15th Tuesday, Abortion - Moses

  

In the first reading today, Pharaoh orders all newborn boys to be killed. The Hebrew mother of one the children put her child in a basket and watched as the child goes downstream. Pharaoh’s daughter sees the basket and hears the child crying and orders the child to be taken out of the water and so it happens the child’s sister saved her little brother and the child’s mother was asked to nurse it.

The child, as we know is Moses, who would be called by God to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt.

Some doctors today, act like Pharaoh today, who desire to kill children. There were two children, whose mothers were told to kill their children, but they decided to keep them. Both of these children would later become ordained priests. One of them would become an archbishop and the other a cardinal. The Archbishop Nauman of Kansas City, could have been killed by abortion, because the doctor of his mother told her to abort him.

The same is true with Cardinal Burke. His mother’s doctor told her to abort her baby, but she chose to have it. Today, both of these clergymen are very strong supporters of the right to life.

Does it make you wonder, how many other children, whose mothers were also carrying future priests, and bishops, had abortions?

There was a woman who went to confession to Padre Pio. This was in the mid 1940s. The lady knelt in Pio's confessional and when she had given him an account of her sins which she thought was complete, Pio invited her, "Try to remember the other sin." She responded, "Padre, I think I gave you all the sins I know and I think this is it." Padre Pio was not satisfied, and he gave her a harsh penitential exercise; "Go to the cross and say 15 Ave Marias and 15 Our Fathers". The cross was at the top of the mountain, it was reached by going up a very bad road and was considered by all to be a dangerous expedition. But the lady did as Pio asked, and when she went back to him, hoping to get absolution, he said to her, "Do you remember all your sins?" Again she was adamant that she had previously confessed all of them, "Padre Pio, I've confessed everything." Pio was patient and blamed it on her memory, "No, you still don't remember all." Then he assigned the same penance as last time, "You've got to go to the cross at the top of the mountain again." 

When she returned from her perilous climb up the mountain, she still claimed not to remember the other sin, and Pio asked her to go to the cross for a third time. When she returned to his confessional, she was resolute that she did not remember anything else, but Pio questioned her, "What do you mean, you don't remember anything? Don't you know he could have been a good priest, a bishop, even a cardinal?" The woman was thrown into deep thought and as she remembered her abortion, tears welled up in her eyes and she defended herself, "Padre, I never knew abortion was a sin." Pio was not moved to soften his stance, said, "What do you mean, you didn't know this was a sin? That's killing." The lady said, "Nobody knows about this, only me and my mother, how could you say it could have been a priest or a cardinal?" But Pio knew. He could read her soul.

Today, let us pray for all young women, who are tempted to have an abortion, may the Lord touch their hearts and change their minds, to keep their children. And let us pray for all doctors, may they be advocates for all life, especially the unborn.