Skip to main content

A Prayer of the Unborn for Life and against Abortion

Though I have not yet sight, O My God,

Look Thou upon my sorrowful estate and bring me Thy help!

For I am vulnerable, oh so vulnerable.

More than the orphan or widow in the grasp of the unrighteous,

I can do nothing to save myself.

I hear others plotting to end my life,

Readying their instruments of death

To destroy me for their own gain.

Though I have not yet my own voice, O My God,

Raise up a cry for me, I pray,

From the lips of the righteous before a just judge.

For my enemies speak evil against my life,

Though I am innocent of wrongdoing;

Even my mother, who might tenderly nurture me,

Has determined to destroy me,

As though her choice to kill, not my very life,

Were a human right!

I know not my father, but I would know Thee, O Father God.

My mother in her brokenness and pain,

Would break me, hurt me, and put me to death.

O LORD, make haste to help me!

O LORD, make speed to save me!

Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether

Who wish to snatch away my tender days

And deny me years of life,

For I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are Thy works, My Father;

My soul knows it full well.

My frame is not hidden from Thee

As I am being formed in secret

And intricately and marvelously woven together.

Thy eyes have seen my unformed substance.

Even before my first day in the womb,

Was I not reckoned in Thy book?

Save me, O God!  Save me

From those whose rights lay claim to my life,

The life that Thou has given to me.

Save me, O my God!  Save me!


(Some wording from Psalms 40, 109, and 139)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Alasdair MacIntyre and Tradition Enquiry

Alasdair MacIntyre's subject is philosophical ethics, and he is best known for his critique of ethics understood as the application of general, universal principles.  He has reintroduced the importance of virtue ethics, along with the role of narrative and community in defining the virtues.  His focus on these things—narrative, community, virtue—combine to form an approach to enquiry which he calls ‘tradition enquiry.’ [1] MacIntyre characterises ethical thinking in the West in our day as ethics that has lost an understanding of the virtues, even if virtues like ‘justice’ are often under discussion.  Greek philosophical ethics, and ethics through to the Enlightenment, focussed ethics on virtue and began with questions of character: 'Who should we be?', rather than questions of action, 'What shall we do?'  Contemporary ethics has focused on the latter question alone, with the magisterial traditions of deontological ('What rules govern our actions?') and tel...
Post a Comment
Read more

Was Jesus’ Criticism of the Pharisees’ Ethic Its Legalism or Lawlessness?

The popular understanding of the Pharisees is that they were legalists.  This is not, however, Jesus’ criticism of their ethics, even though the charge of Pharisaic legalism comes from a (mis)reading of the Gospels.  The Pharisees are cast in popular imagination as the quintessential example of legalists, overly focussed on rules and promoting works in order to attain righteousness apart from God’s grace.  The latter view, that Judaism overall and the Pharisees in particular advocated works righteousness, has been loudly criticised in light of numerous texts in second temple Judaism, celebrating God’s grace in choosing the Jews, not self-righteous works. [1]   Be that as it may, the Pharisees have remained the foil to Christian ethics precisely over their purported legalism—a focus on unloving, unforgiving rules and regulations that also places norms above, purportedly, higher moral principles.  Jesus’ ethic is contrasted as an ethic of forgiveness, mercy, love...
Post a Comment
Read more

Early Christian Views on Wealth, Possessions, and Giving

[The following post continues notes and studies on the issue of wealth, poverty, and Christian ethics.  It originally appeared in an online publication: Rollin G. Grams, 'Early Christian Views on Wealth, Possessions, and Giving,'   Explorations (Fall, 2010), an online publication of the Robert C. Cooley Center for the Study of Early Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.  Online:  https://www.scribd.com/document/41882213/The-Cooley-Center-Articles-Early-Christian-Views-on-Wealth ]  For several reasons, study of early Christianity in Protestant circles is on the rise.  Ecumenical dialogue, for instance, requires a return to the common ground of Christian writers prior to the great schisms of the Church throughout history.  Also, an increasing interest in worship and spiritual disciplines has sent some Protestants on pilgrimage to more ancient and liturgical forms of the church.  Recent challenges to long-standing Christian practices...
Post a Comment
Read more