Fourth Sunday in Lent – Laetare
In the midst of our Lenten austerities, Holy Mother Church invites us to rejoice. Laetare, laetitia, expresses an overflowing joy, one of victory. Indeed, we are on the threshold of the greatest of victories, that of Our Lord Jesus Christ over the powers of death and hell. One of the images Mother Church uses to impress this consolation upon us is that of the babe at its mother’s breast, being nourished with an abundance of milk. Just as a mother is equipped by nature to feed her babe, so Mother Church has all the consolation we find ourselves in need of. To Mother Church on earth, we belong; to Mother Church on high, we march. Today’s station is at Rome’s church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, and many of the texts sing of the house of the Lord. In today’s communion verse, we will sing of the glory of Jerusalem, built as a stronghold in the unity of God’s eternal family. We make our way towards her with the longing of children returning home after a long exile.
Last week, as you know, I was blessed to take part in the Day of the Unborn Child in Sydney. It included a procession of a few thousand people from St Mary’s Cathedral to Parliament House, praying the Rosary and singing hymns. In front of Parliament House, Cardinal Bychok gave a stirring address in defence of the innocent unborn. It was heartening to see so many people, led by no less than four Australian bishops and many priests, standing up for what is right. At the same time, no matter how loud we shout, those in power seem to pay no attention. I am reminded that at this time last year, France had just made abortion a constitutional right. On that occasion, I shared some reflections on the battle cry heard ad nauseam then and often repeated: My body, my choice. I again share some of those thoughts today, as they are more relevant than ever.
Like so many other slogans, “My body, my choice” has the ring of truth, and indeed, there are cases in which it is perfectly true. A few years ago, our governments were forcing people to receive experimental jabs that many of us refused. No one can force us to receive treatment that we, after due diligence, decline. It was a legitimate application of “My body, my choice.”
But that slogan has been twisted by Satan to mean something completely different. Remember how, on the first Sunday of Lent, we heard Satan use Holy Scripture to tempt our Lord? He quoted psalms to Christ to justify his attempt at getting Him to fall for his tricks. He is perfectly capable of using a bit of truth to get his way. Only he twists it, leaving other important realities out of the picture. He is the master of deception. Already in the Garden of Eden, he used the trick: look how nice the apple is! It’s good to eat! You won’t die! He cunningly makes us forget the big picture by focusing on the small picture.
In our context, the slogan is used to say: this is my body, and I can do with it what I want. What the enemy carefully avoids acknowledging is that our ancestors most often referred to a pregnant woman as a woman with child, and rightly so, because when a woman is pregnant, there is within her another person who, if he/she had the use of reason and could speak, would say that very same thing: my body, my choice. And so, the lie is used to promote death. The mother’s body is bigger, and she can speak, so she wins the day; might is right. Such is the sad ideology for which so many have fallen, in the process destroying not only innocent life but also the most noble thing on earth: the heart of a mother.
Let’s take this reflection further, as today’s Gospel on the multiplication of the loaves invites us. As all the Fathers of the Church acknowledge, the two multiplications of the loaves were a prefiguration of the most Blessed Sacrament. As Christ multiplies loaves, he multiplies His bodily presence for the faithful in the Eucharist. The same omnipotence is at play in each. Each Mass brings it before our eyes. Indeed, the continued living presence of Christ in our tabernacles reminds us of it throughout the day.
When Our Lord institutes the Holy Eucharist, do you remember what He says? This is my body, which is given for you (Luke 22:19). My body is for you. I give it up so that you may live. I give you my body so that you may choose life. I do not hoard it; I give it, I share it, and I lay it down for others.
When a man and a woman are united in holy matrimony, they make vows to each other, and those vows mean this: Here is my body; henceforth, it is yours; it is no longer mine. In the same way, when a man or a woman consecrates themselves to God through religious vows, they say to Our Lord: here is my body; it is for you; it is no longer mine.
Now, when a woman is with child, it is because she handed her body over to her husband, and that handing over has made possible the new life she has conceived. Her yes to her husband leads logically to her yes to her child. To both, she says: this is my body; it is for you; I have given up control because of my love for both of you.
Here, my dear friends, we can see in all its horror the cruel, inhumane slogan of my body, my choice, applied to a pregnant woman. It really means that when she lay with her husband, it was only about her. If her husband approves the murder of their baby, it only proves that when he lay with his wife, it was only about him. They were both telling a monumental lie, pretending to be about the other but really only about themselves. And we can add here that this is where we see what fornicators and adulterers and sodomites and self-abusers and porn addicts, and abortionists all have in common: It’s all about me. My horizon stops at my belly. I don’t care about anyone else, even if it means they must die. The terrifying conclusion is before us: the culture of self is the culture of death.
Researchers tell us that the two drugs that are in the highest demand among female students on college campuses are contraceptives and anti-depressants. When it’s all about the self, you do yourself in because we are not made for ourselves. Human beings do not find themselves until they give themselves. If you seek yourself, you lock yourself up in a dark prison in which you can only wither away in despair.
This spectacle of horror can give us reason to wonder what this Sunday is all about. The Church tells us to rejoice. Is it possible to rejoice with such a devastated landscape before our eyes? Yes, it is, for the good news is that the solution to this self-centredness has already been given, and we are privileged to take part in it each time we attend holy Mass or even come before the living presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. There, Jesus says to each of us: This is my body, and it is for you. My love for you is so great that even if you abuse me, I will continue to give my body for you. This attitude is so diametrically opposed to that of the baby killers, who sacrifice others for self. Jesus sacrifices self for others and thereby gives us the grace to do the same! To learn self-sacrifice, to give, not to take.
This is why both the act of religious profession and the sacrament of marriage conclude, are sealed, as it were, by the holy sacrifice of the Mass. This is why married couples need the Holy Eucharist: to be faithful to each other and their children. It is why religious need our Lord to be faithful to their vows and to their brothers and sisters.
In today’s epistle, St Paul speaks of the freedom wherewith Christ has made us free (Gal 4:31), and he goes on in the next chapter to say: make not liberty an occasion to the flesh, but by charity of the spirit serve one another (Gal 5:13). There you have it, my dear friends. Life in the spirit, in the Holy Spirit, is one that thinks of others and produces the supernatural fruits of charity, joy, peace, and the others, which St Paul enumerates at the end of the same chapter.
Let us not give in to the ambient sadness and despair. The Lord has not forgotten us. In the prophet Isaiah He tells us: Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? And if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee (Isaiah 49:15).
He has not forgotten us. Today, He invites us to run with renewed energy to His house: Rejoice, O Jerusalem, and come together all you that love her; rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of her consolation.
