Well the break from blogging has been long but now I am back in Sydney I felt it was time to begin again and this mornings trip to the abortion clinic in Annandale has given me plenty of food for though to do that.
For those who don't quite get what I mean I joined the Helpers of God's Precious Infants in their weekly prayer vigil outside the abortion clinic/mill. Basically what happens is we begin with Mass at 8am from there we process to the clinic praying the rosary and then stand across the street from the clinic praying another three rosaries, the stations of the cross and singing hymns (we are there for about 1.5 hours). On the clinic side are the counsellors who take every opportunity they can to speak to couples going for an abortion and generally anyone walking past. This is not a protest but a prayer vigil, we are there to bear witness to that fact that lives are being lost in that place, just as one would stand at the bed of a dying person even though it will not bring them back, we stand with these babies who are being murdered. We pray for them and for their parents and for all those involved in the tragedy that is abortion.
I have to say I hate going to these places. I have been to such vigils before but not in a while. Everytime I am going there I feel ill. It is something though that all catholics, that all people who believe in the objective value of human life, should attend. It makes you see the reality. As I was standing there praying and as the occasional person drove by and yelled taunts such as 'losers', 'get a life', 'go to hell' (I found that one ironic) I sort of understood what it was like for the apostles when Jesus was led to Calvary. I understand why they fled. Jesus was no longer the popular man but now the one who was out of line, he had been rejected and he was now hated. When we stand outside that clinic, we are out of line with society, we are pricking the consciences of people, we are interrupting their ways of thinking. The abortion clinic has been called the modern day calvary and it is true, here the innocent die and here some stand at the foot of the cross to be with them. It is not many though who come to pray, for it is hard to stand out from the crowd. Believe me I feel that myself. Today we were just 25 people praying, it has been as high at 200 and it has been as low as 2, but still they go to witness to the world.
Sometimes there are protestors and sometimes not (it's always interesting to see the protestors, they are just so angry and they get even more angry when all we do is pray, they just don't get it). I admire those who go not just every week but every day to pray for the sin of abortion. Sometimes being a Christian is too easy, we go to our church and sing our hymns and even receive the very body of Christ but it is all in our private church, our christian 'space'. Every so often (and perhaps more than that) we need to draw on the strength we have received from our faith to stand up and proclaim it. Not in protest but in prayer as is in this case.
It is very surreal when you stand outside such a clinic for the first time and watch what happens. The first thing you notice is the look of the clinic, they are usually bland and barren looking buildings (the same as the woman's womb when she leaves). There is nothing beautiful there, even the staff when they open the door for 'clients' seem angry and bitter. This particular clinic in Annandale now has a sign, there used to just be a street number, now it is proudy part of the 'Marie Stopes' corporation of death or as they prefer to claim 'reproductive rights', although the only 'right' happening inside is the right to have your baby sliced up. I remember going to my first vigil and it is only when you see a couple come in and leave an hour or so later that you grasp the tragedy of what is happening, they went in with a child and came out with none. I felt like I had to alert the media and the prime minister but then I realised that they all knew about it and condoned it as someone's personal 'choice'...as if we ever had the choice to kill another human being.
Today at the clinic about 10 or 11 couples went in while we were there (all though often they are not couples, just one lonely woman). They were pretty much all good looking young people , one guy driving a car with a 'P' plate on it. All normal people yet all with the seemingly same goal.
While standing there praying it occurred to me that while it is necessary for such vigils to happen more regularly and in greater numbers we are there because of the end result of a much bigger problem, that is the problem of chastity (well chastity isn't the problem but rather the lack of it). I don't know the stories of those people that went in but I do know one thing, they are not happy because their sexual act did what it was designed to do - produce a new life. They desired to separate the procreative from the unitive in their sexual act and it didn't work work. So now instead of accepting the life they have produced they seek to kill it. I'm not saying they all do it in malice, many are confused and lonely and lost but I really believe deep down mothers know what is happening. That is why we have the growing and very real problem of post abortion syndrome.
While studies show that most Australians feel that the 100 000 abortions per year is too many how many people are saying anything about the fact that their children are involved in sexual relationships outside marriage? How many are speaking up against contraception and pornography and masturbation and every other activity that makes people think the sexual act is all about gratification? More importantly who is standing up for chastity? Chasitity is not celibacy but rather the right ordering of our sexual drives according to our state in life, married or single. We all know that we can't pursue every desire we have, that is the beginning of chastity. Chastity is also about realising that the sexual act is always open to life and bonding between the couple. To destroy one is to destroy both.
Why do we so often do things that are not good? For some reason many people deny the fact that we live in a fallen world yet it is the one doctrine I don't know how anyone can deny. We strive to do the right thing yet we fail. We know what we should do, yet we struggle. Everyone is looking for love but how many know how to find it? How many teenagers and young adults and fully grown adults are looking for love and union in all the wrong places; in the back seat of a car, in a hotel room with someone they barely know, in a defacto relationship that is not really open to true love because it closed off to life? How many marriages even exist within a world of contraception where every sexual act say 'I give you everything of myself...except my fertility'. No, there can be no doubt that we are living with some sort of problem. I call it, as does Christianity, Original Sin, hence the need for Christ's saving death but call it what you will, there is something wrong.
Christianity has always taught that sex belongs in marriage alone but that does not only mean the actual act of intercourse, it means the whole thing, intimate touching, intimate kissing of any kind and every sort of other sexual act. Why is that? Because all those things naturally lead to the union that we are built to long for and that union leads to children and those children need a loving mother and father. This is why God created marriage.
So instead of considering what sex means we block the thought out and use contraception thinking that will solve the problem of possible pregnancy, has it, no. Those people at the clinic today thought that, most abortions in Australia are as a result of failed contraception. Those who do get scared off by the threat of pregnancy (or who wish to leave what they think is real sex for marriage) may resort to other sexual acts or just kissing and touching but they are all missing the point (plus opening themselves up for a raft of now extremely common sexual diseases). Part of our fallen nature is our tendancy to live very legalistic lives. People (Catholics included) will often ask the question, 'how far can I go' before it is wrong? This is the wrong question, we should be asking how much can I truly love this other person created in the image of God? Thinking about this today I was once again I was struck by the Beatitudes...
When Jesus was preaching his Sermon on the Mount (which we read in Matthew's Gospel chapter 5-7) he takes the law to a new level he wants us to get away from the legalism that ties us down, the legalism that makes us proud and self-seeking people. These are called the Beatitudes. Jesus says...'you have heard it say do not kill...but I say to you do not even be angry with your brother (or sister)' and my favourite 'you have heard it said do not commit adultery...but I say to you do not even look at a woman (or man) lustfully'. This is amazing stuff. Christ knows our hearts and he wants to set them free. He knows that if we just try to 'avoid' adultery we will fail, he calls us not to avoid sinning but to become pure in heart, that is why he says don't even look lustfully. He is inverting our reality! The Catholic Church isn't legalistic, it's trying to free us from it! People who live to just avoid becoming pregnant often fail because as was said in Jurrasic Park 'nature will find a way'. We can't keep living our lives to avoid preganancy or lonliness or guilt or even sin. Jesus wants us not to live in the negative 'thou shall not' but the positive, to be pure and just and merciful and peacemakers. None of this will happen by doing the bare minimum.
It is hard to be pure, not hard, almost imposible and without God's Grace, I think totally impossible but as Jesus said 'for man it is impossible for God, all things are possible.
Abortion, divorce, contraception, pre-marital sex etc etc will not stop until we embrace the call of Christ to be chaste and we will not be able to do this until we use the means he has given us, primarily the sacraments of confession for when we fall and Holy Communion so that Christ can live in us and help us. Plus we need to be praying people, not just when something is going the way we don't like but always. We need to ask for a pure heart, ask and it will be given, seek and you will find. In a society that doesn't believe someone can do something morally wrong we also need to pray for a sharpened conscience so that we truly see that our sins and our acts of impurity really do damage us as people and offend the Lord because it uses the beautiful gifts of sex as an object for gratification. Even if we do not 'feel' guilty it doesn not mean our impure act is any less wrong, feeling come and go. Hitler may have felt just fine executing Jews, but as we all know his feelings don't change the reality.
So that was what struck me today at that clinic. Abortion is a huge problem but it is the end result of something much bigger, the lack of purity. Nothing will ever change unless we ourselves keep striving to be more pure people and believe it or not that purity will lead us to the love we desire and long for.
Perhaps to end let me quote the late great John Paul II who understood the human person and the mystery of sexuality far better than probably anyone living today:
“Chastity is a difficult, long term matter; one must wait patiently for it to bear fruit, for the happiness of loving kindness which it must bring. But at the same time, chastity is the sure way to happiness ... Deep within yourself, listen to your conscience which calls you to be pure ... a home is not warmed by the fire of pleasure which burns quickly like a pile of withered grass. Passing encounters are only a caricature of love; they injure hearts and mock God's plan.”
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