Thirst for Righteousness

Tonight I read large portions of the Book of Isaiah outside a Planned Parenthood facility. I had just come from watching Ken Burns' PBS documentary on the Second World War, when they liberated the concentration camps.

To posit the two media side by side in my thoughts and prayers elicited profound realizations, especially in the context of what I was doing at the time: praying for an end to abortion as part of the 40 Days for Life campaign.

It's hard not to see the justice of the Allied offensive: so much horror was being done-- yet, so much horror was undergone to bring it to an end. Only God can account for such atrocity.

And such horrors are not distant or new. The Israelites knew the ravages of war- they had seen cannibalism during sieges, infants hurled against walls, the afflictions of a wrathful God. And I stood outside an otherwise nondescript building inside of which children are routinely and with legal assent dissolved, crushed, or excised.

What shall be our response? I was armed only with my Bible and Rosary; with such an arsenal, we can mount a counteroffensive of Prayer & Fasting. To pray for an end to abortion is the most JUST thing I can conceive of doing. We do not return horror for horror.

Rather we stand with the prophet, at the close of his book, surveying the national landscape as he once surveyed his Mother Zion:

Before she comes to labor, she gives birth; Before the pains come upon her, she safely delivers a male child.

Who ever heard of such a thing, or saw the like? Can a country be brought forth in one day, or a nation be born in a single moment? Yet Zion is scarcely in labor when she gives birth to her children.

Shall I bring a mother to the point of birth, and yet not let her child be born? says the LORD; Or shall I who allow her to conceive, yet close her womb? says your God.

Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad because of her, all you who love her; Exult, exult with her, all you who were mourning over her!

Oh, that you may suck fully of the milk of her comfort, That you may nurse with delight at her abundant breasts!

For thus says the LORD: Lo, I will spread prosperity over her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent. As nurslings, you shall be carried in her arms, and fondled in her lap;

As a mother comforts her son, so will I comfort you; in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort.

When you see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bodies flourish like the grass; The LORD'S power shall be known to his servants, but to his enemies, his wrath.

Lo, the LORD shall come in fire, his chariots like the whirlwind, To wreak his wrath with burning heat and his punishment with fiery flames.

For the LORD shall judge all mankind by fire and sword, and many shall be slain by the LORD.

...As the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall endure before me, says the LORD, so shall your race and your name endure.

From one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, All mankind shall come to worship before me, says the LORD.

They shall go out and see the corpses of the men who rebelled against me; Their worm shall not die, nor their fire be extinguished; and they shall be abhorrent to all mankind.

Let us pray that all peoples everywhere may see their Mothers rejoicing, that women not endure the horror of abortion because they see no other alternative, that men uphold the dignity of every other Creature, that our land will nurse with delight~

Pray for an end to the abhorrence of abortion in this country.
Pray for Justice. Pray for Peace.