Letter From the Zone #2 is my weekly reflection after praying outside our local abortion centre.
As you may be aware, although Tasmania recently decriminalised abortion and created exclusion zones around abortion providers, the police have given their permission for peaceful protests to take place within the zone.
This time was harder than my previous session.
I’ve read about pro-life activists being plagued by temptations and this time it was my turn.
The negative thoughts came thick and fast:
“Praying in public is just an act of pride.”
“Your activism is hurting other pro-life efforts.”
“No one else thinks this is necessary - so why do you?”
“You will make people think that Catholics are religious nuts, or like Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
But as I started to pray the Rosary, these thoughts faded into the background. Chris and I pray separately; he paces and I stay planted in my spot. We both pray for the mothers, for the babies, for the abortion doctors and workers, for those who share the evil building with an abortion mill.
I asked myself how abortion ever come to be acceptable in this civilised nation.
I prayed for that society which believes it is best served by solving the problem of an unwanted pregnancy through the murder of children.
I looked at the grim entrance to the abortion centre and reflected on the emotions which must be present as a woman walks through there - apprehension, anxiety, perhaps terror - but never peace, never joy.
When she leaves, she perhaps feels relief - the ‘problem’ is gone.
But that relief is short-lived.
Regret will eventually come to inhabit that space.
Chris and I will be there again next Tuesday from 2pm. Anyone who loves life is welcome to join us.
October 11, 2014
It is a small inconvenience to go and pray a Rosary on Tuesdays. But I go there not for my convenience. It is a time for reflection and ‘preparation’. And appeal to God and his Holy Mother.
I arrive a little earlier than 2pm. I go into St Joe’s Church up the road and ask Christ for His support. I sit a while in the garden where St Joe’s statue stands in one corner. I smoke my pipe and think about what I am about to do.
I am an ordinary man. Not a particularly good one, and I am very aware of hypocricy. What ‘right’ have I to object to the sin of Abortion? Do I not sin in my own ways?
I think about what a ‘mentor’ of mine used to say about being ‘Pure’ if we are to confront evil. He, (Scott Peck) had a similar profession to mine as a Psychologist and well aware of the myriad ways that we poor human beings can exhibit our frailty. He insited that we at the very least TRY to be pure, especially when called upon to confront evil. And he is right. We NEED to purify. Hence my prayers for me too. We cannot ‘do it’ by ourselves.
So many women passed through my consulting room, coming to find the source of their anguish. They knew full well. Their abortion years before had left deep wounds that they could no longer bear. I helped them. Even back then I was often at a loss for words. I had to pray before a consultation: “Please, Lord. Give me the words”.
Contemplation and prayers done, I walk the 100 metres to the Abortuary.
I have to tell myself that I love those poor women who are about to commit horror. I pray for them. I have to tell myself because I am an ordinary man and filled with conflicting thoughs and feelings. I pray that Grace enters them. I ask that Grace enters me too. I ask Mary, the Mother, to intercede. I pray, as you do, Kathy, for the babies first. They are the innocent victims barely in the world before being killed. I pray for the silenced fathers. I pray for the nurses who are ‘just doing their jobs’. I pray for the Doctors who spit on their oath to save life.
And I ask - are my prayers well recieved, or do they simply add to my list of sins? Am I being blasphemous? Am I pure enough?
I cannot answer that.
I put my Faith in Jesus to look kindly upon me as He did to the sinner next to Him on the Cross.
Being Crucified was a darn sight more inconvenient.
Father, forgive them: they know not what they do.
October 20, 2014
There is no more powerful place to pray for souls associated with abortion than outside an abortuary: this is not to say that prayer at home or in front of the Blessed Sacrament is without merit - far from it. But public prayer gains merit by its sacrificial nature, and I believe the former prayers sustain the pray-ers for the later prayers.