We wish all our Action News readers an especially holy Holy Week and a glorious Easter. One of our very favorite texts for the Stations of the Cross is the one we used in our parish in Hartford City, Indiana back in the 1930’s and ’40’s, written by then Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. We still have a copy dated April 1933.
Fulton Sheen’s Stations of the Cross
The author says he had a two-fold purpose in writing this meditation on the Way of the Cross: to enkindle in souls a flaming love for the Crucified Christ, and to ask for prayers that his own Love of Christ would grow. It surely did. Bishop Sheen is now being considered for beatification.
Even as children we thrilled to the opening prayer. Here it is:
The curtain is now about to go up on the awful and abiding drama of Thy Redemptive Love. And as I hear Thy words, “Take up Thy Cross daily and follow Me,” I stand affrighted, lest its burden be too great and its shame too bitter. If I could but see that Thy command to follow Thee to Calvary was not just an iron law of cruel fate, but a condition of everlasting happiness, perhaps I could better make the journey, but I fear, dear Jesus, lest having Thee, I must have naught else beside.
Let this fear be dispelled in seeing death as the condition of life, for through Thy apostle, Paul, Thou hast told us it is the joy at the end of the journey that makes us endure the Cross, and even Thou, in loving kindness, hast asked all who labor and are burdened to come unto Thee, where they will find rest for their souls. Then I shall take up the Cross, Jesus! Why must we love Thee so!
Media Ignore Saved Babies
Last Saturday at the prayer vigil in front of Planned Parenthood’s abortion mill on North La Salle street, our counselors saved the lives of two babies. We know this because the women told us they had decided against their abortions. Did these life saving activities get into the Chicago Tribune‘s story Sunday? No way.
But when firefighter Jesse Lee caught a baby tossed out of a third story window during a fire, Lee was hailed in a newspaper story as a hero — as well he was. He will probably get a medal for saving a baby’s life. But when we save two babies it is not even mentioned in a Tribune story. Why do you think that is so?
YOUR Urgent Action Needed To Fight HB 2486
The rotten House Bill, 2486, that would make it a crime to talk to a woman outside an abortion mill, is going into the Health Committee which is bad news for the babies and pro-life sidewalk counselors. Our Springfield contact says the bill will no doubt be going to the full Senate within a week or two. Our goal now is to beat it in the Senate.
You and I must contact our state senators with the most powerful arguments we have. We must do this now. We’ve already called for an appointment with our State Senator. We must convince our senators that this bill is a total travesty. It uses words like “intimidate” and “obstruct.”
Here is a line from a Planned Parenthood press release on Monday:
With Cardinal Frances George conducting a protest outside of the Planned Parenthood health center in the background, it underscored the need for the General Assembly to pass the Illinois Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act which prohibits conduct that is threatening, obstructionist or violent towards persons seeking reproductive health services.
If that isn’t a direct slap in the face of the Catholic Church in Illinois I don’t know what it is. All the bishops of Illinois, all the pastors, all Catholics should be up in arms. It is a gross insult to say that trying to dissuade a woman from having her child murdered is a crime deserving of fines and imprisonment.
But the good news is that HB 2486 can be and should be the catalyst for setting off a landslide of protest unseen and unheard of in Illinois in its l85 year history. The time has come to show the abortionists in this state that pro-lifers are the majority and that we will not tolerate the loss of our right to talk women out of killing their children.
There will be action, including a trip to Springfield and many trips to state senators offices. We need to send a message to the baby killers that their unconstitutional efforts will not work. Stay tuned to Action News for updates and information.
Also in their ridiculous letter justifying baby killing, Planned Parenthood brags that before abortion was made legal l973, groups of pro-abortion so-called clergy helped women get abortions. They had an illegal conspiracy going in which people claiming to believe in God helped murder children.
At the end of the release a person posing as Planned Parenthood’s chaplain, the Rev. Randall Doubet King says he yearns for a just society where faith is not a rigid structure of ideas but an active trust in women to make wise decisions according to their own consciences.
