediately send you a copy of "My Chance" DVD. Not only do you receive the "My Chance" music video itself, also on the DVD is an explanation of the story behind the song, an interview with the writers, and another interview with Jaime Thietten.
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...And as we, the pilgrim people, the people of life and for life, make our way in confidence towards "a new heaven and a new earth" (Rev 21:1), we look to her who is for us "a sign of sure hope and solace".(Last line of Evangelium Vitae Conclusion)
Prayer of John Paul II for Life
bright dawn of the new world,
Mother of the living,
to you do we entrust the cause of life
Look down, O Mother,
upon the vast numbers
of babies not allowed to be born,
of the poor whose lives are made difficult,
of men and women
who are victims of brutal violence,
of the elderly and the sick killed
by indifference or out of misguided mercy.
Grant that all who believe in your Son
may proclaim the Gospel of life
with honesty and love
to the people of our time.
Obtain for them the grace
to accept that Gospel
as a gift ever new,
the joy of celebrating it with gratitude
throughout their lives
and the courage to bear witness to it
resolutely, in order to build,
together with all people of good will,
the civilization of truth and love,
to the praise and glory of God,
the Creator and lover of life.
John Paul II Encyclical Letter "Evangelium Vitae" (The Gospel of Life)...
USCCB on Respect Life Sunday...
2. Sign up for prayer requests and updates
To learn more about 40 Days for Life and get prayer requests and breaking news about this effort, sign up today using the form on the top right of this page.
3. Spread the word
The success of 40 Days for Life depends on the most powerful form of advertising in the world -- word of mouth. Tell all of your friends, family members, co-workers, and fellow believers about 40 Days for Life. Encourage them to visit this web site where they can learn more and get involved.
4. Find your role
Please contact us to explore opportunities to assist in the following areas:
- Prayer and fasting
- Peaceful vigil
- Community outreach
Prayerfully discern how God is calling you to help.
5. Participate in the peaceful vigil
You can help make a life-saving impact by joining our local vigil at:
PLANNED PARENTHOOD (Across from the Collegeville Shopping Ctr)
78 Second Avenue (Rt. 29)
Collegeville, PA
- If we deny the right to exist to the poorest among us the unborn, with not even a thread of clothing to call their own...then how will we respect the poor we can see?
- If we allow the murder of unborn children "too likely" to grow up uneducated...then how will we fix schools?
- If babies can be aborted for being not perfect enough due to deformity, disease, or gender..then who else is not perfect enough to be allowed to continue living: the old, the disabled, the terminally ill?
- If we cannot welcome the stranger among us in the womb...then how can we welcome the immigrant from another country?
- If we refuse to acknowledge the right to life of the most innocent, the unborn child...then how will we ever acknowledge the worth of the life of even the criminal on death row?
- If our own children are not worthy enough to garner our protection...then how will we work to minimize civilian casualties of war in foreign countries?
- If we say that 50% of African-American babies dying by abortion is unimportant, even when that rate is drastically higher than the rate among the white population...then how will we fight racial discrimination among the unborn? All of the various social justice issues (like war, the death penalty, immigration reform, education reform, and poverty relief) are based on the idea that human life has intrinsic worth. This worth is not based on how smart I am or may be, how rich I am, how useful, or how innocent. I do not have to prove my worth in this sense; it is mine, purely as a human being. If we say that some human beings do not have intrinsic worth, we open the door to include those who don't quite "measure up" in terms of intelligence, usefulness to society, criminal record, national origin, disability, etc. We undertake all of the social justice fights on the premise that all human beings have dignity and worth, no matter how damaged or hard to see that dignity may be. If that is not our premise, we are only doing the work because it gives us a fleeting sense of satisfaction...and, when we are distracted by something else, we will forget about it, because it was never really about them, anyways; it was about how the charity made us feel. And if we think we can respect the dignity and worth of the born while trying to ignore the holocaust of the unborn, we are fooling ourselves. Either we all have inalienable rights, or none of us do. If we get abortion wrong, we get it all wrong.
- America has serious problems of poverty, discrimination and homelessness. But no Americans are poorer, or more discriminated against, or more homeless than the aborted babies-nameless, helpless, defenseless, penniless, naked, abandoned by their own parents, forced out of their uterine homes, forsaken by society, stripped of all legal rights, labeled as sub-humans, denied sacramental baptism, denied the last rights, denied anesthesia, tortured, murdered, cannibalized for their organs, denied decent burials, cremated or discarded with the trash, and then totally forgotten. Fr. Paul Marx, OSB-Founder and Past President - Human Life International
Dear Pro-life Leader:
We are among the many women and men of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, the largest mobilization of those speaking out about their loss of children to abortion.
Amidst the current health care reform debate, America needs to hear our voices, in order to understand that an increase in abortion will mean an increase in pain for women and men, and an increase in physical and emotional complications that follow abortion.
We have prepared a three-minute video which you can view at http://www.youtube.com/watch?
To learn more, sign up for specific vigil hours, or let us know how you feel called to serve God in this effort, please contact the local 40 Days for Life leadership team:
Pina Augustine-McLaughlin
Campaign Director,
Outreach Coordinator & Vigil Calendar Scheduler
(484) 624-2693
Rita Smith M.E.V. (Missionaries of the Gospel of Life)
Co-Campaign Director
(610) 489-1929
ritavsmith@gmail.com
Theresa Leitold, M.E.V. (Missionaries of the Gospel of Life)
Media Coordinator
(610) 489-0265
tepeyac93@hotmail.com
Carolyn Stenger
Church Coordinator
(215) 206-9108
cjsteng@yahoo.com