Some of you who follow us on social media may have noticed that we are no longer on Facebook. We hope for this to be a temporary absence. Our parish’s Facebook account was linked with my own personal account which made it difficult to keep the two separate and to have a parish staff member update our parish account. So we are looking to setup a new Facebook account exclusively for the parish. I know that some of you depended on viewing our livestream Masses through a reminder or link from Facebook, but please know that you can continue to view our livestream by going to the parish website at leothegreat.org. We continue to have links and notifications to our livestream Masses via Instagram and Twitter and both of these parish social media accounts can be found on our website. 

Today, January 22nd, the Church normally holds its annual Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children though since it falls on a Sunday, this year the Day of Prayer will be held on Monday, January 23rd. For more information about this, you can go to the website of the USCCB (the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) which is linked in our parish website but is also included here: https://www.usccb.org/events/2023/day-prayer-legal-protection-unborn-children. That website contains these words of Pope St. John Paul II: “A great prayer for life is urgently needed, a prayer which will rise up throughout the world. Through special initiatives and in daily prayer, may an impassioned plea rise to God, the Creator and lover of life, from every Christian community, from every group and association, from every family and from the heart of every believer.”  (Evangelium vitae)

It continues: On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court legalized abortion throughout the US in its companion decisions Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. Since that time, millions of children have lost their lives, and millions of women and families have been wounded by abortion.

On June 24, 2022, the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade, and we praise God for the great opportunity state and federal legislators now have to protect pre-born children. While God, in His mercy, ended the nearly fifty-year nationwide regime of abortion on demand, right now state and federal laws, in many instances, are still hostile to pre-born children. So, great prayer and advocacy is very needed.

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal designates January 22 as a particular day of prayer and penance, called the "Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children”: In all the Dioceses of the United States of America, January 22 (or January 23, when January 22 falls on a Sunday as it does this year) shall be observed as a particular day of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life and of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through acts of abortion.

As it states above, on June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. But this is only a beginning. We must not only pray for a change in the law, but most importantly, a change in hearts. May I ask you this weekend to once again take this issue to your own personal prayer and to ask the Lord to guide your heart toward his will concerning the sacredness of all life, from “the womb to the tomb.” I recently heard a pro-life activist say, “When the Church stands up and points, with a very clear finger, ‘This is evil,’ that is not the Church being political; that’s the Church being the Church!” I couldn’t agree more. Let us be faithful to the Gospel of Life.