How about we talk about “thoughts and prayers?”

Every once in a while, I zoom out from the sidewalk to discuss issues outside of it, yet still very much connected to it. 

Here in October, Respect Life Month, we’re in the middle of the fall 40 Days for Life campaign to pray and fast for an end to abortion, while still reeling from the tragic shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis at the end of August. 

These two are not unrelated. Let me explain. 

In the aftermath of the abovementioned shooting, some politicians responded with, “Enough with the thoughts and prayers,” which immediately troubled me. I raised this concern on a local Facebook page for area Catholics and was shocked when several people popped in to defend that sentiment.  

Since when have thoughts and prayers become superfluous to Christians? Are we not the foremost promoters of prayer? Of making our first appeal to our God? 

Thankfully, Bishop Robert Barron and others took issue with those who intimated that prayer is ineffective, since the children who were killed or hurt were at school praying. In other words, their pleas to God apparently fell on deaf ears.  

Well, that’s not the way prayer works, the good bishop said, and I wholeheartedly agree. I would go a step further and say we actually need more thoughts and prayers. I agree with those who’ve called this moment, above all, a spiritual crisis.  

Just hours after the shooting, a friend from Minneapolis began touting the “It’s all about guns” bit. While we do need to examine how the young shooter ended up with these weapons, there’s so much more to examine here.  

If it were just about guns, 9-11 wouldn’t have happened. The killers for that tragedy used planes, not guns, to do their dirty deeds. Evil can be creative to a point and it will find a way. But love can be even more creative, if channeled rightly.  

So what’s the source of love? God. God is love. So it is to God that we must make our first appeal in the fight against evil. Suggesting that we “stop with the thoughts and prayers” in these times is not a sentiment God would hold or utter. Only Old Scratch himself would suggest such a thing.  

The abortion escorts have made such a suggestion to us many times. “Aren’t you supposed to pray in secret?” and “You should just go home and pray.” An interesting proposal, don’t you think? Why would they want us to leave so badly if our “thoughts and prayers” were not making a difference? 

And here, we find the connection between the Minneapolis school shooting and the sidewalk of our area’s only abortion facility, where too many of our smallest citizens are discarded every week. When we do experience a “save” there, it is largely because of—that’s right—thoughts and prayers. The politicians have their objectives, but we are there, first and foremost, with our thoughts and our prayers.  

We longtime advocates know well that we can’t do anything without the power of God. He is the one who saves. We can have conversations, we can offer resources, but the most efficacious thing we can do is pray; pray to the almighty God, who made heaven and earth. 

That is what we do there each week primarily, and why we continue to ask others to join us in this fight. Politicians have their part to play, but for us common Christians, our first defense in helping save precious children in the womb should be—as anytime we are fighting for life—prayer.  

As Vice President J.D. Vance said soon after the shooting, in response to those who were demeaning prayer in those early hours, “We pray because our hearts are broken. We pray because we know God listens.” Amen! 

The fall 40 Days for Life prayer and fasting campaign to end abortion continues until Nov. 2. If you cannot be on the sidewalk with us, we thank you in advance for your thoughts and prayers from home. They mean so much to us, especially on Wednesdays when abortions are generally scheduled. But if you’ve ever been moved to bring your thoughts and prayers forward, toward the very door at which death beckons to our little ones, please join us. 

Our thoughts absolutely matter, and our prayers, even more. For “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:24).