Unflinching, untiring, and always inspired

 

Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech is of course powerful, historical and widely known. We hear it again each year on his anniversary, and it continues to inspire.

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus marched alongside Dr. King in the civil rights movement, and brought that great inspiration to the other civil rights movement….the right to life. In his eloquent style, Neuhaus delivered an address to the movement last year that was just what they needed to hear after 35 years of Roe. His comments were exquisite in articulating their purpose and powerful in encouraging them to carry it on.

First Things is publishing ‘We Shall Not Weary, We Shall Not Rest’ again today, and every year on this occasion of the March for Life.

We have been at this a long time, and we are just getting started. All that has been and all that will be is prelude to, and anticipation of, an indomitable hope.

Good time for that reminder.

He reaffirms the biblical promise that with “Our Lord’s return in glory”, all things will be new again.

That is the horizon of hope that, from generation to generation, sustains the great human rights cause of our time and all times—the cause of life. We contend, and we contend relentlessly, for the dignity of the human person, of every human person, created in the image and likeness of God, destined from eternity for eternity—every human person, no matter how weak or how strong, no matter how young or how old, no matter how productive or how burdensome, no matter how welcome or how inconvenient. Nobody is a nobody; nobody is unwanted. All are wanted by God, and therefore to be respected, protected, and cherished by us.

We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until every unborn child is protected in law and welcomed in life. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until all the elderly who have run life’s course are protected against despair and abandonment, protected by the rule of law and the bonds of love. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until every young woman is given the help she needs to recognize the problem of pregnancy as the gift of life. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, as we stand guard at the entrance gates and the exit gates of life, and at every step along way of life, bearing witness in word and deed to the dignity of the human person—of every human person.