Bulletin Article for Twenty-seventh Sunday in OT C

October is Respect Life Month; a time to join together as one Catholic Church to defend the dignity of all human life, from the time we are knit together in our mothers’ wombs until we take our final breaths, each moment of our lives is a gift from God. Each year the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops designates the first Sunday of October as the beginning of an annual Respect Life program. This year’s theme, Christ Our Hope: Every Season of Life, is particularly suited for our times.

Today the gift of life is threatened in countless ways. Those who are most vulnerable, rather than receiving the protection they deserve, are all too often seen as a burden and as expendable. As new attacks on human life continue to emerge, we can be tempted to despair, but Christ instead offers us unfailing HOPE.

Hope is not false optimism or empty positivity. Christian hope is something much more profound and goes to the very depths of our identity as followers of Christ.

Hope is the virtue “by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit” (CCC, 1817).

Like us, Christ entered the world through the womb of a woman. He willingly experienced the fullness of human suffering. He took his last breath on the Cross at Calvary in order to save us. Therefore, “God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the GOD who has a human face and who has loved us to the end” (Spe salvi 31).

The Church teaches us that “the one who has hope lives differently” (SS 2). Christ’s promise of salvation does not mean that we will be spared from suffering. Rather, the promise of salvation ensures that even in the darkest moments of our lives, we will be given the strength to persevere. By virtue of this Christian hope, we can face any challenge or trial. When the seas of life swell and we are battered by the waves, hope allows us to remain anchored in the heart of God. May we hold fast to Christ our hope, from the beginning of life to its very end.   

Respect for life as a sacred Gift from God is threatened in our world in many ways. One obvious threat to the sanctity of life in our society is the plague of abortions that erodes the foundations of our communities. Also, last week news reports revealed that the income inequality in the US is at its highest level in the 50 years that this statistic has been recorded by the Census Bureau. This gap between the rich and the poor is threatening to life. Studies show that the life expectancy of the poor is significantly less than those of the rich (by almost 25%). Poverty (and all topics associated with poverty such as health care, nutrition, education), poor mental health, addiction issues, mass shootings, street crime, neglect of the elderly, drug wars in the streets, gang violence, all these things along with the issue of abortion attack the very fibers of our society and are offenses to the sanctity of life. So, in this month of October, let us as a people of faith join with Catholics throughout our country to pray that in our land and throughout the world God’s Sacred Gift of Life be honored and respected from the moment of conception until natural death.