By Judie Brown
St. John Paul II once said, “Like Saint Faustina, we wish to proclaim that apart from the mercy of God there is no other source of hope for mankind. We desire to repeat with faith: Jesus, I trust in You!”
As we prepare for Thanksgiving with family and friends, nothing could be more meaningful than begging for God’s merciful love when we consider the horrors lying at the feet of Christ. While we celebrate our family, others are hellbent on evil. This is nothing new, of course, but heading into Thanksgiving we might want to think about a few things.
I am thankful for my beloved, dearly departed husband Paul, for our children and grandchildren, and for our entire family.
At American Life League we are grateful for many heroic pro-life people, including our dear friend Olga Fairfax, who recently died. She was an inspiring pro-life activist; her association with our work was always an honor, and we are truly thankful for that.
But given the blessings we have received and continue to receive, it behooves us to remind everyone of the battle we lovingly wage for Our Lord.
For example, we are aghast that the president of the United States would award a Medal of Freedom—the highest civilian honor our nation can bestow—to the former president of Planned Parenthood. Indeed, that smacks of downright disrespect for the very meaning of the word freedom! Since when is it anyone’s honor to preside over the deaths of millions of preborn children?
Not to belabor the point, but the fact that Cecile Richards would even be mentioned in the same sentence with the word honor is mind-boggling. But then again, in our opinion, Mr. Biden, an alleged Catholic, is a far greater insult to Christ than Richards.
The insanity of duplicity does not end there though.
It seems that President-Elect Trump’s choice of Karoline Leavitt as his press secretary is another case of mistaken identity. Leavitt credits her Catholic education with her views against abortion. But really, since she supports Trump’s opinion that there should be no national ban on abortion, we are confused. Since when does the preposterous idea that every state should choose whether or not to enshrine abortion in the law have anything to do with sound Catholic teaching?
Abortion kills an innocent baby no matter where you reside.
Another interesting challenge to moral sanity resides in the idea that there is such a thing as a religious none. Pew Research suggests that such people are atheist, agnostic, or simply folks with no particular viewpoint on whether or not God exists. In essence, if one studies the landscape in our nation during this Thanksgiving week, it is painfully clear that an awful lot of people fall into that category, including those who claim to be religious but who never darken the door of a church.
It is quite concerning that among such people rape and suicide rates are much higher. Thus, we urge you to pray for them, asking God to open their eyes to His love for them that they might turn to Him and be thankful for the gift of life.
In closing, we cannot overlook the problem of digital addiction, a cold, insensitive relationship that weds human beings to machines rather than to their loved ones. Whether or not this is the root cause or merely one of the reasons why people forget what is truly important is a question for another day.
But today, during this Thanksgiving week, we can be assured of one primary truth: God knows the hearts of those who rail against His majesty in so many ways. It is He alone who will deal with these anomalies that exist in a culture of death. And so, as we thank Him for loving us and giving us gifts like the heroic Olga Fairfax, we also thank Him for His mercy.
And we remember and contemplate St. John Paul II’s words, “We wish to proclaim that apart from the mercy of God there is no other source of hope for mankind. We desire to repeat with faith: Jesus, I trust in You!”