Showing posts with label March for Life. Show all posts

Day 3 - March for Life Pilgrimage

Sunrise in Washington DC
Wednesday morning dawned cold and sunny.  The alarm went off at 7:00 AM which, based on the fact that I didn't roll out of bed until 7:30, was too early.  Myself and the other guys from the Springfield diocese were going over to serve Mass with the contingent of people from our diocese at 10:00 AM (unlike the other Brute guys, who were celebrating Mass together elsewhere), so I had to pack up my things quickly in order to make it downstairs and catch the hotel shuttle to the metro station.  It was a short (10 minute) drive to the metro station, but the train ride down to Metro Center (the station we needed to get to) was quite a bit longer.  I took the same ride on the previous day and it didn't seem all that long, but this time we were pressured by the clock, so the ride seemed to take forever.  We finally reached that terminal around 9:30, quite a bit later than we had planned, and raced over to the next train which would take us over to the Capital South stop, from which the church was only a short walk. Around this time we happened to run into Fr. Hyland Smith, who was ordained last year for our diocese, and who was trying to get on the same train that we were.  Of course, since we were in a hurry, as soon as the train entered the station it promptly broke down.  We had to wait several more minutes for them to remove the, now broken, train and then wait for the next one to arrive.  By the time we reached Capital South, it was already 10:00, but thankfully the Mass had waited for us (or probably more precisely, Fr. Smith).

Bishop Paprocki talking with the pilgrims after Mass
I quickly threw on my cassock and surplice and walked back into the sacristy, where I said hello to the Bishop and then got ready for Mass.  Cody and I served while the other guys sat in choir (because we didn't need 7 servers).  St. Peter's was packed with young people from our diocese, all having endured a long bus ride from home, and it added, kind of like the Mass at the Basilica, some awesomeness to have all those people present.  Bishop Paprocki reiterated the necessity to stand up against the evil of abortion, how we must show our opposition to it by marching down the cold streets of Washington DC.  Unfortunately, I couldn't track down a transcript of the homily, so that is all I remember.  (That's one thing I dislike about having to do something at Mass, it's hard to pay attention.)  Mass went well, as you might expect, and though it wasn't quite as spectacular as Mass the night before at the Basilica, it was still profound and beautiful.




Crucifix in St. Peter's Church
After Mass, we changed into our warm clothes and grabbed a bite to eat, before walking with the Springfield group (including the bishop) down to the national mall.  It was a short walk, maybe a mile, right down past the capital (on the opposite side from where we would be walking up later during the March for Life).  Though we were all bundled up, it only took a block or two for me to notice that it was really cold out.  One of the other guys checked on his phone and it was a whopping 12 degrees out.  The wind was also in full force and though I was pretty well covered up, my face, which was exposed, quickly started to feel the brunt of the cold.  We eventually split off from the Springfield group and headed over to where the guys from Brute were collecting.  I was going to meet a friend from the Quincy area who is a brother in the Fathers of Mercy, but unfortunately, I didn't have the time to look around amongst the hundreds of thousands of people for his group and was otherwise unable to get in touch with him.  Anyway, we were probably standing there for half an hour while the last few speeches ended (unfortunately, I wasn't paying very good attention, so I don't remember all of what was said), and then the march started. We were about half way back in the crowd at the national mall, but we didn't get into the 'wave' of people very quickly, so we ended up being near the back of the march.
Crowds before the March

The march begins!
This year, unlike in 2013, Brute had our own banner, so we all grouped around it while trying to merge with the slowly moving crowd.  Everybody was shuffling along slowly, so this process took a while, but it turned out just fine because the slow-up meant that I was surprised to run into my aunt/uncle/cousins again.  I was able to talk with them for a few minutes while the crowd was moving slowly, but, as things finally started moving we got squeezed apart.  As our group curved up towards the capital building, we sang several hymns and prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet, a devotion that so poignantly expresses what the March is about.  Not only are we protesting, politically, against abortion, we are also doing reparation for this evil and begging Our Lord to have mercy on us and our country.  It was, as in previous years, incredible to see all the young people, stretching in every direction, marching against abortion.  Words can't quite do the experience justice, so I'll have to hope that the pictures included here give you some idea of how impressive it was.

The masses marching towards the Capital building

All of us from Brute after the March
Anyway, the group of us seminarians from Brute (along with Fr. Bob) actually curved off of the march before getting all the way up to the Supreme Court.  We turned left as we were going up past the Capital building (instead of continuing all the way up) so that we could get down to Union Station more quickly (and not have to work against the crowd to get there).  It was packed with people who had just finished the march, so it was still a challenge to find and board our train back to where the vans were parked.  I managed to take a short nap on the metro (and finish thawing out) as we sped back to the Shady Grove station, which was wonderful.  We all trickled back to the vans around 4 PM and shortly afterwards started the long drive back to Indianapolis.  We stopped at a place called Cici's pizza on the way home, a buffet-style restaurant that churns out different types of pizza every few minutes.  It was tasty, fast, and cheap, all factors that made it ideal for 50 hungry seminarians.  I spent almost the entire trip back working on homework (except for the times when we were listening to different Catholic talks), though I did fall asleep for maybe an hour during the last stretch of the drive (around 2 AM).  The weather was bad for part of the trip, but thankfully we made it back safely around 4 AM.  Sorry, I don't have anything particularly exquisite to say, it was a fantastic trip, inspiring as always, and something that I will probably miss greatly next year.

Here's a video of bits of the March - actually some of the group from Springfield makes an appearance!
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Day 2 - March for Life Pilgrimage

The National Mall Covered in Snow
Washington Monument in Center
My previous post ended on Monday night, when we got into Washington DC having had a wonderful drive from Indianapolis, listening to good talks, getting work done, being squished  together in such a way as to have to spend solid time talking with each other, and enjoying an all-you-can-eat buffet.  Anyway, I had the blessing of getting a good night’s sleep (which, I heard, wasn’t the case with everybody), but woke up the next morning to find that DC was expected to get hit with several inches of snow and all the museums and places of interest were going to be closed because of this wintery precipitate.  I was bummed because we had almost the entire day to see the city, which, though I had seen some of it before, I wanted to experience again because it is such a cool, historic, interesting, and stunning place.  As it turned out, the museums hadn’t closed yet, so some of us took the 10 minute shuttle, to the metro, where we spent an hour shooting into downtown DC, and then wandered over to the national mall (where many of the Smithsonian’s are located).  Some of the other guys in our 4 or 5 person group wanted to go to the Air and Space Museum, which I had seen before, but knew would be cool, so off we went.  It was cold, snowing a bit (nothing like the disaster that everyone was expecting though), so we walked quickly to cover the half-mile or so to the museum, stopping to look at some of the cool buildings (old post office, national archives, and most of the other old government buildings there) along the way.

National Air and Space Museum
Voyager, The Spirit of St. Louis, Space Ship One, and X-15 visible
We ran into a group of pro-life tourists on our way into the museum (who was immediately recognizable because they were all wearing the same bright sweatshirts, except the religious sister, who was wearing her habit), which was pretty cool and then we had the opportunity to meet up with some other guys from Bruté.  We wandered around the different exhibits, pretty much noting that all the people who flew these things for the first time were crazy.  That guy who strapped himself into the wood and linen contraption that was supposed to fly and then jumped off a mountain to see if it would.  That guy who built a motorcycle, bolted a v8 to it, and then proceeded to see how fast he could go without dying (he made it up to 127 mph, and this was back in the early 1900s).  Or those guys who strapped themselves into a tin can, floated for a week through space, and then landed on the moon in a foil contraption, hoping that it would lift off, be able to connect up to the capsule that was hopefully in orbit correctly, that could hopefully fire its engine, and hopefully hit the atmosphere correctly, so that hopefully its heat shield would work, so that hopefully its parachutes would open, and hopefully it would be found out in the middle of the ocean…  I am jesting here a bit; it was really cool to see all the amazing aircraft/spacecraft – humans are awesome! 

Somewhere in Catholic University of America
After the Air and Space museum, the several of us went back to another metro station and swept off to Union Station, where we found some food (it was now about 1 PM).  Four of us went to this Italian sandwich place, where we got some (pretty tasty) sandwiches, warm chips (pretty typical), and cold gelato (which was also tasty).  Funny side note: I didn’t buy a drink because I was cheap (and they weren’t) and I was hoping to find a water-fountain someplace.  Well, there wasn’t any free H2O to be found, so I went without liquid and after wandering around the station for a little while longer (mostly clothing shops actually, which was pretty boring), we got back on the Metro and shot off towards the National Shrine of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.  The vigil Mass for life, which we would be participating in later, wasn’t going to happen for several more hours, so we went on a short tour of the Theological College (a seminary which is there on the campus of Catholic University of America), which was pretty cool – sorry no pictures, it wasn’t cool enough, at least the parts I saw, for me to be the dorky tourist guy and whip out my camera…  After hanging out over there for a short period of time, we went back over to the Basilica around 4 PM.  



National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
We had to be down in the crypt to vest/process by 5:30, so I had some time to wander around, which, of course, I did.  I unfortunately had forgotten to bring a book, other than my breviary, to read during times when I didn’t have anything to do, so I didn’t have anything better to do.  Anyway, it wasn’t by any means boring, the Basilica is gorgeous and has tons of little beautiful side chapels, which, and this was even cooler, were filling with young guys and ladies, who were staking out a spot for the Mass that evening.  Some of them had been camping out since noon or earlier to get a decent spot, but I thought it was just cool to crowd scan and see if I recognized anybody.  Of course, I didn’t recognize very many people, but it was still kind of fun to glance around and smile/wave at people who had made the same mistake and didn’t have anything else to do but sit there (it doesn’t matter how awesome of a time you are having, after sitting on a marble - beautiful marble of course, but still marble - floor for several hours, you get a bit bored and sore).  Well, I wandered back towards the entrance of the lower level and spend a few minutes perusing the store, full of different Catholic pictures, cds, t-shirts, statues, and other such things.  I didn’t really expect to buy anything, but, you know, being a seminarian you get interested into that sort of thing, so there I was.  Well, I stepped out of the small, packed, shop, and just about literally ran into my aunt. 




Inside the Basilica before Mass
National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
I knew that my aunt, uncle, and cousins were going on the March and assumed that they would be at the vigil Mass that evening, but I didn’t really expect to see them amid the milling crowds.  Anyway, despite my doubts, I was lucky enough to run into her and got to chat for a few minutes while the crowds swamped past.  She asked if I had heard from the pope yet (meaning, did I get accepted to the PNAC yet?, to which I said no), and we got to joke around a little bit before I had to take off again.  There was another guy tagging along with me, and I was going to show him up-stairs (the main Church) before we had to get back down stairs.  Anyway, she told me where the rest of their group was seated up there, so we headed up the (skinny, but thankfully not too packed) staircase and found that the church wasn’t as crazy as I thought it would be.  In years past the aisles have been absolutely clogged with people, but they were doing a pretty good job of getting people to stay out of the aisles, so while the pews were full, it wasn’t impossible to move around or anything.  Well, to make a long story short, I spend a few minutes talking with my cousins (who thought it was pretty cool to see me there), and was very glad to have been able to see them.  Funny story: during the 5 minutes that I was standing there, I was told at least twice to get off the aisle and into my pew.  I didn’t quite get the explanation out that I wouldn’t be in a pew because I was processing in later, so they kept going by “reminding” me to get into a pew… 

Seminarians assembled in the Crypt Church before Mass
Wow, this is becoming quite the long-winded post, but there’s a lot to say about what we were up to, so I guess I should expect that.  After going back down-stairs to the crypt, where I was going to get my cassock/surplice on (which, hopefully, had been brought down from the hotel since I had last been through there a few hours previous).  Well, as you might expect, I ran into someone else that I knew, this time not quite as well because they were friends of Willies, but either way we chatted for several minutes before we really had to get back to vest.  I quickly outfitted myself in cassock/surplice – quickly because all the other several-hundred seminarians smashed into the back of this crypt were decked out already (in all manner of different surplices, boring, fancy, cool, “lacy”, pleated, wrinkled, etc.) and were listening to the instructions on how to process in.  I thought that things were about to get going, but, alas, that wasn’t meant to be.  As 6:20, and 6:30, and 6:40 rolled past, I wondered when things would finally get going.  And then, the glorious moment, the organ started rumbling through the massive, arched, stone ceiling and a female cantor started singing.  The organ swelled and the woman chanted away with a spectacular voice – all these crazy guys called seminarians started grinning – and the line started forming.  Here we go!

Seminarians at the rear of the Basilica after Mass
There were  a few tv screens, showing what was happening up above, down in the crypt and I was stunned to see that the seminarians had reached the altar when I started moving down the line.  That line of seminarians – 2 by 2 – stretched from the crypt, through the reasonably large chapel down there, twisted up the staircase to the main basilica, crept down the stairs, through the Basilica, wound through the crowd, and back towards the main altar.  Of course, that is the route that I  slowly made my way along over the next 20 minutes or so, and, as last year, it was a magnificent moment.  I don’t know why it is so cool, but it is wonderful to be processing up that beautiful basilica, grinning along with the organ/choir which was roaring out Crown Him with Many Crowns.  Everything was spectacular as we climbed up the stairs, reverenced the altar, and wrapped through the sanctuary to our seats which were apparently off to the side.  I was pretty hopeful as I saw that the section that I was going to was almost full, yes, thought I, I’ll get a seat in the front of the crowd where I can see!  The guys in front of me moved along into this section, and then they gently pointed me to go to the outside of this area, about as far as you could get from the front of the crowd of guys, about as fat as you could get from being able to see anything (TV or altar), behind a pillar, and without a chair.  Bummer thought I, can’t see, can’t sit…  I guess I thought I was tough, so I just stood there, singing away (having pulled the worship-aid out of my sleeve), and thinking that I would outlast the rest of the guys standing there.  Well, my legs/feet started hurting much more quickly than I was hoping, and I began to hope that they would move us over to the section where there were still empty seats.  Thankfully, that is exactly what they did, and thankfully, though I was in the back of this section, it turned out alright because the guy in front of me was short and so I could see the TV (and the back-side of the high altar).  I couldn’t see anything first-hand, but I could see it on the screen pretty well, and I could hear everything.  So, to make a long story short, the procession was fantastic, the music beautiful, the seating better than last year, and overall everything worked out pretty well.

View of the rear of the high altar in the Basilica after Mass
Of course, Mass continued.  The music continued to be beautiful with the choir chanting at the appropriate places adding splendor and glory to the Mass.  But, I think I should also mention the homily, which was also pretty amazing.  The Gospel for that Mass was the adulterous woman whom the Pharisees brought to Jesus and asked if they should stone her.  Of course, Jesus tells them that whichever one of them hasn’t sinned themselves could throw the first stone.  Well, they are all sinners, so off they go, unable to stone the woman, and Jesus, the only sinless one present, tells the woman that He won’t persecute her either but that she should sin no more.  I wondered at the time how Sean Cardinal O'Malley would work this Gospel into his homily.  Well, he didn’t have to work too hard because this is exactly, as I failed to notice, what Pope Francis has been telling us ever since he was elected.  To fix the atrocities of our culture we have to fix the entire culture.  We can’t just run out into the world lambasting the evil that is abortion without fixing the problems that lead to many of them.  Abortion, as the cardinal explained, happens much of the time because some poor girl has made a bad decision and is stuck in a position where she is pregnant, but doesn’t see any way to have the baby.  She’s poor, or on her own, or having been deserted by the man who should be taking care of her, and she doesn’t see any other option.  I really hadn’t thought about abortion this way before: I’m more of the stand out in the cold, yelling “hey, hey, ho, ho – Row-v-Wade has got to go!”, kind of guy.  But here it finally hit me what Pope Francis has been trying to tell the world.  The faith must permeate our entire lives, it must cause us to do more than protest the evils that are present in our culture, but to actively try to fix them, to help the people that feel like they are forced to do what they are doing.  Yes, we must stand up against abortion; we can’t forget to tell people that it is evil, but we must also live out our faith, and love and forgive those who are in that field.  Don’t think my verve to eliminate abortion has lessened one bit, but my view has been enlargened, the faith has to force us to do crazy things, including forgive our enemies.  Forgiveness doesn’t mean saying that sin isn’t sin, but it does mean showing sinners love not hate.  Hmmm… Pope Francis continues to hit hard.  (Probably, you'd be better off listening to the homily in the video embedded below rather than listening to my sad summary of it...)

View looking up from my seat in the Basilica - yeah, awesome!

Anyway, Mass continued spectacularly, but I wanted to let you guys know how it was a pretty awesome learning experience as well as just an awesome experience in general.  I got to talk about it with the other guys, and talk some more about that homily.  Pretty cool!  Anyway, Tuesday ended with the long ride back to our hotel, the short trip back to our hotel (during which, being the smallest guy in the van, I volunteered to sit on the floor because we ran out of room), and then some pizza/soda.  Good times!

Crowds in the Basilica after Mass


Yours truly is visible at 11:36 and 17:15 (if you are interested in that sort of thing) and the homily begins at 57:50 (you should be interested in that sort of thing).
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Day 1 - March for Life Pilgrimage

Well, this post is coming to you from Washington DC, where myself and the rest of the guys from Brute who are here for the March for Life.  Since we had school off today for Martin Luther King Junior day, we had Mass this morning at Brute at 9 AM and left for our nation’s capital soon afterwards.  We rented four 12-passenger vans this year, since we have grown by 10+ guys since last year when we had three vans, and started our 9 hour drive around 10:30 this morning.  We spent about 3 hours on the road before stopping for lunch somewhere near the eastern border of Ohio (I went to Wendy's).  Anyway, in the second stint of our drive after lunch, we listened to a talk by Tim Staples, who noted that our culture has truly disintegrated over the last half-century or so.  I will leave it up to you to think about the many other places were this is evident, but I think this is especially obvious in the legalization of abortion – the slaughter of unborn babies within their own mother’s womb – about 40 years ago. 

Tim Staples started with the Declaration of Independence which as you all know begins by saying that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”.  Of course, this is a political, not theological, document, but it still makes the all-important point that we get our human rights from God.  I could go from here to something about being made in God's image, and how our dignity was further super-naturalized with the incarnation, but I won't because the point I want to make is even simpler than this.    Our culture has not only thrown the rights given by God out of the window.  It has also thrown out the rights that we can come to know just using our reason.  This is called by Catholics as Natural Law - the law that one can come to know just by using our reason - but we don't even have to get into that.  Think about it, our culture raises the right to be able to do whatever you want over the right to life of somebody else.  That isn't even rational.  If a human being (which, undoubtedly is what the living embryo inside the mother's womb is) doesn't have the right to live, then there isn't any point to having another right - you're dead...  

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of cases where the situation is really, really hard for the mother to have a child, and yet she's pregnant.  But none of those situations would be so grave as to make murder OK.  We were listening to some Catholic Answers Live talks as well on the way over here (it was a good trip, we listened to a lot of good stuff), and the speaker, who I believe was Trent Horn, made the important point that we must battle evil with good, not with more evil.  Certainly there are cases where the mother's life is in danger, or the child will be born into a poor/missing family, or the mother was raped, or some other horrible situation, but killing the innocent child isn't the way to fix the problem.  We don't fix other problems (over crowded cities or something) by killing people, so why would we think abortion is a good option?  (Don't think that this example makes my argument air-tight;  who knows what atrocities could happen in the future?  But at least right now it shows the absurdity of the proposition.)

Before ending this post though, I'd like to end on a positive note.  I started with the unfortunate fact that our culture is disintegrating (at the very least morally) because we have pretty much dropped God (and even reason) from the picture.  We have rejected every authority we possibly can and find ourselves trapped in the very slavery that Christ died to bring us out of - the slavery to sin.  But, don't despair!  As Fr. Bob noted in his homily this morning, it may not be easy or fun to live in such a world, but it is still our duty to fight for truth and God-given, common sense, morality.  Pray, fast, go stand in the cold for several hours on Wednesday - do something instead of just complaining!  (I don't mean to insinuate that you all just complain, I expect the exact opposite, but I know that often the subject of abortion, or the moral collapse of our culture, evokes despair, not hope, and I wanted to reiterate that we're in a battle on the side that is guaranteed to win.  Our job is to get to heaven and bring as much of the rest of our culture there with us.  Put the situation, the atrocities, your live, and our country, into God's merciful hands - through our Blessed Mother - and go convert the world!)

More updates will appear as I get the chance.  Sorry no pictures just yet, I hope to take some tomorrow as we tour around DC and go to the vigil Mass and of course at the March for Life itself on Wednesday.  Keep me in your prayers please, that I can also be a bit productive at least during the car rides - I have to finish up my application to the PNAC as well as my self-evaluation for this last year in college seminary.  (Oh, and I need to do all the work for my classes this week...)  

Also, I think I may have posted this video before, but it is so fantastic, I wanted to share it again...  
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The March for Life

This year's March for Life was the third that I have participated in; however this time I went with the other seminarians from Brute, so the experience was a bit different.

Since we were leaving at 3:30 on Wednesday (the 16th), I had to pack my clothes and stuff up ahead of time.  Anyway, since I don't have a suitcase, I always use my backpack, and was forced to carry around my books for that day.  Well, that was all fine and dandy except for one book, namely Shakespeare.  This book must include everything the Elizabethan playwright wrote, because it's like 4-5 inches thick and weighs at least 6 lbs.  So, if I had to guess everybody on campus was wondering who the goof was who disdained backpacks and carried around all these books...

Anyway, I got out of class on time and got back to Brute shortly before the 3:30 departure time.  I grabbed my backpack, breviary, and water bottle, and crowded down into Brute's kitchen for last minute instructions.  Seating was assigned to middle van, which thankfully had 9, rather than 10, occupants and got settled in.  The drive was fun, rather than tedious, to me.  I didn't sleep too much on the way down there, but I got a good bit of reading in, and a little bit of talking with everybody - it was crowded, but by no means horrible.  We got to Gaithersburg Maryland at about 2 in the morning and crashed at the hotel.  I automatically woke up about 8 AM and wondered down to the hotel lobby to get some breakfast and jumped in with a group of guys who were taking off to do some site-seeing.  A quick ride to the metro station (and about 40 minutes of metro riding) later and we were in Washington DC.

Washington and Jefferson Memorials
The first thing we saw was the National Archives.  I really didn't see to much there, Constitution, yep, Declaration of Independence, yep, a bunch of WWII records, yep (sorry pictures weren't allowed...)  Anyway, we then walked down to the U.S. History Museum (it was bitterly cold) and saw the original flag (which is way bigger than I imagined it to be - it has a larger footprint than the house they started it in), some cool memorabilia from times past, and an interesting exhibit on the wars that the U.S. has played a role in.  By this time the group had split up and myself and two other guys walked past the Washington Monument on our way to the Holocaust Museum.  What can I say, that was a eye-opening museum on the horrors of the Holocaust during WWII.  Evil, pure and simple.  We then went off and got a bite to eat, got warmed up from all the walking we had done so far (it was still bone-chillingly cold) and then toured around the White House, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Memorial, you get the picture, we tried to see it all.  Anyway, we finally ran out of time and hiked back to the metro station and headed over to the National Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.

seminarians in the crypt
This was always a highlight of the trip the previous times I went on the march, and this year was no exception.  This year, being a seminarian, I was privileged to process in the massive procession of seminarians, priest, bishops, and cardinals that is so spectacular.  It gives a glimpse of the universality and massive size of the Catholic Church.  Awesome!  I was pretty naive in assuming that seminarians get a seat; they don't.  I was in the middle of the procession and besides all the walking of earlier that day I had just been standing in the Crypt Church for about two hours waiting for everything to get started, so my legs were pretty tired.  Anyway, as I filed back behind the main (and then high) altar I found that everything was jammed and the seats were filled.  I was, actually happy when they said that we could sit on the floor; yeah, it was uncomfortable, but much preferred to standing the entire time.

A quick aside: I found it pretty funny to see the "battles" that seminarians engage in; namely proving to each other who is holiest.  Thus, we see who can kneel the longest on the marble after Communion, or who can stand the longest, or who can fold their hands the most perfectly for the longest - I know funny right.  Anyway, I didn't win any battles that night; there were some real pro's there... :-)

 Back to Mass; I couldn't see a thing (except the giant plumes of incense that spread upward from the altar), and thankfully, I had the TV feed right in front of me, but that just isn't the same...  Either way, for some reason I found myself really being present at MASS.  All to often I am distracted, sleepy, or just kind of out of it at Mass (becoming a seminarian apparently doesn't make you super-human), but for this Mass I was really concentrating.  Everything really hit me and made me think.  I was really meditating when I received Communion.  It was awesome!  I could go on and on about how wonderful this evening was, but hopefully some of my readers have experienced it (if you haven't, you should), and can vouch for awesome the evening is.  Really incredible!

Mass the next Morning
That night I was exhausted and collapsed into bed after enjoying some pizza at the hotel.  I got up the next morning and packed up my stuff before heading off with the other guys from the Springfield diocese to serve Mass for one of the groups from our diocese.  Once again the Mass was great, not as spectacular, but I was just as present and "in" it (the homily was pretty great too).  We caught a ride on their buses to the March, where we stood around for probably 2 hours, and I lost all the other guys (who went looking for the Brute group).  Eventually, I just marched with my diocese, which was actually fortunate because we were up near the front of the March.  That meant that I had about an hour that I could just watch people stream by without worrying about missing the time to meet at the metro station.  Anyway, I got to see thousands and thousands of people walk past, including my cousins, who I got to talk to for about 10 minutes.  What can I say the march was, as always, great.  Looking back, the entire 3 days or so were inspiring.  I guess good things happen when over half a million people all stand up against evil (when it's 20 degrees outside).
countless people at the march

marchers in front of the capital
 The ride back wasn't too notable.  I managed to fight my way through union station, find the metro, get on the right train, and meet up with everybody.  We got on the road that evening and drove through the night till we got back to Brute around 4:30 AM.  We had Mass at 5:00 AM and then I hit the sack.  Thankfully, I had gotten some sleep in the van, but I was still tired.  Some of the guys managed to sleep until like 4 PM, but I woke up around 11 AM.  All-in-all the trip was great!  I think I have used up all my good adjectives, so fill in your favorite (positive) one.  It was great!
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Great Pro-Life Video

This is a superb video, produced before this year's March for Life taking the president's words on the terrible Sandy Hook elementary school shooting on December 14th (which are actually very good) and applying them to the even more terrible slaughter that happens on a much larger scale with abortion.  

Pray for the conversion of our president, our country, and everywhere else to follow Christ's call to love, a love that necessitates the respect, and cherishing, of every human life.  Prayer and fasting is the way to defeat evil folks... (Though action certainly has its place too)
Enjoy!
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