October is “Respect Life Month.” How have you been participating in the movement?
Here are a couple of pro-life related news bits:
In our Oct. 14 issue, we featured a story on the Pearson Foundation of Hawaii and its Pregnancy Problem Centers. Pearson Foundation of Hawaii president Ruth Prinzivalli and several counselors shared their approach, struggles and faith in fostering a culture of life in the Islands.
We touched briefly on the Pearson Foundation’s connection to the Rachel’s Vineyard retreat program, which helps anyone who has had an abortion, or has been involved in the decision of an abortion, to heal from that experience.
A Rachel’s Vineyard retreat is coming up this weekend, Oct. 21-23.
Lisa Shorba, a Pearson Foundation counselor who is involved with the Rachel’s Vineyard ministry, shared the following info about the program:
“The Rachel’s Vineyard Weekend Retreat program is an opportunity to examine your abortion experience, identify the ways that the loss has impacted you in the past and present, and helps to acknowledge any unresolved feelings that both women and men struggle with after an abortion. Married couples, mothers, fathers, siblings, and grandparents of aborted children have come to Rachel’s Vineyard in search of peace and inner healing.
“Participants are invited to deeply enter into the grieving process and identify all the ways that their abortion may have affected them. A number of powerful exercises, rooted in Scripture, are integrated on the weekend, which allow the soul to speak its grief and sorrow. These exercises help connect participants to their inner voice, to each other, and to the love and mercy of God. The exercises help participants to accept forgiveness for themselves and others. Participants are also given an opportunity to re-connect on a spiritual level with their children who have been aborted, to give them honor and dignity through many special and creative spiritual exercises as well as in a memorial service.”
Shorba said the retreats also include group sharing, prayer and adoration. People often experience hidden grief after an abortion, and Rachel’s Vineyard aims to be a team of a support with a safe place to rebuild self-esteem and help people return to their “core truth.”
The retreats are intimate and open to 5-12 people. It is open to Catholics and others of any faith.
You can contact Shorba for more information about this month’s retreat at RVinHawaii@gmail.com.
Also during Respect Life Month, the Respect Life Committee at St. Ann’s Church will be hosting a screening of “unPLANNED” on Oct. 24 at 7 p.m. at the Kaneohe parish. The film spotlights Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood employee from Texas who underwent a dramatic spiritual transformation to join the Coalition for Life.
Do you know of any other pro-life activities coming up? Leave us a comment!
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