A platform that encourages healthy conversation, spiritual support, growth and fellowship
NOLACatholic Parenting Podcast
A natural progression of our weekly column in the Clarion Herald and blog
The best in Catholic news and inspiration - wherever you are!
We express sincere gratitude to you for allowing God to use you as a voice and as a courageous voice for life.
In some ways the child in the womb has a voice, but it is a voice that is not really heard, and you speak for that child – adults and young adults and the youth of our church.
Some would ask, why do we as Christians and Catholics get so excited about this life issue? The Scriptures of today, my sisters and brothers, help us to answer that question.
In the first reading from the Book of Genesis, we are told that God created the world and everything that is in it; but then he said, “Let us make man in our own image and likeness.”
In the divine image he has created us, and while still in the womb, God breathed his spirit into us. And today, God continues to breathe that spirit and to dwell in each of us.
Our life is sacred. We are made in the image and the likeness of God, and, yes, we do get excited about life and pro-life activities.
In the Gospel, people are bringing little children to Jesus, and when some hear that, they become very upset. The disciples wanted to keep them away: “Jesus doesn’t have time for these little kids. They should be seen and not heard. The child does not count. The child is powerless.”
And Jesus takes a very different stand in getting upset with them, and he says, “Let the children come to me. Let the children come to me.” And he touched them as a sign that the smallest of the smallest of the child is sacred. Their life is indeed sacred.
And that’s all very, very good news.
We also know that in our country and even beyond that there are challenges out there. Some say that what is in the womb is not a human being, that people have a right to their own body and their own decisions.
And you and I know when we hear that we must swim against the tide as the Holy Father reminds us. And Pope Francis has said very clearly that no one has the right to take life – in the womb and beyond.
And we gather here this morning because we will march for life today. And we also promise that each of us will be in dialogue with those who disagree with us, with those who do not see the value of life. We will dialogue respectfully with them that God may use us to change their hearts.
My sisters and brothers, and in a special way the young church, today we also come to pray for those who have had abortions, that they will come to ask for and experience God’s mercy and his healing.
Today, as we gather, we also remember that at this very moment those who are thinking about abortion may hear God’s call to life, and that, if possible, we be a sign of that call from God.
As we know, my sisters and brothers, for us as Christians, the basic life issue is the baby in the womb. It is a fundamental issue for us as pro-life people, but there are other issues that we cannot neglect.
When people can justify the taking of innocent life in the womb, it becomes easier to justify euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide. Why? So Grandma doesn’t have to suffer. So Maria, a young adult with terminal illness, can end her life.
Grandma and Maria were given the gift of life by God
Tags: Uncategorized