Loving Until It Hurts

J.M.J +
Dear Friends of the Unborn,
I am posting in regards to this Saturday the 8th of December’s prayer vigil at 345 Whitney Avenue Planned Parenthood in New Haven. Please respond to commit to an hour of prayer from 8 am -12 pm noon. What an awesome way to honor Our Lady on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, by standing in peaceful prayer vigil to save her children!
Because it is the second Saturday of the month the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants will be praying 20 decades of the Rosary at PP as well as the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy. There will be a procession following the 7:30 am Mass at St. Mary’s Church at 5 Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven leading to Planned Parenthood. We welcome all of you to come.
However if your schedule does not permit you to join the Helpers please do contact me as we are in need of people to take an hour of prayer to cover the remaining time span when the killing of these precious infants will take place this Saturday.
Below I have included some excerpts from a wonderful speech Blessed Mother Teresa gave in Washington, DC in 1994. I came across it again today and felt truly that no one could say it better than her, for she understood the sanctity of all human life especially amongst the weakest and most fragile of the poor. Let us pray that as we enter into Advent in great excitement and joyous anticipation of the Savior who will reconcile us to Himself that we may never forget that our King of Kings and Lord of Lords , chose to enter this world and our hearts through the fragility and humble meekness of an infant. Despite the holiness of Christ in all His power He chose to be born and laid in a simple manger of wood out of love for us. May we nev er lose sight that the very wood which secured Him on that holy night would go on to save us in the wood of His cross.

Speech of Mother Teresa of Calcutta to the National Prayer Breakfast, Washington, DC,February 3, 1994


On the last day, Jesus will say to those on His right hand,
"Come, enter the Kingdom. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me." Then Jesus will turn to those on His left hand and say, "Depart from me because I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me drink, I was sick and you did not visit me." These will ask Him, "When did we see You hungry, or thirsty or sick and did not come to Your help?" And Jesus will answer them,
"Whatever you neglected to do unto one of the least of these, you neglected to do unto me!"
And so it is very important for us to realize that love, to be true, has to hurt. I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people and, in fact, to do good to them. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts. Otherwise, there is no true love in me and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.
It hurt Jesus to love us. We have been created in His image for greater things, to love and to be loved. We must "put on Christ" as Scripture tells us. And so, we have been created to love and to be loved, and God has become man to make it possible for us to love as He loved us. Jesus makes Himself the hungry one, the naked one, the homeless one, the unwanted one, and He says, "You did it to Me." On the last day He will say to those on His right, "Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to Me," and He will also say to those on His left, "Whatever you neglected to do for the least of these you neglected to do it for Me."
When He was dying on the Cross, Jesus said, "I thirst." Jesus is thirsting for our love, and this is the thirst of everyone, poor and rich alike. We all thirst for the love of others that they go out of their way to avoid harming us and to do good to us. This is the meaning of true love, to give until it hurts.
But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.
And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.
But what does God say to us? He says: "Even if a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you. I have carved you in the palm of my hand." We are carved in the palm of His hand; that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God from conception and is called by God to love and to be loved, not only now in this life, but forever. God can never forget us.

Blessed Mother Teresa, please pray for us that we may come to know that offering our prayer and love for these little ones at the abortion mill does mean giving until it hurts, but that in that giving we become united to the Savior of the world who gave everything that He had for us. May we come to know that in praying for the unborn babies who are surely the least of His people and a gift to our world that we are loving and adoring our new born King who is to come, the Emanuel! For we know it is He there amongst the poor.
May God bless you,
Mike and Kerry