Day 17 – Happy Birthday
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“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)
Today at the vigil we celebrated the birthday of one of our team and prayed in thanksgiving for lives remembered and love of families.
It was a beautiful sunny morning and a special blessing to have so many children and young people about. There was a lot of breaking into song and praising God!
When you have a birthday, it is a time of celebration and grace. It is a joy that our culture still maintains – that we should celebrate that an individual is born into the world.
In contrast abortion, stops the birth of the child, their birthday is seen as something to avoided and never be remembered.
By staying faithful to the vigil, we not only accompany the unborn and pray for their safe birth into the world but we seek to remember and acknowledge forgotten birthdays, or birthdays that will always be remembered by mothers, fathers and families, grieving a child lost to abortion.
There were a lot of good conversations today and opportunities to witness to the Gospel of Life and our very simple aim – that every human child be allowed to be born and to have birthday. Here is just one of those stories below:
A young Christian woman, who works as a nurse in the hospital, started talking to the two young women of the Mission Team.
Our vigil prayer reports:
“we told her about 40 Days for Life, it’s philosophy, that it’s about prayer and extending love and support for women… She told us about a colleague in the hospital who is fervently pro-life.”
There were also opportunities to witness through love to angered passersby and to pray for them as they left the vigil site. We thanks and praise God for the work He is doing through us, to soften hearts and change lives – and we entrust to him all our poor and little efforts to be His presence of Divine Love in the world.
Let Christ reign at the vigil and overcome and defeat all evil through his most Happy Birthday!
“Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.
And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.” (Revelations 12: 1-5)
Day 18 – The Lord is Compassion
Can a woman forget her nursing child And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. “Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands” (Isaiah 49: 15-16)
The Compassion of God flows from His Divine Life, which is that of Love. At the vigil we ask God to gift us a Holy Compassion for everyone that we meet. We ask the Lord to gift us with His Compassion, a Compassion that made Him die of love for us.
We will not forget the children that have died at the hospital or at Lyndhurst abortion facility and all other aborted children in New Zealand. The Lord knows all these children by name and has called them into existence for His glory and to lavish them with His love.
It was a day of special blessing today and it was beautiful to see the Taizé choir singing peacefully and sitting by the sign on the grass, holding the vigil in love.
It was a sign of hope to see the Spirit move to increase the unity of those who have gathered so far. Let us continue to pray for unity and for our Compassion to grow.
Below is a new video from the 40 Days for Life in the UK, hold out to the end to see beautiful twins who were rescued from abortion at 7 weeks – the Lord answers prayers as He is the Lord of Life and Love and He wills each of His children to find a home in His heart.
May we continue to pray to grow in the Compassion of our Lord, a Mighty Compassion for every human being.
“This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another” (Zechariah 7:9)
Day 19 – Healing Love
“Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he saved them from their distress.
He sent out his word and healed them;
he rescued them from the grave.
Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for mankind.”
– Psalm 107:19-21
Jesus IS love. When we bring Jesus to others and ask His Divine Spirit of love to accompany us we can bring His Gospel to those most in need. Here are some stories from the vigil. Let us continue to pray that the Lord uses our vigil to bring about the end of abortion in Christchurch and in the whole world:
Testimony 1.
I was out praying this morning …when a guy came over from across the road to talk to us. He had seen the volunteers praying there for a couple of weeks now and finally wanted to know what we were doing. He thought we were announcing the end of the world to everyone, but we explained that we were simply witnessing to the culture of life. He didn’t have any idea about the abortions at the hospital, but then shared that he and his wife, who was in the hospital, were expecting their second child, which they found out right after giving birth to their first. Hopefully he came away thinking a little about the reality of abortion in this city, and grateful for his family.
Testimony 2.
“we were just chatting about pro-life stuff when a woman cycled up, she looked lined and thin for her age. She was cycling. She looked at the sign and indicated that we might not know what we were talking about in regard to abortion. I asked how did she know I might not know about it? This seemed to calm her down and started a conversation. She told us a story about someone being harangued by placards outside an abortion clinic, car noise stopped us really hearing what she said. She seemed pleased that we were not waving placards and were just sitting quietly. She then went on to tell a little of her story, brought up Catholic, angry at the church for ‘making’ her mum have more children, she had an abortion when she was young, then turned to alcohol and drugs because of it even though she thought it would help. ..We then talked about how what women need is support not killing their babies, she really agreed with that….I suggested healing for her abortion, name her baby, ask her baby to pray for her for healing. Told her about the healing Mass coming up…
We encouraged her to get her mum to get some healing and we prayed for her when she left…God Bless her and call her home!!Then a big strapping fellow came rushing up to us, running and heading right for us, “oh no he is going to hit us’ I thought , but no he grabbed a prayer book and started praying, it seems he comes there each day. He then told us about […] being in hospital recovering from surgery so we all popped in to chat after praying! What can happen in an hour.
Perhaps we could all pray for […] recovery, thank God for the privilege of saving our souls by doing this small work and for sunshine to warm our faces as we pray!
“Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for mankind” – Psalm 107: 15
Daniel Cote Davis
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