I have been marching for many years, and have seen the event increase in numbers and decrease in age. Sometime in the early 90s, just when it seemed that the regulars were showing too many gray hairs, the young people started coming. Catholic high schools and colleges began releasing their students for this pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., combining it with a civics lesson on political witness and visits to the great monuments of our republic. Young people, with their joy and enthusiasm, gave new hope and life to the march, and now they are a fixture that even the mainstream media cannot ignore. Try as they might to peg the march as a forum for angry white males, the local D.C. news cameras and the grey papers of record cannot keep the youthful chants off the air or the teenage pro-lifers out of the pictures. These young people – boys and girls, young women and young men – are the pulse and the future of the march and our movement. For a decade, the march has been preceded by a huge youth rally and Mass that now spills over into two arenas.
Of course, the night before, there is the Mass for Life in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which is filled beyond capacity with 10,000 of the faithful. This serves as a national pro-life identity gathering. Groups from Kansas and Texas rub shoulders with those from New Hampshire and Maine as they crowd into the side chapels dedicated to a title of Our Lady, and watch the Mass on closed-circuit TVs because they cannot get close enough to the altar. The opening procession is a vital sign of the Catholic Church’s unity, as bishops and priests from all across the nation take 15 minutes to walk to the altar and fill the sanctuary. Mass-goers wave to their local bishops and priests as they pass, and swell with pride for being a part of this worldwide Church.
The Mass is long and elaborate, more than two hours long, yet the worshipers show a real spirit of patience, prayer, love and acceptance. We are all before the Lord, confessing our sinfulness and shortfalls, asking for strength in our daily lives, offering our small efforts for the sake of the unborn, receiving Communion – the Body and Blood of Christ – with a silent awe. Young people are among the most reverent.
After Mass is the all-night Vigil for Life in the lower Crypt Church, run by seminarians. At the same time, in the shrine basement, groups claim sleeping-bag space on the marble floor in what some describe as a Catholic Woodstock. It is touching to see them tucked into the chapels of Our Lady, sleeping beneath the mantle of her protection. No one who has experienced this grace-filled night will ever forget that prayer and peace are at the heart of our pro-life movement.
Long may we march.
