I really have to share this post with you all. Joe Burwinkel, one of our group leaders, emailed some wonderful reflections out to the mailing list. I've pasted it below for your inspiration!
"Guys, here are some of my musings from the march for life. I have been slow to write down, however I finally typed them up because many of them have been formulated from Father Nathan insights and Father Nathan has a retreat that is coming up.
It was tough to make the march for life this year. Even up to the morning that we left, I still was not sure I would be able to make it. Not being sure I would make it, it sure helped having a group of young adults who regardless had already committed to go on the march. Fortunately I was able to attend the march. While on the march I noticed that most of the marchers were high school age. I asked myself why are most of the marchers high school age? What has happened to many of our generation of young adults? Do the other young adults know something that I do not? Could it be that this march is not doing any good? Is the march and pro-life battle just wasted effort from the young and idealistic of our society? Why is it that many high schoolers will stop attending the march as they become young adults?
Having barely made the march myself I get it, that many young adults have responsibilities to attend to at home, but there is also a strong temptation to stop fighting like we once did. What is taking many of our generation out of the fight? Well many of our generation are already married and have responsibilities at home. Young married couples are deeply involved in the prolife struggle. The family is the cornerstone of society and starting a family requires much sacrifice of the parents. The parents are on call 24/7 with the needs of their children and spouse. The comforts that they once knew have surely disappeared. New clothes become dependent on a lucky find at the second hand store. The nice dinners at restaurants become dinners made at home. The spontaneous parties are replaced with their kids birthday parties. love, sacrifice, and joys. Clearly through their daily grind the young couples are engaged in a sacrifice to start families which will become the cornerstone of our society.
So we have the young family people accounted for, but how about the single young adults...are we engaging in the pro-life struggle? (most of following is from insight I gained from listening to Father Nathan Cromly)
As young adults we have been single for a long time. It is just us. So there is a void or loneliness in our lives. The pain of loneliness in our lives is something that we bear alone. We try to lessen the pain of loneliness by filling it with comforts. These comforts are good in themselves but tend to make us comfortable. There is only us in the picture and our pursuit of comforts to alleviate the pain of loneliness is a focus which can make us overly aware of our own pain and sufferings. Over time having our pain and sufferings always being on our mind tend to make us become self-centered.
Unfortunately the older that we get, the more times that life wounds us. We can’t help it, life will hurt us. What we can do is decide how we recover from these wounds. If we don’t heal properly we can become scarred, numb to the pain, or callous. This injuries hold us back and we stop striving like we once did. Once again the pain hurts and tends to make us draw within ourselves and once again there is a tendency to become self-centered.
At any rate if we do not heal properly from these wounds we set ourselves up for further hurt in the future. The devil lies to us and tells us that we do not matter. The devil says that you are your mistakes and failures. The truth is that we all mess up. Luckily God’s love is bigger than our sins. God suffered and died on the cross to forgive our sins. The devil lies to us to tear us down and decrease our self-worth in order to get us to fall again. The truth is that the love that Christ wants to give us is far superior to any love that a boyfriend/girlfriend or even a spouse can give.
To make matters worse our culture tell us that we are here for our own comforts and pleasure. Over time it is easy to begin to buy in to our culture telling us to chase comforts and pleasures. We begin to chase these comforts and find that they just can’t satisfy. We start out with simple objects of comfort and pretty soon we need finer and finer things to maintain the same level of comfort. Instead of bringing joy these objects leave us dissatisfied and ultimately we become unhappy as we pursue more and worry about losing what we have.
We all have dreams of the great things that we are going to accomplish and lives that we are going to live in the future. We are all searching for something and St Augustine said my heart is restless until it rests in you. Fr Nathan often says, guys wake up! Don’t wait until until the future to start living your true life. Maybe some of us are called to marriage, but don't wait until that person comes along to start living your true life. We can't wait for the perfect person to come along because that person may never come. God’s love is here now. Give yourself to Him now. Live each minute aware that each mundane daily task could be an opportunity to show love on the journey to sainthood.
Well as young adults we face tendencies to become self-centered. Alone we cannot overcome them. It is with the grace of God that we can overcome them. Father Nathan recommends making the De Montfort Consecration to Jesus through Mary. It is a daunting thing to leave all of our comforts, but these comforts are only holding us back from being truly happy and living to our full saintly potential.
(end of insights from Father Nathan)
So to get back to the original question. Are the marchers mostly young because they are idealistic and their efforts are folly? No, many young adults are unable to attend because of duties at home but as we get older there is certainly the temptation to become comfortable and or jaded. I have been really blessed to be surrounded by such a good group of young adults who support and encourage each other. Not everyone is as lucky to be supported by a group of young adults. Being that many young adults can be knocked out of the fight, one may look at the young marchers and write them off as idealistic and that abortion is a necessary evil in our culture. This is a lie. Many believe this lie. Many who support abortion have bought into the lies of our culture believing that life is about the pursuit of pleasure and comfort. Pursue comfort even to the point that a baby who interferes with these pleasures will be killed. Others have become jaded and believe that abortion is a necessary evil to make this imperfect society work. Yes this society is imperfect but it is jaded to believe that abortion is a necessary evil. When we are young we had dreams that we are going to do great things. When these dreams did not work out and we failed we gave up and believe that nothing we can do will actually do any good. By the grace of God the evil of abortion can be stopped. Who knows how much good the march for life actually does, but the truth is that it does not matter what the results of the march are. We are called to respond to the grace that God gives us we are called to do our best and keep on keeping on. God’s grace makes us capable of things beyond ourselves. Yes we can win, but the results are not for us anyway. To quote Fr Nathan again, “this life is not our own and we will be truly happy when we stop thinking about ourselves and begin to live for God and those in our lives.”
GCYAL members, thank you for all your efforts surrounding the anniversary of Roe V Wade. Thank you for all the support, encouragement and example that you give me in this struggle."
Thanks, Joe!
"Guys, here are some of my musings from the march for life. I have been slow to write down, however I finally typed them up because many of them have been formulated from Father Nathan insights and Father Nathan has a retreat that is coming up.
It was tough to make the march for life this year. Even up to the morning that we left, I still was not sure I would be able to make it. Not being sure I would make it, it sure helped having a group of young adults who regardless had already committed to go on the march. Fortunately I was able to attend the march. While on the march I noticed that most of the marchers were high school age. I asked myself why are most of the marchers high school age? What has happened to many of our generation of young adults? Do the other young adults know something that I do not? Could it be that this march is not doing any good? Is the march and pro-life battle just wasted effort from the young and idealistic of our society? Why is it that many high schoolers will stop attending the march as they become young adults?
Having barely made the march myself I get it, that many young adults have responsibilities to attend to at home, but there is also a strong temptation to stop fighting like we once did. What is taking many of our generation out of the fight? Well many of our generation are already married and have responsibilities at home. Young married couples are deeply involved in the prolife struggle. The family is the cornerstone of society and starting a family requires much sacrifice of the parents. The parents are on call 24/7 with the needs of their children and spouse. The comforts that they once knew have surely disappeared. New clothes become dependent on a lucky find at the second hand store. The nice dinners at restaurants become dinners made at home. The spontaneous parties are replaced with their kids birthday parties. love, sacrifice, and joys. Clearly through their daily grind the young couples are engaged in a sacrifice to start families which will become the cornerstone of our society.
So we have the young family people accounted for, but how about the single young adults...are we engaging in the pro-life struggle? (most of following is from insight I gained from listening to Father Nathan Cromly)
As young adults we have been single for a long time. It is just us. So there is a void or loneliness in our lives. The pain of loneliness in our lives is something that we bear alone. We try to lessen the pain of loneliness by filling it with comforts. These comforts are good in themselves but tend to make us comfortable. There is only us in the picture and our pursuit of comforts to alleviate the pain of loneliness is a focus which can make us overly aware of our own pain and sufferings. Over time having our pain and sufferings always being on our mind tend to make us become self-centered.
Unfortunately the older that we get, the more times that life wounds us. We can’t help it, life will hurt us. What we can do is decide how we recover from these wounds. If we don’t heal properly we can become scarred, numb to the pain, or callous. This injuries hold us back and we stop striving like we once did. Once again the pain hurts and tends to make us draw within ourselves and once again there is a tendency to become self-centered.
At any rate if we do not heal properly from these wounds we set ourselves up for further hurt in the future. The devil lies to us and tells us that we do not matter. The devil says that you are your mistakes and failures. The truth is that we all mess up. Luckily God’s love is bigger than our sins. God suffered and died on the cross to forgive our sins. The devil lies to us to tear us down and decrease our self-worth in order to get us to fall again. The truth is that the love that Christ wants to give us is far superior to any love that a boyfriend/girlfriend or even a spouse can give.
To make matters worse our culture tell us that we are here for our own comforts and pleasure. Over time it is easy to begin to buy in to our culture telling us to chase comforts and pleasures. We begin to chase these comforts and find that they just can’t satisfy. We start out with simple objects of comfort and pretty soon we need finer and finer things to maintain the same level of comfort. Instead of bringing joy these objects leave us dissatisfied and ultimately we become unhappy as we pursue more and worry about losing what we have.
We all have dreams of the great things that we are going to accomplish and lives that we are going to live in the future. We are all searching for something and St Augustine said my heart is restless until it rests in you. Fr Nathan often says, guys wake up! Don’t wait until until the future to start living your true life. Maybe some of us are called to marriage, but don't wait until that person comes along to start living your true life. We can't wait for the perfect person to come along because that person may never come. God’s love is here now. Give yourself to Him now. Live each minute aware that each mundane daily task could be an opportunity to show love on the journey to sainthood.
Well as young adults we face tendencies to become self-centered. Alone we cannot overcome them. It is with the grace of God that we can overcome them. Father Nathan recommends making the De Montfort Consecration to Jesus through Mary. It is a daunting thing to leave all of our comforts, but these comforts are only holding us back from being truly happy and living to our full saintly potential.
(end of insights from Father Nathan)
So to get back to the original question. Are the marchers mostly young because they are idealistic and their efforts are folly? No, many young adults are unable to attend because of duties at home but as we get older there is certainly the temptation to become comfortable and or jaded. I have been really blessed to be surrounded by such a good group of young adults who support and encourage each other. Not everyone is as lucky to be supported by a group of young adults. Being that many young adults can be knocked out of the fight, one may look at the young marchers and write them off as idealistic and that abortion is a necessary evil in our culture. This is a lie. Many believe this lie. Many who support abortion have bought into the lies of our culture believing that life is about the pursuit of pleasure and comfort. Pursue comfort even to the point that a baby who interferes with these pleasures will be killed. Others have become jaded and believe that abortion is a necessary evil to make this imperfect society work. Yes this society is imperfect but it is jaded to believe that abortion is a necessary evil. When we are young we had dreams that we are going to do great things. When these dreams did not work out and we failed we gave up and believe that nothing we can do will actually do any good. By the grace of God the evil of abortion can be stopped. Who knows how much good the march for life actually does, but the truth is that it does not matter what the results of the march are. We are called to respond to the grace that God gives us we are called to do our best and keep on keeping on. God’s grace makes us capable of things beyond ourselves. Yes we can win, but the results are not for us anyway. To quote Fr Nathan again, “this life is not our own and we will be truly happy when we stop thinking about ourselves and begin to live for God and those in our lives.”
GCYAL members, thank you for all your efforts surrounding the anniversary of Roe V Wade. Thank you for all the support, encouragement and example that you give me in this struggle."
Thanks, Joe!