December 2, 2013
Below is my latest column, Our Physical God, but first let me give you some other important updates.
Also, we have an e-book, Christmas for the Unborn. It will enrich your Advent and Christmas and you will draw strength and courage from it for your work to defend human life. Advent is a perfect time to re-dedicate ourselves to proclaim, celebrate, and serve the Gospel of Life. Order at PriestsForLife.org/ebooks.
The National Night of Prayer for Life takes place each year from 9 pm Dec. 8th to 1 am Dec. 9th. This night of prayer unites the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with the Feast of St. Juan Diego. This pro-life prayer service consists of exposition and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, 20 decades of the Rosary, prayer to St. Michael, and silent prayer and hymns. Please ask your parish to hold this special pro-life prayer service on this holy occasion. For more information and to get the prayer resources we make available for occasions like this, see Nationalnightofprayer.org.
Join us for our two December prayer campaigns: An Advent Prayer for Life from December 1–December 23 and a Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe from December 4-12. You can find the text of the prayers at PrayerCampaign.org.
Each month I co-host Life Talk, a show produced by Life Dynamics that gives you the latest in pro-life news . The December show is now available online at LifeTalkTV.com.
Pro-Life Champions, Spirit Juice Studios and Movie to Movement are honored to announce the world premiere of a new powerful pro-life documentary 40. The film which began production at the 2012 March for Life in Washington D.C., presents abortion as the most important human rights issue of our time. Directed by the producer of the award winning film Champions of Faith: Baseball Edition, John E. Morales, and from Executive Producer and Movie to Movement Founder, Jason Jones, 40 will feature inspiring stories and deeply personal interviews with champions of the pro-life movement. The world premiere will be held in Park Ridge, IL on December 11. Go to The40film.com for more information. Members of our Priests for Life pastoral team are featured in the film.
Are you leading a bus/group to Washington DC for the annual March for Life? Or do you know the organizer(s) in your community who are doing so? Please let me know who you are, because I have some special information and offers that can help make your trip even more fruitful.
For one thing, I want to personally invite you to the 20th Annual National Memorial for the Pre-Born and Their Mothers and Fathers taking place on the morning of the March for Life in Washington DC on January 22, from 8:30-10:30am at DAR Constitution Hall. I will be joined by clergy from across the country and across denominational lines. There will be a Catholic Mass before the event at 7:30am at the same location. For more information see NationalPrayerService.com.
If you are a bus captain, please arrange for your entire bus to attend this event and let me know you will do that by emailing christa@nprcouncil.org.
Also, we will once again make special materials available for the people on your bus. Just let me know if you are interested, at orders@priestsforlife.org. (If you are a bus captain yourself, please let me know that, too!)
Blessings,
Fr. Frank Pavone
National Director, Priests for Life
Praise for our work: Fr. Frank, last night I saw your [column] and …I felt the spiritual “shock” directly to me in this specific situation with my friend [in a crisis pregnancy]. ..But the message really told me to do more than just pray, and I am thinking and thinking what am I going to do. – C.E.
Our Physical God
By Fr. Frank Pavone
It’s Christmas time again, and the Church focuses on the Incarnation, a word coming from the Latin “in carne,” which means, “in the flesh.” Christmas is God in the flesh: no longer only an eternal Spirit who fills the universe, but our brother, whom we can hear, see, and touch.
One of the reasons he did this was to empower us to love him, and to love our neighbor.
The first Christians learned how to love, because the source of love, the Christ who sacrificed himself, was personally known to them. They saw and touched him.
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it…” (1 John:1:1-2).
And when commanded not to speak about Jesus, they replied, “We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.’” (Acts 4:20).
This contact with the humanity of Christ speaks to us of what we are to do now for the unborn. It is the contact with the human reality of their lives, and the human tragedy of their deaths, that is to impel us in our self-sacrificing love for them.
It is not the “nuance” of the super-sophisticated that impels self-sacrificing, life-giving action. It is contact with the humanity we serve. It is facing the injustice that oppresses human lives, and then making a human response to it that springs from the depths of our own humanity, grounded in the God who gave that humanity to us.
That is why we need to look at the pictures of the victims of abortion — Not simply at the pictures of the living baby in the womb, but the pictures of what abortion does to that baby (see both at Unborn.info).
The last thing supporters of abortion want to talk about is abortion. You will not hear them describe the procedure, much less show people what it looks like.
In his homily on July 3, Pope Francis said,
“We find Jesus’ wounds in carrying out works of mercy, giving to our body – the body – the soul too, but – I stress – the body of your wounded brother, because he is hungry, because he is thirsty, because he is naked, because he is humiliated, because he is a slave, because he’s in jail because he is in the hospital…Those are the wounds of Jesus today. …We need to touch the wounds of Jesus, we must caress the wounds of Jesus, we need to bind the wounds of Jesus with tenderness, we have to kiss the wounds of Jesus, and this literally. Just think of what happened to St. Francis, when he embraced the leper? The same thing that happened to Thomas: his life changed. “
Let us touch the sufferings of the baby who is in danger of abortion, and be changed into fearless warriors for them.
Read and listen to this column online at Priestsforlife.org/columns/4824-our-physical-god
Comments on this column? Go to Askfrfrank.com
Fr. Frank’s columns are podcast. See Priestsforlife.org/podcast
Remember to support our work at Priestsforlife.org/donate
Priests for Life
PO Box 141172
Staten Island, NY 10314
Phone: 888-PFL-3448
718-980-4400
Fax: 718-980-6515
Email: mail@priestsforlife.org
www.priestsforlife.org
wyandotcountyrightolife 