Ash Wednesday
Planned Parenthood, Ventura. Our signs were wet and rain was dripping off my umbrella onto my Rosary. I was on the sidewalk with a few stalwarts on a rainy Ash Wednesday, also the first day of 40 Days for Life.
We had barely started the Hail Marys when a car zoomed past and pulled over to the curb. I braced myself. Usually that kind of hasty stop signals an angry tirade. Instead a young woman got out with a smile. She had made a detour because she wanted some Cheetos, she said, but she knew God had actually directed her.
She had seen us many times; today she finally pulled over to ask what we were all about. We explained that we were praying, hoping our signs reached someone, grateful when someone occasionally rolled down a window to talk.
She shared that after being pro-abortion by default, she had converted to being Christian and pro-life. When she had gotten pregnant, she insisted on having the baby, showing her boyfriend videos of pre-natal development and convincing him that abortion was not an option. Later he talked his sister out of an abortion. She knew God was calling her to do more.
We talked about both Protestant and Catholic sidewalk efforts.
Could we have looked any more Catholic, my son observed on the way home. Rosaries, ashes on foreheads, pro-life hoodies from our Catholic school.
She pulled away, and we resumed our prayer. We were finishing up when a car pulled out of the parking lot. A little girl — that was the only way I could describe her — stared out at us. There was so much pain on her face. Not just physical pain. Anguish. She gave us the finger as the car drove away.
Someday, will she remember the signs that said “We can help you” and “healing after abortion”? One can only pray.
“How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible.” – All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque
– By Monica Seeley
You can never look too Catholic! God Bless You.
But you can look too pre-Vatican II Catholic.
Reply to Restrainer too pre-Vat II: What’s wrong with pre-Vatican II. A time when you received the Body and Blood of Christ while kneeling and in the tongue. The Church made a lot more sense then.
There is a really good article at America Magazine about how the TLM should be abolished.
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2025/03/13/baldovin-liturgy-vatican-ii-way-forward-250062
Pre Vatican II Catholicism is obsolete and disengaged from the world. That doesn’t mean a complete break with the past. It does mean that Catholic tradition, worship, faith, and teaching have evolved beyond where they were in 1962. You can’t stay in 1962 forever, but people who fear modernity want to do that.
Yes, you can look too pre-Vatican II.
No. The Catholic Church is timeless, ancient, 2000+ years old– and cannot be forced into a “new” mold to suit the dark and anti-Christian world. Either you have the Faith– or you don’t. A true Catholic or Christian is not worldly at all. He or she stands firmly for Jesus, preaching only Him to the dark and sinful world that does not know Him and rejects Him. A true, honest Catholic or Christian will even die for Him– as they now are doing, worldwide, sadly. Vatican II or pre-Vatican II– no, it makes no difference. 2000+ years of Catholic teaching and tradition are the same thing as the day Christ first began to preach, in the Jewish culture, in Palestine. No change. Too many want to use the dishonest “Vatican II” excuse– who really are “Cafeteria Catholic” heretics, like Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Jesuit Fr. James Martin (Editor of “America” magazine), Cardinal McElroy, Cardinal Cupich, and many more. Dishonest. Many false prelates high in today’s errant Church— with lots of “lavendar mafia,” gay clerics, too– very worldly, self-serving, false to Christ.
America Magazine is antithetical to Catholic teaching.
Not that particular article. Read it. But a lot of trads fear having their pre-Vatican II bubble burst.
Reply to Peggy: America Magazine is a joke!
Reply to Read in America: Abolish America Magazine not the TLM!