The month of October has been set aside in the Catholic Church for the respect of life for people from the time of conception to natural death. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have asked for a novena that began on October 13 and will end on October 21. During this time, we were asked to pray and attend Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament each day. While the novena ends after mass on October 21, it is good that we continue to do what we can to end this terrorism.
We get up in arms when we learn about terrorism around the world, but condone it when it is directed toward babies in the womb. There are many reasons why women have abortions, but underneath the euphemisms lies the truth. One prominent celebrity said it this way. “I could not have had the life I have had, if I had not gotten an abortion.” It seems that the major reason for the martyrdom of millions of innocent lives is simply put, convenience.
If you visit the museum showing holocaust victims in Washington D.C. , you will feels sick to your stomach at the way millions of Jewish people were martyred. If you reflect on the use of atomic bombs to end World War II, you react in horror. The murdering of Israelis by Hamas in recent days has shocked all of us. When we learned of human sacrifice by ancient cultures as children, were we not stunned? None of us immune to reacting with horror when the life of any of us is martyred. It is easy to justify these killings. Perhaps that is the only way we can live with them.
There is not much shock for us when a baby is aborted, just as we may feel relief when a dying person is given successive doses of morphine until they are dead. Why does this not horrify us? Is it because most killings are done in clinics and hospitals? Is it because we pretend it is for the health of the mother? Perhaps in some cases abortion is a way to avoid guilt and shame. Could it be just a way of avoiding financial hardship? Maybe the mother and family are just scared and need to end a nightmare. Maybe we don’t notice the horror of killing because the mother can abort in the safety of her home by prescription medication?
Any way you justify it, euthanasia and abortion and the death penalty are murder. Just because it is legal and has societal sanction, does not make it right. It has been said that the “Blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.” I would like to say that the blood of martyrs in the case of abortion and euthanasia is the seed of hopelessness, despair, depression, and all kinds of mental and physical illness. The martyrs cry out and none of us is innocent. However, some of us are forgiven.
“May the Lord bless and keep you. May he let his face shine upon you, be gracious to you and give you his peace.”