Upcoming Prayer Events
April 23rd, 2007 by Peter
From the Pro-Life Ministry of the Archdiocese of Hartford:
The annual Mass of Remembrance for children, who have died from miscarriage, abortion, disease, or accident, will be held Tuesday evening, April 24, 2007, at Corpus Christi Church in Wethersfield at 5:30 p.m. The celebrant will be the Reverend James J. Cronin, Pro-Life Director for the Archdiocese of Hartford.
The Mass provides parents, grandparents, extended family members, siblings and friends the opportunity to remember deceased children and allows those present to comfort one another. There is an opportunity to record the names of the children in a Book of Remembrance which is kept at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford.
Please join us for the Mass of Remembrance tomorrow evening. Following the Mass, a reception with refreshments will be held in the church hall.
From Focus on the Family’s Shirley Dobson, who is chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force:
America is in desperate need of prayer. Our nation continues to reject the biblical values of our Founding Fathers, placing our freedoms – and future – in jeopardy. Given the strain on the moral fabric of our country, how good it is to know that we are not without hope. 2 Chronicles 7:14 assures us that if we humble ourselves before the Lord with repentant hearts, He will hear from Heaven and be faithful to forgive us and heal our land. There has never been a more critical time in our history to lift our needs to God, and as we do, we can have full confidence in His willingness to respond in ways that are “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20).
National Day of Prayer observances will take place Thursday, May 3rd. You can read the list of events occurring in Connecticut that day here.
“The annual Mass of Remembrance for children, who have died from miscarriage, abortion, disease, or accident”
Does this include children who have been, are now being, and will be killed in Iraq? Where do they fall in the prayers?
Chele,
If you are sincerely looking for the church’s guidance on Iraq, you may be interested in the materials that can be found at http://www.jesuit.org/SocialJustice/WarandViolence/Iraq/default.aspx
The annual Mass of Rememberance in Wethersfield is focused specifically on the church’s post-abortion and pro-life ministry. More information is available at http://www.hartfordflo.org/FLO_Events/210.aspx
Thank you for the Jesuit link; I’ll read the site later on.
“The annual Mass of Rememberance in Wethersfield is focused specifically on the church’s post-abortion and pro-life ministry”
Yet the announcement above reads: “for children, who have died from miscarriage, abortion, disease, or accident.”
Certainly being “pro-life” is a wonderful thing, if one is truly pro-life rather than simply an adherent to the narrow political definition with which the term has become equated. If one is to be truly “pro-life” one cannot be simply “pro-birth.” One has to defend children’s lives and welfare wherever possible — and that would include demanding healthcare for all children, assuring funding for research for the eradication of diseases which kill children, working for adequate protections against the “accidents” which endanger children. And one has to seriously consider the effects of one’s governmental policies on the children of the world and decide whether it is “pro-life” and moral to support them.
In the absence of moral outrage, certainly these children deserve to be remembered, at the very least.
Good suggestions, Chele. Go forth and follow your own advise.
There’s a great saying: the pro-lifers “believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth.” Seems apt.
And pro-choicers believe it’s ok to kill a child by sucking out her brains and crushing her skull…as long as you hold the “correct” view on other issues. Seems heartless.
Chele,
Why please talk about our adult soldiers respectfully. They are not children. They are adults who signed up to join the army of their own accord.
I love it how liberals believed that Monica Lewinsky was “an adult” doing her own thing but an adult soldier is someone’s child. What a screwed up world we live in.
And Pope John Paul the II ardently spoke out against the war and so has Pope Benedict. Many liberals complained against Pope JPII “interferring” but his words become prophetic whereas Hillary Clinton is trying to forget her words about the war.
Opal
Opal, I wasn’t talking about soldiers. Did I mention soldiers? Does that word appear anywhere in my postings?
I was talking about innocent Iraqi children who are being killed on a daily basis.
How on earth you brought that around to soldiers, and then to Monica Lewinsky is beyond me.
Ummm, Opal, there are children who live in Iraq.
The war deserves attentive scrutiny, and its many victims–American and Iraqi–deserve our compassion and love.
But it’s a shame that discussion of a positive outreach of the Archdiocese to another group of people who are hurting has been hijacked by anti-war arguments.
My wife and I have lost eight children, and we found much consolation and healing at a similar Mass/prayer gathering last weekend here in Kansas City. I wrote about the experience at http://blog.cuf.org.
I hear about the war every day in the news. How often do we hear about the suffering of those who have had children die before, during, or shortly after birth. I don’t think the anti-war activists should begrudge compassion wherever it is needed.