The Word became flesh
He lived among us
Cf. (Jn. 1:14).
The word became flesh
For us
To save us
So we would know God’s love
To be our model of holiness
To make us partakers of Divine nature
Cf. CCC 457, 458, 459, 460.
Our special intention for the month of December is for the unborn child and we invite you to include this intention in your weekly holy hour.
"I am sure that all people know deep down inside that the little child in the mother's womb is a human being from the moment of conception, created in the image of God to love and be loved.
Let us pray that nobody will be afraid to protect that little child, to help that little child to be born. Jesus said: 'If you receive a little child in my name, you receive me.' "
Prayer for the Spiritual Adoption of an Unborn Child
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen recommended saying the following daily prayer for a period of one year to help babies in danger in the womb. During this life this spiritually adopted child of yours will be known only to God, but in Heaven you will meet the child whose life was spared by your prayers and enjoy eternal happiness in his or her company.
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I love you very much. I beg you to spare the life of the unborn baby that I have spiritually adopted who is in danger of abortion."
See also Pope Benedict's prayer for the unborn on our 'Prayers' page
Then he put a little child among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, "Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also my Father who sent me."
Mark 9:36–37
December is a wonderful month to pray for the unborn as we journey together towards holy Christmas. This great and fascinating mystery of God with us, moreover of God who becomes one of us, is what we celebrate in the coming weeks. During the season of Advent we feel the Church takes us by the hand and - in the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary - expresses her motherhood allowing us to experience the joyful expectation of the coming of the Lord, who embraces us all in his love that saves and consoles.
To the Virgin Mary, who welcomed the Son of God made man with faith, with her maternal womb, with loving care, with nurturing support and vibrant with love, we entrust our commitment and prayer in favour of unborn life. We do this in the liturgy - which is the place where we live the truth and where truth lives with us - worshiping the divine Eucharist, we contemplate Christ's body, that body who took flesh from Mary by the Holy Spirit, and from her was born in Bethlehem for our salvation.
Starting on St. Andrew's Feast day, November 30, the following beautiful prayer is traditionally recited fifteen times a day until Christmas. This is a very meditative prayer that helps us increase our awareness of the real meaning of Christmas and helps us prepare ourselves spiritually for His coming. Perhaps we could offer this prayer for all expectant mothers and their unborn children.
Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in the piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, o my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires, [here mention your request] through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His most blessed Mother. Amen.
Prayer for the unborn child in their mother's womb
O God of all creation, nurture and protect tiny children and keep them safe in the sanctuary of their mother’s womb.
As You so wondrously form their hearts and minds and lungs and souls, so strengthen our will to lovingly nurture and protect them.
Give us the eyes to see them as our brothers and sisters,the minds to welcome them as our own, and the faith to defend them as Your children.
We ask this through the intercession of Mary, our Blessed Mother, and the mother of all the little ones, through Christ, Your Son, our Lord. Amen.
On December 12, 1531, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to an Indian named Juan Diego and requested that a shrine be built and dedicated to her on the Hill of Tepeyac. There she could console and dispense her motherly affection to those who invoked her intercession. Juan Diego, upon reporting this event to the bishop, was disappointed because the bishop didn't seem to believe him. Juan returned to the place of the apparition where Our Lady again appeared. She told him to return the next morning when she would give him a sign that would convince the bishop of the truth of her appearance and her request.
The following morning Our Lady told Juan to go to the top of the hill and gather Castilian roses which he would find there. Although he knew that only cactus grew there, he obeyed, and his simple faith was rewarded by the sight of beautiful roses growing where she had told him they would be. He gathered them and showed them to Our Lady who rearranged them for him. Juan returned to the bishop. As he opened his tilma (a type of pancho), the roses fell to the floor. All who were present were startled to see an image of Our Lady on the unfolded tilma.
Today this image is still preserved on Juan Diego's tilma, which hangs over the main altar in the basilica at the foot of Tepeyac Hill just outside of Mexico City. Some anthropologists have said that this image of Our Lady has elements of both an Aztec princess and a young Palestinian woman in the time of Christ.
When asked who the lady was, Juan replied in Nauatl (an Aztec dialect), Te Coatlaxopeuh, which means "she who crush the stone serpent." His answer recalls Gen. 3:15 and the depictions of Mary as the Immaculate Conception, her heel on the serpent's head. It is as the Immaculate Conception that Mary is addressed as patroness of the United States and Mother of the Americas. Most recently, the Virgin of Guadalupe has been given the title, "Patroness of the Unborn." The times in which she appeared in Mexico demanded the sacrifice of thousands of human lives. In the image of Guadalupe, Mary wears a black belt around her waist - for the Indians, an indication of pregnancy. Our Lady of Guadalupe thus appeared as a pregnant mother offering her child to the New World. The Indians viewed the roses that fell from Juan Diego's tilma as a sign of new life.
The rose as a symbol of respect for human life because the rose is so much like ourselves -beautiful but fragile. Our Lady addressed Juan Diego as "Juanito" (signifying in Nauatl the weakest or smallest member of the family), and as "Son", and spoke of herself as both his "Mother" and the "Mother of the One, True living God" - still another reason why Our Lady of Guadalupe should be entrusted with the unborn.
Today she addresses to us the same words she addressed to Juan Diego, when he returned to her after his first visit to the bishop - anxious, discouraged, and heartbroken for not having properly carried out the task she had given him: "Hear and let it penetrate your hearts, my dear little ones. Let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you; let nothing alter your heart or your countenance. Do not fear vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here, your Mother? Are you not in the folds of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else that you need?"
And to us too our Mother speaks: to the anxious - the expectant mother worried about a child born out of wedlock or of another child in a family already larger than the budget; to the discouraged -the prolife workers frustrated by the judicial system, the media, the organizations and even their own neighbors, all of whom seem to be aligned against them; to the heartbroken - the doctors, nurses, aides, the would-be mothers who have felt the sign of life, heard the whimpers and now know it was Life they took. She speaks to all of us. She is our fountain of Life. To whom else should we turn for the protection of those who are being denied not only life itself, but also the taste of the fountain of the life-giving waters of Baptism? Let us beg Our Lady of Guadalupe to protect the children of tomorrow and keep them safe.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the unborn, pray for us.
Abortion and the urgent need for prayer for the protection of an unborn child
The Catholic Church opposes abortion because it believes that life is sacred and inviolable. In 1995, Pope John Paul II wrote an encyclical letter called Evangelium Vitae (the Gospel of Life) in which he spoke of "the sacred value of human life from its very beginning" and of the struggle between the Culture of Life and the Culture of Death.
Blessed Mother Teresa's speech on abortion in Washington DC February 1994.
"But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us. So the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love - that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion. "
On the last day, Jesus will say to those on His right hand,
"Come, enter the Kingdom. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me." Then Jesus will turn to those on His left hand and say, "Depart from me because I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me drink, I was sick and you did not visit me." These will ask Him, "When did we see You hungry, or thirsty or sick and did not come to Your help?"
And Jesus will answer them, "Whatever you neglected to do unto one of the least of these, you neglected to do unto me!""But what does God say to us? He says: "Even if a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you. I have carved you in the palm of my hand." We are carved in the palm of His hand; that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God from conception and is called by God to love and to be loved, not only now in this life, but forever. God can never forget us."
"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
Our Lady of Guadalupe: Patroness of the Unborn
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Cf. Jn.3:16
In the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was God
Cf. (Jn1:1, 1 Jn. 1-2)