Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. October 30, 2018

October is quickly upon us. I mention this because, in October, we celebrate Pro-life month. We celebrate the gift of life given to us by God through Jesus—the image of the Father. Indeed, then Life is something to celebrate.
When we think of Pro-life, when we are called to promote life, we can, however, easily slip into the tendency to think of all the things the Church is against. Many there are who today speak of the current pro-life movement, not a “pro,” but as an “anti-movement,” i.e., anti-choice, anti-abortion, movement, etc., etc., etc.

Now, it is essential to know all the things the Church is against - we are against the evils of abortion, we are against in-vitro fertilization, experiments on human embryos, embryonic stem cell research, we are against euthanasia, artificial contraception, abuse of any kind, and against any sin against the life of the human person. By why are we against these things? The reasons have to do with so much more than prohibitions or thou shall not’s. In fact, when one understands the Church’s teachings correctly, one actually desires to follow them, for they are Spirit and Life.

I remembered a beautiful pro-life talk given by Pope Emeritus, Benedict, when he celebrated a family life conference in Spain, shortly after being named Pope. In this talk, Benedict never once spoke of prohibitions, the things that the Church is against. Instead, he spoke of the beautiful love of family life, which is the beginning of life for the whole human race. He was asked by the reporters why at the conference he was not speaking of those things the Church condemns, the evils she speaks out against? Pope Benedict responded by saying that he desired to put the conversation on, the wonderful riches of family life.

Pope Benedict back then was reminding us all that we have much to say in the wealth of our teachings about life and the family, and not just the negative restrictions-Pope Frances does the same. Actually, if we cannot understand the beauty of the life of the family—the domestic Church, which is called to be a school of love, then we cannot understand why the Universal Church is against certain things, certain things which actually destroy the family, as intended by God, and leads to a destruction of the abundant life that God wishes to bestow on all human persons.
So Today, on the threshold of the month dedicated to family and life, I’d like to again stress the wonderful good news of family life. Even though this message is often neglected in our world, today the Church wants to give us the good news of life—the Gospel of Life!

The first good news about life is that we have been created by Love, in Love, and for Love. In the beginning, Adam was created alone. This being alone did not only mean that Adam was alone without eve, but that the human being (both male and female) was alone amongst all the other creatures of the earth. The Human being was alone because he was different from the animals. Only the human being was made in God’s image and likeness, and so only the human being was and is given freedom. But what is this freedom of the human person?

It is the freedom to choose to the good and not the evil, the truth and not lies, life and not death, the freedom to choose to love and not hate, the freedom to offer oneself as a gift to the other—which is the fundamental truth about love. In this freedom, man is self-determining, in other words, he can choose to love or to sin, and by his free choice he actually creates or determines who he becomes and whether he will live a truly authentic human life in happiness, not only in heaven but beginning here on earth.

Here we discover that choice is what defines Man. To love is to freely choose our friend, to live for the other more than our self-to freely choose to give our self as a gift to our friend! This choice to love our friend begins with our relationship with God; Our Lord said in the Gospel of St. John- (15:15-16), “…I have called you friends, ...You did not choose me, I have chosen you.” I want here to emphasize the word choose or choice.

Each one of us through the grace of baptism has entered into friendship with the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. We are grafted into the Life and Love of the Most Holy Trinity, because this God, out of love, chose us while we were still sinners; as a result, the Blessed Trinity at our baptism actually began to live within us. For us humans then, the greatest act of freedom for us is not only to choose our friend-but to choose our highest friend, who is God. We choose him by giving Him the gift of our self, in and through all of the actions of our life, freely chosen. St. Pope John Paul II, stressed this over and over again in His teaching on family life. He never wanted us to relinquish our stance as pro-choice but understood in this correct way.

So, for us then, we Catholics are anything but anti-Choice. But we must use our choice correctly, because it is possible for us to chose wrongly, to chose things knowingly or unknowingly that actually destroy our freedom, happiness, and even our eternal life. We must always use our freedom of choice, to choose the truth in love. We must use our freedom to choose the path of life, not death; this is what pro-choice really means.

Choice is a word we as Catholics do not want to surrender to the modern culture, which chooses “self” over the other, which chooses death over life. It elevates selfish “choice” above everything else. And by doing this we are really elevating ourselves--the one who makes the choice, and putting ourselves as equals with God. Then we apart from God, begin deciding what is good and what is evil-true & false, what is a good choice and what is a bad choice. We then deny that we can make bad Choices, choices which on the surface appear good but which are bad because they go against reality, against God’s original design and purpose for life

We, as Catholics, want to tell the world that the choice for love is the greatest act of freedom for the human person. We are only truly free when we freely choose to love by choosing life. However, we destroy human freedom when we make bad choices such as to kill the unborn child, the mentally or physically disabled, the sick or elderly person. But I would argue, these bad choices can be the result of a misunderstanding of Human life at its very source, the sexual embrace.

The most visible human choice of love is that of a friend- to choose a lifelong spouse. The Church considers this choice of love between a man and woman, a Sacrament. The spouses promise to love, honor and obey each other freely for the rest of their lives, to freely give of themselves as a gift to each other, to lay down their lives for the sake of the other. They then carry out this oath before God and His Church by consummating it in a Sacramental marital embrace where the two literally become one flesh. In this act, God Himself wants to be present so much so, that in this act of love, a new, unique and unrepeatable life is conceived. The Church therefore, is not against sex, it is pro-sex; it has raised sex the level of the Sacred, to the level of a Sacrament. But just like anything sacred it must be used in a sacred way, that is in accordance with God’s design and God’s plan or otherwise it becomes profane, secular and dirty.

This choice of love within marriage is a covenant, which means it symbolizes the very love that Christ the bridegroom has for His bride the Church. This a love in which Christ offers Himself, His life, totally to each member of the Church. And just as mysteriously, married love somehow reflects the very love and union between the members of the Holy Trinity-Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who eternally give of themselves totally one to the other.
The married couple, of course, struggles to live out this love-it entails much self-sacrifice. The great fruit of this work however, is their children, conceived in the physical act, yes, but an act which expresses their intimate love for one another (but by the way does not cause it). The husband and wife welcome new life into the world as a blessing, not as a curse.

As a priest, I have had the privilege to observe families as they welcome a new life into this world. As they asked me to bless this new life, my heart was filled with joy at seeing the new mom and dad absolutely amazed at the miracle of their baby. All of their self-sacrifice, their self-denying, for love of one another, as born fruit in life-a new creation, made in God’s own image and likeness.

I have also seen this love in couples unable to have their own children. In the face of such suffering, these couples had a difficult choice to make. In reflection and prayer, they decide to follow the wisdom of the Church by adopting children. They decide they do not want to use their choice to conceive children in a way that goes against God’s beautiful plan for the sexual embrace; they refuse to allow misdirected science to replace a child conceived within the sacramental, loving, self-giving marital embrace of a man and women.
The adopting couple know that to go outside of this Marital embrace, even if done so with the best intentions, removes conceiving a child from the act of a free choice between the husband and wife expressed in the self-giving act of love where two become one flesh. They know, with the Church, that new life can never be separated from the gift of self-giving expressed in the marital sexual act.

The sorrow of not being able to have their own child gives way to the joy of true parenthood. The joy and love of taking a child, who might have had a lonely or abusive life, and bringing that child into their home is wonderful. I have seen these adopted children drink in, soak in the love of their parents, truly becoming a son or a daughter who realize their adopted parents as their real, true parents, all of them together becoming a true family.

I have also seen the great gift of love in long married grandparents, even in their last days that are filled with sickness and sorrow. I recall reading about a man who cared for his wife during her long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. This man cared for his wife at home with the help of some family and friends. Towards the end of her life, the poor wife even forgot who her husband of more than 60 years was. Yet, the man said that he loved his wife in her pitiable state even more than the day they married. She was still the apple of his eye, his beloved wife. She later died in his arms, gently falling into the sleep of death. What a beautiful testimony of the choice of love, the choice of life.

Today the Church recalls us to the greatness of the love of family life. How beautiful the love of the family is, how many riches it holds; that is, the family lived in imitation of the family of the Blessed Trinity, always choosing to love, always choosing to be open to life, the members always struggle with the help of God’s grace to offer themselves as gift to the other. Truly, authentic Christian family life gives life to the world!

The Church too, in celebrating life, wants to speak to the hearts of those who have used their choice wrongly, whether intentionally or unknowingly. For those who have made mistakes and failed in the choice for love and for life, the Mercy of God is available to you! God’s mercy is always greater than any of our sins, if we but only seek it through sincere repentance. The redemptive power of Christ, who came not to condemn but to give life, is available to all of us in the Sacrament of Confession. In the Sacrament, there is healing for your pain and sorrow… Behold, in Christ, all things are made new.

Beginning today, and throughout the coming month of October, let us pray, in a special way, that family life would be strengthened and sanctified. The bonds of love lived out in authentic choice have been attacked in our culture of death; it is a culture of anti-life; but we are not, we are pro-life and pro-choice, we stand for the beauty and life-giving love of the family, we stand for and defend love, and offer ourselves as gift for the life of every human Person, from conception to natural death. Let us turn to the Holy Family for help.

Let us pray: Jesus Mary and Joseph of mercy on our families. Jesus Mary and Joseph, heal our families. Jesus Mary and Joseph, save our families! Amen.