These Young Pro-Life Christians Stranded for Hours on the Pennsylvania
Turnpike Did Something Amazing
Friday marked the 43rd
anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade.
Despite
threats of a massive blizzard, thousands of young people participated in
the
March for Life in Washington D.C.
On
the way back home they could not escape the massive blizzard that
brought
traffic on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to a standstill for over
24 hours. Students
from Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, and other Midwestern
states were all
stranded on their separate buses with a highway full of
people in a major
snow storm.
They
knew they were stuck in the storm and help was hours away. Undaunted,
these young Christians gave witness for their Faith. They “Seized the
Moment”
and made something beautiful and inspiring happen—A Mass on the
Turnpike.
According to news and social media reports:
The
students used the opportunity to minister to others, they welcomed
strangers
onto their buses – travelers who were stranded or who had run
out of gas and
needed warmth or food. The students offered people water
and a place to sleep.
They helped clean off strangers’ cars.
And then: they prayed.
Saturday
morning, as the snow continued to fall, and the snowplows were still
hours away, they did something extraordinary. A group of kids poured out
of the
buses and began gathering the snow and ice outside.
They
made an altar. Out of snow. Then they took tree branches and made a
cross.
They set up a sound system to play music, and then priests pulled
on their vestments. Chaperons opened umbrellas to shelter them, and
they
stood on a hill along the side of the turnpike, the wind howling
and the snow still
falling, and there they all celebrated Mass together –
hundreds of them, in parkas
and scarves and snow boots, joined
together.
Anyone who saw that gathering of young people saw something beautiful.
Anyone who worries about the future need only to see these young people
proclaiming their faith and living it out loud.
