Sacramento diocese takes over 40 Days for Life
Will other California dioceses follow suit?

On the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe end abortion now.

40 days is kind of a lot. It would be easier to get volunteers if it were a week or less.

Thank you very much for this article. I belong to the last California city on the list. Been doing 40Days for Life for three years now – Lent and Advent, rain or shine, Monday through Friday. Praying the rosary, the chaplets, litanies, Stations of the Cross, etc. in thoughts and in words, and singing prayer hymns. We hold a Eucharistic Procession at the end of each season.

The volunteers are passionately pro-life and quite inspiring. Our leader, Rosemary, makes sure all shifts are filled; she herself fills in the empties, and spends extra hours in prayer and sidewalk counseling. A lady dentist spends her lunch hour under a wide-brimmed hat, praying the rosary under the sun. Volunteers from neighboring protestant and evangelical/fundamentalist assemblies regularly show up.

There have been some heartbreaking, as well as heartwarming, incidents. Like that of a young man who was standing in the rain, weeping and hoping that when his girlfriend showed up, he’d be able to persuade her not to abort their baby. I prayed with him, but it turned out his girlfriend went to another clinic in another city, even filed a restraining order against him and had him arrested for stalking.

And that of another young man, agonizingly pacing back and forth at the other side of the parking lot, waiting for his girlfriend to emerge from the clinic. I handed him one of the Rachel’s Vineyard leaflets (post-abortion spiritual healing) and I saw relief on his face. We did not speak one word to each other, but we understood.

Cars drove by, some heckling us and others flashing thumb-up signs. One driver actually came out, just to say, “Thank you,” and assured us he, too, was praying for life privately, in his own way.

There are a few other heartbreaking and heartwarming incidents I could share, but what amazes me is that, so far, they have been only men (outside of our prayer group) who showed support to what we are doing. Where are the women?

I chanced upon a website on the Servant of God Marcel Van (known as St. Therese’s “Little Brother”) to whom Our Lord Jesus Christ appeared in a vision, saying:

“The two faculties of the soul (intellect and free will) are essential, and these are faculties little children lack. It is therefore necessary for others’ will to settle within the hearts of these little children. If this other will acts in accordance with good, it is equivalent to the little children acting in the way of their own volition.

“You must place your will within the hearts of little children. In this way they will also belong to the Holy Church. Should they come to die before attaining the use of reason, they will nonetheless ascend to Heaven with Me, for they will have your will with them…Little brother, this notion of the will I have revealed to you was not known until now. Little children were always saved in this manner without man ever realizing it.

“Children saved in this manner are baptized in Love itself. They are allowed to confess their faith in love. This act of love is accomplished by the will.”

Words like these assure me it’s never a waste of time and energy to pray for babies who perished in abortion.