“For I was a stranger…and you welcomed me.”

An excerpt from When Did We See You, Lord, by Bishop Robert Baker and the late Fr. Benedict Groeschel, fitting for the Fall 40 Days for Life Campaign currently underway:

Recent Issues of both Time and Newsweek seem to point to a majority of Americans finally coming around to realize that life begins at conception. Of course, this has been the teaching of the Catholic Church all along. One can only hope this is a sign that American society may be beginning to welcome the “stranger” who is the infant in the womb to the category of human personhood, acknowledging the human dignity and civil rights denied the infant in the womb by Roe v. Wade in 1973.

Roe v. Wade made the fetus out to be a predator, a threat to family happiness, another potential mouth to feed who might hamper the health and well being of other family members already there. There would simply not be enough food and clothing and square footage of housing space to accommodate one more human being. The infant in the womb, the stranger in our midst, must go.

A friend of mine…described a great success story he witnessed at a pro-life prayer vigil in front of an abortion clinic…There, he saw a pregnant woman guided away from the destruction of the infant in her womb by another woman, patiently holding a picture of a beautiful baby. Their conversation led the expectant mother to decide to investigate alternatives to abortion with the people at another clinic, a pro-life clinic.

That second woman overcame fear of the unknown with an attitude of welcome — and saved a life. May our time in prayer help us to contemplate the face of Christ int he unborn, and to see that in the unseen infant is a stranger who longs to be welcomed into our world.

Prayer

God, our Father, You are the author of life and the defender and protector of the innocent and defenseless human life in the womb. Help us to welcome that most unwelcome of strangers in our American society, the innocent unborn. Because we have become so gluttonous as individuals, families and society, we have left no space or room — in our homes, our society or our lives — for this stranger in our midst. Now that we Americans have more to go around, we have less room for children in our midst. Help us, Lord, to see children as the joy of our lives…not hindrances, enemies, obstacles, or strangers.

AMEN!