Auckland auxiliary Bishop Michael Gielen led a candle-light prayer vigil for the unborn outside a private abortion facility in Auckland on the evening of All Saints Day.
Bishop Gielen was joined on November 1 by several priests, and by many dozens of other people on Dominion Road in Mt Eden, opposite the Auckland Medical Aid Centre entrance.
The event, which lasted about an hour, drew the occasional “my body, my choice” catcall from motorists, but also saw people in the area stop and look at what was taking place.
Advertising for the vigil, titled “Come be my light”, stressed that peaceful prayer was central and that it was not a protest. Rather, the prayer was to be in reparation for the grave injustice done to babies, for abortion-vulnerable women, for those who have been wounded, for abortion workers, for fathers who have lost their fatherhood and for an end to abortion in this country.
Bishop Gielen, in his opening remarks, said it was fitting that the vigil was taking place on All Saints Day.
“. . . [W]e gather with the heavenly hosts, and we have that sense of their presence as we gather as the family of God, praying for life, thanking God for the gift of life, asking that Our Lord will send the Holy Spirit, the intercession of the saints, that we may be as a people, respectful of all life, from natural conception to natural death,” Bishop Gielen said.
He asked that God bless those present, who had come to “this place of death” in prayerful love, “so that our unborn brothers and sisters will not die without love and prayer”.
The bishop asked that God “ . . . consecrate and accept this hour of reparation in atonement for the evil which takes place within this building”.
“We come together to be a public witness to your great love and mercy, which can move hearts and forgive sins.”
The vigil featured a Scripture reading from 1 Corinthians 13 (“If I speak in tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal”), the singing of “I Will Never Forget You”, led by Mother of Divine Mercy Refuge Youth, the five glorious mysteries of the rosary, intercessory prayer, the divine mercy chaplet and other prayers.
In concluding remarks, Family Life International’s Michelle Kaufman thanked those who attended, especially Bishop Gielen and the priests.
She said it was great to see the priests who came to support and pray, “ because we need the Church to stand behind us and be our strength in this great time of darkness, because the Gospel of Life is the Gospel of Jesus Christ . . . “
Mrs Kaufman said she had done some research into the AMAC facility and had discovered that in the 15 years up to the end of last year, some 17,849 abortions had been performed in that facility, which she labelled as an “atrocious” number.
But she also spoke about the people who regularly pray opposite AMAC, and the good that this does.
“It makes a difference when you are here,” she added. “By being here, the people that work in that building know they are loved, they know we come here because they know we care.”
Mrs Kaufman prayed for the abortion workers, who “have blinkers over their eyes – their hearts need to be softened . . . so they see babies for what they really are”.
She acknowledged a time for future protest would be at the March for Life in Wellington on December 5.
At the end of the vigil, Bishop Gielen thanked people for attending, and “for your witness, your faithfulness, for your love, for joining with the saints. I pray now protection over you, over your families, over your children, over our future, especially over those who are most vulnerable”.
Many people then picked up roses and rose petals and crossed Dominion Road to pray at the AMAC entrance and to lay the flowers and petals there.
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