The Living Allegory.
My family joined the Helpers of God’s Precious Children for their monthly meeting and we took part in the battle between the serpent and the woman on the streets of Melbourne.
The Supper of the Lamb.
The morning started with Mass at the Cathedral said by a Polish Jesuit priest and accompanied by a small but very lovely choir. It was my children’s first time at the Cathedral and my four-year-old kept tugging at me to point out the beautiful windows and statues. We said the prayer to St. Michael, knowing we were on the way to Calvary.
Carrying the Cross.
We assembled after Mass outside the Church and I met some very faithful members of the Melbourne pro-life community: people who have been carrying the Cross and walking to Calvary for ten and twenty years. Four men carried a large statue of the Madonna and some people carried signs. The rest of us carried our rosaries, and occasionally, our children.
My little boy was most interested in the police escort that drove alongside us.
Walking to Calvary.
It takes roughly five decades to walk to the East Melbourne mill. To walk there once, on a fine morning, wasn’t difficult, but to see the dedication of those who do this regularly was very humbling.
As we neared the abortion centre, we could se the counter-protesters there with their signs, and we assembled directly across the road from them; across the allegorical chasm.
Calvary.
Behind the protesters was the modern-day Calvary: the abortion mill. In this building, every week, Victoria’s tiniest citizens are killed in the name of choice and convenience. Their mothers and fathers are routinely lied to and told abortion will be a simple solution to their new little problem: an unwanted baby.
The protesters chanted and shouted their banal chants and held their glib signs. They shouted across the chasm: three lanes of traffic where people went about their lives unaware of the battle being waged around them.
The mill wasn’t open,and my friend wondered what it would be like to be arriving for an abortion and hearing the awful shouts of the advocates outside the building. One of their signs invited drivers to honk if they were pro-choice. Perhaps ten percent of the drivers did so - to enthusiastic waves from the protesters.
I caught the expression on the face of a female tram-driver who honked her horn. She looked anything but enthusiastic. She looked grim and resigned. I wondered if she was grieving after an abortion.
To cross the chasm from death to life is a very difficult task and not without its consequences. But the Helpers shine like a beacon, a place of safety, a refuge from violence and confusion.
I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day,
that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse;
therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.
Deuteronomy 30:19
