ORLANDO -- "We are pro-woman and we are pro-baby. And we must take care of both of them." Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York paid tribute to Mother Mary Agnes Donovan and the Sisters of Life while not so subtly reminding those in the audience that the pro-life movement requires love above all. His remarks were part of an introductory video for an award given by the Knights of Columbus to the group of religious women that works to support women in need.
For Mother Agnes, the honor was all the more most humbling because the founder of the Sisters of Life, the late Cardinal John O'Connor, received it in 1994 not long after the first honoree, Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
The award was a no small effort to emphasize the work of the Sisters of Life, founded three decades ago.
"The question is, how do we love as God loves?" Mother Agnes said from the podium at the ceremony. "What does such love look like? Within the Sisters of Life, we call it the secret of loving. This way of love has three parts: receptivity, discovery and delighting."
The Sisters of Life know they are not in charge of what the pregnant mothers they minister to will do, but they want to make sure that the mothers know that they are loved and have options other than abortion.
Speaking about receptivity, Mother Agnes said: "It's an attitude which expresses to the other that I have nothing more important to do than to be with you at this moment." About discovery, she says: "As I sit before the person, the first act of love is interior. It is allowing myself to be moved by the beauty, the strength of the vulnerability of the sheer goodness of the other."
About delight, Mother Agnes says: "Why put in the effort to discover that which moves us toward the other? Because when we find it, we then can mirror, reflecting back to the person, that which we have found in them that delights us, then not only are we changed by her goodness, but so is she. The person before us experiences herself as affirmed precisely in the realization that it is a good thing within her, which has caused my delight."
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She describes this affirmation as "the source of new psychic birth, the emotional food needed for growth as a human person."
She insists: "Even in the one who is difficult to love, our challenge is to allow ourselves to discover that something within the other person that can move our hearts. I promise you it's possible to find that something if we allow our hearts to search for the good, for that which is delightful within the other ... Each person bears the imprint of [God's] love and life in their being."
Mother Agnes told the story of a woman who had lived with the Sisters for a while, and returned to visit some years later. She had graduated with a nursing degree, had a job lined up and had just decorated her own apartment. She told the Sisters: "You know, it's funny. I'm just beginning to experience myself as the person you always knew me to be."
To help a woman see the tremendous love God has for her is at the heart of the pro-life movement. In the video introducing Mother Agnes, she said: "Our services begin with an invitation to community; the human need to belong, to have a place in a community, and a family is literally written into our spiritual DNA."
This is who we need to be. Not political so much as welcoming and embracing. I've seen it not only save but transform lives. Doesn't that beat so much of our miserable politics? It's the greatest, indeed.
(Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book "A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living." She is also chair of Cardinal Dolan's pro-life commission in New York, and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.)
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