Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, D.D., J.C.L.
Bishop of Scranton
HOMILY
Respect Life Mass
Saint Peter’s Cathedral
October 3, 2010
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
On Sunday, April 24th, 2005, at a Mass in St. Peter’s Square beginning his ministry as the Bishop of Rome, our Holy Father, Benedict XVI shared these thoughts with the world: “Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is. We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.”
Today, we join with the Church to observe Respect Life Sunday. Our thoughts and prayers highlight the Church’s respect for the sanctity and dignity of life spanning all stages and conditions, from conception to natural death, from the life of the unborn to those with disabilities, the sick and those in the last stages of life. Our prayers are offered for victims of abortion and euthanasia who most vividly remind us of the loss of the most basic of human rights. We also pray for victims of poverty which burdens and oppresses life, victims of capital punishment which gives to human beings a right reserved to God alone, and innocent victims of terrorism and war.
When our Holy Father offered his powerful words regarding the sanctity of human life on the threshold of his papacy, he prefaced his remarks with words of faith. Listen again to what he said: “Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.”
Our desire to affirm life in all of its forms; our willingness to embrace human life as a mirror of the Divine Presence – the very image and likeness of God – is rooted in our affirmation of faith in God – and for us as Christians, FAITH in Jesus Christ.
Indeed, on the very heals of our Holy Father’s words affirming life, he reflects upon our relationship with the Lord Jesus as spoken of in the words of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. “Only in friendship with Christ are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life.”
While the Holy Father speaks about a spiritual relationship with the Lord, it is a relationship that is rooted, lived and understood through the human person. As such, the Holy Father’s words remind all who struggle to promote the value and dignity of human life that our world will treasure life only when WE, as disciples of Jesus – as friends of Jesus – proclaim his Gospel of Life to the heart of every man and woman.
It always comes back to us, doesn’t it? And so it should. Our world faces an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, the “culture of death” and the “culture of life.” Every day we find ourselves in the midst of this conflict. We are all involved and we all share in it. And as believers in Christ, we have the inescapable responsibility of being unconditionally pro-life.
In the gospel from St. Luke proclaimed today on this 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Jesus offers a series of pronouncements. Two are spoken of in the passage proclaimed today. Two are found in the verses immediately preceding today’s gospel.
Jesus warns against causing scandal. “Woe to the person through whom that happens.” He demands forgiveness. “If your brother sins against you seven times a day, yet turns to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” And Jesus proclaims that if we have faith the size of mustard seed, incredible things can happen.
Jesus also teaches a lesson from the master/slave relationship. When we do what Jesus commands us to do, we don’t become heroes for a cause; we ought not to expect adulation or praise. In doing what Jesus commands, we simply do what the Gospel expects and indeed demands from all those who embrace its life and its values.
These words of Jesus regarding scandal, forgiveness, faith and so much more don’t point to heroic living, but reflect the minimum for a life open to the Kingdom of God. They challenge us to avoid the self-justifying posture of the Pharisees who preen themselves as defenders of God’s words while failing to fulfill its most basic demands. These words of Jesus are hardly comforting words and surely demanding in nature.
The point: As authentic Christians, we have no choice. There is no alternative to how we must live and to the values that we must embrace. We MUST choose life. As Pope Benedict proclaimed during his recent historic trip to Great Britain: “Life is a unique gift, at every stage from conception until natural death, and it is God’s alone to give and to take.”
The challenge to defend life cannot be side stepped in an effort to create a false peace or sense of harmony. We must be fearless in our defense of the unborn, the elderly, the sick, the poor, the disabled. And we must never shrink from confronting life issues – first and foremost in our prayer, in what and how we teach as a Church, and in the pastoral care that we offer. But we must also never shrink from confronting life issues: when we vote, in the initiatives and public policies that we are able to influence, in our volunteer efforts, in the daily activities and choices of our lives that can even unwittingly exploit the most defenseless of lives.
But there is another demand placed upon us as followers of Christ. We are obliged to maintain a sense of integrity in our defense of life and in the Gospel that we embrace. Our fundamental defense of life can never justify our diminishment of another’s life, no matter how noble the cause or just the end. Indeed, the most convincing argument that we can offer as a sign of our belief in the value of the human person is to respect, forgive and love – even the person who fails to respect and love another. A challenge? Yes, indeed. But did not Jesus from the cross teach us to do the same?
In 1926, my father was two years of age and my grandmother, at 29 years of age, was preparing to give birth to her sixth child. She contracted tuberculosis – a disease that was far more rampant years ago than it is today. Her body began to wear out from the disease and in the harsh reality of life, she was confronted by her doctor with a decision. Terminate your pregnancy and live to raise your five children – or carry the child to term and risk dying in the process and leaving six young children without a mother.
For my grandmother, there was no choice. She died at the age of 29 and left six children to be raised by their grandparents. And those six children lived well – not without challenges or struggles, which are a part of every life – but with love and hope and a legacy of faith and example that they passed on to their children.
I share this story not because I view my family as more faith filled or heroic than yours. I share it as an example of how our world will truly be changed from a culture of death to a culture of life. Our world will change when we Christians live and proclaim what we profess.
I share this story as well to encourage you to reflect upon the gifts of faith and life that has been woven into your lives and your families. Perhaps you have a story similar to mine. Perhaps you have found hope in the life of an aging parent, in a victim of a debilitating disease who carries her cross with dignity, in a disabled child who is pure joy to the world around him.
Aren’t such lives glimpses into the divine life of God? Do they not teach us that the value and worth of the human person is not found in some arbitrary standard set by society but rather in the simple yet profound reality of creation itself – creation by the God in whose image ALL life is made?
This day calls us to pray for innocent victims of sins against human life. It calls us to pray for ourselves as we assume the mantle of defending life and cherishing that which is made in the image and likeness of our Creator.
In our prayer, may we open our hearts to the words of the Servant of God, John Paul II, who reminds us of how we should walk in the journey that lies before us: “We are asked to love and honor the life of every man and woman and to work with perseverance and courage so that our time, marked by all too many signs of death, may at last witness the establishment of a new culture of life, the fruit of the culture of truth and of love.”
In short, you and I will witness to the value of life – the treasure of life – when we meet the living God in Christ and walk in his ways.
