Intercessions for Life
July 2000
That all men and women may accept the gift of life,
resist the temptations of evil and death,
and recognize that they have been made in the nature of God;
We pray to the Lord:
For the poor, the dying and all who are weakened by life's travails,
that God may empower us to love them,
and through their weakness draw us closer to himself;
We pray to the Lord:
That we might answer the call of Jesus,
to proclaim the Gospel of Life to all the world,
and to love all who are lost or forgotten;
We pray to the Lord:
For all lost sheep,
but especially for those
who have been wounded by the sin of abortion,
that God might teach us how to love them;
We pray to the Lord:
For all who are hungry for our love this today,
especially for the old, the lonely and those who are about to die;
We pray to the Lord:
Elderly people help us to see human affairs with greater wisdom, because life's vicissitudes have brought them knowledge and maturity. They are the guardians of our collective memory, and thus the privileged interpreters of that body of ideals and common values which support and guide life in society. To exclude the elderly is in a sense to deny the past, in which the present is firmly rooted, in the name of a modernity without memory. Precisely because of their mature experience, the elderly are able to offer young people precious advice and guidance. In view of all this, the signs of human frailty which are clearly connected with advanced age become a summons to the mutual dependence and indispensable solidarity which link the different generations, inasmuch as every person needs others and draws enrichment from the gifts and charisms of all. Here the reflections of a poet dear to me are pertinent: "It is not the future alone which is eternal, not the future alone!... Indeed, the past too is the age of eternity: Nothing which has already happened will come back today as it was... It will return, but as Idea; it will not return as itself."
The pro-life movement is one of the most positive aspects of American public life, and the support given it by the bishops is a tribute to your pastoral leadership. Despite the generous efforts of so many, however, the idea that elective abortion is a "right" continues to be asserted. Moreover, there are signs of almost unimaginable insensitivity to the reality of what actually happens during an abortion, as evidenced in recent events surrounding so-called "partial-birth abortion." This is a cause for deep concern. A society with a diminished sense of the value of human life at its earliest stages has already opened the door to a culture of death.
Ad limina address of Pope John Paul II to bishops of California, Nevada and Hawaii, Oct. 2, 1998
Above all, society must learn to embrace once more the great gift of life, to cherish it, to protect it, and to defend it against the culture of death, itself an expression of the great fear that stalks our times. One of your most noble tasks as bishops is to stand firmly on the side of life, encouraging those who defend it and building with them a genuine culture of life.
Ad limina address of Pope John Paul II to bishops of California, Nevada and Hawaii, Oct. 2, 1998
Democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes. ... In defending life you are defending an original and vital part of the vision on which your country was built. America must become, again, a hospitable society, in which every unborn child and every handicapped or terminally ill person is cherished and enjoys the protection of the law.
Ad limina address of John Paul II to bishops of California, Nevada and Hawaii, Oct. 2, 1998
An essential feature of support for the inalienable right to life, from conception to natural death, is the effort to provide legal protection for the unborn, the handicapped, the elderly, and those suffering from terminal illness. As bishops, you must continue to draw attention to the relationship of the moral law to constitutional and positive law in your society: "Laws which legitimize the direct killing of innocent human beings ... are in complete opposition to the inviolable right to life of every individual; they thus deny the equality of everyone before the law." ...What is at stake here is nothing less than the indivisible truth about the human person on which the founding fathers staked your nation's claim to independence.
Ad limina address of Pope John Paul II to bishops of California, Nevada and Hawaii, Oct. 2, 1998