Author’s Note: Last week, I wrote an article about the duty of priests and deacons to preach the Gospel of Life. This week I offer a modest example of my own attempt at such preaching. It specifically addresses the threat posed by the radical pro-abortion Proposal 3 here in Michigan, but similar legislation threatens to advance the culture of death throughout the United States.
Readings:
• 2 Kgs 5:14-17
• Ps 98:1, 2-3, 3-4
• 2 Tim 2:8-13
• Lk 17:11-19
“His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child” (2 Kings 5:14). It is difficult to comprehend the death-to-life transformation of a man healed of leprosy. It is striking that Sacred Scripture helps us appreciate Naaman’s new life by comparing his flesh to that of a little child.
There is something so vital about a little child that children help us understand what it is to be truly alive. It is all the more bitterly ironic, then, that the lives of countless little children are called into question and threatened by a national push for legalized abortion, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Specifically, here in Michigan, Proposal 3 threatens to enshrine a virtually unlimited right to abortion in our State Constitution.
What does the word of God reveal to us this Sunday? That the Lord is the Source of life. That life is a gift, for which we are called to give profound thanks. Through the Prophet Elisha, God healed Naaman the Syrian. Naaman was healed by washing in the water of the Jordan River, a potent symbol not only of new life but of supernatural life given in the Sacrament of Baptism.
God also reveals to us His gifts of natural and supernatural life in Sunday’s Gospel and Second Reading. We see Jesus heal the ten lepers, with only one of them returning to give thanks when he realizes God has given him new life. And in the Second Reading, the first way St. Paul describes Jesus Christ is to say that He is “raised from the dead.” He died, but He is alive, He is risen. And then Paul goes on to assure his readers, and all of us, “If we have died with him, we shall also live with him.”
Our first response to God’s gift of life must be gratitude. As Blessed Solanus Casey tells us, “Gratitude is the first sign of a thinking, rational creature.” The Samaritan leper in the Gospel “fell at the feet of Jesus.” So, too, we must fall at the feet of Jesus in prayer and thanksgiving for this most basic of all of God’s gifts.
Our second response to God’s gift of life is to make the most of it. Remember the Parable of the Talents. Or think of Luke 12:48, “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”
With peace of heart, and trusting in the Lord’s mercy, we must strive to fulfill our potential and to do all we can with the time, energy, and abilities God has given us. We need to make the most of our natural lives, and to take faithful care of the “pearl of great price,” the divine life the Father has given us in Christ.
Our third response to God’s gift of life, one closely tied to the other two responses, is to protect life from every evil threat. Just as in Scripture, God uses human instruments, such as the Prophet Elisha, to give life, so He wants to use us to protect and defend life at all of its stages.
Our God-given mission to protect life demands that we vote “no” on Proposal 3. The lethal consequences of Proposal 3 should make the blood of any thinking and feeling person run cold.
Even those who, tragically, support abortion should shudder at the gruesome extremism of the proposal. Proposal 3 which would allow unfettered abortion for all three trimesters of pregnancy–including partial birth abortion. It would also undercut parental rights and the protection of young expectant mothers. And it would allow non-medical professionals to perform abortions in facilities that are not accountable even to cleanliness standards.
A good friend of mine recently told me that this past summer she was legally obligated to accompany her seventeen-year-old daughter so that the daughter could get her ears pierced. Yet under Proposal 3 even younger girls could get an abortion without parental consent.
This is madness. It’s not health care. It’s not “reproductive freedom” (an expression used in the proposal’s text). It is the setting in concrete of a fabricated “right” to kill innocent children.
It is not enough to stand on the sidelines. We must vote “no” and stop this evil.
What about mothers? I promise that God and His Church love all mothers, including those who have made the tragic choice to have an abortion. Jesus and His Church long to forgive and to heal women who have made this choice and who turn back to the Lord, especially in confession.
And when it comes to helping mothers in difficult circumstances who choose life for their children, the Church has always been and continues to be on the front lines helping them. We need to do more certainly. But we do a lot and we are ready to do much more to care for women and children who need our help.
Sometimes people ask, “Why does the Church have to get political?” Remember what St. Paul writes in Sunday’s Second Reading, “The word of God is not chained.” True, the Church does not endorse political candidates or parties. But the word of God does enlighten, inform, and shape our approach to every sphere of human life. What we do in the political sphere is of tremendous consequence. When it comes to voting “no” on Proposal 3, it is a matter of life and death.
Our conviction about the dignity of every human life is not popular today. Like St. Paul and countless other saints, we are called to suffer for our faith in Jesus Christ. We take up our crosses and follow Jesus with firm resolve, with peace, and with confidence, remembering Christ’s last words to His disciples in John’s account of the Last Supper (John 16:33):
“In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”
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Sure evidence that postmodernity is really a throwback to premodern times…
The Chosen People, like the pagan worshipers of Baal, surrendered their own children to the sacrificial flames of the pagan deities. We see this in Jeremiah (32:35), Lamentations (2:20), Baruch (2:3), and even the Psalms:
“And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood (Psalm 106:36-38).
Expanding Beaulieu’s analogy of ancient demonic worship in Israel, immolation of children God’s horror, with today’s abortion policies, is the additional horror of child sexual abuse now a rampantly practiced, worldwide industry.
True, the Aztec [and Mayan] sacrifices of adults [and evidence found of child sacrifice among Mayans] has been replaced by the infinitely greater abortion holocaust. This ‘new’ sexual obsession with children and infants is at least just as deadly, putatively more so in that survivors perpetuate the immense evil. So evil that it seems a miracle that our Creator tolerates it, presumably patient until the elect are accounted for.
What moral equivalence is there in a policy that focuses so much talent and energy on saving a planet increasingly populated by the morally cannibalistic? Response. Like St Paul and countless other saints, we are called to suffer for our faith in Jesus Christ (Fr Fox).
Excerpts from A short biography of Bishop Austin B. Vaughan at Catholic Culture:
Bishop Vaughan has gone on to receive his eternal reward.
I had the opportunity to hear an audio tape of the talk he gave at a rally the night before he was arrested for the first time. He pointed out that whenever Christ talked about those who were damned for eternity, it wasn’t for the evil they had committed, but for the good works they had failed to perform.
The rich man hadn’t abused the poor beggar Lazarus, he just lived as though what was happening to Lazarus wasn’t happening. The goats assembled on Christ’s left hand weren’t going to hear a list of their sins and crimes before being told to depart from Him into eternal fire, they were going to hear a list of the good things they hadn’t done for Him in the least of His brethren.
I am certain that all Christians are not called to block the entrances to the baby murder clinics. I am equally certain that complacency in regards to the hideous fact that babies are murdered by the thousands every day in America endangers one’s salvation.
For the sake of the salvation of the souls entrusted to them, priests and bishops need to exhort their flocks to do whatever it is that God has called them to do for Christ in these innocent babies, the least of His brethren.
It is dangerous to live as though what is happening to the Lazarus of our times isn’t happening.
Great post, harry. I had the honour of lectoring one of Bishop Vaughan’s masses when he was visiting my state and parish years ago. He was an inspiration.
I appreciate Father Fox’s article, but I must comment on the statement, “the Church does not endorse political candidates or parties.” Are we so afraid that the government will cut off funds for the USCCB, or take away our tax exempt status that we will not teach the whole truth.
Do we have to be afraid to read at Mass public documents like the party’s platform, which for the democrats is that they are in favour of abortion any time, any place, for any reason, paid for by the government? Can’t we mention that the Speaker of the House receives awards from Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the USA? Can’t we mention that the Biden administration just authorised the Veterans Administration to perform abortions in VA hospitals, even in states that have prohibited abortions. This is all public knowledge.
Let’s suppose for a minute that there was a KKK party, and that it was running a candidate who said that he was for lynching Blacks. Can anyone not believe that we would not be hearing,” racist, racist, racist” form the pulpit.
Preaching to be pro-life, but not saying that voting for a pro-abortion candidate makes that meaningless, accomplishes nothing.
I think that the word abortion has come to slide off our lips too easily. We are talking about murdering unborn babies. The Catechism lists four sins that cry to heaven. Murder is first on the list.
It is October, Right to Life month, right before a very important election. I really don’t want to hear any, “God loves you, have nice day” homilies. The issues are much too serious for that.
Yes, Prudence should prevail
Scripture simply has to be taken seriously.
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/rather-than-global-warming-worry-about-wormwood/