This year I for the first time I lead a group of 10 teens and 3 other adults on a trip with our diocese to the National March for Life in Washington DC. It was definitely a pilgrimage and not vacation. It was cold, there was a ton of walking up and down hills, lots of waiting, lots of crowds and more. As the days have gone by since the trip there has been a lot to reflect on. This is a long post and I understand if you only scroll through to see the pictures. :)
Wednesday: Mr. Smolik and I drove in early to Hobby and the kids showed up promptly, even earlier than they needed to be. Thank you moms for making the trip and getting them all their safely! I was impressed that they all packed lightly as well. With trying to keep track of everything I ended up having to go through security twice having forgotten to empty my water bottle. We made it to DC without a hitch and even riding the metro was a breeze though it was the first time for many of them. We did a lot of walking, it was a good quarter of a mile between our terminal and the metro, then another half a mile walk to our hotel at night in the sludgy snow with all our luggage. So we all got a taste of what we were in for with the rest of our stay. We unloaded then went out for dinner. I wanted us all to sit down and get to visit so took us into a nearby restaurant without looking at the menu...big mistake on my part. They sat us down after not being sure they could fit us in and I was embarrassed to have to tell the waiter I'm sorry our group cannot afford this upon looking at the menu. Prices were $15+ So we went and got burgers and Chinese take-out. I appreciate my group being patient and forgiving of that incident. Making mistakes like that are bound to happen and it is what keeps us humble in life. It's good not to dwell on or sweat over those things and mar all the good in the rest of the experience. I am very grateful for the days that followed. So anyways, later that evening we went to mass in the hotel dining room with our diocese, Fr. Jasper, Deacon Leo and Bishop Cahill. It was definitely interesting sitting around tables for mass. This was the perfect way to end our day though and bring us all together as a diocese in prayer. Receiving Jesus and getting to bed early set us up well for the next day.
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| Ready to Fly! |
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| Our first metro ride! Where are the other adults? They caught the next car :) |
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| Super long metro escalator |
Thursday: My day began quite early with a solo walk to the metro station to load up everyone's cards with the fares for the day. It was very cold and still dark, but nice and quiet. Silence is my "morning coffee" and so it was good I had this walk each day to myself. I had some issues with getting fares for 14 cards, but the metro workers were so gracious in helping me out. Made it back to the hotel just in time to grab my bag and hit the road with the group to go to Arlington Cemetery. We took our half mile trek to the metro and road the whole way. Metros are so convenient! Arlington was snow covered and absolutely beautiful! What made it even more beautiful was the distinct reverent silence heard there as opposed to the sounds of the surrounding city. We made a mile walk up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to witness the changing of the guard and wreath laying ceremonies. I am glad this is part of our trip. We reverence that tomb of the unknown soldier showing his life had meaning and value as did every other soldier whose body was never found or identified in every battle fought for our freedom. Inscribed on the tomb are the words, "Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God." Seeing the tomb with a person whose remains are unknown calls to mind the reason we were there, all of the unknown babies who were aborted and those who will be aborted. They are all known but to God. God loves each of their souls. One speaker commented at the march that our presence shows the over 60 million unborn babies that have been killed in our country that they are not forgotten and their life had value and meaning. Not to mention the over a billion people that have been aborted world-wide that our world will never know. We want the reason for the March for Life to come to an end, we desperately need a conversion of this culture of death, to bring it to life. When it does come to an end we can never cease to forgot what has already been done and the billions of lives already lost that we will never know.
After the ceremony we made another half mile walk to President John F. Kennedy's grave-site with it's eternal flame before making our way back to the visitor center for a brief rest.
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| Changing of the Guards |
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| Tomb of the Unknown Soldier |
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| John F. Kennedy's grave |
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| Here is the page I reflected on a bit in the pew. It comes from "He Speaks to You," a women's daily devotional by Sr. Helena Burns FSP. The image of a river I got came from overhearing a woman in the Basilica saying that we will be in a river of people tomorrow. It struck me to hear that. The March for Life with it's hundreds of thousands of people flowing up the street to the capitol is kind of like a river of God's grace and mercy working through everyone as we march and pray and remember all the lives affected by abortion. |
A few hours went by and our students came back just as the staff was getting ready to ask us to give our seats away to others who were looking. We still had another few hours before mass and it was spent taking turns to explore, visit the gift shop, and make it to the bathroom before we needed to remain in our seats. As I was watching all the people filling in, up the aisle I was delighted to find my friend Deacon Henry Finch walking and looking around as if he was searching for someone he knew. So I caught up to him and we had a great little reunion. I was happy to introduce him to my group. He will be ordained a priest on June 8th for the Diocese of Austin, please keep him in your prayers!
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| A glimpse of all the people getting seated and ready for mass....this is only in the main church, each side chapel was full, the crypt church was full, and all the chapels below the main level were full. Those who came later found standing room only. |
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| A view from our great seats! Sitting there all day was worth it. |
Just before mass we prayed the chaplet of Divine Mercy lead by a few nuns. Oh that is something I forgot to mention. You would not believe how many different religious orders sisters, postulants, brothers, priests and seminarians we got to see at the Shrine for mass. There were so many and a good number of them were young! That made me so happy to see and I was happy our students got to see this as well. It is inspiring and a very beautiful aspect of our Catholic family. The mass began, the procession itself had to be 15 minutes long or more with all of the priests and bishops that were there in attendance. Bishop Cahill thinks there were at least 400 just up on the altar! The entire mass was very grand and beautiful and entirely reverent throughout. Archbishop
Joseph F. Naumann gave a very informative and moving homily on the reason we were there reminding us of the grave importance of our prayers and witness .We learned later that you could get a glimpse of all of us on EWTN's live coverage. One thing that amazed the students and even myself is that everyone was able to receive Holy Communion if they were prepared to. I contacted the Basilica and they said it's hard to say exactly, but they know there were somewhere between 9,000 and 10,000 people in attendance! It definitely makes real the multiplication of the loaves and gives a glimpse of the enormity of Christ's mystical body, the church. Christ gives of Himself abundantly!
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| We're on TV! |
Leaving mass we had fun with a little snowfall on our way to the metro. The evening ended with our mile trek back to the hotel and a delicious supper of pizza. That night I stayed up till at least midnight with several of the students so that they could get a dual credit assignment turned in.
Friday: The day of the march. We had a bit of a later start so waking up to go to the metro was not so bad. Once everyone was packed and ready we headed out to the National Mall to go to the rally for the March for life. It was cold and there was snow on the ground that soon turned into a pretty gross muddy slush as the crowds filled in. Shout out to the Knights of Columbus for passing out free beanies! On the way we got pro-life signs of all sorts that were being passed out. First we heard from Ben Shapiro, a speaker who is very blunt and honest on the issues surrounding our society today in particular with the issues surrounding the right to life. Following that the March for Life director Jeanie Mancini addressed us and called up Archbishop Naumann to lead us in an opening prayer. Following that we had a surprise visit from Vice President Mike Pence and his wife! Before the rest of the speakers came on, our group made our way over to the line up in the streets to ensure a good position. At this point we were all pretty cold and some kids' shoes were soaked through. I didn't hear any complaints though and wet shoes were an easy fix with hand warmers.
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| Chatting with Bishop Cahill |
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| Group Picture with Bishop Cahill |
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| Huddle for warmth! |
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| Big thank you to Wendy and Shannon for their countless hours organizing this for the diocese! |
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| We are the pro-life generation! |
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| VP Mike Pence |
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| Diocese of Victoria! |
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| Sacred Heart! |
The March for Life finally began with loud cheers from all. The crowd of over 300,000 slowly began making it's way up Constitution Ave. towards the Capitol. 300,000! They had only prepared for 100,000 but many more came! Our diocese had a long sign which helped us to stay together. Our parameters were, stay behind the sign and don't stray out from the edges. This way we lost no one. It was hard to walk in the crowd, but it was an amazing experience. There were all kinds of people of all different backgrounds, ages, faiths etc. There were families, school groups, colleges, and religious communities and more. Abortion is a universal issue. Worldwide over 1.7billion abortions have occurred with over 60 million of those happening in the United States alone. I was glad our parish had a group representing us this year. Through this experience we were able to actually live out our Catholic values. We were not there for ourselves, but there for all those lost to abortion and all the men and women affected by it. The march itself did not go without it's opposition of course, much of which was specifically anti-Catholic. It was good for our students to see that outside of our beautiful rural diocese there are many in opposition to what we are all about. It made it all more real the importance of remaining strong in our faith and our prayers.
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| The opposition.... Pray for them! |
We stepped out the march just a bit early when we got near the end. Our diocese had a chapel reserved in the shrine of St. John Paul II to offer mass for an end to abortion and the March for Life movement. We walked to Union Station and boarded a metro back to the National Basilica area to make it to mass.
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| Diocese of Victoria after the March |
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| Our Diocese of Victoria T-shirt. You have to read it to the tune of "Deep in the Heart of Texas." |
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| Some deer I saw on our walk to the Shrine of St. John Paul II. |
It was a long nearly a mile hike up to the shrine from the metro station. After standing and walking so long at the march this was not the easiest trek and our group got pretty spread out making our way up the hill. This was meant with some complaints and I unfortunately was among them...."we're so tired, our feet will fall off, so hungry, is there not a shorter way etc." I was mostly wondering if there was a shorter way. Looking back I am sorry that I complained and did not see the opportunity to unite this small suffering with Christ and "offer it up" for the greater suffering of the tragedy of the souls lost to abortion. Looking back now I see that hike up the hill as a reminder of the suffering Christ endured for all of our sins on His road carrying the cross to Calvary. All this suffering He did without complaint for all sins, past, present, and future. How much suffering our present sins of abortion must cause Him and must have caused Him at Calvary! There was not a short cut or easier way to the shrine as there was not a short cut for Jesus to Calvary nor an easier way for Him to pay the debt for our sins. Our "calvary" trek ended with the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross in our celebration of His sacrifice in the Holy Eucharist at Mass. There at the end of our hike Jesus received us and poured out Himself to us in the Eucharist. Mass was a beautiful and peaceful end to the march for us. It was nice to be in the silence and to offer this great prayer for the day and it's events and the issue of abortion.
After mass we were able to explore the shrine for a bit. I'm sorry there are no pictures, they were not allowed in the exhibits. To my surprise we had the opportunity to venerate the relics of Sts. John Vianney and John Paul II. They had visiting, St. John Vianney's heart and on permanent display, a vial of St. John Paul II's blood. It was incredible to get to sit there so close to these two great saints. I wanted to stay there indefinitely and offered up prayers for every priest and seminarian friend I could think of. Then some of us went to tour the exhibits of St. John Paul II's life while the rest, took a rest. I will have to go back, it is an amazing well done museum that chronicle's his life. It was a fitting close to the march learning how he in his life was a major advocate for the dignity of every human person in particular with his fight against communism and his steadfast spirit in the face of suffering Parkinson's disease.
By the time we got to Union Station we were all starving. We decided on a little diner called Johnny Rockets and enjoyed some very delicious burgers and good company. Afterwards Mr. Smolik and Mrs. Burroughs took some of our students back who still needed to finish their Dual Credit work. The rest of us went for a very long walk to see all the monuments. It's hard to say how much we walked to see those. We began with the Washington monument and worked our way around to the World War II Memorial, Reflection Pool, Korean War Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. The Lincoln Memorial is by far my favorite. It fascinates me just how large he is and I like both of his speeches there carved inside. I wish that visitors would keep the silence that is requested, it would make it much more powerful. We really do not know or value the astounding thing that silence can be today. Following the Lincoln Memorial we walked along the Vietnam Memorial Wall. Then the students wanted to see the White House. At this point I was pretty spent and had no desire to walk another half a mile up that direction. But in the end it was night in DC and when else would we ever get to do this? So we made our way there, I kept the pace pretty brisk ready to go back to the metro as soon as possible. After getting our pictures it was another half a mile walk to Metro Center where we boarded for our ride home. We made it back around 11:45. My phone informed me we had walked at least 13.5 miles, over 30,000 steps that day. Needless to say we all went to sleep pretty quickly that night. One of my chaperones, Colette, mentioned that each step was in some way a little reminder of the countless babies lost to abortion. I am unsettled thinking about how in one day with all the walking we did, I could not even make one step for each baby that has died because there are just too many.
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| Helping each other out with "professional lighting." |
Saturday: This morning I beat the metro station to work. Thankfully they arrived not long after I was thinking I needed to just head back and not wait. Got all the cards loaded and headed back to the hotel for mass. Bishop Cahill and Fr. Jasper again celebrated with us a beautiful mass to close our trip. Afterwards we quickly packed everything up and headed to the metro so that we could get to the airport early. The metro ride was quite interesting. So the other march that was taking place was the "Women's March," we saw many people gathering in the metro to head to that event. Our students again witnessed that not everyone sees eye to eye with our Catholic values. One woman told her kid, referring to our students, "those kids are being brainwashed the wrong way." Another woman flicked off our kids when seeing their signs. Our students were very gracious and only responded with prayers. I am very proud of the way they handled themselves while we were out and about this whole trip. Again my devotional was fitting for the day of the march and for the events that have of course followed.
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| Ty peacefully evangelizing on the Metro |
Security was not terrible in-spite of the government shutdown, but it was definitely busier here than at Hobby. Everyone got through and ate lunch then we boarded our plan home for Texas. We were joined by a home-school group from Our Lady of Walsingham on the plane. I sat next to one of their chaperones and it was nice to chat and compare experiences and such about our trip and share our own life experiences in our faith. The Pilot made a wonderful landing in Texas that was met by a loud cheer from all aboard. Again big thank you to all the parents who met us at the airport to take the kids back home!
This blog post has been a long work in progress, if you made it this far, thanks for hanging in there and sticking with me to the end! Huge thank you to all who supported our first parish group in attending the March for Life in Washington DC. We could not have done it without your financial help and prayers! So grateful to have had this experience and opportunity. The work is not over and we cannot let this be our only contribution to the pro-life movement. Our prayers must continue to be unceasing for God's grace and mercy as He converts hearts. We will let Him work through us to be the generation that brings an end to Abortion!
