Honoring Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

ANNIVERSARY OF MOTHER TERESA'S DEATH GOOD TIME TO TAKE UP PRO-LIFE MISSION

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Saturday is the anniversary of the death of Mother Teresa, long regarded as the unofficial patron saint of the pro-life movement.
As Catholics remember the sister whose selflessness and sacrifice for unborn children and others became an international model, Father Frank Pavone says now is a good time to take up her pro-life mission.
"Mother Teresa of Calcutta was called from this world on September 5, 1997," Pavone, the head of Priests for Life, recalls.
"In my many conversations with her about the pro-life movement, it was very clear that she expected us not simply to pray but to intervene," he explained.
"She told me about how she went to the places where abortions were performed and took the women by the arm, away from that place of death and to her communities where they would find hope and life for themselves and their children," Pavone said.
Although many pro-life advocates will remember her life in many ways, Pavone says their is one way that is the best: "Above all, honor her by imitating her."
When discussing abortion, Mother Teresa was honest and direct, but never insulting or abusive.
In February 1997, in her remarks at the White House Prayer Breakfast, with President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton -- two unswerving supporters of abortion -- Mother Teresa laid out her case clearly.
"What is taking place in America is a war against the child," she said. "And if we accept that the mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another."
Three years earlier, Mother Teresa was quoted in The Wall Street Journal saying, "America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation."
She added: "The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts -- a child -- as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters."
And in response to critics who asked who would care for an unwanted child, Mother Teresa said, "Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted, and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child, and be loved by the child. From our children's home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3,000 children from abortions. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents, and have grown up so full of love and joy!"
In his new book, Mother Teresa: In the Shadow of Our Lady, Father Joseph Langford, who worked closely with Mother Teresa for twenty-five years and with her founded the Missionaries of Charity Fathers, believes "God fashioned Mother Teresa into an instrument that would light up our night at its darkest."
By persevering through her own "dark night of the soul," Mother Teresa taught all who work and pray for an end to abortion to have faith and persevere
Priests for Life has a special novena prayer it has posted on its web site that encourages all pro-life people to examine.
"You will find a prayer to say, and will be able to share with us how Mother Teresa has influenced your own life," he says.
Related web sites:Priests for Life - http://www.priestsforlife.org