If This Is How We Lose….

Hello friends, enemies and those passing through with mild indifference and/or interest! I marched for life yesterday!

Actually scratch that, I bus-rode for life, went to mass for life, rocked out with Matt Maher for life, got up really unbelievably freaking early and drank a lot of coffee for life, rocked out to some Ike for life, went to mass AGAIN for life, then marched for life, which can really only be accurately described as partying while moving slowly for life.

I was one of the crazy people at the front, letting my true Jew come out.

Heres’s what I know. We are many, and we are young. This ain’t your grandma’s march, this is your teenager’s, and that should be fine for both grandmothers and teenagers. We aren’t the sour, embittered prunes of the 60’s that manage to define the pro-choice image, we are young blood. And even better than that, we are joyful blood. I passed drummers and guitar players, nuns young enough to be my sister and priests cool enough to be Men in Black, middle-school girls making pro-life parodies of popular songs, monks chanting Ave Maria’s through their most holy and excellent beards, college students dancing with the homeless, city kids and people from as far away as Texas and Alaska. I saw bagpipes and babies and just about every college worth calling a college represented. I saw over 200 priests consecrate the Eucharist (making the bread VERY Jesus) and even more seminarians watch and wish. I heard a message from Pope Benedict, my holy father and best friend, from the lips of his cardinal ambassador to the United States, telling me that he was proud of me and the whole crew of 30,000 caffeinated high-schoolers that were up to hear. It was fantastic to the highest degree.

This won the prize for most hilarious new
pro-life movement. Go here!

And here’s what I thought. (Because it wouldn’t really be a post without a thought, now would it?) If this is how we lose, imagine how we’ll win! The march is – for all practical purposes – a remembrance of a defeat. We lost Roe v. Wade, and yet we come with laughter, with smiles, with fun, and with hope. Such hope! Hope in our own humanity, our own dignity, hope in our country, hope in our world. A hope that will smash down walls surrounding human hearts, and release a torrent of compassion and love on the world. Hope that will wake and shake the oldest of human desires; to live and protect life. Hope that will conquer evil in it’s very dwelling place. Gosh, this all sounds like something. Never has anyone been so victorious in defeat. And here’s the beautiful thing; only when you can maintain joy in defeat can you ever be worthy of winning. The abortionists won, but there is nothing but decrepit, boring hatred in their victory.

Hear the words of Our Lady written in G.K Chesterton’s epic, The Ballad of the White Horse. Hear them with reverence, because if this poem was not inspired, I’m not a Catholic. She speaks to a king without a land, a king broken by many defeats against pagan armies.

“The men of the East may spell the stars,

And times and triumphs mark,

But the men signed of the cross of Christ

Go gaily in the dark.

“The men of the East may search the scrolls

For sure fates and fame,

But the men that drink the blood of God

Go singing to their shame.

“The wise men know what wicked things

Are written on the sky,

They trim sad lamps, they touch sad strings,

Hearing the heavy purple wings,

Where the forgotten seraph kings

Still plot how God shall die.

“The wise men know all evil things

Under the twisted trees,

Where the perverse in pleasure pine

And men are weary of green wine

And sick of crimson seas.

“But you and all the kind of Christ

Are ignorant and brave,

And you have wars you hardly win

And souls you hardly save.

“I tell you naught for your comfort,

Yea, naught for your desire,

Save that the sky grows darker yet

And the sea rises higher.

“Night shall be thrice night over you,

And heaven an iron cope.

Do you have joy without a cause,

Yea, faith without a hope?”

When re-reading to put this up for you, the third stanza before the end made me weep. Stupid, stupid, I’m such a sucker. Not in sadness, of course, but in being hit with truth, for if there’s anything that it really means to be a bad Catholic, it’s that stanza. Anyways. We have joy without reason, and – though I don’t want to spoil any end for you – that perseverance will be rewarded very soon. This I do believe, for our cause is so very just. Be proud of your Church, dear Roman Catholics. We are at the forefront of every movement worth calling a movement, from slavery to now. You have a Church that loses well, and is defeated joyfully…until it wins. And then all heaven breaks loose.

Much love! And much more to come! A video, specifically!