After the Respect Life Mass just before Holy week, Rose Ross announced that the stack of papers at the altar were the public records of abortions done at the Merrillville Planned Parenthood from July 1st to December 31st, 2008, a total of 789. While working with Lake County Right to Life, Rose was reading the reports and was so moved by the information on one child aborted on October 4th, that she named the child Francis. Sharon Staley was moved to ask, ” Why don’t we name all of them?”  The response was, it would be too big of task.

Sharon approached Father Mike and told him what had happened, and he gave his approval to try to name the 788 babies.  At home she shared the story with her mother, who handed her an unused notebook. Sharon sat down and named 12-15 babies both first and middle names. The names flowed and then the prayer came to her.

You are named______
Our Father claims you as His.
Love seals with His Kiss,
He heals you with His Touch.
Blessed be the Lord, forever.  Amen

All 789 children were named in the following six days ending on Holy Thursday.  Father Mike  was surprised at how quickly they were named, and he gave her permission to pray the prayer for each of them which took another six days.

Rose and Sharon did not know each other before this.  Both women were receiving Spiritual Direction from Father Mike, and were approaching Father with the same inspirations unknown to each other.

During spiritual direction, Sharon asked Father Mike if the 144,000 mentioned in Revelation 7, who were to receive a seal, and in Revelation 14, who were singing a song that only they could sing, who were not defiled (by childbirth) by women, were virgins, and on whose lips no deceit was found, could those be the aborted children?  Sharon also thought it had said they would not see the light of day.  Father Mike went to the Rectory, after the meeting and found a Bible written in the original languages that the passage could be translated as the light of day would not fall on them.  The light of day had not fallen on the aborted, they had no deceit on their lips and they were virgins, not defiled (by childbirth) by women. Father Mike and Sharon decided to name the 144,000 children and pray this prayer for them and then present them in the Respect Life Mass to Our Lord at the Offertory.  The act of naming one baby aborted on October 4, 2008 took on a life of its own.

A Parish Council Member, Patricia Kestner,  had written to President Obama and sent him a prayer petition with 81 signatures, but did not get a response back from him. She sent him a second letter with 10,000 named aborted children, whose special assignment was to intercede for the President of the United States, that he would lead this country and the world to end the need for abortion.