Third Sunday in Lent
Today in Sydney, hundreds if not thousands of people will gather at Parliament House in defence of unborn life. They will give a voice to those who have no voice. They will speak out by their mere presence in favour of the victims of the gravest form of injustice the world has ever known: grown people with university degrees wearing suits and ties agreeing together that it’s perfectly fine and legal to murder a baby on the sole condition that it has not yet been born. Our Blessed Lord tells us that at the Final Judgment, He will say to those on His left: What you failed to do for the least of these little ones, you failed to do to me (Mt 25). And for that failure, they will be sent to burn forever in eternal fire. Our salvation depends on our capacity to open up to the needs of others.
If we wonder why the Lord will have this attitude at the judgment, it’s very simple: He expects us to be like Him. We did not even exist, and He stooped down to give us the foundation of every right: existence. We had lost Him through sin, and yet He not only sent legions of prophets to call us back, but He came Himself and died for us so that we could benefit once again from His love. He left the ninety-nine in the desert and went looking for you and me. That is the way God is, and God expects us to be like Him. If we do not have the wits to understand that and the will to accept that, then, to use a colloquial expression, we are a write-off.
Jesus came into our world and multiplied to excess the proofs of His divinity. He makes clear to us in today’s Gospel that since He performs His miracles with the Finger of God, then the Kingdom of God is come upon us. It matters not what we think about that; what matters is what is. The Natural Law itself moves us to have compassion on the weak, but to make sure that we get the message, the Author of the Natural Law came and told us that we must be concerned about the plight of the weak, the little, and especially the defenceless.
The Miracle of the Newborn Child – Titian
The newborn babe defending his mother against an accusation of adultery, a miracle of St Anthony of Padua.
All this urges us to consider our responsibility in the fact that across this country, an unborn child has no protection under the law. Nature has given to the heart of a mother an intense love for her offspring, even before birth. Nature has also given a father an intense focus on protecting the unborn life in his wife’s womb. But when that natural love fails due to the ambient perversity of a self-centred society and fails to acknowledge the Natural Law written in our hearts, the law of the State must provide for the defence of those who have none. That is why it is already a grave situation when a country has no laws proscribing abortion. It is much worse when it positively allows it and far more serious when it bans efforts on behalf of citizens to prevent the murder of innocents, even by peaceful means such as sidewalk counselling and public prayer for those whose whole lives are threatened. Such forms of prosecution are utterly despicable and, one day, let us hope, will be acknowledged for what they are: crimes against the innocent unborn. No one wants to kill doctors who perform abortions – that would be absurd and defeat the purpose. But when a government has so left the realm of reason and common sense that it wants to, even by force, not only prevent God-fearing citizens from siding with the defenceless but even force God-fearing doctors and nurses to become murderers themselves, thus killing not only babies but also consciences, then we have a case of depravity so grave and so far removed from all that is human, that one can only feel just outrage.
Nor does any amount of discourse about women’s rights come into the question. Of course, women have rights, but when a woman is pregnant, we do not just have a woman; we have two persons endowed with rights that, for the time being, cohabit in the same space. They both have an inalienable right to life. Their other rights, however, such as the right to have an easier life, the right to have more money, the right not to be tired, or the right to do as they please, etc., cannot be weighed against the right to life of the other. Every state in the world has a grave duty to protect that right and punish those who do not respect it.
For most of us, the laws that allow the murder of the unborn were passed well before we had any say in the matter, and we have found ourselves before the fait accompli for decades. That does not change the reality, which is that we must do what we can, here and now, to help those in danger. Let each of us examine our conscience and ask ourselves what God is asking us to do for these legions of innocents, for whose blood our societies will one day be required to give an account.
In today’s Gospel, our Lord casts out a demon who is mute, that is to say, a demon who caused the man he was possessing to lose the faculty to speak. Of course, some people cannot speak due to natural causes. But some diseases are caused directly by the devil. There is also such a thing as spiritual dumbness, that is to say, the failure to speak the truth, the failure to open one’s mouth to praise God and defend His rights and His law. So many today are mute when they should speak. The prophet Isaiah has some harsh words about the dumb dogs: His watchmen are all blind, they are all ignorant: dumb dogs not able to bark, seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams (Is 56:10).
The question is: are we one of those dumb dogs who are too scared to speak our minds, especially when someone else’s life is at stake? Are we more attached to people’s opinions of us than to the welfare of others? If we are, then we must be on our guard. We might very well be like the soul our Lord mentions in today’s Gospel, who has been delivered from the devil. The house has been swept and adorned, but the door is unlocked, even open, and in a pinch, the enemy can return, bringing seven other spirits, even worse than himself. And the last state of that soul is far worse than the first.
He who is not with me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters (Lk 11:23). If we are not truly with the Lord, that is to say, resolutely intent on living our life for and with Him at any cost, if we hesitate as to whether or not we want to live our lives for Him, then we are de facto living our lives against Him. And if we live that way, we cannot expect to have any interior unity and peace. On the contrary, we are scattered abroad, to the four winds, and the devil plays with us like a cat plays with a mouse before devouring it. You can be sure that the enemy cares not for our peace. As Our Lord says in the parable of the Good Shepherd, The thief cometh not, but to steal and to kill and to destroy (Jn 10:10). The Lord comes that we may have life and have it in abundance (Jn 10:10). But for that to happen, we must listen attentively to His word and keep it in our hearts, as we are told at the end of today’s Gospel.
Blessed is the womb that bore thee and the paps that gave thee suck (Lk 11:27). Mother Mary, whose Annunciation is just two days away, is our advocate. No mother ever loved her unborn child as much as Our Lady loved Our Lord. She alone has the answer to this tragic state of affairs we find ourselves in. If we ask her perseveringly and with the resolve to do whatever she tells us regardless of what it may cost us personally, we can hope that one day, the unborn children, not only in Australia but all around the world, will no longer fear the knife of the murderer in the dark, but await with joy the light of day and the sanctifying waters of Baptism. So let it be.
