Clockwise from top left: Photo 1: Jenny and Dan Sullivan lead the Respect Life Committee and other St. Charles Parishioners up Constitution Avenue... Photo 2:...joined by thousands of other people. Photo 3: View up Constitution Avenue, filled with people back to the Washington Monument, from Capitol Hill. Photo 4: Marching in front of the Supreme Court.

On January 22, several members of C'YA joined the Respect Life Committee for the Respect Life Mass at St. Thomas Moore Cathedral, celebrated by Bishop Loverde, followed by the March for Life on the Mall. It was such an inspiration to see not only a packed church, but a packed Constitution Avenue! We were shoulder to shoulder most of the way to the Supreme Court. At the top of Capitol Hill, I turned around and saw a solid sea of people on Constitution Avenue all the way back to the Washington Monument. People ranged in age from small children to the elderly. There were church groups, families, and schoolchildren. People came from all over the country to voice their support in the fight against abortion. Sometimes the fight is a very lonely and uphill battle, even within the Catholic Church. The March for Life made me realize that we are not alone in this fight.

The two sub-titles above come from signs held by two little boys, approximately 11 years old. These words really struck me in their simple, yet powerful, message. That message is that we are dealing with human beings not just "blobs of tissue"; that we all were once fetuses in the womb. Every child that is aborted is lost potential to this world. They could have been our playmates or our children's playmates. They could have been our spouses or our children's spouses. They could have made great contributions to the welfare of mankind. We will never know. Consider the following: "A poor teenage girl is pregnant and unmarried. Her soldier father disowns her and the child. She would name the child after the father and raise the child, while bearing the disgrace of illegitimacy. Would you recommend an abortion? If you answered "yes," you would have recommended the death of Father Joseph Mohr, lyricist and co-composer of ‘Silent Night'" (American Life League).

The large turnout for the March for Life was a reminder to me that we are not alone in our fight against abortion. The signs that the two little boys carried emphasized the point that all human beings are put here for a reason. Through abortion, we second guess God's plan and tell Him who He can and cannot put on this earth and when it is convenient for us. To help stop the anti-life push in the U.S., the late Archbiship Fulton J. Sheen encouraged the spiritual adoption of an unborn child. To help accomplish this, it was recommended that an individual say the following daily prayer for a period of one year:

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I love you very much, I beg you to spare the life of the unborn baby that I have spiritually adopted who is in danger of abortion.

Let us also pray for the mothers, fathers and grandparents of the babies who have been aborted, or who are in danger of being aborted, that they have the faith and courage to make loving choices. Let us also pray for God's help to do all that we can to support them and let them know of other available choices, such as adoption.