Respect Life Sunday: "The vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel" (Is 5:7a)

St. Joseph Church (Cottleville)
27th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A
October 5, 2008 - 8:45 & 10:30 a.m.

Is 5:1-7
Ps 80
Phil 4:6-9
Mt 21:33-43

Today has been set aside by the Church as Respect Life Sunday, and there are any number of topics that would be good for our meditation this morning. We could reflect upon the sad reality of abortion-on-demand and the more than 45 million innocent lives that it has silenced over the last 35 years. At this time in our country, it would be especially appropriate to reflect upon our duty in a democratic nation to defend the sanctity of life by how we vote in national, state, and local elections. On these issues, I would refer you especially to Msgr. Callahan’s article in today’s bulletin and especially to the pastoral letter he references from the bishops of Kansas City. You will find there a very clear explanation of the Church’s teaching with regard to forming our consciences and exercising our duty to vote in accord with our conscience.

Indeed, it would be well and good to reflect upon these matters, but I want instead to take a step back and reflect more generally with you upon life itself. What do we mean when we use the word “life?” St. Irenaeus, a father of the Church, said that “the glory of God is man fully alive.” What does it mean for a human person to be fully alive?

On a natural level, it is clear that there can be no life without a man and a woman, a father and a mother. Life comes about as the fruit of their physical intimacy, and they share the responsibility for nourishing the life of their children as they grow and mature. I would like to suggest that this very basic understanding of human life is ultimately a kind of parable, a sign of something greater. By looking to human fathers and mothers, we learn something deeper about life. Each of us lives not only on the natural plane but also on the supernatural plane. We have natural life from our fathers and mothers, but they cannot in themselves give us supernatural life. They have a great responsibility to help us to come to receive supernatural life, but it is not something they can give in themselves.

To receive supernatural life, which means nothing other than communion with God, we must have God and God alone as our Father. Christ became man to reveal this to us, that God is truly our Father, our loving, caring Father, who wants to pour His life into our hearts. He wants us to live in communion with Him and to receive from Him everything for which our souls long. But then the question remains: if our natural parents are signs for us of what is also true on the supernatural level, and if, on the supernatural level, we have God as our Father, who is our mother? After all, we believe in one God. There cannot be a God who is our Father and a goddess who is our mother.

It didn’t take long after the death of Christ for Christians to figure out the answer to this question. St. Cyprian of Carthage lived from 190-258 A.D. Two centuries after the life of Christ, he wrote these words in his “Treatise on Unity”: “He cannot have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.” It is in union with Mother Church that God our Father pours His divine life into our souls. In her we find the source of grace opened for us above all in the sacraments. Just as we are born from the womb of our mother, so the Church gives birth to supernatural life in us when we are born from her womb, the font of Baptism. Just as our earthly mother nourishes us with physical sustenance, so the Church nourishes us with the spiritual sustenance of the Eucharist. Just as our natural mother forgives us when we rebel against her, so does the Church give us pardon in the Sacrament of Penance.

It is this life, supernatural life, that St. Paul is talking about in his letter to the Philippians. God’s life, poured out into our souls, is what is most true, most honorable, most just. It is pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, worthy of praise. It is this above all that we are called to think about. This is what should give meaning to our lives. This is what should shape every word we speak, every decision we make, every action we do. This is precisely why the Church tirelessly fights for the right to natural life, why she fights against abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia. As St. Thomas put it, grace perfects nature, the supernatural is built upon the natural. The Church wants to give to every human person the supernatural life of God our Father, but to do so, the right to natural life must first be preserved. That is the foundation for the supernatural life. The Church wants the unborn to be born and the lives of the elderly to be preserved so that she can give them the greatest gift of all, God’s very own life.

This life only comes to us in its fullness when we willingly make ourselves children of the Church, our mother. So often, when our mother the Church speaks to us, as we believe she does through the Pope and the bishops throughout the world, we listen to her with adolescent ears. We hear her like a rebellious teenager whose doesn’t understand the love that lies behind what his mother tells him. The Church speaks to us, and all we hear is “no!” Mother Church says, “The unborn child deserves to live,” and we hear, “No – a woman does not have the right to choose.” Mother Church says, “A human embryo is a life and not material for medical research,” and we hear, “No – you may not look for a cure for your debilitating disease.” Mother Church says, “When you go to the polls, choose life,” and we hear, “No – you may not vote for so-and-so.” Our mother, the Church, loves us with the love of God. She wants only what is good for us and for our society and world.

But we struggle to see the Church as a gift of God to the world. We struggle to put aside our own wants and our own opinions in order to receive life and truth from our loving mother. And yet, as St. Cyprian told us, if we refuse to take the Church as our mother, we cannot have God as our Father, for He has chosen to unite Himself to the Church and through her to pour out His abundant life upon the world. The Church is the vineyard of today’s readings into which we must be planted in order to see fruit borne into our own lives and into our world.

Let us now turn our hearts toward this holy altar, upon which the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary will again become present. From this sacrifice comes every good and perfect gift. Let us beg our Lord today for the grace to love our mother, the Church, more perfectly, to let go of whatever lies we cling to and to allow ourselves to be embraced by the arms of the Church. Let us open ourselves today to receive from her in Holy Commuion Him Who is Life Himself – our Lord Jesus Christ. Then, in union with Him, will we have the courage to foster in our society a respect for the sanctity and dignity of every human life.