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| Fr. Rick Heilman, pastor of St. Mary Parish in Pine Bluff, speaks to those gathered for the 40 Days for Life mid-point vigil outside Planned Parenthood in Madison. (Catholic Herald photo/Angela Curio) |
MADISON — The 40 Days for Life mid-point vigil was held on March 7 on the sidewalk surrounding the Planned Parenthood on Orin Rd in Madison.
Attending and speaking at the vigil were Bishop Donald J. Hying of Madison and Fr. Rick Heilman, pastor of St. Mary Parish in Pine Bluff.
The vigil marked the end of the first 20 days of the pro-life prayer and fasting campaign to end abortion at the Madison location. The day was pleasant for early March, offering some relief from the colder temperatures that began the campaign on February 17.
Opening with prayer
After a few introductory remarks from campaign organizer Gwen Finnegan, Bishop Hying led those gathered around the sidewalk in prayer.
“We pray for the women and men who come here looking for a way out of what they see as a problem,” he said. “Transform their hearts and minds, Lord, that what they see as a problem, they may recognize as a human being and know that there are other life-saving, life-transforming options.”
He also prayed for a conversion of heart for those working in the clinic and for all the participants of 40 Days for Life.
He then spoke to the crowd about how praying outside of a place like this makes him think of the Blessed Virgin Mary standing at the foot of the cross.
“His mother’s heart is torn apart by contemplating the suffering of her son,” he said. “And she stands there as a witness of hope” and of love.
He connected this image with those standing on the sidewalk, offering up their hour or hours of witness each day during the campaign. “So, like Mary, we stand in places like this as witnesses of life, as prophets of hope, and as messengers of the Gospel.”
“We can never underestimate the power of our witness and, more importantly than our witness, the power of prayer,” he continued.
He then told a story of a day he’d taken some seminarians outside an abortion clinic in Milwaukee. He spoke of the dazed looks on the women’s faces as they exited the clinic after their abortions.
“It looked like they were returning from the front of some invisible war,” he said. “That image will always be on my heart. When an abortion occurs, it’s not just the child that is destroyed, but the heart and soul of the mother and father and so many other people.”
He then said that shortly after seeing these women leave, the owner of the facility came outside. “I just said quietly, almost to myself ‘Stop killing people’ and she turned on me and called me every name in the book . . . but what she never said was ‘No, that’s not what we do here.'”
The real struggle
He said that as hard as that conversation and ones like it had been, they’d “made me realize that the struggle isn’t so much to help people see that this unborn child is human. She acknowledged that. The struggle is to help everyone realize that every single life has a right to live.”
After finishing, Finnegan took the microphone and challenged people to make various commitments for hours spent praying outside of the clinic and explained that they had baby items donated from Madison’s Pregnancy Helpline that they could distribute if the opportunity arose.
Father Heilman then spoke about the Christmas star, Eucharistic Adoration, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Joseph, and about the hard dark times we’ve gone through in this past year.
Called to be light
“We are called to be a light,” Father Heilman concluded. “And we are called to push out that darkness with our light . . . together we are a bonfire. Let’s explode with our light.”
Among those in attendance and who have been dedicated to filling in hours for the campaign were Mary Markielewski and Charlotte Wiley.
Markielewski has been involved since 2011 and Wiley, a convert to Catholicism from an evangelical denomination, has been praying at the Madison clinic since the week before the 40-day campaign started.
“We came from New Jersey, and we moved in December,” she said.
Already, she has counseled one woman from the clinic out of an abortion. She said she was surprised at how the woman was willing to come over and talk to her and talked about how she prayed for guidance on what to say and to know when to keep her mouth shut.
Wiley also said that while it’s been cold, it hasn’t mattered to her.
“I want to be here,” she said, adding that she feels her witness and prayers make the sacrifice worth it. “The whole sacrificing — cold feet — I’ll offer it up.”
Markielewski has been attending 40 Days for Life events since 2011.
“It’s been a while now, but, you know, that is the point of this,” she said. “You just have to learn perseverance.”
She also expressed how this spring campaign is “perfect for Lent. It is so good that we started this spring Lent campaign. Because this is a combination of sacrifice and penance to be here, but you receive graces, . . . it is how we have joy in the midst of all this suffering.”
Visit https://vigilforlife.org to sign up for the remaining hours of the 40 Days for Life Campaign in Madison.