Pro-life Preaching Hints

October 4 – 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Gn 2:18-24
Heb 2:9-11
Mk 10:2-16

The proclamation of the sanctity of life and the proclamation of the sanctity of marriage go hand in hand. God made both in his image. The “image” of God in the human being is fully reflected in the image of the total self-giving of human beings to one another in the common vocation of love. This is seen in marriage as well as in celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom. Those also who embrace the vocation of the single life are always called to give themselves away in loving service to the wider community. We are never called to live a life turned in on ourselves.

The love by which we reach out to the other is a love that gives life. Welcoming the spouse in marriage includes welcoming his/her fertility. Contraception is wrong because it compromises the totality of our self-giving to one another. “I will take only part of you, not all of you.”

Love leads to life. The longer form of today’s Gospel passage brings the theme of welcoming children into light right after the Lord’s teaching on faithful marriage. Faithfulness and Fruitfulness are two of the key characteristics of marriage. This forms the basis of the family, which is thereby the sanctuary of life. “There is no family without life; there is no life without family.”
 

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