In Matthew 5:3-12 we read the Beatitudes, which give a blueprint for Christian spirituality and therefore for the spirituality of being pro-life. In this and following columns, let’s reflect on how each beatitude illumines and strengthens our pro-life commitment.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit; the kingdom of heaven is theirs.” When the Lord speaks about the poor in spirit, he is speaking about those for whom there is no help or hope but God Himself. God is the only hope for any of us. But when we have a lot of possessions, friends, and earthly protection, we are tempted to think that those are the things on which our spirits can ultimately rely. But that is an illusion. “Only in God be at rest, my soul; from him comes my help and salvation” (Psalm 62:1). Today, nobody is more unsafe and unprotected than the child in the womb. Their plight makes even God ask, “Can a mother forsake her child?” (Isaiah 49:15) Yet the psalmist declares, “Though father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me” (Psalm 27:10). The unborn are the poorest of the poor, and God calls us to acknowledge and bless them.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” We are blessed, indeed, if we mourn over our sins, and over the evils in the world, like the daily killing of children by abortion. When is the last time we shed tears over the shedding of blood, and wept for the lives of these babies killed and moms and dads wounded? Let us pray for the gift of those tears!

Let us ask the Lord to give us a broken heart over abortion. That’s where pro-life activism begins, because when our hearts are broken, they are humble. They are also open to the grace God wants to give us to do our part in ending this evil. And he will also give us comfort, as he brings justice to the earth.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The meek person knows that God is the source of all he needs. Although he develops his human skills and asserts himself as necessary, the Lord’s servant never believes he has to hurt another to get what he needs. The meek are strong and secure in their dependence on God. They will have a healthy ability to fight for their rights, but will not do so with an anxious need to dominate. In the Lord, they know they will inherit the earth.

The Culture of Death, on the contrary, is built on the idea that sometimes you have to do violence to advance your rights, your career, or your freedom. The violence of abortion is seen as a path to fulfillment.

We will continue our reflections on the Beatitudes in the next column. Meanwhile, those who want to nourish their pro-life spirituality with reflections like this for every day of the year can obtain my book Pro-life Reflections for Every Day at priestsforlife.org/store.

“Lead us not into temptation.” Every temptation is a lie, which makes something evil look good. Among the most masterful temptations of the evil one is to make the killing of a child seem better than the birth of that child. This is the lie that leads each day to thousands of abortions.

As we pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” we keep in mind the need to protect all pregnant mothers from the deception of abortion. We also pray against the temptation to be silent and passive in the midst of this holocaust. Sins of omission are the most frequent sins, especially in regard to the culture of death. As we pray “lead us not into temptation,” we resolve to say more, do more, and sacrifice more for life!

“Deliver us from evil.” In asking this, we are not asking to be delivered from some vague force or bad luck. Rather, we are asking to be delivered from the influence and power of a real person, the devil, also known as the evil one. His kingdom of death has been defeated, and so his power is limited, but he still seeks to lead us astray.

When we pray to be delivered from the evil one, we are praying to be delivered from the culture of death, and to stay faithful to Christ’s Kingdom of Life. We are praying that we will not be deceived by the false promises of the evil one, who presents abortion as a solution to a problem, though it is no such thing.

“For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever.”

The Lord’s Prayer culminates with these beautiful words which, in the Catholic tradition, we pray at Mass shortly after the rest of the prayer. In “The Gospel of Life,” Pope John Paul II wrote that human life is always a good because it reflects the glory of God. God is glorified when human beings live, because they are made in his image and likeness. In attributing all glory to God, therefore, we acknowledge the infinite value of life.

All power, furthermore, belongs to the Lord. Jesus said he had the “power” to lay down his life. That is the power of love, by which we sacrifice ourselves for the good of the other person. Abortion, instead, sacrifices the other person for the “good” of oneself. Abortion is the opposite of love. The Lord’s Prayer reminds us what real power is.

“Amen.” St. Paul proclaims that Christ is the Amen, the yes, to all the promises of God. Abortion is just the opposite. It is a big “no” to God’s plans for the child who has been conceived, and for all of us who are called to love that child rather than kill him.

The Lord’s Prayer is, indeed, the model for all prayer, and it is the model for all our striving for a Culture of Life!

When we see a child living in the womb, we see the will of God. The Lord never makes human beings by accident. Each child exists precisely because God wants that child to exist, no matter what the circumstances surrounding his or her existence.

When we say “Thy will be done,” we are expressing confidence that because God says yes to the child, so can we. He will give us all the strength we need to follow his plan.

We pray, furthermore, that his will be done “on earth as it is in heaven.” In heaven, the angels and saints are perfectly united with God because they see him as he is. One who sees God face to face cannot sin, because it is unmistakably clear that there is no good that surpasses God himself.

Many acknowledge “God” and yet go ahead and abort their children, because here on earth, our vision is clouded and imperfect. Hence in the Lord’s Prayer we ask that we not be misled to think that anything good can come from offending God.

“Give us this day our daily bread.” We ask the Father for the provisions we need each day to live and to serve him. We ask him for the spiritual strength to resist the temptations that will certainly come our way, and for the grace to advance his Kingdom.

This also means we are praying for the graces we need to advance the protection of human life. We may be tempted to compromise with the culture of death. We ask for the daily bread of strength to defend life, to speak up for the helpless, to intervene to save the weak. We pray also that those tempted to abort their children because of economic reasons may experience the help of God’s people, the daily bread of their generosity.

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We are asking the Lord to use us as an example of how readily and generously he should forgive our sins.

He is more eager to forgive our sins than we are. This should not only give us confidence, but should help us inspire confidence in those who despair. One of the hardest sins to confess is abortion. And even there, the Lord is ready to pour out his mercy on those who repent.

“Our Father”. There is one Father of us all, the one who gives both divine life and the natural human life which is its pre-requisite. The Father is the Creator, and if he is “our” Father, then that means we are all brothers and sisters in one human family.

One Father entrusts us to the care of each other. We are to seek the good of one another. This is why Paul exhorts us to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep, and to bear one another’s burdens. The first way we do that is to safeguard the most basic good each person has – life itself.

“Who art in Heaven.” The Lord’s prayer reminds us of our true home. If our Father is in heaven, then that is our home, too. Heaven is full union with God and with one another; it is, in short, the fullness of life.

We pray to the Father in heaven as we long to be there ourselves. Yet that longing does not diminish our concern for building a better world here. Rather, it energizes that concern, which translates into building the culture of life.

“Hallowed be thy name.” When the People of God live in a way that reflects the holiness, justice, truth and love of God himself, then God’s name is honored. In other words, God’s people give God a good reputation, and the word “Christian” is something people want to identify with.

But when God’s people are unfaithful, God’s name is dishonored. This is what happens when God’s people turn the other way and ignore (or sometimes participate in) the abortions that kill thousands of babies every day. This dishonors both the rights of that child and the name of God.

“Hallowed be thy name,” through our commitment to life. “Hallowed be thy name,” through the sacrifice we make to defend life, and the care we give to mother and child alike.

“Thy Kingdom Come!” When Jesus began his preaching he declared that the Kingdom of God had come among us. The kingdom, indeed, is already here. The Kingdom is Jesus himself, united with his members who, together with him, make up his Body, the Church.

Yet the kingdom is not yet here in all its completion. It continues to grow, and it continues to strive against many enemies.

God’s Kingdom, as the liturgy says, is a kingdom “of truth and life, of holiness and grace, of justice, love and peace.” This kingdom defines the culture of life, where the unborn and frail are welcomed and protected. Each time we pray the Our Father, let our longing for that kingdom increase.

On Christmas of 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. preached the following words: “The next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and good will toward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. Every man is somebody because he is a child of God…Man…is more than…whirling electrons or a wisp of smoke … Man is a child of God, made in His image, and therefore must be respected as such…And when we truly believe in the sacredness of human personality, we won’t exploit people, we won’t trample over people with the iron feet of oppression, we won’t kill anybody.”

Christmas is a marvelous celebration. I love the festivity and decorations, the music and the meals. Christmas celebrates the greatest gift that we receive, Jesus Christ, and should therefore be a season of great festivity.

But in receiving such a tremendous gift, we receive a correspondingly great obligation, namely, the duty to welcome. Christ comes, but he does not come alone. He brings his love, but in doing so, he brings us the burden of loving all whom he loves. Yet his yoke is easy, his burden light, for he gives us also the power to love all whom he loves.

Christmas, therefore, takes away the option of excluding people from our love. God has a face now, and in that face we understand the dignity of all who share human nature, including our brothers and sisters in the womb.

We also understand that all who share that human nature belong to the One who takes that nature upon himself at Christmas. This Feast makes it clear that no human being can own another, or oppress another. Now, one of our brothers in the human family is God. To claim to be able to own or oppress anyone who shares a human nature is, therefore, to claim to be able to own and oppress God himself.

Vatican II taught, “By his incarnation the Son of God has united himself in some fashion with every human being” (GS, 22). Hence The Gospel of Life states, “It is precisely in the “flesh” of every person that Christ continues to reveal himself and to enter into fellowship with us, so that rejection of human life, in whatever form that rejection takes, is really a rejection of Christ” (EV #104) and again, life, especially human life, belongs only to God: for this reason whoever attacks human life, in some way attacks God himself (EV  #9).

As we celebrate Christmas, let’s echo Dr. King’s words and lets pray this beautiful prayer written by our Pastoral Associate Jim Pinto:

Face Prayer

Heavenly Father, I embrace your grace this day,
So that I might not:
Think of another,
Speak to another or
Touch another,
without first looking for
Your Face in the other.
I ask all this through
Jesus Christ:
God Incarnate,
God with Skin,
God made Poor,
God with a Face. Amen!

We at Priests for Life are now promoting and distributing to every sector of the Church and the pro-life movement the most vivid, powerful, and striking videography of the unborn child that exists. Obtained through a rarely used technique called embryoscopy, in which a video camera the size of a pen-point is inserted abdominally or cervically, this video footage has been incorporated into a 42-minute video called “The Biology of Prenatal Development,” now available from Priests for Life.

You can see segments of this imagery at Priests for Life’s special website www.Unborn.info .

It is widely known in the pro-life movement that ultrasound imagery changes peoples’ minds and hearts. With this stunning, color imagery of the child from four to twelve weeks after fertilization, we expect even more radical conversions.

The DVD  was produced by the Endowment for Human Development, written and researched by a medical doctor, and endorsed by numerous medical experts. The video has received 11 video awards for its excellence, and has even been distributed by National Geographic!

The video does not address the abortion issue, but certainly will inoculate anyone from pro-abortion arguments. The video is intended for a non-professional audience of ages 12 and higher, and yet does not oversimplify its subject matter. Hence, it is even useful for medical school audiences. Along with the embryoscopy method, five other medical imaging techologies are used in the video, with accompanying commentary on the scientific facts of the child’s development. Some of those facts are outlined below.

Priests for Life intends to make this video available to every pregnancy center, every school, and every Church in America. You can help us to do that! Here are some steps you can take:

1. Sign up at www.unborn.info to keep informed about this project.

2. Purchase your own copy of the DVD from Priests for Life and an additional copy to give to a school principal or pastor in your community. Let us know that you are doing this so that we can keep track of what parishes and schools are covered.

3. Make a donation to cover the cost of sending the DVD to every parish or school in your community, diocese, or state!

4. Recruit others to support the project by showing the DVD at your pro-life group meeting, other meetings, or at gatherings you can host in your home.

Among the developmental facts documented in the DVD are the following:

The heartbeat is observed three weeks and one day after fertilization, and the heart will beat 54 million times before birth!

At 6 weeks the embryo begins making spontaneous movements. Touch his mouth and he will withdraw his head.

At eight weeks, 90% of the anatomical structures found in adults are present – that’s 4000 distinct anatomical structures!

The child has unique fingerprints at 10 weeks – the same fingerprints he or she keeps throughout life.

Find out more at www.unborn.info .

The centers used to be called “crisis pregnancy centers” and were often advertised with the promise of “free pregnancy tests.” Now, the more common term is “pregnancy resource centers” (PRCs), and the range of services provided goes far beyond pregnancy testing, and includes the services of fully licensed medical clinics.

Moreover, these centers do not just operate on their own with the support of their local communities. Rather, there are large well-organized networks of pregnancy centers, united by a commitment to professional standards of care, expert training programs, and joint efforts to make sure everyone knows exactly where to turn for alternatives to abortion.

All this is good news for the pro-life movement, and to help spread that good news, a report was recently compiled by several of the leading pregnancy resource networks and organizations that foster them. Called “A Passion to Serve, A Vision for Life,” this pregnancy center report for 2009 was prepared by Heartbeat International, Care Net, the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, LIFE International, and the Family Research Council. The corresponding website is www.apassiontoserve.com.

As the report states, “PRCs serve some 1.9 million people each year with pregnancy assistance, abstinence counseling and education, community outreach programs and referrals, and public health linkages….Every day in the United States pregnancy resource centers assist an average of 5,500 Americans, female and male, young and old, with sexuality-and-pregnancy-related concerns.”

Twenty-nine of every 30 people engaged in pregnancy center work are volunteers, involved with lay and peer counseling, medical services (including ultrasound and STD testing), center upkeep, fundraising, parenting classes, and programs for healing after abortion.

The pregnancy center networks Heartbeat and Care Net operate the “Option Line,” a telephone hotline by which the caller is connected with the center closest to where he/she lives. At Priests for Life, we promote this hotline, 1-800-395-HELP, and its corresponding website, www.pregnancycenters.org, in all our public outreach.

Even the secular world is recognizing the impact of this movement. In January 2008, on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, Nancy Gibbs of Time magazine cited the “evidence that the quiet campaign for women’s hearts and minds, conducted in thousands of crisis pregnancy centers around the country, on billboards, phone banks and websites, is having an effect” in reducing abortion rates, which are down by one third from their U.S. high.

And on September 19, 2008, the White House honored the selfless volunteers who work in the pregnancy centers. Dr. Joxel Garcia, who was the Assistant Secretary of Health, bestowed awards in the name of the President on over 150 volunteers and 56 pregnancy center organizations.

We should honor them too, and the best way we can do that is to make sure that everyone knows about their services. Let’s spread the word vigorously!

Pro-life is a spirituality, a way of relating to God, an integral dimension of the Christian Gospel. There is, in the end, only one Gospel. It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the Gospel of Life. The work of announcing and applying that Gospel to the concrete circumstances of our culture of death is deeply rooted in the commitment we already have as Christians. It is an aspect of discipleship.

At Priests for Life, we have developed and articulated this spirituality since 1991. It is a spirituality not only for priests, but for all the baptized, and the Church has allowed us not only to train people in it but to have them publicly profess promises to live it as Missionaries of the Gospel of Life. In nearly a thousand cities, people are taking this training and professing these promises.

This spirituality that draws deeply from the lives and teachings of three great pro-life warriors whom I was privileged to know personally: Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Cardinal John O’Connor.

The spirituality is biblical, prophetic, liturgical, Eucharistic, ecumenical, and Marian. It is marked by a spirit of joy, a serene confidence, a deep compassion, a radical solidarity with the vulnerable, a strong courage, a constant readiness for public witness, and a passion for justice. The missionaries do the pro-life work they are already doing, but in a way more deeply rooted in the Church.

Here’s what the promises say. Try them on for size!

“I, (name), in the presence of God the Father, the Creator of all Life, Jesus Christ the Son, the Resurrection and the Life, and the Holy Spirit, Lord and Giver of Life, and in the presence of this gathering of the People of Life, do joyfully promise, for the rest of my life, to live as a Lay Missionary of the Gospel of Life. I promise to defend my brothers and sisters whose right to life is under direct attack, and to be, especially for the unborn, the voice they do not have. I promise to pursue union with God in all things, and holiness of life which will foster my love for the weakest among us. I further promise to engage in pro-life work, according to the spirituality and virtues of the Missionaries of the Gospel of Life, and to collaborate with their work to the best of my ability and within the context of my own vocation. I am confident that the Victory of Life has already been won through the Cross and Resurrection of Christ, and as the Church proclaims, celebrates, and serves the Gospel of Life, Christ will transform the Culture of Death into the Culture of Life.”

Find out more at www.MissionariesoftheGospelofLife.org.

There are two specific things I want to call on pro-life Americans to do regarding the health care reform debate.

First of all, now is the time to intensify our prayers and gear them specifically to the health care reform debate. We at Priests for Life have composed a special prayer for this purpose. I have placed it below, and urge people to use it in their families, prayer groups, and parishes. Moreover, we have created a cause on Facebook called “Pray to End Abortion.” This cause can become the largest prayer group in history as people connect on Facebook and commit together to pray not only regarding health care, but regarding all aspects of the pro-life movement. Special prayer resources will be created throughout the year, corresponding to specific needs and seasons. You can access the Facebook prayer cause at www.ProLifePrayers.com. (For those who do not wish to use Facebook, another option is the our website www.PrayerCampaign.org).

Let’s promote this cause, link to it from our websites, blogs, and social networking pages, and send it out to our email blasts during these days that are so critical to this debate!

The second action item is to trumpet the voices of those who have had abortions. The women and men of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign have created a three-minute video in which women who have had abortions speak about how it harmed them, and declare that an increase in abortion will mean an increase in health problems for women.

Let’s meet their courage with ours and use this video to bring their voices into the debate. See and spread the video at www.SilentNoMoreAwareness.org/healthcare.

The time for action is now, and the action could not be more simple.

Prayer for our Nation’s Health Care Reform

Lord Jesus, you are the Divine Physician,
And the source of all life and health.

Guide our nation at this critical moment,
As our government seeks health care reforms.

Give our elected officials the humility to know
That they are servants, not masters.
Give them the wisdom to realize
That every life has equal value.
Give them the strength to resist the idea
That some lives can be sacrificed to save others
Or that killing the unborn is a part of health care.

Give your people the courage to speak up
And to hold public officials accountable for their actions.

Save us, Lord Jesus, from a culture of death,
And let every reform in our public policy
Be based on the reform of our hearts and minds
In the light of your Gospel,
For you are Lord forever and ever. Amen.

God takes personal testimony seriously. It’s the way he has spread his word from the beginning. He intervenes in the lives of his people, and then he commands that those who have experienced his intervention tell others about it.

The Old Testament Patriarchs encountered God in a variety of surprising ways, and the advancement of salvation history depended upon their sharing that witness, starting with Abraham’s sharing of the encounter by which God told him to relocate his family and trust in a promise of fruitfulness that seemed impossible. The prophets likewise, through words and symbolic actions, told the people what God spoke to them. And the central event of the Old Testament, the Exodus, comes to us through generations of personal testimony to the mighty intervention of God.

Jesus Christ himself is the testimony of the Father. “I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence,” Jesus explained (John 8:38). “For this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth” (John 18:37).

Paul’s conversion experience on the road to Damascus is one of the most famous testimonies in Christianity. And it does not stop with the Bible. Whether it’s through the Confessions of St. Augustine, or the writings of Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, or Ignatius of Loyola, this much is clear: personal testimony is an essential tool of evangelization.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that one of today’s most powerful pro-life developments is the movement by which women and men who have lost children to abortion are speaking out about their pain and healing. The Silent No More Awareness Campaign, a project of Priests for Life and Anglicans for Life, gives these individuals opportunities to witness in churches, in the media, and in public rallies around the world. They reveal the hidden horror of abortion, and they proclaim that for those alienated by sin – whether abortion or not — there is a Savior.

It’s time for the Church and for each of us to hear and spread the testimonies of these men and women. Let’s match their courage with ours, by confronting the world with the word of their testimony, which can be found at www.SilentNoMoreAwareness.org and on You Tube at www.youtube.com/silentnomorecampaign. Even the Supreme Court in 2007 acknowledged the significance of such testimony. And that’s only the beginning.