By the time the average child has finished elementary school, they have seen approximately 8,000 murders on TV. By the time they reach 18 they have seen approximately 30,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence on TV. That means that we are being told that life is cheap, killing is a normal part of our society. Saint John Paul II called it a culture of death.
In many assisted living homes for the elderly, where they are so well looked after materially, there is often terrible loneliness, because people are often abandoned by family. We need the love of other people because we have been created for love.
St. Teresa receives Nobel Peace Prize
In 1982 Mother Teresa, now Saint Teresa, received the Nobel Prize for Peace. She was also invited to speak at Harvard University and at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC. She primarily spoke about abortion. She said that abortion is the greatest threat to peace in our world.
“America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts—a child—as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters.”
“As long as mothers are prepared to kill their own children, how can we ask grown adults not to kill each other?” - Mother Teresa of Calcutta
In India, her sisters—The Missionaries of Charity—continually ask women not to have abortions, but to give up those children for adoption to so many couples who long to have a child, but are unable.
I saw a video of a young couple receiving a newborn baby for adoption. It was such an amazing sight. Everyone in the room was in tears for the joy of what was happening. That is what God wants for us, the joy of life.
As long as a child is seen as an inconvenience, it means that we are focused only on ourselves. But God is asking us to give of ourselves until it hurts. Jesus completely gave of himself for us, even to the point of death and we are called to imitate him. An unexpected pregnancy may turn a woman, or a couple’s plans on their head, but this is a sacrifice that God asks us to make. With love comes responsibility.
Couple seeing newly adopted child for the first time.
We believe that at the conception of each human being, an immortal soul is created by God and given to us, a soul that will be in God’s presence for all eternity. All of us have souls, given to us by God and that is the part of us that lives on for eternity. Remembering that can change our outlook on how we see a pregnancy. Every time a child is killed, the role that God had given them in this world, is taken away from them. When Andrea Bocelli the—world renowned tenor—was in the womb of his mother, she was advised to have an abortion because of complications. But she refused and now the world has that wonderful singer. How many other people of great talent and knowledge have been lost?
The other side of this is that many women, probably the majority, have abortions under severe pressure from boyfriends, or family. How do I know that? because so many women have told me this in confession. I have yet to meet any woman who didn’t regret it. Even several decades later many still carry that terrible pain, because we instinctively know that it is wrong. This could never come from God. Part of our work is also to help women heal from this. God is always the one to create life and the one to heal us.
If you were able to ask Jesus if an abortion was the right decision in any situation, what would He say to you? The answer is obvious. He would say, “never.” I have no doubt whatsoever, that it is the greatest evil in our world and the greatest sin against God. Satan wants to destroy God’s creation and what better place to start than at the very beginning of human life, because it is God’s creation.
Think of the words of the consecration at mass: ‘This is my body, which will be given up for you.’ The thinking behind abortion is the opposite of that: ‘This is my body and it will not be given up for you.’ That is how you know what is behind it is evil.
In Sep 2019, a group of pro-abortion activists tried to burn down the cathedral in Mexico city. Why attack a Catholic church? There are plenty of other groups that oppose abortion too. Doesn’t that tell you something? Satan rages against God and will continue to try and destroy everything that God creates.
Another part of it, which is largely overlooked, is that we must teach our young people that sex is only for marriage. If that was really lived, it would drastically reduce the amount of abortion. But that has been lost sight of and often seen as old fashioned. However, it’s not. It is called fornication and is a sin. But the problem we are up against is that in every kind of media, sleeping around is considered the norm. Yet God tells us that it is a sin and offensive to him.
It always goes back to listening to what God teaches us, which is always for our good.
We will continue to work hard for the preservation and dignity of life at all its stages. It is God’s greatest gift to us.
You have seen the various signs saying Vote No on 4th. This is about changing the 4th amendment of the constitution of Florida. If passed it essentially says that no law can be passed that will restrict abortion in any way. That would be the most extreme law in the country regarding abortion and the bishops are strongly encouraging us to vote against it. Since I was ordained 26 years ago, I have never seen the bishops take as strong a stance on anything as this. They have asked us to say the St. Michael prayer at the end of each mass especially to defeat this bill. As is often the case, the language of the amendment is misleading. Voting 'no' is voting against abortion and against this bill from being passed. We must protect life at all costs.
God is all about life. God keeps creating and God has made it possible for us to be part of that creating, which is a great privilege and a wonderful thing, but we must never let ourselves be complacent about it.
‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it.’ (Gen 1:28)
‘I have come that you may have life and have it to the full.’ (John 10:10)
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