Third Sunday in Ordinary Time C
It declared
that, on January 1, 1863,
“all
persons held as slaves…
shall
be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”
But
as we mark this historic anniversary,
we must also remember:
we must also remember:
things
didn’t change instantly for every slave.
The
nation was still in the midst of its Civil War.
Most
black men, women, and children
living in the Confederacy
living in the Confederacy
had
no idea there’d been any such proclamation;
they’d
remain in chains for some time to come.
President
Lincoln’s words were powerful,
and they held great promise,
and they held great promise,
but
they awaited fulfillment.
Some
would say his words
remain unfulfilled even today.
remain unfulfilled even today.
Our
Scripture readings this Sunday
have
a lot to say about the power of words.
In
the gospel,
we
find Jesus himself reading from the scroll of Isaiah:
words
announcing good news for the poor and liberty for captives,
sight
for the blind and freedom for the oppressed.
They
were words that had brought hope to generations of Jews,
enduring
one hardship after another;
they
were words aching to be realized.
Jesus
follows that reading with what is likely
the
shortest—and most compelling—homily in all of Christian history:
“Today
this Scripture passage in fulfilled in your hearing.”
(Sorry—I
won’t be quite that short this Sunday!)
It
may only be one line, but is says it all!
Jesus
is making the bold and history-altering claim
that
he is God’s eternal Word in Person:
not
handed on from a storyteller’s memory;
not
carved in stone or written on a page;
but
spelled out for us in human flesh and blood.
As
the Lord’s anointed, Christ hasn’t come
merely
to talk of freedom or to fight for freedom;
he is
Freedom itself.
Here’s
an emancipation proclamation
which
actually has the power to accomplish all that it promises!
In
these six weeks following
we
have heard many stirring words from our President.
I
have been particularly struck
by words he spoke at a prayer vigil
by words he spoke at a prayer vigil
only
two days after all those young lives were needlessly lost.
President Obama said:
President Obama said:
This is our first task—caring for our children…
If we don't get that right,
we don't get anything right.
That's how, as a society, we will be judged.
And by that measure,
can we truly say, as a nation,
that we are meeting our obligations?
(December 16, 2012)
Those
are strong words! And true words!
But
they’re words which, nonetheless, ring hollow for me
as
last Tuesday the United States
marked 40 years of legal abortion
marked 40 years of legal abortion
in
the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Roe
v. Wade.
They’re
words robbed of their force
because
they’re not backed up by the whole truth,
and
not followed up by comprehensive, meaningful action.
Nearly
20 years ago, Mother Teresa of Calcutta
was
invited to address political and religious leaders
at
the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C..
Her
courageous words that day caught many by surprise.
She said:
She said:
I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace
today
is abortion,
because it is a war against the child,
a direct killing of the innocent child…
And if we accept that a mother
can kill even her own child,
how can we tell other people
not to kill one another?…
Any country that accepts abortion
is not teaching its people to love,
but to use any violence to get what they want.
This is why the greatest destroyer
of love and peace is abortion.
Many people are very, very concerned
with the children of India,
with the children of Africa
where quite a few die of hunger, and so on.
Many people are also concerned
about all the violence
in this great country of the United States.
These concerns are very good.
But often these same people are not concerned
with the millions who are being killed
by the deliberate decision of their own mothers.
And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace
today—
abortion which brings people to such
blindness. (February 5, 1994)
Indeed,
how we care for our children—
all
of our children, who are the least of our brothers and sisters—
is
the measure by which we shall be judged.
For
we are all bound together by one web of life
as
members of the human family.
And
as Christians, united by the Spirit we have received in Baptism,
we
are more: we are members of one Body in Christ.
What
happens to one—even the child hidden and silent in the womb—
impacts
all the rest.
As
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once insightfully observed:
Whatever affects one directly, affects all
indirectly.
I can never be what I ought to be
until you are what you ought to be.
And you can never be what you ought to be
until I am what I ought to be…
And by believing this, by living out this fact,
we will be able to remain awake through a great
revolution. (1965)
Your
freedom and my freedom are tied up together!
And
so it falls to you and me
to
stand up and speak up as witnesses
to
the Good News proclaimed by Jesus Christ,
that
his words of power, his words of liberation,
might
accomplish their goal:
touching
and transforming the lives
of
Jew and Greek, slave and free—born and yet to be born.
Again—I
can’t help but hear words of President Obama
in
response to the Newtown shootings
in
a wider pro-life context.
He has asked:
He has asked:
Are we really prepared to say
that we're powerless in the face of such carnage,
that the politics are too hard?
Are we prepared to say that such violence
visited on our children year after year after year
is somehow the price of our freedom? (December 16, 2012)
Faced
with nearly 55 million children aborted since Roe v. Wade,
it
would appear that more and more Americans
are
now answering, “No!”
At
Friday’s annual March for Life,
hundreds
of thousands gathered in Washington, D.C.—
many
of them people of faith, and (as the media is beginning to notice)
the
majority of them young people,
including
seven teenagers from right here in our parishes.
Why
so many youth protesting a decision made back in 1973?
Because
those of us who are 40 and under
can’t
help but take this issue very personally.
We
could have been legally aborted;
we
could have been just another “choice.”
Must
one more generation grow up in this shadow of death?
As
Catholics, we are not—strictly speaking—a people of “the word.”
Indeed,
we show great reverence for the Bible.
But
our faith is drawn not only from the sacred Scriptures,
but
from the living Tradition of the Church
which
first collected and now interprets them.
And
our worship is centered not on the preaching of a sermon,
but
on the celebration of a Sacrament,
which
makes Christ really and truly present among us.
We’re
about promises fulfilled!
We’re
about truth embodied—truth taking flesh!
We’re
about words in action!
As
it is within the four walls of our churches,
so ought
it be for us Catholics out in the public square.
It is
for this that Christ lived and died and rose again:
that
we—all of us—might be today, henceforth, and forever free.
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