40 Days for Life - Day 37

It is an absolutely beautiful day here in Lafayette today. I will be wearing my flip-flops to the vigil tonight!!!!!!! In his daily update email to all involved in 40 Days for Life, Shawn Carney asked:

"With just a few days left, are you getting a little tired?

If so, please remember to pray and prepare your hearts
as we enter into what Fulton Sheen called "the week that
changed the world." Next week, our commemoration of the
passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus reassure us of
victory over death."

I'm not tired of it. It has been an uplifting, spiritual experience for me. My prayer is that all my prayers, all those prayed by all the 40 Days for Life participants world-wide, and all those prayed daily by all pro-lifers will make a difference.

Intention: We are the defenders of true freedom. May our witness unveil the deception of the "pro-choice" slogan. Scripture: Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. --2 Corinthians 3:17

Reflection: Norma McCorvey (the former Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade) used to work at an abortion mill named "A Choice for Women." She now realizes what a cruel irony that title was. She saw first hand, just as pregnancy resource center counselors see, that women don't get abortions because of freedom of choice, but rather because they feel they have no freedom and no choice. They feel trapped, abandoned, desperate and afraid, and have been led to believe that abortion is their only option. As Frederica Mathewes-Green has written, no one wants an abortion like she wants a Porsche or an ice cream; rather, she wants it like an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." That doesn't mean that the Spirit allows us to do whatever we want or to decide for ourselves what's right and wrong. Rather, it means that the Spirit gives us the freedom to do what is right, the power to choose what is good, when we see it before us and yet feel pulled in the opposite direction. Liberty means that we no longer have to feel doomed to do what we know is wrong. We are the people of the Spirit of the Lord, and when we take action on behalf of life, especially by being present at abortion mills, we are acting on behalf of true freedom, and imparting to those who are in bondage the power to do what is right.

Prayer: Come, Holy Spirit. You are the Spirit of freedom, the source of all that is good, the power to do what is right. Fill us, and fill those who are in bondage today, feeling doomed to do what is wrong. Set them free, and help us to hasten them on the road to freedom, where your grace overcomes every temptation. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.