Successful Pro Life Vigil at Allston's Planned Parenthood

This morning, Saturday March 12th 2011 at 8:45 am saw members of several Catholic Parishes of Greater Boston participate in a prayer vigil outside the "clinic" of Planned Panenthood in Allston, MA. Fifteen decades of prayers encompassing the sacred mysteries of the passion, cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ of the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary were prayed along with many hymns and prayers. There were several other pro-life demonstrators holding signs of various real depictions of pre-natal children in the womb at 8 weeks.
I call this prayer vigil a success because at least two mothers who were intent on availing of the "services" of the business outside whose premises we were praying, saw our signs and prayers, and turned around in some distress. We don't know whether it was the circumstances these women found themselves in, the combination of abortion promotion and sexualizing of our youth, or whether it was the toxin of moral relativism of a society in free-fall which drove these women to this place to seek this horrible and deplorable "service". Neither do we condemn them, nor their peers, nor even the operators of these abortion clinics. We are doing battle here with the very principalities and powers of darkness. And because those two women turned away from this darkness, despite what economic, personal and psychological difficulties arise, at least those women have their lives, and at least their children will have been given a start in life, a fighting chance.
The vigil and demonstration certainly had its fair share of what I would describe as distant hecklers. A cyclist rode by extending his middle finger and directed a stream of vulgarity towards the group, two persons across the road yelled something inaudible and probably incomprehensible. This is to be expected, when you are part of body who holds to an unchanging truth about mans place in the world and an unwavering objective moral standard, detractors and angry opposition is to be expected. It is vital and challenging to be a part of this group - a trembling presence of the outworking of the Catholic Church doctrines, ancient and true. Whether it's a papal bull. condemning slavery (Sicut Dudum written in 1435) or an encyclical (Pope Leo XIII's rerum novarum) warning against the evils of communism, the Church has been and always will be, at least by tenets of faith and moral doctrines, that massive "undigested lead ball in the pit of the worlds stomach" (adapted from Peter Kreeft). Like the solid metal heart in Wilde's The Happy Prince, which could not be alloyed, sintered or liquefied into the mainstream flow of secular society.
Please join the prayer vigil on the first Saturday of every month in Allston, MA.