Pat writes" My camera does no justice to what we experienced and I am sure I will get some emails from some of the others that attended and hopefully can share those pictures. We started Sunday night at a Vigil Mass and the church was absolutely beautiful. Some of the first attachments are pictures from the outside. Statistics on the internet say there were 11,000 in attendance at the mass, including 5 Cardinals, 41 Bishops, 325 Priests, 95 Deacons, 570 Seminarians and 65 servers. The processional alone took 45 minutes and was absolutely amazing. We actually sat (and stood) on the floor in a side Chapel on the main floor. The processional went right by us and the rest of the service we watched on a monitor in our area. The picture of Mary was on the wall behind an altar where we were located. Most of the people from our group were able to sit in the pews, which I am thankful for because many were older than us. There was also a basement that was just as large as the main floor and they had large monitors in that area and it was filled to capacity. We arrived at the church 3 hours before mass (about 3:30 p.m.) and we loaded the bus to leave at 9:30 p.m.
Monday morning we started with breakfast together at the hotel and then loaded the bus for downtown DC at 9:30 a.m. The travel time from our hotel was only 15 minutes. Our bus driver was grreat and made many trips to DC so he drove around many of the monuments for us to see. The Rally started at 12:30 so we had time to go to some of the displays at the Smithsonian (which is right there walking distance from the Capitol). At noon our group met up and took our place at the Rally. There were many speakers - many Congress people who are Pro Life and stood firm that they would continue to fight for the unborn. There we speakers of women who chose abortion and now regret it and men who fathered babies that were aboarded. Both very commited now to pro life. The March started at 1:30 and the beginning of the March were hundreds of women and men who regret that they chose abortion. From there we all slowly merged on to the road and marched up Capitol Hill and around the Capitol. The March ended at the steps of the Supreme Court. We March moved very slowly and we were shoulder to shoulder. We saw much along the way. The message was strong and in some cases the posters emotional. The uplifting thing about this Rally and March were the thousands and thousands of teenagers and college students that were present.
The whole experience was emotionally and physically straining and we are still absorbing all that we experienced. The sad thing about it was there was probably at least a quarter of a million people there and we saw very few media cameras. None of the opponents were there - but then again, they have gotten their way. But sadly enough is the fact the media doesn't want to cover this cause, but if a mother killed her born baby, it would be all over the news as being something that is unthinkable!
I know the people that attended from our Church would like to begin planning another trip with hopefully a second bus. One of the posters I read that some college kids were carrying said... "Smile Obama - your Mother chose to give birth to you!" Pat and Chris D.
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