Respect Life Month 2005

October is Respect Life Month. During this time, the Church throughout the world prays for a renewed sense of the sacredness of every human being, from conception to natural death. This is a time to pray for all whose human dignity is denied in our world--the unborn; children living in poverty, abuse, and neglect; the elderly, the terminally ill, the developmentally disabled; prisoners on death row, and all the poor, suffering and disenfranchised in our world. As Pope Benedict XVI said in the homily of his inaugural Mass on April 24, 2005, "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary." Click here to link to a series of meditations by Jean Vanier and Brother Roger of Taizé on life issues.

O Mary,
bright dawn of the new world,
Mother of the living,
to you do we entrust the cause of life:
Look down, O Mother,
upon the vast numbers of babies not allowed to be born,
of the poor whose lives are made difficult,
of men and women who are victims of brutal violence,
of the elderly and the sick
killed by indifference or out of misguided mercy.
Grant that all who believe in your Son
may proclaim the Gospel of life
with honesty and love to the people of our time.
Obtain for them the grace
to accept that Gospel as a gift ever new,
the joy of celebrating it with gratitude
throughout their lives and
the courage to bear witness to it
resolutely, in order to build,
together with all people of good will,
the civilization of truth and love,
to the praise and glory of God,
the Creator and lover of life.

Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae

Reflections on Life Issues