Annual Dormition Fast Prayer Vigil to End Abortion
Archbishop Irénée commends Orthodox writer Frederica Mathewes-Green's suggested Dormition Fast prayer vigil to end abortion.
Green writes that occasions of joy sometimes elicit occasions of sorrow. This is so because the world is fallen, shorn from the full beauty and majesty of God. The world however, is not without hope because of the promise of the restoration of all things through the work of the Son of God, Jesus Christ the Righteous. The fallen world can be made new.
The promise of restoration was given early, immediately after the primordial sin of Adam in the Garden. The completion occurs on the Cross, when the Son of God enters into Hades and destroys death and the power of the devil by rising from the dead. This singular act, this expression of God’s great love for mankind, is the beginning of our restoration.
In this Dormition season where we commemorate the falling asleep of the Theotokos we need to remember the unborn who had no chance of life. We need to pray for them, and we need to pray that the confusion that grips our society and refuses to see the unborn child is indeed loved by God and that He too sorrows over the aborting of their lives, abates and may even dissolve away. Let clarity come so that love can be expressed, let love be expressed so that clarity might come.
The link below is to prayers for the unborn for each of the fourteen days of the Dormition fasting period. Pray them. They are short and easy to do. Our intercessions to the Theotokos (Virgin Mary), the Theotokos’ intercessions to her Son, and the Son’s intercessions to the Father unifies the world in prayer for the life of the world and its salvation.