By MARY KEMPER – (40 Days for Life organizer)

This public prayer vigil outside Planned Parenthood runs through Palm Sunday, April 2. Will you stand and pray in witness one hour per week? Will you invite a friend to join you? Perhaps you can get your church connected (or more involved if already connected) to promote this prolife work?

In her talk at our kickoff celebration last Friday evening, Trinity Miller reminded us that while praying outside Planned Parenthood might not save the babies scheduled to die that day – at least the babies will not die alone or unnoticed. At least they will have someone standing in prayer for them, like the two Marys and John did for Jesus. These unborn are truly the most vulnerable of God’s beloved poor ones: they are unseen and unheard but very alive and full of promise.

Can you sign up for an hour? Click here, or contact one of our church coordinators for help:

— St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, goal to fill Mondays 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. – Mary Kemper 907-360-5696  

— St. Benedicts, goal to fill Tuesdays noon to 6 p.m. – Larry Clement 907-444-3639 

— Holy Family, goal to fill Wednesdays, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. – Mary Beth Bragiel 907-727-7456  

— St. Andrews, goal to fill Wednesdays 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. – Danielle O’Neil 907-854-3400 

— St. Michaels, goal to fill Wednesdays 530 p.m. – 630 p.m. – Maggie Giroux 907-707-9089 

— Cornerstone, goal to fill Thursdays 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. – Windy Perkins 907-980-0446 

You can of course pray at ANY time, no matter what church you attend.  

If you have not prayed outside an abortion facility before and want to go with someone, please contact one of the church coordinators listed above, or Ed Burke 907-690-6006, or Shirleen Rannals 907-351-3224.  

Also, we had an amazing kickoff celebration on Feb 17, with at least 60 people attending! Pizza, prayer and song, and two informative and motivational speakers – with time afterwards to share about various prolife ministries.

The following text is a transcript of the talk given by Trinity Miller that night. She’s an experienced abortion facility prayer volunteer. Her words were prayerful and motivational. I encourage you to read it and pray with it. Director Greg Monrad also presented the lifesaving and growing ministry of the Community Crisis Pregnancy Center. He encouraged us to continue our presence outside Planned Parenthood – it has an impact, even if we don’t see it.

TRINITY MILLER’S TALK AT THE KICKOFF

Hello all, I am Trinity Miller. I go to St Michael’s out in Palmer. I can’t tell you the gift it was to be invited by Mrs. Kemper to speak to you shortly about the upcoming 40 Days for Life season and just give you some words of encouragement and motivation.

I was reading through the Passion of Our Lord just the other day, and it led me to a song we sing commonly during Lent. The one I came to, the main refrain reads, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”

When I was a kid, I really didn’t understand this song. I mean, how could I possibly have been there when Jesus was being crucified? That was almost 2,000 years ago. Not to mention, only a handful of His disciples were there, so why even ask the question? Of course, none of us singing this song were there! However, later on, I learned that this was a misunderstanding of who Jesus is.

Your witness could move mountains for someone, and you’d never know it.

Jesus tells us exactly who He is in the Gospel. In Matthew 25: 40, “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.”

He is the least of his brothers and sisters. He is not just found in the poor, sick, imprisoned, hungry, thirsty, stranger – he is the poor, sick, imprisoned, hungry, thirsty, stranger.

In this moving edition of “Were You There,” I was praying with the song, and a quote I once heard from the godfather of the Pro-Life movement, Joseph Scheidler, came to mind: “Mary, John, and Mary Magdalene couldn’t save Jesus, but they could be there with him when he died. We are doing the same thing every time we pray outside an abortion clinic.”

Then it occurred to me, there is no one poorer or more imprisoned than an unborn child in danger of abortion. They are the least of his brothers and sisters, whose flesh is still being crucified in our very backyard in Anchorage every day.

These children and mothers need our prayers. They need our love, and these children, these works of art, these miracles from God need our voices. Because theirs has not been heard.

As Joe said, we may not be able to save all these babies, but we can pray and be with them when they die, until the day God finally rids us of this evil.

Now, the song’s question can be asked of every reader: “Will you be there when they crucify the Lord in the guise of an unborn child?”

Will you sign up to be there this spring, the Anchorage 40 Days for Life Campaign?

That way, on the terrible day of Final Judgment, you will be able to say to Him, “I WAS there when you were being crucified. I mourned for you and for the least of your brothers and sisters, and I did everything I could to save them.”

So I urge you, don’t pray timidly, don’t live your life timidly. Revelation 3:15 “because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you from my mouth” – pray zealously, allow God to move you in thought and action. Your witness could move mountains for someone, and you’d never know it.

There are times when I think of the Passion of Our Lord, and I wish someone could have saved him from ever having to suffer because he was not the guilty one. We were, we ARE. As the centurion said at the foot of the cross “surely this man is innocent,” Just as a child in the womb is innocent. Just as the millions of children who have been aborted because of the sins of their parents were innocent.

Psalms 139: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

He knows them, he loves them, so should we.

These children and mothers need our prayers. They need our love, and these children, these works of art, these miracles from God need our voices. Because theirs has not been heard.

Thank you so much, I hope to see you out there. God bless!

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