I often see them on the bumpers of cars in the parish parking lot. There are several variations, but they boil down to the same thing: "Pray to End Abortion"
Frankly, these get on my nerves.
I fear that too many people sporting these stickers think that between their prayers, and their "public witness for life" -- that is, putting the bumper sticker on their car -- they're doing their part.
I believe that if God wanted to end abortion, He would do so without my prayers of encouragement.
I mean really, if God wanted to end abortion, He could very easily arrange a PowerBall jackpot to be awarded to someone like Joe Scheidler -- or me! -- and that would go a long a way towards getting the job done.
So if you're praying your daily or weekly rosary for life and that's all you're doing, I can't see that you're making any difference. I'm sorry if that offends you, but that's my perspective.
There's more you can do.
63 days from today, there are going to be elections held all over the U.S. Over 30 U.S. Senators, 435 Congressmen, a dozen or so governors and other state-wide offices, literally thousands of state legislators, and countless other local officials will all be chosen on November 2nd.
What are you doing to help a pro-life candidate? You don't need to tell me, but you do need to have an answer to this question. Because you know what? Abortion isn't going to end while it's still legal. And there will never be legal protections for the unborn until and unless we elect pro-life men and women to offices high and low.
The pro-aborts know this, and they are busily electing their own to library boards, town councils, park district boards, and every elective office from the lowest to the highest.
With so little time before the election, it's time and past time for pro-lifers to make their presence in the world felt. Somewhere near you, there is an under-funded pro-life candidate struggling to make a difference. Write him a check. Somewhere nearby, you will find a pro-life candidate struggling to get the word out about his candidacy. Volunteer to make phone calls or knock on doors for him.
Yes, yes, I know you're too busy. You've got work, and school, and kids and a family and house and sports and whatever else. If you're really pro-life, you'll find a way to make time, even if it's only two hours a week, or only two hours total, between now and election day.
This is why I haven't been blogging. I've been spending the last year in the trenches fighting abortion, first as a candidate for office myself, and (since losing my primary) working with other candidates and organizations. Right now I'm focused on the campaign of my friend Dan Sugrue, a hardworking Catholic family man who's trying to unseat a pro-abort Democrat. If you're in the area, you could make Dan a donation or volunteer to help. If you're not in the area, you could still make a donation (many of you donated to my campaign), or find a candidate local to you to volunteer with.
But I'm begging you, it's time to set aside the rosary, and pick up the phone. Time's running out.
(Cross posted to Lake County Right to Life Blog.)
14 comments:
Faith without works is dead! If genocide is going to end WE have to make it so.
Well said, both to yourself and VSO. Talking the talk doesn't mean diddle squat without walking the walk.
I don't disagree with you. Paul, but be careful how you communicate this to people because it goes both ways. If all you're going to do to oppose abortion is act, then don't bother. As my spiritual director told me not too long ago: "without regular time for prayer you risk becoming ‘just an activist’ – we should want to be saints first.” Our actions mean nothing without prayer - and lots of it. Personally, I have found that it is very easy to get so swept up in activism that we forget that this is GOD'S battle first. HE is in charge and it is by HIM through us that conversion and change will come. Yes, we must act, but we are mere instruments. We can't give what we don't have. We can't do the will of God if God does not dwell in our hearts. So, not only should we act AND pray for the end of abortion, but we should also spend time deepening our own personal relationship with God through prayer as well. The only way to achieve real, lasting change - in our country and the world - is by taking our own conversion seriously first.
Prayer is powerful beyond belief and so no prayer is a waste of time.
Some of us are capable of being out there on the front lines running for offices and such. Others, like myself ~ disabled, a housewife with three kids in diapers on an isolated farm in the middle of nowhere ~ can only do so much and a lot of that "so much" is prayer.
Please don't discredit those of us who's primary activism is prayer. It's our prayers that help get people like you out there on the front lines. We're all doing our bit even if our "bit" is different from yours.
Thank you for what you are doing but please don't discredit the rest of us because we are doing things differently due to our own limitations.
As I am want to say, unless you begin, end & undergird with prayer all you do to fight abortion then it is useless. Ultimately this IS a spiritual battle.
Obviously, some people really can't do anything except pray, like the homebound, elderly in nursing homes etc. Those people WILL be used powerfully by God.
On the other hand, if you can act & use prayer as an excuse to not act, then I would question your sincerity in praying.
It is foolishness to think that politics can do something that prayer cannot. Abortion, much like the holocaust and other horrors in history, is the symptom of a deeper spiritual rot that has taken hold. Praying, and truly trusting that that prayer will make a difference, is more powerful than you may imagine. Where else do we get the strength to face such reckless hatred as we find in the culture of death.
Next time you have the moral fortitude to stand up and do what is right in this fight, thank God for the person with the rosary bumper sticker. It is from their intercession that God gives you the strength you need.
Unless you think that you yourself are the source of that strength?
And yet, the holocaust, slavery, and other horrors I can could name all were ended by the efforts of men. Men inspired by faith and sustained by prayer, to be sure, but men.
God, I think, doesn't just take care of these things like some sort of celestial conciege. We have to do much of the work ourselves.
And how many mothers were praying the rosary before and on D-Day? Do you think God ignored those prayers or did they have an effect on the physical realities of the battle? Would God grant victory to a nation so haughty as to think that it was their efforts that won they day rather than to those who trusted in prayer to overcome such odds?
To disparage the prayers of God's people, worse to tell people to set aside their rosaries, is to speak against the Fatherly providence of God.
So are you telling me that the prayers would have conquered Hitler without the landing craft and the tanks?
You answered none of my assertions, but I'll let that pass. Now what you ask was not the point of my comment, but since you broached the topic. I would sooner fight an enemy only with prayer than only with tanks. Even if I won the battle, what would it matter if God was not on my side?
I never said that by participating in the political sphere, people aren't doing their parts. What I said was that those participating in the spiritual sphere are easily doing as much if not probably more by their prayers.
Your post says that God doesn't care about abortion. That if it really mattered, He'd do it Himself. What a load of Grade A fertilizer. So then what is the use of any prayer? If God wants something, he'd do it Himself, and if He doesn't, there is no changing his mind. That goes against Scripture, our Blessed Lord's promises, and the teaching of His Church.
You answered none of my assertions, but I'll let that pass.
How big of you. Since you evidently misread my post, I didn't feel obligated to reply to each of your points.
Now what you ask was not the point of my comment, but since you broached the topic. I would sooner fight an enemy only with prayer than only with tanks.
That's a lovely way to be martyred. I don't know how many babies you'd save that way.
Even if I won the battle, what would it matter if God was not on my side?
As Lincoln said, it's less important to have God on our side than for us to be sure that we are on God's side.
I never said that by participating in the political sphere, people aren't doing their parts. What I said was that those participating in the spiritual sphere are easily doing as much if not probably more by their prayers.
I disagree. I really do believe that people who could do more than pray, but do not, aren't doing as much as they can or should. Prayer alone will not bring about an end to abortion.
Your post says that God doesn't care about abortion.
My post says no such thing. What it says is that God will not end abortion for us. We have to do that.
That if it really mattered, He'd do it Himself. What a load of Grade A fertilizer.
Quite so, but I didn't say that. I said He could end abortion if He wanted to, but that he wants us to do it instead.
I respectfully suggest you consider employing a modicum of Christian charity, consider what I actually wrote instead of what you think I said, and perhaps even ask yourself why I wrote it.
I never said I would fight an enemy like that, but if I had to choose between the two extremes, I know where to go. My question remains, did those prayers from loved ones and countrymen save lives and souls on D-Day? Or should they have put down their rosaries and picked up rifles if they wanted to do any good?
"So if you're praying your daily or weekly rosary for life and that's all you're doing, I can't see that you're making any difference."
So by your own words, prayer is useless. How is that misread?
I read what you wrote several times because I thought I did mis-read it at first. But every time the same message came through. I'll use your own words "it's time to set aside the rosary, and pick up the phone". The message is stop praying, it isn't helping.
If that isn't total foolishness, I don't know what is. You and the others who fight abortion could not do God's work without the prayers of others. You should show gratitude, not derision. Especially when speaking of something so powerful as the intersession of the Blessed Virgin.
It is by the conviction and action of passionate individuals that the supporters of the scourge of abortion will be weakened and finally removed from public office. Paul is right. Nonetheless, without prayer we are indistinguishable from the opposition. We must draw our strength from the Holy Spirit.
I'm not convinced god cares much about abortion. He should do something about it if he does.
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