I had the good fortune to attend the 41st March for Life in Washington, DC this past week. And oh, what powerful time it was.
It is so easy to associate the March for Life with a huge Catholic gathering where I get to see my friends from all over the country and go to Mass and hang out.
But the March is so much more than just a Catholic reunion. It is a bold act of faith. It is standing up for the culture of life in a world that constantly supports the culture of death.
The morning of the March, I was moved by the Lord to recognize the power of this March and how beautiful the community of faith is that surrounded me. Outside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, I saw some Franciscan friars standing in the snow. I had four shirts, two pairs of pants, and two pairs of socks on. It was freezing outside. Literally freezing. These men were standing in their habits, wearing just sandals or no shoes at all on the cold granite.
What a bold act of faith they live out every day! How moving! The intensity of their devotion astounded me.
I couldn't believe it. I was so moved. It was almost below zero outside and snowing, and these men were still holding true to their way of life and glorifying God through it. They were being a witness to the Lord by just standing there. That was the first reminder that the March was more than just a gathering and standing up to the law. It is prayer. The March is a prayer.
I also had the amazing opportunity of attending Morning Prayer in the crypt chapel of the Basilica with the Dominican friars.
It was like being in Heaven. It was pretty close to what I imagine Heaven to be like.
We had Adoration, chanted Morning Prayer, and then followed with Benediction. It was one of the coolest and most beautiful things I have ever experienced. It was 6:00 in the morning and the friars, some early risers for the March, my friend Amber, and myself were all under the Basilica in a gorgeous chapel. Incense billowed all around and the Lord resided on the altar. And we prayed.
And once again I was reminded of the power of prayer and the importance of integrating prayer into the March for Life.
I attended the 7:30 am Mass in the Basilica right after. Archbishop Chaput couldn't attend as scheduled, but he sent his homily to be read in his place - and it was incredible.
People sometimes ask me if we can be optimistic, as believers, about the future of our country. My answer is always the same. Optimism and pessimism are equally dangerous for Christians because both God and the devil are full of surprises. But the virtue of hope is another matter. The Church tells us we must live in hope, and hope is a very different creature from optimism. The great French Catholic writer Georges Bernanos defined hope as “despair overcome.” Hope is the conviction that the sovereignty, the beauty and the glory of God remain despite all of our weaknesses and all of our failures. Hope is the grace to trust that God is who he claims to be, and that in serving him, we do something fertile and precious for the renewal of the world.I love what Archbishop Chaput says here about the virtue of hope. The March is about hope. The hope of a friar standing in the snow with no shoes on. The hope of chanting Morning Prayer and knowing that the Lord is present there in the Eucharist. The hope that as we, hundreds of thousands of pro-life women and men march on Capitol Hill, the culture of death will be overcome in our society.
The March is a bold act of faith. The March is a manifestation of hope. And that hope should not end after one frigid day in January. We must march on in our own lives and in our college campuses and hometowns. We must cling to hope. We must cling to God. We must continue to desire a respect for the sanctity of life from conception to natural death. And we cannot stand on the sidelines of the battle between the culture of life and the culture of death. We must fight on.
Even though the March is a great opportunity to see friends and meet in one place to pray together for a cause, it is so much more than that. It is more than adventuring around DC on the metro and eating in Union Station and counting the number of priests that you see. It is more than rejoicing in the snow and catching up with friends that you haven't seen in seven months. The March is a call to live out faith in a tangible way and show the world what you believe. It is an expression of the knowledge hope and that life prevails.
I believe Archbishop said it well at the conclusion of his homily:
If Jesus is the Lord of the sabbath, he is also the lord of history. And sooner or later, despite the weaknesses of his friends and the strengths of his enemies, his will will be done — whether the Pharisees and Herodians of our day approve of it or not.
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