Today, we hear the calling of the first three disciples by Jesus-the calling of Peter, James and John. We are told they were fisherman. Why were they fisherman? Well, at the time of Jesus, being a fisherman was certainly not considered a noble profession. In fact, it was reserved for the poorest and most uneducated class of people. Peter, James and John were then not obviously wealthy, they were not of the upper class. If they even had the opportunity to go to school, which at the time would have been a religious synagogue school, they could not have done well; because if they had been successful, they obviously wouldn’t be fisherman. I promise you if you and I had a chance to chose the first three disciples we probably would not have chosen these three.
So, why did Jesus call them to such an exulted position as He began His public ministry? Why did he chose ones such as these, to preach His message of salvation, that the Kingdom of God was at hand? Wouldn’t we expect Jesus to choose someone who was well educated, someone who could explain Jesus’ message well and make it appealing to the people, someone like a politician or a celebrity, or at least someone with PHD. Well we are told elsewhere in Scriptures that God looks past human appearances that He looks into the heart. So, Jesus peered into the hearts of Peter, James and John and there He saw what others missed-their inherent goodness, their inherent dignity, the inherent worth.
So it is the same with every single human person. Jesus, because He is God, can peer into the depths of the Human Heart. He looks past human appearances. In the depths of every Human heart He sees the dignity and great worth of every single person. He has created every person in His own image and likeness; and more, He has shed His precious blood for the eternal salvation of every single human person.
Last week we spoke about the dignity that we received when we were baptized. At our baptism we became no less than children of God, children of the Creator, of the Creator of all that is visible and invisible, of all that exist. To what greatness we have been called. What great dignity we have been given to be called Children of God, and so we are! And every human person that exists born or unborn, poor or rich, healthy or unhealthy, good or bad, everyone is called into, invited into this filial relationship with God.
And even more, as He called the first disciples, Jesus now wants to call each of us to be more deeply his disciples as well, to be more deeply His faithful witnesses. And what is the message that He wants us to preach. It consists in this, “that we be His witnesses to the world of His message of salvation; that God not only wants all men to be saved, but He wants all men and woman to enter into a intimate relationship with Him. God wants to give every human person a share in God’s own Divine Nature, which means to share in God’s own inner Life and Love, to be admitted into THE FAMILY, the Family of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In this calling, we discover that at their very heart of the Gospel message which we are called to preach is the message of the Dignity of the Human Person, that every single human life has value, every human person has worth, infinite value and worth, and every life is worth living.
And so the sacredness of human life needs to be proclaimed not only before Church-goers but even before Lawmakers and presidents. The life and dignity of every single human person needs to be not only proclaimed, but defended and protected with every ounce of our strength and being, until our last breathe. This is at the heart of the message of salvation that Jesus is calling us to preach to the world, to preach not only with our words but also most especially by our actions. And in a world which proclaims that certain human persons are not worthy to have life, are not worthy to be protected, we have much work to do.
The truth about the dignity of human person, created in the image and likeness of God and redeemed by the blood of Jesus, and so called into an intimate relationship with the Father through Jesus in the Holy Spirit, is exactly what our current Holy Father Francis has been saying since His election to the Papacy. He has been reminding us that we must especially reach out to the poor, and in justice care for them as human persons. This care for the poor is at the heart of the New Evangelization. Our world has fallen away from the God who has created it; the New Evangelization is a call to show the world again the Love of the God who calls each person to Himself, saint and sinner alike, rich and poor alike; this is the joy of the Gospel message.
Now while Pope Francis has been getting some great press coverage, unfortunately the media so often misinterprets his words, limits their meaning or just plain distorts his words in order to further their, the presses, agenda. For example, what does our Holy Father mean by the poor? Does He mean just those who are materially disadvantage, those who are materially poor? Well first of all, Francis’ experience of poverty is much more profound than our poverty in the United States. For the most part the poor in the United States are rich compared to say the poor in Francis’ native country of Argentina. In Argentina the poor live in cardboard and tin shacks, in shantytowns. Folks are literally dying from starvation and diseases by the thousands every single day. So, yes by the poor Francis is referring to those who are physically poor; and so, as part of our faithful witness, our faithful discipleship, we have to feed the hungry, cloth the naked, give drink to the thirsty etc. But Francis’ definition of the poor is so much broader, so much more “inclusive” than the media’s definition of the poor.
For Francis, the poor are also those in society who are the most vulnerable, those who can’t defend themselves. These are the one’s especially who we need to as a matter of justice, mercy and love take care of and provide for. We need to care for and defend those who have been falsely accused and condemned. For Francis the poor includes those who don’t have a voice in society, those who society discards and minamalizes and disenfranchises, the outcast of society. And Francis has made it very clear, both as archbishop and now as Pope, that one of the groups of human persons that most fits under the title of poor, those who are the most poor because they are the most vulnerable, is the human persons who are unborn.
Who is poorer than the unborn? Who has less of voice to speak out against the injustice perpetrated against them than the unborn? They are the group of human persons most minimalized and disenfranchised by society, discarded by society. In fact, Francis says “abortion is the by-product of a throw away society.” He says, “we throw away food and we throw away babies.” How can we say that we are taking care of the poor when we don’t include in our definition of the poor, the poorest-the unborn? How can we be for social justice if we don’t in justice defend the right to life of the unborn? How can we be witnesses to the dignity of every human person when we don’t protect the life and dignity of all human persons no matter how small and frail? How can we say we want to end violence in America when we don’t try to end the most violent act in our society, that of the ripping apart of human persons in the womb.
Yes, it is very clear that for Pope Francis, one of the groups of human persons that fit under the poorest of the poor are those who are not yet born. So yes, sooner are later the press will discover that Pope Francis is not some socialist, some liberation theologian, that he is not some progressive liberal revolutionary; and when they do, they will turn on Francis as they did with Blessed John Paul II and Benedict before Him, they will turn on Him and they will cry out, “Crucify Him, Crucify Him! Crucify him!
Tomorrow our Country will celebrate the national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King. On Christmas of 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. preached the following words:
"The next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and good will toward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. Every man is somebody because he is a child of God…Man is more than …whirling electrons or a wisp of smoke …. Man is a child of God, made in His image, and therefore must be respected as such….And when we truly believe in the sacredness of human personality, we won't exploit people, we won't trample over people with the iron feet of oppression, we won't kill anybody."
Amen! Indeed, when we truly believe in the sacredness of human person we won’t exploit people, we won’t trample over people with the iron feet of oppression, we won’t kill anybody….won't kill anybody…including and most especially we won’t exploit the unborn, we won’t trample over the unborn, we won’t kill anybody, including the child in the womb!
And conversely, if we don’t protect the life of the dignity of the unborn, we as a society will not protect the life and the dignity of anybody...violence will continue to increase in our country, children being killed in our schools and on our streets will continue and increase, the elderly will be euthanized, certain human beings will be selected as not worthy of health care based on their age or their drain on financial resources, or simply because someone else deems that their quality of life is simply not at a level to justify keeping them alive. Either we protect the sacredness and the dignity of all human persons, the right to life of all human persons from conception to natural death, or none of us is safe, the life of none of us will be protected and our society will descend more and more into darkness, injustice and violence and eventually will just plain descend into utter chaos-then our society itself, civilization itself will collapse; it has happen before it can happen again.
Every man is a child of God, and so every unborn child is a child of God! The only way to deny this undeniable truth that every one cannot not know, is to try to convince ourselves and others, that some human beings are not really human beings at all, or that they are just a clump of cells or are genetically inferior, or their life is not of a level or quality that we deem is necessary for them to continue living. This is what the Nazi’s did and others before them; they told a big enough lie long enough and people believe it. But the truth is, is that every life is worth living.
I want to end with one more group of persons that Pope Francis includes under the category of Poor. That is those persons who are separated from God and from His love, either because they don’t not know that God loves them, or because of sin, have separated themselves from God and his love for them; and these can sometimes be materially speaking, very rich. As that great champion of the poor Mother Theresa of Calcutta said, in all of her travels visiting the poor, that the poorest of the poor that she encountered were not in the streets of Calcutta, but instead in the streets of America. She said that while Americans are the richest in the world so many of them did not know the love that God has for them, so many of them have separated themselves from God because of their sin and so do not realize the dignity that they have in being called to be Children of their Creator. And as a result the dignity of the human person in American in general was not being recognized and so protected. She warned, in front of the then current president at the time, that America would never have peace, would never have justice until it defends the life of ever human persons especially the life the unborn.
The New Evangelization means then for all us to work for the salvation of all souls, even those who are living in great sin, separated from the God who loves them. Included under the poor are those who have committed the grave sin of abortion and those who have and continue to support it. They too are called by God, they too are called to answer Him by their repentance of their sin. Women who have killed their babies in the womb for whatever reason need to be told that God’s mercy and love is for them as well; they for their part just need to repent, to confess their sin and turn back to God who is the giver of life and the Lord over all Life. He waits for them with open arms.
This week hundreds of thousand of teenagers, young adults, families and people from all walks of life will descend on Washington D.C. and even in Chicago for the annual march for life. Every year the number grows and grows of these bold witnesses of life. And they gather with great joy, with great hope and with great enthusiasm for Life!!! They love and care for both the child and the mother and father; and so they walk in defense as well for the defense of God given institution of Marriage as a union of one man and one woman for life, for To respect life is also to respect the most important institution that supports and nourishes life- the family.
These marchers are helping to win the battle for life, the battle for the sacredness and dignity of the life of every human person. Let us pray for them and for our beloved country let us ourselves get involved, this is not a political issue, it is a moral issue, it is a matter of life and death, not just physical life but eternal life as well.
And finally let us answer Pope Francis’ call to care for the poor, all the poor, which is at the very heart of the call for the New Evangelization. Let us answer his call for the new evangelization to bring the love of God to all human persons, that all human persons are worthy of love and life. Let us first turn, in faith, now to the God of Love truly present in the Holy Eucharist and adore and love Him there so that He will fill us with his love and transform us by His Divine mercy so that we can be instruments of His love and Mercy to all persons, especially the poorest of the poor, especially those who are dead because of sin. Holy Mary, Mother of our Life, mother of the poor, Mother of the born and unborn, pray for us sinners-your children who have recourse to thee. Amen.
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