NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF PRIESTS FOR LIFE – Speaker at Lift Jesus Higher Rally
NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF PRIESTS FOR LIFE
Speaker at Lift Jesus Higher Rally
at Metro Toronto Convention Centre
on April 19, 2008
Once again on this Sat. spring morning, the annual Lift Jesus Higher Rally was again held at the MTCC in downtown Toronto. School buses brought thousands of people from out of town, making the Catholic event the biggest every year. It was reported that the Adult and Youth Rallies totalled 8,000 participants. There were displays of different organizations such as Renewal Ministries (organizer), March for Life Ottawa (Campaign Life Coalition), Natural Family Planning, Medjugorje Centre, Silent No More Campaign and more.
As one approached the convention centre where the event was being held, lively music could be heard from far away which grabbed the attention of the participant instantly. The whole day would be packed with prayer, talks, praise and worship, Divine Mercy prayer, exposition and Eucharistic Procession with Blessing, concluded with Mass celebrated by Archbishop Thomas Collins.
On the Youth Agenda, Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life and Founder of Missionaries of the Gospel of Life would give a talk on “The Master Has Need of You” and Sr. Sarah Burdick would speak on the topic “Choose Life”.
On the Adult Agenda, Fr. Pavone gave a powerful talk on “Winning the Battle for Life”. He had several reasons that the battle for life is winning. First of all, Christ’s death and resurrection had already won the battle over evil. He said that in the past women were led to believe that abortion will solve their problems. Now the women who aborted are leading the way to spread the news that abortion hurts women and they will not be silent anymore.
If anyone of us, especially Catholics, should say that since we do not abort, it should not be my business to stop others from doing it, then we are wrong. God granted us mercy and so we should return mercy to our fellowmen. We should try to save those who will hurt themselves. We should stop them from committing a sin that would make them regret for the rest of their lives.
For all of us who attended praise and worship, said our prayers, let us put in action what God has revealed and called us to do. Our Lady gave us a very good example. After she received news from the Angel about becoming the Mother of Jesus, she did not dwell and idle in the happy news, but quickly set forth on her journey to visit her cousin Elizabeth to assist her in her pregnancy.
If priests or consecrated people are preaching the gospel at the pulpit but do not preach about respecting and protecting life, then they are not preaching the gospel, because the gospel is about life. Someone approached Fr. Pavone one day as he was praying the rosary in front of an abortion clinic and accused him of being “self-righteous” and “judgemental”. Fr. looked at him and said: “Friend, did you not hear what we were praying just now? I just said ‘pray for us, sinners’ 150 times and you have not said it once”.
Finally, Fr. Pavone invited us all to visit his two videos on You Tube in which he demonstrated the most common abortion procedures, using the actual abortion instruments and fetal models. He asked us to view and to spread far and wide these challenging videos. The links are as follows: www.youtube.com/watch?v=us_y9GP_-DA – Dismemberment D&E Procedure
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBOAPleF1t0 – Suction Abortion Procedure. He urged us to use the “Is This What You Mean” Project: The Abortion Procedure Revealed to challenge politicians and voters.
Not surprisingly, Fr. Pavone received a standing ovation. Ralph Martin, President of Renewal Ministries and organizer, encouraged participants to ponder and pray about what Fr. Pavone had said so that we could discern what God wanted us to do.
Later on, with more talks, singing, praying, confession, adoration of the Holy Eucharist and Mass, we picked up our happy experience and head back out to the society where we have to witness and live the gospel with the power of God’s Word – “Empowering Your Life”, the theme of this year’s Rally.
Jeannie Wu
http://www.priestsforlife.org/ (photo of Fr. Frank Pavone)
http://www.lift-jesus-higher
http://renewalministries.net
