Beloved Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

Every January 22, the Catholic Church remembers the gift of life from conception through natural death. It is called the Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children and on this day, we pray that God forgive our communal participation through the ages of the Supreme Court of the United States decisions of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decriminalizing abortion in 1973. We pray for one another as we struggle to make sense out of our belief in life and our lack of courage to speak against the culture of death. We pray for those who suffer because of an abortion and ask that they be healed with God’s everlasting peace. We pray for ourselves that we grasp how God asks us to bring life to light through the Gospel.

Some will say that these times are the worst of times; however, in every generation, these words have been spoken. The worst of times comes about because we turn away from God; our desire for ‘things of the flesh’ overcome our desire for God. Most people will not experience a killing personally, or the murder of a person by another’s hand. Yet, in many ways, we choose to participate in these acts of sinfulness, when we deny the dignity and sacredness of any one person. “The fruit of justice is a tree of life, and one who takes lives is a sage” (Proverbs 11:30).

The meaning of this is that divine judgment is exercised on all human action, even the best. It is a reminder that each one is to lovingly care for one another as God cares for each one.

Evangelium Vitae, The Gospel of Life, was written more than thirty years ago to all the people, clergy, religious and lay faithful, and speaks to the value and inviolability of human life. It begins with “The Gospel of life is at the heart of Jesus’ message. Lovingly received day after day by the Church, it is to be preached with dauntless fidelity as “good news” to the people of every age and culture” (EV 1).

We first understand the holiness of life as we acknowledge the Gift of Jesus born to our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph through the breath of the Holy Spirit. God is given to us, to live with us. Jesus presents the heart of His redemptive mission as he explains, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10). In this “new” and “eternal” life all the aspects and stages of human life achieve their full significance. We are then called to a fullness of life which far exceeds the dimensions of our earthly living, because each one of us shares in the very life of God. How beautiful is this matchless love!

Through, with and in all time, through all ages, we bequeath this gift of life to one another by offering ourselves as the face of Jesus; for by doing so this gift marvelously fulfils all the heart’s expectations while infinitely surpasses them (EV 2). The sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end is affirmed by God’s gift of life, and we receive the grace of this life through the Sacraments, continually being nourished by Jesus the Eucharist.

The document echoes the courageous and clear Church teaching spoken in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 27; “Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator”.

None of us, if asked, would admit to dishonor God! On this day of prayer, let us also pray that we respond well to each gift of life, cherishing one another, as God cherishes us, His beloved. Let us affirm the sacredness of everyone whom we encounter, that the bond of heaven sweeps away the darkness of earth with God’s everlasting light.