As part of our series on vocations, the Catholic Ministry team would like to highlight Liam McDonald. This fall, McDonald started his first year of the St. Joseph Major Seminary in Dunwoodie, New York. Prior to his time at St. Joseph’s McDonald spent time at the Cathedral House of Formation, the minor seminary, in Douglaston, New York.
McDonald is dedicated to pro-life ministry which has helped his vocation.
McDonald reflected on his call to pro-life work, “With this witnessing your belief in the sanctity of life in a public setting , I realized you plant yourself there and if your heart is there, there is a way in which God will provide. That is what I did I knew this is something that I wanted to do. It began with Msgr. Reilly and the Helps from his witness I became more involved volunteering at the Life Center Of Long Island and for the Sisters of Life and I continued that into the seminary.”
Liam's commitment to the pro-life cause encompasses several areas of witness.
“ A lot of guys were involved in Douglaston the past two years, thus far I have been attending vigils on my own, except when I meet the seminarians from the Cathedral House of Formation at the Vigil in front of the Bleeker St. Planned Parenthood in Manhattan.”
This semester McDonald and some of the other seminarians go to pray at a local abortion clinics once a week for an hour. These clinics are located in the Bronx, Yonkers, and Manhattan.
When McDonald was in the minor seminary,he and fellow seminarians would orchestrate vigils and would go two to three times a week. He would pray with the other seminarians outside the clinics and they would also go later on in the day once everyone left and support the women who performed the abortions because the day ultimate goal was about saving souls.
McDonald also prayed in Brooklyn with Msgr. Phillip Reilly, who runs Helpers of God’s Precious Infants Pro-Life Mission. Msgr. Reilly invites the seminarians to a retreat once a year to discuss “The Roots of the Culture of Death and Restoring a Culture of Life” in addition to equipping them with the knowledge required to speak to a woman seeking an abortion and woman that are post-abortive.
McDonald said a key to the pro-life ministry is getting yourself there and not getting discouraged if not many people show up. He said, “This takes personal commitment, you need to plant yourself at a zone. Some days it may be you your guardian angel and the Saints but you can’t let that stop you from being a witness. You need to put yourself out there be faithful and it will grow. It will take a lot of convincing witness before you get people. You can’t expect huge groups.”
McDonald also said he grew in empathy through his ministry. “One aspect that I realized I grew is in empathy for others. There is a way in which it gives you an opportunity to step out in an area where other people are hurting in the culture. In a very real way standing on the corner seeing people go in and not abstract to seeing them come out hurt and sometimes broken helps me to realize this in a different way – there is nothing abstract about what happens to a woman, man, and her preborn baby after they procure an abortion. You are there to be Christ to them, and not to judge them. That whole process over time helps you to grow in empathy, and just realizing other people’s pains. This is an area that has been a blessing to me and a source of strength as I move on to other ministries.”
McDonald reflects on this one point that he read in one of Msgr. Reilly’s books.
Many people viewing in the streets, the Sisters of Mother Teresa's Religious Order, see them as good humanitarian or social workers reaching out to the wanted and the outcast of society. Mother Teresa, however, with the eyes of faith saw her Sisters as Jesus doing acts of kindness to Jesus, hidden in the distressing disguise of the poor, the unwanted and the outcast. A totally different vision of the same experience. Today many a passerby, including some pro-life people, might view the Helpers outside of abortion clinics as simply pro-life protesters of legalized abortion...to view the Helpers simply as people on the pro-life side vs. the pro-abortion side, in a struggle primarily to save the unborn babies, would be hardly to understand the Helpers on the street. Only with the eyes of faith, in the light of Golgotha or Calvary, can the scene on the street, or the Helpers mission, be properly understood. (Msgr. Philip J. Reilly. A Compendium of Presentations by Msgr. Philip J. Reilly, 104”
In this month for life please pray for Liam and the other seminarians who step out on Calvary and pray for the unborn. Also pray for the women who go to the clinics. This work done by McDonald is one that isn’t easy to do but is key to the church’s mission of giving dignity to God’s creation.
McDonald is dedicated to pro-life ministry which has helped his vocation.
McDonald reflected on his call to pro-life work, “With this witnessing your belief in the sanctity of life in a public setting , I realized you plant yourself there and if your heart is there, there is a way in which God will provide. That is what I did I knew this is something that I wanted to do. It began with Msgr. Reilly and the Helps from his witness I became more involved volunteering at the Life Center Of Long Island and for the Sisters of Life and I continued that into the seminary.”
Liam's commitment to the pro-life cause encompasses several areas of witness.
“ A lot of guys were involved in Douglaston the past two years, thus far I have been attending vigils on my own, except when I meet the seminarians from the Cathedral House of Formation at the Vigil in front of the Bleeker St. Planned Parenthood in Manhattan.”
This semester McDonald and some of the other seminarians go to pray at a local abortion clinics once a week for an hour. These clinics are located in the Bronx, Yonkers, and Manhattan.
When McDonald was in the minor seminary,he and fellow seminarians would orchestrate vigils and would go two to three times a week. He would pray with the other seminarians outside the clinics and they would also go later on in the day once everyone left and support the women who performed the abortions because the day ultimate goal was about saving souls.
McDonald also prayed in Brooklyn with Msgr. Phillip Reilly, who runs Helpers of God’s Precious Infants Pro-Life Mission. Msgr. Reilly invites the seminarians to a retreat once a year to discuss “The Roots of the Culture of Death and Restoring a Culture of Life” in addition to equipping them with the knowledge required to speak to a woman seeking an abortion and woman that are post-abortive.
McDonald said a key to the pro-life ministry is getting yourself there and not getting discouraged if not many people show up. He said, “This takes personal commitment, you need to plant yourself at a zone. Some days it may be you your guardian angel and the Saints but you can’t let that stop you from being a witness. You need to put yourself out there be faithful and it will grow. It will take a lot of convincing witness before you get people. You can’t expect huge groups.”
McDonald also said he grew in empathy through his ministry. “One aspect that I realized I grew is in empathy for others. There is a way in which it gives you an opportunity to step out in an area where other people are hurting in the culture. In a very real way standing on the corner seeing people go in and not abstract to seeing them come out hurt and sometimes broken helps me to realize this in a different way – there is nothing abstract about what happens to a woman, man, and her preborn baby after they procure an abortion. You are there to be Christ to them, and not to judge them. That whole process over time helps you to grow in empathy, and just realizing other people’s pains. This is an area that has been a blessing to me and a source of strength as I move on to other ministries.”
McDonald reflects on this one point that he read in one of Msgr. Reilly’s books.
Many people viewing in the streets, the Sisters of Mother Teresa's Religious Order, see them as good humanitarian or social workers reaching out to the wanted and the outcast of society. Mother Teresa, however, with the eyes of faith saw her Sisters as Jesus doing acts of kindness to Jesus, hidden in the distressing disguise of the poor, the unwanted and the outcast. A totally different vision of the same experience. Today many a passerby, including some pro-life people, might view the Helpers outside of abortion clinics as simply pro-life protesters of legalized abortion...to view the Helpers simply as people on the pro-life side vs. the pro-abortion side, in a struggle primarily to save the unborn babies, would be hardly to understand the Helpers on the street. Only with the eyes of faith, in the light of Golgotha or Calvary, can the scene on the street, or the Helpers mission, be properly understood. (Msgr. Philip J. Reilly. A Compendium of Presentations by Msgr. Philip J. Reilly, 104”
In this month for life please pray for Liam and the other seminarians who step out on Calvary and pray for the unborn. Also pray for the women who go to the clinics. This work done by McDonald is one that isn’t easy to do but is key to the church’s mission of giving dignity to God’s creation.