Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

Since all my work in post abortion directly or indirectly came from Cardinal O'Connor, I thought I would print his Response to Violence at Abortion Clinics

Yesterday
was confession day again, my normal Saturday indoor sport. But this time I felt
a bit melancholy before I went to confession. I'm not sure why. Maybe because
this is the last Sunday I will be only 74 years old. With a birthday coming next
week, I'm finally having to face middle age! But my wonderful confessor cheered
me up as he always does. He talked about the beautiful light that came from the
infant Jesus at the first Epiphany, when the Wise Men from the East followed his
star and came to see him face to face. "Where is the newborn king of the
Jews?" they asked, according to the Gospel read today. "We observed
his star at its rising and have come to pay him homage."

My confessor went on to talk about how that same light of Christ bathes us
today, fills us with understanding and peace, leads the way through the darkness
of every one of our problems and pains and sorrows. He went on, then, to speak
even more beautifully about the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ that we
receive in holy communion this day, through this Mass. This is our Epiphany
today.

The shepherds saw the light of Christ and rejoiced. The Wise Men saw the
light of Christ and rejoiced. But neither the shepherds nor the Wise Men
received Christ into their very beings as we do. They saw him, and that was a
wonderful gift, but although we cannot see him except with the eyes of faith,
under the appearance of bread and wine, we receive his body and blood, we
receive the living Christ, the same baby Jesus born in Bethlehem, the same
Jesus, God become man, who died on the cross and rose from the dead.

And even more: The living Christ sweeps us up into his divinity, into his
divine light. This is what Epiphany means today. He not only reveals himself, he
gives himself, totally and unconditionally. And in the light from his face we
cannot only see him as he is; we can see ourselves in him. We can come to know
what it means to be truly human, to be made in his image and likeness, whoever
we are, whatever our religion, our color, our sex, our orientation, our sins. In
him we see ourselves as he wants us to be. We see ourselves as sacred human
beings. We see every individual in the world as equally sacred, of immeasurable
worth and dignity.

Seeing ourselves and others this way is one of our reasons for treasuring
every human life, the life of the hungry, the homeless, the drunk, the
drug-ridden, the unborn, the elderly, those with cancer, those with AIDS, the
rich, the poor, the famous, the unknown. The feast of the Epiphany, then, is a
great day to celebrate the great gift of life, life in general, the life of
Christ, our own lives in and because of Christ.

It is this sense of the sacredness of every human life that has prompted my
very close friend, His Eminence Cardinal Law, archbishop of Boston, to denounce
unconditionally the recent killings and woundings that took place in two
abortion clinics in his archdiocese. I joined him in that unconditional
denunciation and expressed my deep sorrow for the victims and their loved ones,
as I have done on previous occasions. Indeed, on this current occasion I have
repeated publicly what I have said before and mean, with every fiber of my
being: "If anyone has an urge to kill an abortionist, kill me
instead." That's not a grandstand play. I am prepared to die if my death
can save the life of another.

read the rest here  http://www.ewtn.com/library/BISHOPS/OCONABOR.HTM