at the gravesite

Early yesterday morning, as I drove the short mile from my house to the Planned Parenthood at 3255 East Main St. where I would pray, I felt uneasy. I always carry a pit in my stomach and ache in my heart as I pull up to that place. From the outside, the white-bricked, green-roofed building looks like any other. It sits generally unnoticed next to a computer repair shop and Jiffy Lube. The sign in the parking lot reads, "Planned Parenthood: Central Ohio Women's Center." That's it.

Undoubtedly, the abortion crime tricks and deceives many since it happens right in our neighborhoods amidst the white walls and sterile tables of a “health center.” It is a crime that not only remains approved and legal, but receives $350 million in government funding on top of $650 million in private donations each year, making for an annual budget of $1 billion. It is performed by a trained doctor and staff*. It happens quickly and quietly behind a medical facility's doors.

But while he uses terms like “removing a pregnancy” and “emptying uterine content” to try to mislead the expectant mother, dishonest euphemisms cannot change what the abortionist does; under his paid instruction, tiny children are deliberately and violently killed by gruesome methods including dismemberment, suffocation, burning by saline solution, and piercing the child's neck with scissors so as to vacuum out her brain. Indeed, behind Planned Parenthoods and other abortion mills across the country sit dumpsters where torn limbs and bloodied bodies are carelessly tossed after the procedure. How inexcusable that a rotting dumpster would become an innocent child’s grave! How terrifying that we have let this go on… and on… and on… for nearly 37 years! The death toll has surpassed 51 million**. Haven’t we had enough?

Most of us have. So why does legalized abortion persist? After all, pro-lifers are in the majority and are working from, rather than towards, victory (Father Frank Pavone, President, Priests for Life). But laws, congressmen, senators, and especially our president continue to propagate and glorify a culture of death. Thus, it is not uncommon for the pro-lifer to look at the many pro-choice politicians in power, become discouraged, limit his vision, and perceive the day of triumph only from a distance. He may feel helpless to make a difference for even one life; it seems there is just too much stacked against the unborn.

What we must realize is that the abortion genocide is too large, too deep, and too entrenched into every corner of our society to be defeated by human means alone. Of course, we have a duty to act; activism has been and will continue to be a crucial component in the fight for life. But, ultimately, combating the abortion evil requires the recognition that, in a very real way, we are fighting a spiritual battle. Do not think that the abortionist performing these slaughters is acting merely from his own will; he has been tricked toward evil and whispered lies by Satan, the Master of Misery. Abortion mills are fortresses of death under his grinning command. We must get down on our knees. We must root our action in prayer.

To wage spiritual warfare against the abortion demon, some of us are called to march directly to the battle fields— to fight in the front lines. Positioned as soldiers at these gravesites, we beg Our Lady to wash Christ’s blood over them so that He may conquer sin once again at this modern day Calvary. Our Lady will give us that victory— but she needs our help (Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, President, Human Life International).

The Helpers of God's Precious Infants, in their mission, beautifully describe what it is that we do to help: Outside the abortion mill, we lovingly and prayerfully unite ourselves with each mother and child. We stand in solidarity with these victims’ pain as unborn children are sentenced to death. We pray in reparation for the injustice being accomplished on their tiny bodies. Like Mary nestled at the foot of the cross, we kneel at the site of their crucifixion, staying beside these little ones at their hour of death.

We pray to secure God’s mercy for the abortionist and his staff who do the killing at that clinic. Our message to them is that, although we love them, we will never accept what they do. We encourage them that they can do better!— for women, for children, for families, and for society. We challenge them to turn from their past and embrace that which is good, true, and noble. We ask them to have courage.

We plead with our voices for the lives that are scheduled to be taken that morning. We reach out to all mothers and babies with the love of Christ. We ask each woman to change her mind. We neither judge nor condemn her for what she is planning to do, only promise our support and assistance should she choose life, and prayers for her healing and conversion should she go through with the killing of her child. We will love her either way.

We love deeply the tiny children who will be brought there that day. Rejected by their parents, they are helpless and doomed to die. The only human love they will ever encounter in their short lives may be from those of us standing on the sidewalk. We wish we could tell them how precious they are and how much we value their lives, no matter how young. We want to show them the comfort and compassion of Jesus.

In Mother Teresa’s home for the dying, she had the privilege of giving human love to the poorest of the poor and the sickest of the sick— people who were dying alone and abandoned by all. She would pick up the discarded and homeless from the streets and tenderly care for them so that they would not die having never experienced the love of Christ. This is what we do, spiritually, for the children who will be killed by an abortionist that day.

We recognize them as our brothers and sisters, welcoming them into the human family and entrusting them into the loving arms of our Mother Mary. We embrace them, spiritually, in their time of fear, pain, and death. We stand with them as they die. No one wants to be alone when they die. Even Jesus, before His death, asked His apostles to be with Him in prayer through the night. In loving these children, we are comforting Christ's heart, because they are His; they are fearfully and wonderfully made by Him. As Jesus told us, "Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40).

This battle will come to an end. We can find peace in the knowledge that the outcome has been determined since the beginning of time: “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). The same Christ who conquered the world is our Commander in this great crusade for life. We can be certain that light will destroy all darkness— that life will prevail on the last day; for His Resurrection is precisely that promise to us made flesh. Let us pray for Christ's power to defeat the grave once again, turning even the hardest of hearts toward life, until the day He comes again in glory.

Apage Satanas! Annuit coeptis. Consummatum est. ("Be gone, Satan! God has favored us. It is finished.")

St. Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host—
by the Power of God—
cast into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Amen.

Vita Pro Omni!


*It seems that many abortionists and staff members are hardly trained at all. The abortion industry has managed to avoid regulation and inspection from state and federal health departments since abortion-on-demand became legal in 1973 (physiciansforlife.org). Abortionists consistently graduate medical school at the bottom of their class. They often have previously lost legitimate practices and find that the abortion industry welcomes them (cnsnews.com).

**This statistic represents only children killed by surgical abortions. Yet we mustn't forget the other vast portion of victims: the untold number of children who have been killed by the abortion pill, RU-486. They are often forgotten, but are equally deprived of their right to life as any other aborted child. In other words, the abortion pill is preferred to a surgical abortion only insofar as a man poisoning his wife is preferred to him stabbing her to death—either way, she is just as dead.