Please read attentively these remarks from Bishop Burbidge:
We are living in an exciting time of revival. Our National Eucharistic Congress, and the Eucharistic processions that led to it, involved hundreds of thousands of Catholics who will never be the same. The revival continues, and is so needed, especially in our efforts to defend human life.
Jesus, truly present in the Eucharist, gives us the fullness of life. He calls each of us to respect that gift of life in every human person. While we live in a society that often rejects those who are weak, fragile, or vulnerable, they are the most in need of our care and protection. Pope Francis reminds us that “every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who even before he was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world’s rejection.”
Pope St. John Paul II’s words resonate today: “we are facing an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life, the ‘culture of death’ and the ‘culture of life’… we are all involved and we all share in it, with the inescapable responsibility of choosing to be unconditionally pro-life.’
And so we need a revival of prayer and action:
· We must renew our commitment to work for the legal protection of every human life, from conception to natural death, and to vote for candidates who will defend life and the dignity of the human person.
· We must call for policies that assist women and their children in need, while also continuing to help mothers in our own communities through local pregnancy help centers and our nationwide, parish-based initiative, Walking with Moms in Need.
· We must likewise continue to extend the hand of compassion to all who are suffering from participation in abortion, through the Church’s abortion healing ministries like Project Rachel Ministry.
· Most importantly, we must dedicate ourselves to fervent prayer on behalf of life.
Bishop Burbidge invites all Catholics to join him in a concerted effort of prayer between now and our national elections, by daily praying our Respect Life Month “Prayer for Life to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament”:
“Prayer for Life to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament”:
Jesus, you came that we might have life—and have it in abundance. Together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, you form us in our mothers’ wombs and call us to love you for all eternity. As your most precious gift of human life is attacked, draw us ever closer to your Real Presence in the Eucharist. Dispel the darkness of the culture of death, for you are the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. By the power of your Eucharistic Presence, help us to defend the life of every human person at every stage. Transform our hearts to protect and cherish all who lives are most vulnerable. For you are God, forever and ever. Amen.
Until next week,
Fr. John