Praying for Life: Our Most Important Work

Details: 19 August 2011

Exterior engagement is drawn from and is based upon a deep and interior relationship with Christ." These words from Cardinal Francis Arinze provided a framework for a talk given by Msgr. James Moroney at the Diocesan Pro-Life Leadership Conference which I attended in Atlanta last week.

In his talk, appropriately titled "Praying for Life: Our Most Important Work," Msgr. Moroney reinforced what every pro-life activist quickly discovers: that prayer is our most essential and powerful weapon against the culture of death.

Blessed John Paul II, in his great encyclical Evangelium Vitae, explained that the deepest root of the culture of death is alienation from God. "In seeking the deepest roots of the struggle between the ‘culture of life’ and the ‘culture of death,’" John Paul said, "[w]e have to go to the heart of the tragedy being experienced by modern man: the eclipse of the sense of God and of man, typical of a social and cultural climate dominated by secularism."

"Those who allow themselves to be influenced by this climate," John Paul says, "easily fall into a sad, vicious circle: When the sense of God is lost, there is also a tendency to lose the sense of man, of his dignity and his life; in turn the systematic violation of the moral law, especially in the serious matter of respect for human life and its dignity, produces a kind of progressive darkening of the capacity to discern God’s living and saving presence."

To emphasize the point, John Paul II quotes the Second Vatican Council document Gaudium et spes which says: "Without the Creator, the creature would disappear… But when God is forgotten, the creature itself grows unintelligible."

"Man is no longer able to see himself as ‘mysteriously different’ from other creatures," John Paul II continues. "Life itself becomes a mere ‘thing,’ which man claims as his exclusive property, completely subject to his control and manipulation."

All of this points to the essential role of prayer in fighting the culture of death and rebuilding a culture of life and civilization of love. Our conversation with God, through prayer, will deepen our relationship with God and our understanding of the sacred dignity of human life which is made in His image and likeness.

Therefore, the first and most critical action item in our pro-life efforts must be prayer. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Pro-Life office provides many excellent prayer and liturgical resources to assist us in praying for life—individually and as a community.

These resources include a variety of blessings, intercessory prayers, litanies, novenas, rosaries for life, pro-life stations of the cross, meditations and holy hours for life. In addition, the Bishops’ Pro Life office produces a Liturgy Guide as part of its annual Respect Life program packet.

This year’s Liturgy Guide provides homily notes to assist priests and deacons in preaching about the dignity of human life. The homily notes, as well as intercessions for life, are provided for Respect Life Sunday (observed the first Sunday of October) and for January 22, the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s abortion rulings (Roe v. Wade and Doe v Bolton).

The Liturgy Guide also provides a prayer format for conducting a holy hour for life, which is based on reflections of Blessed John Paul II on the elderly. A nuptial rosary, based upon the Nuptial Blessing from the Rite of Marriage, is also featured in the Liturgy Guide.

All of these materials can be found on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website (www.usccb.org/prolife) which is currently being revamped. During this process, these resources can only be accessed through the "old" site at: old.usccb.org/prolife (click on "prayer resources"). They also can be obtained from my office.

You can contact Greg at The Nebraska Catholic Conference, 215 Centennial Mall South Suite 310, Lincoln, NE 68508; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.