A Tribute to Frances Monaghen - Pro-Life Advocate

A Tribute to Frances Monaghen – Pro-Life Advocate

In pursuit of the truth – cinops be gone – Sunday, March 29, 2009

Fran is Orange County’s little Giant dedicated to protecting the unborn particularly when they show up in their mother’s womb at the abortion sites.

She is coordinator of Msgr. Reilly’s “Helpers of God’s Precious Infants.”

She is the one that persuaded members of many parishes to have a pro-life Mass at their church on a Saturday morning and then follow immediately to a prayer vigil at an abortion mill nearest to the Church. She was persistent. Her work closed at least one abortion facility in Orange County.

We honor her.* She is moving with her husband to Pennsylvania.

I have a meditation for Fran from Pope Benedict XVI, and a most appropriate Saint to be: Blessed Margaret of Castello O.P.
Our Father

Father – with this word I express my certainty that someone is there who hears me, who never leaves me alone, who is always present. I express my certainty that God, despite the infinite difference between him and me, is such that I can speak to him, may even address him familiarly as “thou” {German du}

His greatness does not overwhelm me, does not reject me as insignificant and unimportant. Certainly I am subject to him as a child is subject to his father, yet there is a fundamental similarity and likeness between him and me, yes, I am so important to him, I belong so closely to him, that I can rightly address him as “Father”.

My being born is not a mistake, then, but a grace. It is good to live even though I do not always perceive it. I am wanted; not a child of chance or necessity, but choice and freedom. Therefore I shall always have a purpose in life; there will always be a meaning for me, a task designed just for me; there is a conception of me that I can seek and find and fulfill.

When the school of life becomes unbearably hard, when I would like to cry out as Job did, as the psalmist did – then I can transform this cry into the word “Father” and the cry will gradually become a word, a reminder to trust, because from the Father’s perspective it is clear that my distress, yes, my agony, is part of the greater love for which I give thanks. “Co-Workers of the Truth” Ignatius, 1992, March 28th entry.

Blessed Margaret of Castello, O.P.

Had she been conceived today, Margaret surely would have been a victim of abortion or left to die at birth…. and what a tragedy that would have been!!! A tragedy for Margaret … who would have been deprived of the opportunity to suffer for Christ and thereby achieve the heights of sanctity; a tragedy for the Church … who would have deprived of such an extraordinary daughter; for each of us…

Who, handicapped as we are by prejudice, by greed, by indifference, by cold-heartedness, or by whatever form it may take, would have been deprived of one with whom we can identify … of one who could truly show us that the only deformity abhorrent to God is the deformity of sin.

As an unwanted deformed child would she not be ‘the saint’ for our time … a special patron of the unborn, the handicapped, the disabled, the social outcasts … the patron of the UNWANTED? Will you not join in a crusade for her canonization? She will never fail to help those who invoke her.

George H. Kubeck OPL
P.S. * Tonight at 5:30 P.M. –“Recognition Pot Luck Dinner for Fran” – at the Pro-Sanctity Center, next to St. Philip Benizi Church, 235 S. Pine Dr., Fullerton, Ca. 92833-3294