Lights in our Present Darkness
The good part about January is that, although it may not feel it, the days are getting longer. There are those signs of light that we all need in the midst of a quite blue Canadian January.
As Catholics our inspiration, our lights, are to be seen in the saints. I would like to suggest four saints to inspire us in our pro-life work.
1) St. Maximilian Kolbe – Fr. Kolbe’s story is so well known that it doesn’t need re-telling but I would like to emphasize several points that are germane to us in the pro-life movement. Fr. Kolbe took his stand against his time’s most diabolical pro-death forces. Central to the Nazis political philosophy was their hatred toward Christianity, and the Catholic Church in particular, and the Nazis emphasis on the purity of the races. That “purity” had no place for the disabled and imperfect. Few remember that Fr. Kolbe was also a brilliant journalist in several different areas of print and even radio. We too must take our stand against the evils of our time but do so in ways that take advantage of new platforms. His feast day is August 14th.
2) St. Giuseppe Moscati – St. Giuseppe Moscati was an Italian Catholic physician who most especially cared for the poor and the too easily overlooked. He made it his special mission to join together research of the highest quality but also service of the highest dignity to the poor and the overlooked. Our pro-life health professionals labour mightily in our work today. They especially need the support, guidance, and encouragement of we the Catholic clergy and you, the Catholic laity, when fulfilling their vocation and standing up to the forces that would cancel them and weaken our united pro-life front. His feast day is November 16th.
3) St. Gianna Beretta Molla - If you don’t know of St. Gianna, you should! A brilliant young Catholic pediatrician and mother, she saw her special role as being a Catholic voice joining together the best of science and the best of faith. She and her husband’s letters are testaments not just to human love but to the divine love that inspires them. Who would have thought though that her final act of pro-life bravery was in choosing to give her own daughter the fullness of life by not agreeing to have an abortion while she was battling cancer in 1962? Within the pro-life movement, we are called to take public stands, but we will also be called to give personal witness to our beliefs by our actions and by our lives. Her feast day is April 28th.
4) Louise Summerhill – As we well know, it is the wisdom of the Church to canonize saints, but all of us know there are lots of uncanonized saints that share in the beatific vision. I would propose a Canadian woman that I have admired since my earliest years. Louise Summerhill was the founder of Birthright in 1968. The legalization of abortion was a terrific evil that did not effect her until she was unable to convince a close friend not to go ahead with the killing of her pre-born child. It was then that Louise realized that she needed to have a new outreach and practical solutions to the crises these women were facing. She, along with many co-workers of the last 55 years, have built up a practical, welcoming, and dynamic outreach for pregnant women in need. At her death in 1991, Birthright was in several countries and had been not just the means to help women but the source of inspiration to many other similar outreaches. In my books, Louise is a saint.
Whether well-known, or whether only locally remembered, these men and women are part of the inspiration for doing what we do. I am sure you can add to this list your own suggestions. I pray that one day you too will be numbered among the pro-life saints that have raised their voices for the weak, the defenceless and the helpless.
Fr. Tom Lynch (PFLC National President)