PAPILLION, Neb. — In his teenage years growing up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Patrick Castle began desiring to do something great for God.
He toyed with the idea of becoming a priest, but somewhere along his discernment, realized God wasn’t on board. “If you don’t have a right guard, the quarterback gets sacked,” Castle says.
Instead, he joined the U.S. Air Force Academy. “I remember visiting with God, saying, ‘After I’m done serving and defending life in the military, I hope you’ll call me to full-time ministry defending life.’”
But first, Castle had to complete the training he’d need for his current and future work. After obtaining a medical degree and advancing to lieutenant colonel, Castle, who was trained as a weapons of mass destruction defense officer, was stationed in Turkey at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. “We were the closest American unit to Osama bin Laden, the mastermind who ran the plans (for that catastrophe),” he says.
Soon thereafter, he was on what the military calls “the tip of the spear.” “No other forces were closer to the enemy,” Castle says, explaining that his unit was simultaneously “babysitting Sadam Hussein,” and building the force that would ultimately go after Bin Laden to end the Taliban’s reign of terror.
Even while on active duty as a medical squadron commander, Castle began formulating what would become LIFE Runners, a ministry that runs, walks and prays with the simple message: “Remember the Unborn.”
“Eighty-two percent of post-abortion mothers said that if they had encountered even one supportive person or encouraging message, they would have chosen life for their child,” Castle says, adding that “Remember the unborn” offers a nonconfrontational reminder that we must not forget the child in the womb.
Since 2013, the ministry has taken its directive across the United States annually in what it calls the A-Cross America Relay, now with four legs launching from the northern, southern, eastern and western corridors of the nation. It’s the largest spanning event of its kind, covering 5,183 miles, or 12 million steps, Castle says.
This year, the northern course will launch from Fargo for the first time on Saturday, Sept. 14. The other hosting cities include New York City, San Francisco, and Austin, Texas.
“We’re so enthusiastic about this,” says Paul Braun, communications director for the diocese. “We’ve always been in support of this effort, with it (previously) starting at St. Michael’s” in Grand Forks. “When we were asked to do it at the cathedral this year, the bishop was more than happy to oblige.”
The event will begin with Mass at 8 a.m. at Our Lady of Guadalupe chapel, celebrated by Bishop John Folda, who will then offer a send-off blessing to local walkers, runners and prayers joining the hosting organization to bring awareness to the humanity of the unborn.
Participants will then walk together to the Red River Women’s Clinic in Moorhead, where abortions are performed weekly, to pray further. Pausing at abortion facilities is part of the mission of LIFE Runners, Castle says.
“God bless the LIFE Runners as they launch the A-Cross America Relay from Fargo,” Bishop Folda is quoted as saying on an event flier, adding that the organization’s “enthusiasm and prayers…are building a culture of life across our great nation.”
Castle emphasizes that, despite the ministry having begun as a running event, one does not have to be a runner to participate, saying, “Running is optional; prayer is required,” adding that people can even take part at home if needed.
The event co-founder, Jeff Grabosky, author of “Running With God Across America,” never intended to be part of such a large effort, but in 2006, grieving his mother’s recent death, he found himself homeless for a time, living out of his car in Chicago in winter. “At that point, I turned to my faith and to God,” he says. “I had been living selfishly, going after my own ideas of what I thought I should do.”
Grabosky found a new home and job and, as he turned more fully again to God, he began feeling “calls” on his heart, he says. A collapsed lung and time in intensive care gave him the final push to get out of his comfort zone. After recovering, he signed up for a 100-mile ultra-marathon race and began to feel a tug to run across the country.
“My mom used to pray when she ran, and to honor her, I decided I could do the same thing on a big scale.” He set out Jan. 20, 2011, from Oceanside, California, trusting fully in God, he says, but encountering a few scary things along the way—like a mountain lion in the Arizona desert which, thankfully, bypassed him.
In the spring of that year, Grabosky was just outside of St. Louis, pushing a stroller with his supplies, when the rig failed. “The first 2,000 miles were great, but a wheel broke.”
The media had, by then, been following Grabosky, and the story caught the attention of Castle, stationed just outside of the city at the time. He reached out and the two began formulating the A-Cross America Relay vision, starting the first event in 2013.
“It took about a year to map out the east-west course in 3-mile segments,” Grabosky says. They eventually added the north-south arm “to form a cross.”
Bishop Joe Coffey, who serves as auxiliary bishop of the Military Archdiocese, took part in several of the events and formerly was part of the board.
In meeting Castle through the Navy, he says, he discovered a ball of energy. “And it’s contagious; it really is,” he says, noting that LIFE Runners is “a very, very easy group to join,” because all it takes to become involved is agreeing to wear a T-Shirt. “That’s a pretty low bar.”
Coffey also appreciates how the ministry is “spreading the pro-life message in a very gentle way; not hitting anyone over the head,” adding that, “Not everyone is called to evangelize, but everyone reads T-shirts!”
Visible rewards for those who get involved in pro-life work are few, Coffey adds. “There’s nothing we get out of it, no benefit personally, other than to know it’s the right thing to do.”
For Castle, it’s about awakening our nation and world to what he calls “the crowning jewel” of God’s greatest enemy. “We lose about 1 million people a year to the combat of abortion in the mother’s womb,” he says, “or more losses in one year than all the combats of our country.”
Castle attributes pregnancy resource centers with being part of the solution, calling them “an operating base for heaven.”
The site where participants will walk and run to that morning abuts a forthcoming new pregnancy resource center, which will be built on land just south of the abortion facility. Angela Wambach, director for that future facility and the current Women’s Care Center in Fargo, says she appreciates seeing people like Castle find creative ways to share the message for life.
“My staff and I feel blessed to love and serve the women and families in our community,” she says, adding that the center’s mission is to help pregnant women choose life for their babies, have healthier pregnancies, and become better parents, by offering support through kindergarten.
Castle brings the two together, noting that the LIFE Runners message, “Remember the Unborn,” brings the mother’s eye back to her child. “In that moment, that might be all that’s needed, that nudge of encouragement, for her to say, ‘Oh, yeah! My unborn child. I was forgetting somebody.’”
The world puts out messaging and marketing to promote its deeply held beliefs every day, he adds. “We’re just marketing God, and life, something that is defendable, true, eternal and holy.”
IF YOU GO:
What: LIFE Runners northern course launch and blessing
When: 9 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 14, following 8 a.m. Mass
Where: Our Lady of Guadalupe chapel behind St. Mary’s Cathedral, 604 Broadway, Fargo
Contact: https://www.liferunners.org/race/across/ (Free registration code for Forum readers and participants: LIFER)
[For the sake of having a repository for my newspaper columns and articles, I reprint them here, with permission, a week after their run date. The preceding ran in The Forum newspaper on Sept. 8, 2024.]
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