This week we will celebrate Ash Wednesday and the Catholic Church begins the Season of Lent.

Lent is a season that most people look at as a time of 'giving up' something but Lent to me, is really about a journey- a journey of 40 days through the desert to the resurrection. A time of renewal and repentence; as the Prophet Joel says in the first reading of the Ash Wednesday celebration:

"Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your hearts not your garments and return to the Lord, your God."

Even now, over two thousand years since the prophet Joel urged the people of Zion, we are still being called by God to return to His love with a repentent and contrite heart.

As we travel through Lent this year let's make a concious effort to spend more time in prayer, of truly being sorry for the many times we have sinned and offended Him. To wind our way through the desert of our sinfulness to come out the other end to share in the glory of His Resurrection!

Deo Gratias

Face to Face With Evil

Praying at an abortion clinic is both heart wrenching and yet oddly fulfilling at the same time.

Every Saturday morning we gather at a local woman's clinic and begin our rosaries, walking up and down the sidewalk as witnesses for life. Our hearts bleed with the knowledge that 20 feet away babies are being killed in their mother's wombs; and the  mothers are being emotionally and sometimes physically destroyed.

We feel fulfilled in that we are there being witnesses for life. We are no longer silent but rather, by our peaceful presence standing up for life and not just for the unborn but for all life. We are the Church Militant, here on the earth, continuing to wage the battle against evil by our prayers and our witness!

We come face to face with evil every Saturday morning that we are there, week after week. From the well dressed man in the expensive pick up truck who circles the block 3 times blaring his horn and waving at us with just one finger, to the man who walks up and down the opposite side of the street yelling to us that God loves murders too, to the people of all ages, races and genders who feel the need to express themselves and verbally assault us with foul language!

But today we can face to face with the worst, most hurtful one yet...a child......a young girl, I would say between the ages of 11and 13.  She, her younger brother and her friend decided that at their tender ages they were going to put a stop to our praying and witnessing. They began by roller blading through us twice. Then they gathered at the corner and when we processed near them they began to blow shrill whistles and use noisemakers to drown out our prayers. The more we ignored them and continued the more intense, the more agitated and malicious they became. She even got to the point of when I made the Sign of the Cross on myself and was facing her she became angry and yelled at me telling me not to bless myself in front of her!  And when you looked into her eyes, you saw evil.... pure hatred for us!  I know that some may think that I am exaggerating but my companions will agree with me, the local priest who joins us will agree.. these children are not unknown to him, they have been there before even though my group has never seen them before.

Yes we come face to face with evil every week...sometimes, it's the face of a business man, a woman walking down the street, a medical doctor who has forgotten what the Hippocratic Oath stands for and sometimes it is a child....

53,310,843 babies were murdered by abortion in the 37 years after Roe v. Wade-  one little girl tried to stop us today.. below is one little girl who is begging us not to!

Suffering

I thought a lot about suffering today... the day's events all seemed to be focused on it and so tonight in my reflection and meditation on this day it just seemed natural to write about suffering.

The day started out as an ordinary Sunday. 10:30 Mass was full and the Mass was beautiful as always and I was feeling a wonderful sense of peace until right after the homily when someone near the front of the church began to have a medical emergency. Her tearful children were ushered out by a concerned family friend. A couple of doctors and a nurse in the congregation rushed to her aid and the rescue was called.  As they carried her out on a stretcher I felt myself tearing up, thinking of this young woman, her tearful children and her worried husband. Even in church, where I always feel the safest, we are not spared suffering.........

I returned to church in the evening for a special speaker that our youth group had invited. The woman invited to speak that evening was an elderly Jewish woman who had survived the death camps during World War II.  She talked about her childhood, her family and her husband (who had been sent to Auschwitz and who had lost his whole family) - she talked about how her sons were embarrassed to bring friends home from school because their parents had accents and how they were angry that they had no Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles or Cousins like their classmates. They did not know until high school about the things their parents had been through when they were children...

So this leads me back to suffering... why do we suffer? I know people who will say to me, "when an animal is suffering we put them out of their misery, why can't we do that with people. People who are terminal and suffering greatly with their illness, why can't we be kind and put them out of their suffering?" and I tell them the same thing every time... because human suffering is redemptive, an animals' suffering is not.

Our suffering, united to Christ's suffering, is redemptive, if not for us then for someone else. God uses our suffering to either sanctify us or gives the graces from our suffering to another soul that needs them.

I will remember that very ill woman from my church tonight in my prayers. I will thank God that the Jewish woman survived her horrors and is here to educate our youth about the sin and dangers of hatred and I will end this post with a part from the Diary of Saint Faustina in which Jesus said-

                  ''You are not living for yourself but for souls,

                      and other souls will profit from your sufferings."

As the 40 Days for Life fall campaign nears it's final day I spent tonight reflecting on how I have been transformed over these past 40 days.

As the co-chair of my parish's pro-life committee I had already been praying outside a woman's clinic that performs abortions during the evenings after work, but the clinic was closed at that time. My friends and I did not mind that the clinic was closed, we were there to pray for the babies that had died that day, the ones that could be aborted the next day and to just pray to rid the evil that surrounded that place! But during the 40 Days for Life we increased our prayer vigils to include Saturday mornings; when the clinic was open for business.....

And on every Saturday morning between the hours of 7:00 and 9:00 am the women arrive at the clinic. The abortionist arrives at 9:00 and the abortions are performed between 9 and 11:00 am.

The entire time we are out front; peacefully praying our rosary for an end to the unspeakable acts that are being performed inside this pristine, neat, tidy building.

The first time I went to this place I was reminded of Jesus telling the Jewish religious leaders that they were like white sepulchers, all clean and nice on the outside but inside, full of dead men's bones.. this clinic, this place of evil was so neat and respectable on the outside but inside was full of dead babies and wounded, broken women....

Each Saturday I can feel the cries of the unborn deep in my soul as I walk up and down that sidewalk, holding my rosary and praying with my friends.  At times I want to break down that door and cry out to these people "Can't you see what you are doing??  You are killing children!!"  I carry the weight of these deaths with me even as I walk away - their unknown faces haunt me and I take comfort in the fact that they are now safe with Jesus.

So as the latest 40 Days for Life campaign draws to a close I know that my fight has not and I will continue to be at that clinic one evening a week and every Saturday morning until there is no longer a need to be. God made it rain for 40 days and nights, the Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years, Jesus prayed and fasted for 40 days before starting his public ministry and in 40 days my life was changed forever -

Lenten Reflection for Week Two

Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD: 
Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow;       
Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool.
If you are willing, and obey, you shall eat the good things of the land;
                            Isaiah Chapter 1

What an uplifting reading from today's liturgy-  Beautiful words to meditate on- Our Father in Heaven sending us words of comfort, of forgiveness and hope. A perfect reading for beginning our second week of Lent. We are given a promise that if we are willing and we obey what Gods asks of us,  we shall eat the good things of the land and have our sins forgiven no matter how horrific they may be. 

It is all up to us! God has given us everything we need, every chance to travel the right road and He has guaranteed us that if we persevere and follow His will we shall have forgiveness and enter into everlasting joy with Him -

This week of Lent let's focus on whether or not we are making a conscious effort to conform to God's will and obey his law so that we will see our sins of scarlet,  become white as snow!

Deo Gratias