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40 Days for Life began with a vigil Mass, Tuesday September 25th at the Cathedral of Saint Patrick.

Here is a brief portion of Father Brian Maxwell’s homily. In it he talks about the miracles in support of the cause that led to the upcoming (October 14th) Canonization of Pope Paul VI. “Pope Paul VI, who ordained Bishop Cote in 1975, will be proclaimed a Saint in just 19 days.

I love one of Pope Paul’s explanations about our spiritual life — teaching us that “Holiness is within everyone’s reach”, and that we only need two elements in order to become saints, “the grace of God and good will.” Of course, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints also requires a couple of miracles! The first miracle that supported his Pope Paul VI’s Beatification, involved the healing of a baby during a complicated pregnancy. Occurring in the 1990’s in California the then unborn child was found to have a serious health problem that posed a high risk of brain damage. Incredibly, the second required miracle also involved an unborn child, who in 2014 was inexplicably healed of a break in the placenta in her mother’s womb. This was attributed to her mother’s pilgrimage to the birthplace of Pope Paul VI, where she prayed at the Shrine of the Holy Mother of Grace to Blessed Paul for her child’s recovery. In both cases the mothers were advised to abort their children. They were told that their own lives and their children’s lives were endangered. Each baby was safely delivered without problems and everybody is in good health today!

Both of these healing miracles are especially significant in so far as this year marks the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae, in defense of life, especially the unborn. For years, we pro-lifers have been insisting that the unborn child in the womb is a person with the right to legal protection from being killed. Thanks to ultrasounds it is possible to see an unborn child and visually track the stages of his or her development. Now, for the first time in history, our Church will formally confirm the status of the unborn in a new, very specific way - by establishing that an unborn baby can receive the grace of a miracle.”