When I go to Planned Parenthood to pray outside the doors, I feel really really uncomfortable. I don't know what me praying decade after decade of the rosary are accomplishing in the face of the overall worldly pragmatism of abortion. I don't know what I'm doing. Each man and woman that goes in and comes out, I pray a decade for. When the escorts are out in their pink vests, I pray for them but never take my eyes off them. Our eyes will meet sometimes, but they always seem to look away. They know. Still, I don't know what else to do but pray. I don't know what to say or do. And I am a neophyte, especially compared to the veterans that have devoted their life to what I do a handful of times a year.
In the movie "Romero," the Archbishop is invited to the home of a well-to-do couple. Pleasantries are exchanged, and then the businessman husband/father lays into Archbishop Romero in the kitchen:
"You religious people ...You live in your souls. You do not understand what we do ...producing, selling, bringing dollars in...Capital, to develop the country, to create jobs ...to build a prosperous economy. That is what affects people. But for that we must have law and order."
Succeeding in the world is a wholly pragmatic affair, one I never really caught on to, as I'm sometimes reminded. I never did any internships, got a useless degree, for ten years I thought I would be a monk, I never made much money and never really cared, don't have much to show for a career. But I've always prayed, and I know God is faithful. I know it is not a futile endeavor...but that itself takes faith. We're not called to be successful, as St. Teresa of Calcutta said...just faithful.
Still, faith can feel like a fools errand sometimes when we actually put it into practice, when we're not writing about it or sharing articles or having discussions. We think of the flesh typically as the passions, of lust and unchastity and the appetites. But for me it's as much the temptations of the flesh to be accepted, to pragmatism, to scientific verifiability, to NOT being really really uncomfortable and just playing safe, to not losing friends, to not being mocked.
It's seeing a woman walking into the clinic and thinking, "well, if I was in her shoes, no job and no family and no support, scared and feeling like I had not options, maybe I would be doing the same thing. Maybe abortion in that case would make sense, and who am I to judge her if I haven't walked in her shoes." Or if I was the boyfriend, maybe I'd want to 'cover my tracks' too. These are the temptations I face during these times, the very subtle whisperings of "you have no right" and "what do you know" and "sure, you can pray for me, if it makes you feel better, but it won't really change anything." The foolishness of religion, of faith, of prayer.
If you want to be a saint, you have to be a stubborn son of a gun, for God's sake. St. Philomena was scourged, drowned with an anchor attached to her, and shot with arrows. Each time she was attacked angels took to her side and healed her through prayer. Finally, the Emperor had Philomena decapitated when the 13 year old virgin still refused to marry him. If it weren't for the saints themselves, I wouldn't think Heaven was even a possibility. We have to be stubborn with ourselves too. Oftentimes I only have faith to spite my LACK of faith, to spite the one tempting me, because there is literally nothing else I have of worth except this poverty of foolish faith, like a ratty gift you offer a King. Please God, increase my faith, and take me down with the ship so I can rise with you when this life is over.
Wow, you and I think alike. Been there, done that. You never mention other "protesters". Are you alone? Jesus says don't pray on the street corner alone (like those hypocrites) Matt6:5. Maybe that is why you feel uncomfortable? He says instead, "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them"Matt18:20. If alone, maybe just go to an adoration chapel? Sometimes the "other protesters" are often more in need of prayers than the pro-aborts. I agree, I often think that could have been me (if I were born a female). But I would have known it was wrong - deep down inside - and likely made excuses. I made lots of bad decisions in my youth. Just pray. Don't yell dumb stuff (like those hypocrites). Prayer works.
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