40 Days Reflections

Our local 40 Days For Life vigil ended on Thursday. Unlike some vigils elsewhere and ones I've been involved with in the past, it was decided at the start that we would not approach women going into the clinic, so we can't report encouraging numbers of 'turnarounds'. What has been gained? I think the most important practical gain is that it's put people across the diocese who are or want to be involved in pro-life work in contact and it's energised those involved- everyone was very positive at our last meeting about doing it again in the autumn. And as someone said, it's always good to meet people who think as you do, rather than regard you as a bit 'obsessive' about the subject (and believe me, you can get that attitude from fellow-Catholics). The organisers reckon that about half the priests in the diocese, including the bishop, had joined the vigil at least once, which is encouraging: you can sometimes feel that priests, possibly from a well-intentioned desire not to look as if they're controlling the faithful, are reluctant to turn out.

The effect of all the prayer on both those prayed for and those praying is of course intangible. Going by past experience, I'll only know if it had any direct effect on my spiritual life some way down the line.

I had relatively few face-to face contacts. I mentioned the young man and the rosary previously; the flip side was the very, almost tearfully, angry young woman who, rather bravely, I thought, came up to us and abused us and described us as 'vile'. Even though I was once that angry young woman I've never worked out quite why opposition to abortion (a pretty 'vile' thing itself) causes such fury in its supporters. Of course, some women will have have had abortions and will feel they're being judged, but that wasn't my case.  I think it's because instinctively and very deep down you know that what you are doing in advocating the destruction of the unborn, is purely evil and something that goes against your deepest instincts - in other words being pro-life is part of the natural law inscribed on our hearts and consciences. And that you cannot admit. Equally I've never worked out why its supporters seem to think abortion a positive good as opposed to a painful necessity. My road to being pro-life started years ago when I was shocked by the glee with which a friend who worked in a women's centre told me of the number of women she'd helped to refer for abortion. I wonder how many of the women she 'helped' now regret that.

A Little Evangelising

I've been spending a few hours a couple of times a week at the 40 Days For Life Vigil in Doncaster. The other day I found myself there alone for a few minutes while the other person on duty moved their car. Inevitably someone came up to me. I assessed him at once: gaunt, scruffy, terrible teeth, can of beer in hand. Prison, tick, drugs, tick, I suppose he'll ask me for money. But no: he wanted to know if it was unlucky to wear a rosary as a necklace. I explained that a rosary was for praying with, so wearing it probably was rather irreverent. It turned out he had one at home and didn't know what to do with it, apart from a hazy notion that he should say 'that Hail Mary' with it. Then he asked why the beads were set out in different ways and I explained about the different prayers and mysteries  and how he could use it. Was there any way he could research this more? I dug out one of the 'How to say the Rosary' cards we'd been using and gave it to him and I think it's true to say his face lit up. And off he went, promising to pray for us.

I found the whole episode really moving, partly because, who knows, I may have sown a little seed, or watered an existing one - and this is why we need to be upfront and out in the world, not having endless parish discussions about the New Evangelisation. But also because, not for the first time,I was willing to judge someone by their appearance and write them off. I don't do charity at all well. Come to think of it, who evangelised whom? Perhaps I learnt more than him.

And another sort of evangelisation story: I went to a Latin Requiem in another parish this week for someone who had been a regular at Latin Masses in the area and a usefully active presence in the parish for many years, without ever becoming a Catholic (his wife is Catholic). But a few days before he died, he asked the parish priest to visit him and requested reception into the Church. The labourer called at the eleventh hour, whose reward will be as great as those who worked in the heat of the day. As one who skived off for the day and only returned in the evening I rejoice for him. And for the priest who had accepted him as he was and never pressured him, but whose example must have helped in the end.