I wonder what will become of 2007. You and I have both been living through it. Yet, it seems like so many people don't learn from the lessons that God has allowed them to live through. Take for example abortion and contraception. As we move forward to another year, still many of America's most defenseless children are being slaughtered. Yet some Catholics still fight for the side of so-called "freedom" which is really licentiousness. We have seen the death of Terry Schaivo in our own days, 2005 to be exact, and yet some Catholics think that we can allow the innocent lives to be destroyed in Abortion and that it won't affect us personally... forced euthanasia is already here, as Terry showed us.
In the November issue of "This Rock" magazine, a publication of Catholic Answers, Fr. Frank Pavone, M.E.V., spoke of 10 reasons to be hopeful to the end of the murder of the most obscure and weakest in our human society - the unborn. There are many good points that he makes, being as he has a good grasp on pro-life work in America. Yet, I think the greatest point he makes is to remind each of us that "Victory is our starting point." I quote:
"The biggest reason we are winning [the pro-life battle] is that we have already won. There is one among us who holds the keys of death and of hell. He was overwhelmed by the Culture of Death, and trampled death by death. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! The pro-life movement does not simply work for victory; we work from victory. Victory is our starting point. We joyfully proclaim to the world that Christ is risen, and that for this reason, we must choose life. Then we work to apply that victory to every sector of society. We do not stand in from of the Culture of Death afraid, worried, and wondering how we will overcome it. Rather, we stand before it with victorious confidence and declare, "Begone! You have no room here, no place here, no further authority to menace the human family. You kingdom has been conquered, and Christ reigns!"
The reason I bring this up here on the 31st of January, still in the Christmas season & 3 days after the Feast of the Holy Innocents, is that this quote reminds me of the search of St. Joseph and Mary for a place to bear their child. A place where Jesus could be born into this world, and yet the world (or at least the folk of Bethlehem) denied them. As if to heal the wound of mankind rejecting Jesus' birth, now we, as disciples of Jesus Christ, MUST work to establish the Culture of Life which welcomes all newly conceived life. What Catholic among us can rightly say that abortion should be allowed, when the death of a soul is at stake - a soul for which Jesus Christ died that they might have eternal life.
I have been thinking of ways to commemorate the Anniversary of Roe vs. Wade this year. I thought one thing that we might do as a parish is to hold a rally right here on the parish grounds and perhaps hold pro-life signs along Garrison, especially during rush hour. This would probably take some approval from the city to hold this kind of rally probably, but I keep wishing there was something that could be done here at St. Jude where I am aware of certain Catholics who scandalously hold that abortion is something that should be tolerated.
For a human being, let alone a Catholic, it is intrinsically evil for us to offer innocent human life as a sacrifice to convenience, which ultimately becomes the main reason for almost every abortion. People might say, "Well, you aren't a woman! How can you impose your views on others?" Simple. I am a man, who has been faced with the decision to abort or to keep my child, but I knew that the human life was a gift of God - undeserving of me imposing my will upon him and her. Rather, it is far better for me to accept the gift and responsibility of accepting life. No one should have to feel like they must destroy a little soul's earthly life, this is in large part what the framers of the Declaration of Independence understood as the foundation of these United States when they wrote:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."
Yet, not only some Americans, but even some Catholics would have us reject life as dispensable when it is an incovenience. There is, of which I am aware, at least one parishioner who has even written a book trying to reject this basic teaching of the Church established by Our Lord Jesus Christ. As the Compendium of Catholic Social Teaching itself states in unison with the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Sacred Tradition (for example, the Didache - particularly chapter 2): "Promoting human dignity implies above all affirming the inviolability of the right to life, from conception to natural death, the first among all rights and the condition for all other rights of the person (#553)."
Let us hope and pray that as we begin 2008, this purpose and goal might be recognized to defend the right to life of every human life. Becuase whenever and wherever that right is offended a mother and father are wounded and a human life is lost.
In the November issue of "This Rock" magazine, a publication of Catholic Answers, Fr. Frank Pavone, M.E.V., spoke of 10 reasons to be hopeful to the end of the murder of the most obscure and weakest in our human society - the unborn. There are many good points that he makes, being as he has a good grasp on pro-life work in America. Yet, I think the greatest point he makes is to remind each of us that "Victory is our starting point." I quote:
"The biggest reason we are winning [the pro-life battle] is that we have already won. There is one among us who holds the keys of death and of hell. He was overwhelmed by the Culture of Death, and trampled death by death. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! The pro-life movement does not simply work for victory; we work from victory. Victory is our starting point. We joyfully proclaim to the world that Christ is risen, and that for this reason, we must choose life. Then we work to apply that victory to every sector of society. We do not stand in from of the Culture of Death afraid, worried, and wondering how we will overcome it. Rather, we stand before it with victorious confidence and declare, "Begone! You have no room here, no place here, no further authority to menace the human family. You kingdom has been conquered, and Christ reigns!"
The reason I bring this up here on the 31st of January, still in the Christmas season & 3 days after the Feast of the Holy Innocents, is that this quote reminds me of the search of St. Joseph and Mary for a place to bear their child. A place where Jesus could be born into this world, and yet the world (or at least the folk of Bethlehem) denied them. As if to heal the wound of mankind rejecting Jesus' birth, now we, as disciples of Jesus Christ, MUST work to establish the Culture of Life which welcomes all newly conceived life. What Catholic among us can rightly say that abortion should be allowed, when the death of a soul is at stake - a soul for which Jesus Christ died that they might have eternal life.
I have been thinking of ways to commemorate the Anniversary of Roe vs. Wade this year. I thought one thing that we might do as a parish is to hold a rally right here on the parish grounds and perhaps hold pro-life signs along Garrison, especially during rush hour. This would probably take some approval from the city to hold this kind of rally probably, but I keep wishing there was something that could be done here at St. Jude where I am aware of certain Catholics who scandalously hold that abortion is something that should be tolerated.
For a human being, let alone a Catholic, it is intrinsically evil for us to offer innocent human life as a sacrifice to convenience, which ultimately becomes the main reason for almost every abortion. People might say, "Well, you aren't a woman! How can you impose your views on others?" Simple. I am a man, who has been faced with the decision to abort or to keep my child, but I knew that the human life was a gift of God - undeserving of me imposing my will upon him and her. Rather, it is far better for me to accept the gift and responsibility of accepting life. No one should have to feel like they must destroy a little soul's earthly life, this is in large part what the framers of the Declaration of Independence understood as the foundation of these United States when they wrote:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."
Yet, not only some Americans, but even some Catholics would have us reject life as dispensable when it is an incovenience. There is, of which I am aware, at least one parishioner who has even written a book trying to reject this basic teaching of the Church established by Our Lord Jesus Christ. As the Compendium of Catholic Social Teaching itself states in unison with the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Sacred Tradition (for example, the Didache - particularly chapter 2): "Promoting human dignity implies above all affirming the inviolability of the right to life, from conception to natural death, the first among all rights and the condition for all other rights of the person (#553)."
Let us hope and pray that as we begin 2008, this purpose and goal might be recognized to defend the right to life of every human life. Becuase whenever and wherever that right is offended a mother and father are wounded and a human life is lost.
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1 comment:
The culture of death is among us, and as the saying goes, "The only thing needed for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing", we ALL have a choice, for if we do nothing then nothing will change. Stand your ground and protect those we can not protect themselves!
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