Pro-life almsgiving this Lent

"Feed a Mum on Fridays"

Catching up with some blogsites this morning, I came across the post I have reproduced below at Maria Stops Abortion.

A major part of the perspective of St John's Pro Life Group is finding practical ways to help those facing crisis pregnancies (or suffering as a result of abortion).  We don't believe you can preach a message without at least signposting the help that will be available for those who try to follow it. We're still very much feeling our way as to how to do this, for example by supporting our local crisis pregnancy centre in Horsham, Oasis (01403 272273), and by maintaining the Pro Life Memorial as a place where parents can come to grieve and remember.  The following is a good example of practical support and (after due consultation with hubby) I think will become the focus of our household's Lenten almsgiving... See the original blog post for details of how to donate.

Choosing what to give alms to this Lent? Why not give what you can each Friday in Lent to help Good Counsel  feed destitute Mothers and Babies? We spend £40,000 per year on feeding Mothers. And we give this help when a Mother has no wage, no right to benefits and no other means of support.

Some of our Mothers were sleeping on buses or on the street as late as 7 months into their pregnancies. Many others considered abortion because of their devastating poverty when their baby's father chose not to support them in having their baby. Those readers who have been pregnant and who know the awful hunger pangs you can endure in pregnancy even when you have plenty to eat will understand how terrible real hunger in pregnancy can be!

We always deliver the help that we promise an expectant Mother. We don't provide luxuries, but we do provide the basics. But at the moment funds are at an all time low.That's why we need your support especially during Lent.These women that we support witness to other women who are considering abortion - showing that there is real hope and real help for those in poverty who continue their pregnancies.

It costs us £35 to feed an new Mother for 1 week.

It costs us £25 to feed an expectant Mother for 1 week.

It costs £15 to pay for baby milk each week when a Mother cannot breastfeed.

It costs us £7 a week to buy nappies for a baby.

It costs about £3.60 a day to feed an expectant Mother.

Can you donate any of these amounts weekly through Lent as part of your Lenten almsgiving?

Have a Pro-Life Lent

Whoops! Not the best start to Ash Wednesday... old habits die hard

Last week I placed an order to be delivered today from my milkman - a cut-price bumper box of chocolate biccies, end of Christmas stock.  The fact that today is Lenten Eve and the beginning of six weeks of giving up chocolate (Aila and me) and biscuits (hubby) hadn't quite registered.  Luckily the hand of God must have intervened (or the available stocks had already been snapped up by those frivolous souls* happy to guzzle their chocolatey way through Lent), as it wasn't delivered!

Now that I've got my act together, here are reminders of two ways to make your Lent fabulously pro-life... 

40 Days for Life
This has kicked off this evening, with a prayer vigil in Bedford Square, London, opposite an abortion facility.  The Vigil will continue between 8am-8pm every day from 22 February-1 April - see the 40 Days for Life website which has details of the campaign and its events.  If you can't physically join in, why not make it a Lenten resolution to pray the 40 days at home?  During previous 40 Days for Life campaigns our Pro Life group has suggested (by way of the church newsletter) that all parishioners pray a daily Hail, Holy Queen for pro-life causes and held our own all-night vigil before the Blessed Sacrament.
 

National Day of Prayer and Fasting for Life: Ash Wednesday

The Good Counsel Network are encouraging us all to engage in the spiritual battle for an end to abortion and euthanasia this Ash Wednesday.  Offer up your fasting and abstinence together with a Rosary in the knowledge that, as the Maria Stops Abortion blogsite reminds us, "the struggle to end abortion is a spiritual struggle and not merely one of practical concerns or politics".

No, not a giant slice of salami...

However you engage in prayer, fasting and alms-giving this Lent, have a blessed one!  I'm just off to brazenly over-eat, hopefully for the last time in the next few weeks, as Shrove Tuesday this year in our house is Pink Pancake Day - see photo.  (Aila's idea, and a delicious one, but I'm thinking we might try a different colour next year lest our aims be misunderstood.  Why must nice colours and words get hijacked?!)

*I realise I am making assumptions. Quite possibly they are worthy souls who, instead of giving up chocolate, are doing what I cannot do and forsaking wine/cheese instead!