IN THIS ISSSUE

 PRAYER FOR LIFE

PRO-LIFE FAMILY TRADITIONS

THE FAMILY ROSARY

BENEFITS OF
CATHOLIC FAMILY
TRADITIONS

A MULTIPLICITY OF
FAMILY TRADITIONS

 PRINCIPLES OF
PRO-LIFE ACTION
                     
                                                                                                                                      
PRIESTS FOR LIFE CANADA

CATHOLIC LIFE AND FAMILY
A Publication for Parishioners
Spring, 2003
 
Family

Life Traditions

Second Chance Ministries
2685 Kingston Rd., Scarborough, M1M 1M4
Tel: (4l6) 261-7135
Contact: Angelina Steenstra or Fr. Vincent Heffernan

“An outreach to women and men who have experienced the trauma of abortion”

PRAYER FOR LIFE

Parent's Prayer

I want to teach my children how
To live this life on Earth.
To face its struggles and its strife
And to improve their worth.
Not just the lesson in a book
Or how the rivers flow,
But how to choose the proper path
Wherever they may go.
To understand eternal truth
And know the right from wrong,
And gather all the beauty of
A flower and a song.
For if I help the world to grow
In wisdom and in grace,
Then I shall feel that I have won
And I have filled my place.
And so I ask your guidance, God,
That I may do my part.
For character and confidence
And happiness of heart.
                      
 - Adapted from “Teacher’s Prayer”
by James J. Metcalf, USA



PRO-LIFE FAMILY TRADITIONS
by Fr. Jim Whalen

    Tradition means something handed down. Handing down pro-life traditions can make a substantial contribution to the spiritual, social, and emotional strength of a family. Such traditions serve as channels of grace flowing into the activities and practices of everyday living. The daily life of a Christian family, and awareness of being a domestic church, makes up the first experience of Church. Taking care in explaining in the home the religious content of the welcoming of a new child into the family can develop into a family tradition. The annual celebration of a birthday, giving thanks for the gift of life to a family, can be a stepping stone for understanding the welcoming of the child into the family of God, giving thanks for the gift of new life at their Baptism. Lighting birthday candles is followed by lighting the Baptism candle, a golden opportunity for family catechetical activity that can become a family custom or tradition. Life in the home is enriched by customs that reflect a family’s unique personality and values. Catholic family traditions, such as a daily Rosary for life or a weekly hour of adoration for pro-life, help to build and create a moral life and a life filled with grace.

    Traditions make a family strong. Pro-life traditions are the building blocks of pro-life families. In order to establish family continuity, the past and the present are tied together by repeated acts from generation to generation. Whether it be the updating of the pro-life family album (pictures and newspaper clippings) or preparation of the family for the annual Hike for Life, pro-life shared experiences, values, and memories become tradition when repeated year after year, linking childhood to adulthood and grandchild to grandparent. A sense of connectedness is developed in a word and a time when everything around seems to be changing. Consistent pro-life family customs provide familiar patterns for a rich rhythm of life together, building family stability.
Traditions should help to cultivate a family identity. Pro-life traditions such as an annual yard sale to support the regional home for unwed mothers, or volunteering on a bi-weekly basis as a family at the local Priests for Life Centre in Ottawa, can create a sense of who they are and where they belong by reaching out to neighbours in need. Such a pro-life family activity shows how they can make a difference as a family contributing to an organization by a commitment to serve life. Meaningful sharing of time and effort helps to create a sense of unity and togetherness, a sense of closeness that endures long after children are grown and distance separates family members.

    Some traditions grow gradually over a period of time, such as a particular strategy for a family reunion. They give significance to our lives. They help us to focus on what is important, what are the priorities in our lives. Some customs require strengthening. Daily devotional time can be critical to a family’s spiritual welfare and needs constant renewal to remain beneficial: a family pro-life shrine, a family prayer corner, enthronement of the Sacred Heart, pro-life family retreat. Other customs are periodic and less frequent, such as writing a letter to an unborn child, gathering for healing prayer, pro-life family awareness ceremony, hospitality tradition, welcoming people to the neighbourhood, etc.

    We live in an age when many wonderful family traditions have been lost: grace before and after meals, family reunions, family devotional times, etc. Being a pro-life family requires meaningful family traditions to create and reinforce spiritual, social, and emotional security in the home. Family traditions are worth maintaining. Family customs can become lifeless if we don’t invest them with meaning. Some should be allowed to be replaced as they are more of a burden than a blessing. Others need revitalizing. A simple change such as singing a song of thanksgiving in place of the customary table grace can make a difference. Catholic pro-life family traditions are necessary in that they help form the moral foundation for family values, giving priority to God’s plan for establishing a civilization of love and peace. Developing pro-life traditions that are unique to your family lifestyle can make an irreplaceable contribution towards building a culture of life.

 
THE FAMILY ROSARY
A POWERFUL TRADITION –
A POWERFUL PRO-LIFE WEAPON
by Fr. Jim Whalen

    Through the ages of the Church the Holy Rosary has been the Marian prayer most recommended. It is a summary of the principal truths of the Christian faith. Our Lady teaches us to contemplate the life of her Son. Mary always instructs us about Jesus: the joy of His birth, of His death on the cross, and of His glorious resurrection and ascension. Pope Paul VI writes that it is our Mother’s favourite prayer: “It is a continuous act of faith, hope and love, of adoration and reparation” (Marialis Cultus). The Church has consistently recommended praying the Rosary: “It is one of the best and most efficacious prayers in common that the Christian family can recite” (Marialis Cultus). In many instances, it is a concrete aim of Christian life for many families. The family Rosary is a source of good for everyone for it invites God’s mercy to the home.

    Pope John Paul II said, “The Angelus and the Rosary must be for every Christian and even more for Christian families, like a spiritual oasis during the course of the day, from which we can get strength and confidence: (Angelus, Oct. 5, 1980). He challenges us to be faithful to the traditional exercises of Marian piety in the Church: saying the Rosary, etc. Little by little our life identifies with Christ’s life and enables us to live in a climate of intense devotion: we rejoice with Christ joyful; we suffer with Christ suffering’ and look forward in hope to the glory of Christ risen. The Rosary is a pathway to grow in holiness, an excellent means of meditative prayer, and a powerful pro-life weapon of defence.

    In the Apostolic Letter of the Supreme Pontiff to the bishops, clergy and faithful, on The Most Holy Rosary, Pope John Paul II proclaimed the year from October 2002 to October 2003 as the ‘Year of the Rosary’. He admits that the Rosary is his favourite prayer, a marvelous prayer, marvelous in its simplicity and its depth… The Rosary, reclaimed in its full meaning, goes to the very heart of Christian life; it offers a familiar yet fruitful, spiritual and educational opportunity for personal contemplation, the formation of the People of God, and the new evangelization (The Most Holy Rosary, Oct. 16, 2002, #2).   Pope John Paul II entrusts to the power of the Rosary, the cause of peace in the world and the cause of the family. He tells us that by focusing our eyes on Christ, the Rosary makes us peacemakers in the world. He sees the Holy Rosary, an age-old tradition as particularly effective as a prayer, which brings the family together, recreating the atmosphere of the household of Nazareth. Jesus is in this way the centre of the home, with whom they share their joys and sorrows, placing their needs and their plans in His hands, drawing hope and strength from Him to persevere in a life of grace.

    In order to revitalize and instil new interest in praying the Rosary, Pope John Paul II has introduced the Mysteries of Light, five significant moments in the public life of Jesus:
  1. Christ’s Baptism in the Jordan.
  2. Christ’s self-manifestation at the wedding of Cana.
  3. Christ’s proclamation of the Kingdom of God, with His call to conversion.
  4. Christ’s Transfiguration.
  5. Christ’s institution of the Holy Eucharist, as the sacramental expression of the Paschal Mystery.
The Rosary helps us to be conformed more closely to Christ until we attain true holiness. As we reflect on the Joyful, Mysteries of light, Sorrowful, and Glorious, Christ is revealed as the Lord of time and of history, as the King of our hearts and our homes. Our Holy Father calls us to return to the age-old Catholic tradition of the daily family Rosary.


BENEFITS OF
CATHOLIC
FAMILY
TRADITIONS
(Spiritual, Social and Emotional)

  1. Builds family unity.
  2. Promotes family stability.
  3. Develops family identity.
  4. Defines continuity.
  5. Reveals family values.
  6. Strengthens family bonding.
  7. Establishes family foundation.

A MULTIPLICITY OF FAMILY TRADITIONS

  1. Pro-life perpetual Rosary; pro-life perpetual holy hour; pro-life commitment.
  2. Family Advent wreath.
  3. Support your local crisis pregnancy centre.
  4. Lenten sacrifice: TV fasting (devote this time to helping someone).
  5. Support your local community pro-life group.
  6. Mary days: family Rosary in May and October; Novena to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
  7. All Saints’ Day: family litany of saints prayed at home: pageant to promote the lives of the saints.
  8. All Souls’ Day: visitation of a shrine or cemetery (pray for souls, especially the aborted).
  9. Mother’s Day/Father’s Day: Adopt a grandparent.
  10. Vacation: Yearly week-end camping trip; mini getaways.
  11. Weekly pro-life activity: donate time to work at a local pro-life centre.


Principles of Pro-Life Action
Priests for Life Canada

     The pro-life movement in Canada is gaining strength after over 30 years of virtual ‘abortion on demand’. The abortion issue comprises a wide variety of activities, organizations and people of all ages and backgrounds. Providing alternatives to abortion, directly intervening to save babies, educating, lobbying, and healing women who have had abortions are among the major activities of the movement. Statistically, for every 50 hours that any one person spends on any kind of pro-life activity, a life is saved.

    The pro-life movement can be even more effective if each of us clearly perceives the specific challenges of the present time and embraces the solutions indicated by those challenges, not by what is comfortable or familiar. Several considerations can help advance the cause:
  1. There is an urgent need to formally and aggressively recruit people to be involved in pro-life activity. Everything we do, including prayer, requires people committed to doing it. People need to know that there is a place in the movement for everyone, no matter what abilities they may have.
  2. There is a need to train the people we recruit. Training programs in pro-life activism are available, and help to counteract the high drop-out rate of activists. Training helps people to work effectively and avoid discouragement.
  3. Pro-lifers need a long-range plan for bringing an end to baby-killing. This plan should not merely be reactive to what the other side is doing. Rather, it should reflect our goals, pursued in a deliberate and effective manner.
  4. The movement needs more full-time professionals to bring their expertise in various fields to bear on the problem of abortion. Support-raising seminars are now available for those who want to work full-time in the pro-life movement, but are not sure how to financially support themselves.
  5. Those who fight abortion have a right to focus on abortion, just as AA has a right to focus on alcoholics, or the Canadian Cancer Society on cancer. While we all need to be concerned about every attack on human life, pro-life groups should not be made to feel that their agenda has to encompass every evil under the sun. That would be an imprudent, impractical, and unfair dissipation of energies to the point of not effectively doing much about anything. We need to focus on ending abortion, and not apologize for that focus.
  6. It is essential to understand that more and more people who support abortion admit that it is the killing of a baby, but say, “So what, it should still be the woman’s choice”. The problem here is what we call “relativism”. People think they decide what is right and wrong. They think the value of a person depends on how much value they want to give that person.
  7. Abortion is wrong for everyone, not only for Christians. Pro-lifers need to be able to present their message both in religious terms and in secular terms, with arguments drawn from sources that non-religious people acknowledge. Otherwise, the door is left open for the other side to face the pro-life position exclusively in a “religious belief” category and then consider themselves not bound by it because of “religious freedom”. The fact is that abortion can no more be tolerated as a “religious freedom” than stealing can.
  8. In moving the public to a firm pro-life position, it is not enough to get them to “be pro-life”, that is, to acknowledge that they oppose abortion, but they need to be brought to the point where they are willing to persuade others not to obtain abortions. In fact, most Canadians already oppose most abortions. But abortion continues because too many people do not want to “impose their morality” on others. This is not merely a question of morality, but of justice. Justice demands not only that we think the right way, but that we actually protect the victim!
  9. Abortion is a local phenomenon. While we must continue to petition the government, abortions do not take place in the halls of Parliament. They take place down the street. We need to be sure that the attention we give to Ottawa does not make us forget about our local community. Pro-lifers need to give a local response to abortion by identifying where the killing is happening and who is doing it, protesting at the local abortion mills and hospitals whenever possible, and providing concrete, local assistance to women in need.
  10. Abortion is built on a double lie that:
    a) the “fetus” is not a human being equal to the rest of us, and that
    b) abortion helps women.
    While continuing to counteract the first lie, we need to increase attention to the second. Abortion hurts women physically and psychologically, and there is more evidence of that now than ever. We need to spread this truth. Many women have hardened their hearts against the child, but are still concerned about their own well-being.
The pro-life message is not “Love the child and forget the woman”. Nor is there credibility to the pro-abortion message, “Love the woman by killing the child”. The only sane position, which is the authentic pro-life stance, is, “Why can’t we love them both?”
Catholic Life and Family is a pro-life publication issued twice each year by Priests for Life Canada.
Order copies @ 5 cents each to distribute in your parish.

English Home Page        French Home Page
Priests for Life, Canada Newsletters     Facts for Life Newsletters     Catholic Life and Family Newsletters
E-mail:  priests@priest.com