Wednesday, June 13, 2012

The Power of a Hail Mary

This Monday I had a girl come into the pregnancy center who was twenty-one years old. She already had three children, including one child whom she had aborted at sixteen years old. Many of the girls we counsel who already had abortions in the past have become hardened and sometimes will not listen to us. Many refuse to view any information we have on abortion procedure or pre-natal development, so I was pleasantly surprised when this women agreed to watch a film of various abortion procedures.


Normally while this film plays I watch it with the girls, answering any questions they pose. However something told me deep inside as I stared at the film that I needed to use this time to pray especially for this case. I began to pray the Hail Mary, over and over until this film was finished. Looking at the mother's face I didn't see any change in the grim, determined set of her features. However, when I accompanied her to the sonogram room, we both saw something that confirmed the value of prayer.

As she lay on the sonogram table and we watched the sonogram take form the child inside of her looked as if he was dancing. He moved back and forth, nodded his head up and down, and even rolled over. His hand moved to and fro in what inevitably reminded me of a waving motion as if he was saying, "Hi Mom! I'm alive!" His heart beat loud like a steady drum and after watching him in wonder I peeled my eyes away to look at the desperate woman carrying this wonderful child. She had tears pouring from her eyes, and they continued even when the sonogram finished and I began to talk with her. She told me that she didn't think she could put herself through another abortion. And she hadn't known how developed her little treasure was.

I continue to pray for her, as I do all the girls that EMC has dealt with or will ever counsel. But I especially recommend prayers said to the Blessed Virgin who holds motherhood and children very close to her heart. Pope Adrian VI once said, "The rosary is the scourge of the devil." As the devil attacks humanity and motherhood specifically through the travesty of abortion, ought we not all turn to the perfect Mother, so close to Christ and beg for these women?

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