Pro-life
Preaching Hints
June 20- Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Zec 12:10-11; 13:1
Gal 3:26-29
Lk 9:18-24
“Whoever
would save his life will lose it…” The paradox of Christianity
is that life finds its most profound meaning precisely when it
is given away in love for God and others.
This is at the
core of the pro-life effort. We confront a culture in which many
think they find their own life by taking someone else’s. The
pregnant mother sometimes feels she has to choose between her
own life (not necessarily in a physical sense, but in a
psychological sense) and the life of her baby. But the Lord says
that those who seek to “save their life” will lose it. Rather,
we find our own life precisely by putting the other person’s
life first. To deny ourselves and take up our cross brings
us to the essence of life, which is to give and receive love.
The pro-life movement, in urging this dynamic, breaks down
false barriers, just as Paul indicates in the second reading.
“Neither slave nor free.” Jesus did the same, showing his love
for the outcast and those against whom society had mistakenly
set up barriers and false divisions. In the culture of life,
there are no false divisions. All are equal. There is no “slave
or free.” No person can enslave, own, or devalue another, or
declare that other to be a ‘non-person’ or beyond the protection
of law. We are here to set the slave free, to set the unborn
free, to proclaim all human beings as equals.
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