Attend the L.A. Archdiocesan Requiem Mass for Aborted Babies at the cathedral on Sat., Jan. 23 -- but also protect babies all year long!

Are you looking for a pro-life event to attend in our L.A. area on or around the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous abortion-on-demand-at-all-nine-months-of-gestation decision of January 22, 1973?

Here is such an event! The Tidings's schedule (click on this post's title) of events in early 2010 for our L.A. Archdiocese has this:

"Requiem Mass for abortion victims: Jan. 23

"The archdiocese's annual Respect Life Mass commemorating lives lost to abortion will take place Jan. 23, 6 p.m., at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Cardinal Roger Mahony will preside at the concelebrated liturgy with auxiliary bishops and archdiocesan priests.

"As Cardinal Mahony stated in a recent letter to campus ministers encouraging student participation in the event, 'The Shantigarh Requiem for the Unborn is a very effective way to help our people come together in prayer and in mutual support for protecting all human life from the moment of conception.'

"A candle lighting ceremony in remembrance of lives lost to abortion daily in the County of Los Angeles will take place again this year. 'Honoring these brief lives,' said the cardinal, 'is a most poignant and inspiring moment, the memory of which will remain long after all have returned home.'"

The best pro-life intention and focus at this Mass, in my humble opinion, is, as the cardinal says, "to help our people come together in prayer and in mutual support for protecting all human life from the moment of conception." [emphasis added]

That intention, which implies that each attendee must take subsequent actual action to actually protect and save abortion-targeted babies, is the only way to give concrete meaning and purpose to the Mass's other intentions of, as the cardinal says, "remembrance," "commemorating lives lost to abortion," "honoring these brief lives" and having "a most poignant and inspiring moment." [emphasis added]

What good would it be if we were to let thousands and thousands and thousands of babies be aborted in our L.A. all year long and and then once a year only "have a most poignant and inspiring moment" about them???

Our once-a-year Mass can be especially meaningful if our local hierarchy and clergy will all year long start fighting abortions as hard as possible. That means having:

* meaningful (e.g., actually anti-abortion and active) Respect Life committees in every parish

* pro-life literature racks in the vestibule

* pro-life announcements and information in the parish bulletin every week

* frequent parish prayer vigils and sidewalk counseling at L.A.'s abortion mills

* support of and cooperation with local pro-life centers and homes for unwed moms

* frequent anti-abortion homilies (that are kindly put and that mention Project Rachel)

* frequent homilies about purity and against fornication, which leads to abortions

* frequent homilies about the blessings of having babies, who are gifts from God

* anti-abortion intentions read at every Mass

* age-appropriate instruction in parish schools, high schools and CCD about the blessings and goodness of marriage and babies and the necessity of being anti-abortion

* regularly scheduled pro-life Masses, Benedictions, Adoration and Rosaries

* actual observance of Respect Life Sunday and Respect Life Month every October

* refusal to honor or appear in public with pro-abortion politicians for any reason

What do you think? With all the babies being killed around us every day, are these basic pro-life steps too much to ask of our bishops and clergy and the rest of us?

But in any case, a good start is for us to be sure to attend, if our schedules permit, our Archdiocesan Requiem Mass for Aborted Babies at the cathedral on Saturday, Jan. 23, at 6 p.m.

Amen? What do you say?