We must love and encourage those who have suffered loss
LJM Photo / Designpics
Msgr. Philip Reilly of Brooklyn, N.Y., is often lovingly called “the father of sidewalk counselling.”
In pro-life circles the term “sidewalk counsellor” refers to someone who stands outside an abortion facility and engages the women (and men) who are coming and going. This kind of work is terrifying and humbling, all at the same time, but if done well, it changes not only minds, but lives and hearts too.
Msgr. Reilly has turned “sidewalk counselling” into an art form, if not a spirituality. He believes the pro-life movement should not be exclusively about “saving babies,” but also largely about saving souls.
Often pro-life activism, like other noble humanitarian endeavours, can turn into a numbers game. When Msgr. Reilly returns to the monastery each evening, you won’t hear anyone ask how many babies he spared from execution at the abortion mill that day (his term for the facilities).
Msgr. Reilly is adamant that the closer those women and men get to the doorway of the facility, the more gentle and peaceful the counsellors must become. This is not a facade, nor is it manipulation or purely protocol. This is his spirituality. For anyone willing to learn, these principles can and should be applied to every facet of Christian life.
If we really love someone, we will love them enough to let them navigate their world while we stand firmly, with love, in our place. Love is not proud, nor does it rejoice in wrong-doing. Love is patient. Love is kind.
Msgr. Reilly tells stories of praying with women outside after their babies have been killed in their wombs. Throughout his 28 years on the sidewalks of New York, he has prayed prayers of mourning and sorrow. He has implored the fathers and mothers he encounters to turn their lives over to God, Who will heal them, mend their wounds, and forgive them with lavish, incomprehensible mercy.
Reverence for life does not just mean reverence for God’s little ones in the womb, although that is a necessary place to begin. Reverence for life, on a deeper level, means reverence for free will and reverence for the work that God is doing in other people even when all our attempts to “save them” or even guide them seem to fail.
It is not that we should ever give up reiterating the truth to those we think to be wayward; but after a time it is “right and just” to relinquish our efforts to Someone more capable: the immovable Mover of Hearts.
Our sustained efforts in human tongues can only go so far; but the Holy Spirit speaks a tongue all His own in the dark and hidden corners of the human heart where only God can penetrate.
“In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness … the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
Given the chance, we will, most of us, see how we too took the “long way around” in some area of our lives. Some routes pass, perhaps, straight through hell, and some pass through the doors of an abortion facility. Certainly women who weep for their children find the two routes indistinguishable, on some days.
Only one concrete thing can be said about each one of our paths: they are at the mercy of human free will. Truly, as (hopefully) humble and repentant souls, we will behold no greater spectacle in our lives than beholding the Great Artist make astonishing works of art out of the mire, muck, and pain of our terrible choices.
