Purposeful protest

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Some say protests don’t make a difference. Honestly, unless the protest is novel, I tend to agree.  This year’s March for Life was its 39th year, so why do I justify participating and ask for your support next year?

Because this is more than a protest. It’s not simply half a million people uniting around the most important issue that afflicts American society. Rather, the March for Life is intimately spiritual, especially for the Hillsdale students that participate. It is a spiritual force for good in the conflict against the evil of abortion because, despite what modernity presses upon our beliefs, our mortal lives are weaved into the eternal. The present moment is where our lives touch eternity and make their impact on all of what our all-knowing God beholds. Our actions, prayers and sacrifices truly have a profound impact in the spiritual war between justice and injustice.

With this truth in our hearts, we lunge headlong into this battle. We bear our soul to the world and against the great genocidal sin of abortion. In the name of love, for a world and a generation to whom love is almost unknown, we make a great sacrifice of time, sleep, leisurely study, showers and physical comfort. We offer up all of these sacrifices to God, asking that He pour out His mercy and justice on the martyred innocents, on a world devoid of love, on women who are empty and hurting. All the while, we take great hope in the revelation of knowing that Christ our Savior has conquered sin and overcome death, that He will remove this stain from His people and that abortion will be abolished in our lifetime.

And so we await our next march, our next pilgrimage, our next journey of sacrificial prayer, while praying and working for it to never arrive. And I ask that each member of this spiritual community pray to God for guidance in discerning whether or not to journey for this sacrifice next winter.