The Respect Life Office is Open for Business!

Read from the Gospel according to Matthew, Chapter 25, v. 31-40   

Pro-Life Litany of Contrition by Fr. John Powell, S.J.   

The response to each prayer statement is: "Lord, forgive us for not recognizing You."  

Lord God, who is pregnant without a huband, a child with no parents, and whose days are long and lonely, whose nights are dark with despair . . . 

Lord God, who lives in a tenement and combs through the garbage cans of others to find the food to stay alive . . . 

Lord God, who cannot read or write, who lives on welfare and whose name no one knows.  

Lord God, who body is heavy with child but whose heart is heavy with grief . . . 

Lord God, tiny in your mother's warm womb but about to die because there is no room for you in the Inn of our world . . . 

Lord God, who is cold and shivering in the wintertime slums, who knows no warmth in his house or in his heart . . . 

Lord God, who toys are broken bottles and rusty tin cans, who is called a "burden" to society . . . 

Lord God, who is deformed, whose body is twisted, who overhears the suggestion that he never should have been allowed to live . . . 

Lord God, whose body is adult but whose mind is that of a small child, who does not understand why others are impatient or derisive . . . 

Lord God, whose body reeks of pungent odors because he has no place to bathe, whom people avoid because he is uneducated, unskilled, unwanted . . . 

Lord God, who is a terrified child yet carrying a baby under her heart, and who is tempted to take the easy way out . . . 

Lord God, who is bent under the agony of remembering that she has taken the life of her unborn child because someone said it was the only thing to do . . . 

Lord God, who was laid off last week, who cannot pay the rent or feed his kids, and whose wife is carrying another child . . .  

Lord God, whose vision is blurred with age, whose hands are shaky and memory faded, whose skin is wrinkled and whose bones ache . . . 

Lord God, in the twilight of life, who watches the traffic of life whiz by without anyone ever stopping to ask how you are . . . 

Lord God, whose only warmth is raw liquor, whose only joy is the sting of a hypodermic needle . . . 

Lord God, who cries bitter tears over the daily slaughter of the holy innocents, but who is afraid to speak out, afraid to experience the pro-life loneliness, who hides behind a thousand excuses . . . 

Lord God, whose belly is huge and clothing stretched with new life, but whose eyes are sad and empty . . . 

Lord God, who is in pain, twisting and sweating on a lonely bed, and who knows that no one will come with concern, knowing that no one cares . . . 

Lord God who is blind, whose days are darker than our nights, who gropes through life and who wonders what a day in Autumn must be like, who wonders about green grass and blue skies … 

Lord God, who lies waiting for death, alone and terrified by the challenge of death's dark surrender . . . 

Lord God, who feels that he is without voice, without power, without any ability to shape his own life or destiny, who has "given up" on life . . . 

Lord God, who feels trapped into a life of pain, who can see only the escape of suicide … 

Lord God, who just couldn't take it any longer, and who walks the streets again, selling her body and fearing that she is also selling her eternal soul. . . 

Lord God, who is a tiny baby filled with curious questions about himself, about others, about life and about God . . . 

Lord God, who is so poor that he claims the discarded things of others as his treasures.

Lord God, who is imprisoned in a world of addiction, a snakepit of bottles and pills and needles, and who sees no way out . . . 

Lord God, whose spouse has left you with small crying children still to be raised . . . 

Lord God, who dreads waking up in the morning know that every day will be a carbon copy of yesterday, with all its depression and the lonely ache for something more. . . .

Lord God, on whose child's body are the bruises of abuse, on whose soul are the scars of neglect . . . 

Lord God, who is punished for or burdened by the color of his skin . . . 

Lord God, who thinks that love is only a word because real love has never touched his life or warmed his world . . . 

Lord God, who has come into my life needing the warmth of my heart and the touch of my helping hands, and who has gone away unnoticed because I was too taken up with my own concerns . . . 

Lord God, who has come into my life through others wanting to help me, and who has found me too proud, too aloof to admit that I need help . . . 

Lord God, who has stirred in my heart while I was distracted, looking elsewhere for meaning and satisfaction, and who was met by my coldness and rudeness  . . . 

Lord God, who lives in me, loves in me and through me, who walks patiently after me... 

Lord God, who comes into my life each day in a thousand different faces, in a thousand voices, challenging me with a thousand invitations to make my life an act of love  . . . 

Lord, have mercy

Christ, have mercy

Lord, have mercy. 

May Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and lead us into the awareness of His presence in all the days of our lives.  Amen