I am indebted to the USCCB Respect Life committee for their excellent scriptural reflection for Respect Life Sunday. I have only slightly edited their words to make it flow as a homily. It otherwise expresses deftly and plainly the reality we face as a pro-life people and the gifts of faith and hope that we need to persevere in proclaiming the Gospel of Life.
Homily:
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C
Brothers and sisters, in the
first reading today we hear the voice of the prophet Habakkuk crying out to God
in anguish: “How long, O Lord? I cry for help but you do not listen!” How often do we feel that God does not hear
our pleas for help? How often do we fear
that our prayers will not be answered in the manner that we desire? The voice again cries out: “I cry out to you,
‘Violence!’ but you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin; why must I
look at misery? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and
clamorous discord.”
I imagine that each of us can
relate all-too-well to this feeling today.
When we watch the news or scroll through social media, we are inundated
by stories of violence against human life.
The tone of public debate and discourse disrespects the dignity of the
human person. We can often feel that
misery surrounds us as abortion, assisted suicide, the death penalty, and other
affronts to the dignity of the person find wide public support.
But God, as he responded to
Habakkuk, responds to us with a message of hope. We are assured that the Lord, “will not
disappoint.” And that, “the just one,
because of his faith, shall live.” While
God does not promise to answer our prayers on our schedule or according to our
plans, we know that He does not abandon us.
While suffering is indeed a part of our earthly life, nonetheless our
destiny is to share eternal life with Christ, and this reading reminds us of
this today.
In his encyclical letter Evangelium
Vitae (which translates to “The Gospel of Life”), Pope Saint John Paul II
wrote that, “the Gospel of life is not for believers alone: it is for
everyone.” Although faith allows us to
more deeply understand the sacred value of human life, the light of reason
naturally endows the human conscience with the ability to recognize the dignity
of each and every person, and so why does it seem that so many are ignorant of
this truth?
In the responsorial psalm, we
replied: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” It seems that many in our world have indeed
hardened their hearts to the truth. They
are unable to see the humanity of the child growing in his/her mother’s
womb. They incorrectly believe that a
person’s value is determined by his/her abilities (or by a potential to avoid
suffering in this world). They fail to
comprehend that one’s worth is not dependent on one’s age or circumstance. And perhaps, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll
see that we’ve allowed our own hearts to be hardened to the attacks against
human life. Maybe we’ve allowed the pain
of loss to make our hearts numb, too.
Therefore, in a world that
seems to have lost sight of the value of human life, we must pray that those
whose hearts have been hardened would hear the voice of God and come to see the
invaluable dignity of every person they meet.
And we must pray that our own hearts would be pierced by the suffering
of the most vulnerable among us. ///
Because the world in which we
live is so often hostile to the Truth, proclaiming the Gospel of Life can be
difficult. In many arenas, defense of
infants’ lives, the lives of those disabled or dying, or the lives of any
vulnerable human population is met with resistance. Proclaiming the Church’s teaching on topics
like abortion, assisted suicide, and the death penalty can provoke challenging
and emotional responses from those who disagree. Sometimes we may find ourselves afraid to
speak up about these issues in our families, among our coworkers, or with
students in our school community. We may
fear disagreement, judgement, confrontation, or misunderstanding. But in the second reading, Saint Paul tells
us that, “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice.” Rather, God has given us a spirit of “power
and love”—and this spirit should cast out all of our fears.
Saint Paul also encourages us
“not to be ashamed of our testimony to our Lord.” He urges us to “bear our share of hardship
for the gospel,” and reminds of our “strength that comes from God.” Through our faith in Jesus Christ, we know
that sin and death have been defeated.
We know that our identity can only be found in our Savior. And we know that the sufferings and
persecutions that we endure in our earthly life glorify God; and, thus, that we
are given the strength and grace to persevere in hope.
Faith, my brothers and
sisters, gives us this ability to hope. Through
it we are empowered to accomplish amazing things (like ripping up deep-rooted
trees and casting them into the sea with only a word). As a gift, however, faith is not something
that we can claim as our own: it’s not something that we earn. Rather, it is only the graciousness of God
that provides it to us, for we are “unprofitable servants” who have done only
what we have been obliged to do. The
example of the apostles in the Gospel, however, encourages us to ask God
Himself to “increase our faith.” If we
struggle to find the courage to speak boldly about human life, we shouldn’t be
ashamed: for the apostles—who themselves lived, ate, and prayed with
Christ—needed God’s grace to carry out Christ’s saving mission. Even still, we needn’t be afraid to take hold
of the faith that we have been given: for if we have but “faith the size of a
mustard seed,” Christ can give us the power to do incredible things in service
of the Gospel.
So today, on this Respect Life
Sunday, as we recommit ourselves to upholding the teachings of the Church on
the inviolability of human life, may we recall that we have merely “done what
we were obliged to do” as followers of Christ; and that this is no small thing,
because Christ is our hope, in every season of our lives; and He, who is ever
faithful to us, will not fail to snatch us from the snares of death and lead us
to the victory of eternal life that He has won for us—the eternal life to which
all human life is ordered—the eternal life that we experience, even now, here
in this Eucharist.
Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – October 5th
& 6th, 2019
Given at Saint Thomas Aquinas Parish: West Lafayette, IN –
October 6th, 2019
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