By Carrie Gress

In my article, Feminism’s Unexpected Cure, I explained how 12 women, including myself, said a special prayer to reclaim the culture from the destruction that 12 women helped usher into the world roughly 50 years ago. Our litany, preceded by an impromptu prayer to Our Lord and His Mother, was the opposite of the one said by Kate Millett and her friends so many years ago, as reported by Kate’s sister, Mallory.

We prayed:

“Why are we here today?” said my friend Dawn.

“To reclaim our culture,” the 11 of us replied.

“What kind of culture?” “A Christian culture.”

“How would we build that culture?”

“By restoring the American family.”

“How do we restore the family?”

“By restoring the American Patriarch.”

“How do we do that?”

“By restoring his power and authority.”

“How do we do that?”

“By reclaiming monogamy.”

“How do we reclaim monogamy?”

“By rejecting pornography, abortion, eroticism, prostitution, and homosexuality.”

It had long been a desire of mine to pray this kind of prayer with other holy women and it was a truly a Providential gift that we were able to do it because it wasn’t something I had planned in advance.

A few months later, unbeknownst to me, women at Altus for Women were inspired by the idea of creating a litany to restore our culture and wrote a more thorough one. The litany, composed by Cindy Costello, Megan Murphy, Tracy Tully, and Kathleen O'Donnell, includes elements from Theology of the Body, and touches on the most pressing issues in the culture today. They have asked that as many of us as possible pray this litany through Pentecost in hopes of truly transforming the culture.

The Litany of Restoration reads:

Leader: Almighty and Eternal Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, Your only begotten Son, and in the unity of the Holy Spirit, we implore You to...

Restore our culture so that, collectively, we may live in a right relationship with You...

Response: according to Your original plan and design for our lives;

L: Restore all men in their God-given masculinity...

R: according to Your original plan and design for our lives;

L: Restore all women in their God-given femininity...

R: according to Your original plan and design for our lives;

L: Restore the complementary and perfect union of man and woman...

R: according to Your original plan and design for our lives;

L: Restore the strength, provision, and leadership of fathers...

R: according to Your original plan and design for our lives;

L: Restore the fierce love, openness, generosity, and protective instincts of mothers...

R: according to Your original plan and design for our lives;

L: Restore the family as the foundation of our society...

R: according to Your original plan and design for our lives;

L: Restore marriage...

R: according to Your original plan and design for our lives;

L: Restore the virtues of purity, chastity, faith, hope, and charity...

R: according to Your original plan and design for our lives;

L: As Your daughters, we pledge to live our lives in imitation of Mary, the Mother of God and our Mother, whose humble cooperation and receptivity allowed the Savior of the world to be born. We reject all anti-Mary spirits that are contrary to God’s plan for femininity. Through Our Lady’s intercession, we beg You to fill us with grace for this restoration-- for ourselves, our families, and our culture...

R: according to Your original plan and design for our lives.

The Magnificat (Lk 1: 46-55)

Leader begins: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

All: my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for He has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:

the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is His Name.

He has mercy on those who fear Him in every generation.

He has shown the strength of His arm, He has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of His servant Israel for He remembered His promise of mercy, the promise He made to our fathers, to Abraham and His children forever.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, Amen.

* * *

On Sunday nights, the litany drafters are hosting a conference call so the litany can be prayed together. I’ll be joining them this Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday, to talk more about the roots of this topic that I outlined in my book The Anti-Mary Exposed.

To join the conference call and pray with other women every Sunday night at 7pm EST through Pentecost, call: 1-712-775-7031

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