The Gospel of Life

Last week, during my homily at our school Mass, I asked the children a classic question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” There was no shortage of hands that shot up to answer. I got some interesting responses: a firefighter, an artist, a doctor. After the Mass, as the children left the sanctuary, I greeted them as I normally do, and a few more told me what they dream to be one day: a professional soccer player, a pilot, a beautician. One child even told me they wanted to be a Youtuber, though I’m not exactly sure what that is.

My point in asking them was to make it clear that while there are countless careers out there, as Christians we are all called to do the same thing: to love as Jesus loves. Whatever job or occupation we strive for, however we spend our time, as children or as adults, we are first called to love with the heart of Christ. I hope that’s what our school imparts to our kids each day – the knowledge and the example of how to love like Jesus.

As we know, we have a limited time on this earth. Psalm 90 says, “Our span is seventy years, or eighty for those who are strong.” Modern medicine and nutrition sometimes provide us with more than that, but the question remains of how we will use the limited days we have. While it is natural to have various dreams and aspirations, like our school children do, we also must ask ourselves, “What does God desire for my life? For what purpose has he placed me on this earth?”

Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov, The Apperance of Christ to the People (1857)

In today’s Gospel, John the Baptist describes the purpose for which Jesus Christ has come into the world. He points it out very directly and succinctly, but in language we may not be familiar with. He says, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” In speaking of Jesus, John used a metaphor that every first century Jew would have understood: just as the Jewish priest sacrificed a lamb in the Temple in Jerusalem twice a day as an offering for sin, so too would Jesus allow himself to be sacrificed to take away the sin of all the world. In other words, unlike every other person, who is born to live and make something of their life, Jesus has instead come to die, and by his death give life to all the world.

It is for this reason that as Catholics we believe every human life is sacred. All persons, no matter how seemingly marginalized or insignificant, are created in God’s image and likeness and it is for all persons that Jesus suffered, died, and rose again. Because God has done this for us, individually and collectively, we say that every life has an inherent dignity that no human power can take away and an invaluable worth which every human power must respect.

Sadly, as we know, our world and our culture has lost sight of this truth; in fact, it seems as if the dignity and value of life are under threat at every turn. This week we mark another sad anniversary of the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision. Each year, on this Sunday in January, as the Church we speak out with one voice that we will continue to proclaim the “Gospel of Life,” even when – perhaps especially when – it is not popular to do so. We decry the calamity of abortion, and the victims it claims: the lives of those who are never given a chance to be what God created them to be; the mothers who sadly feel as if they have no other option; those in the medical industry who are deluded in thinking that abortion is health care. We protest against the death penalty, because too often our justice system has been guilty of injustices, and because even for the guilty life remains sacred. We reject the increasing encroachment of euthanasia among the elderly and infirm, whose lives are not less but often more dignified because of their disability and suffering.

These issues may be the most obvious and pressing, but there are other aspects as well to the Gospel of Life. How many lives are weighed down by addiction and despair? How many are oppressed by unjust policies for migrants and refugees, unreasonable debt obligations, and unfair labor practices? How many are forfeited in service to war profiteering and escalations in the military-industrial complex? How many are burdened by poverty, homelessness, and no access to mental health care? How many are trapped in cycles of abuse, domestic violence, and sexual exploitation? How many are wasted by chasing fame, power, wealth, unable to envision a horizon for human flourishing beyond worldly pursuits?

We could go on and on. Some of these issues perhaps resonate with us strongly, and perhaps others rub us the wrong way a little bit. That’s alright. What’s important is to appreciate just how expansive our desire should be to promote and value life in all of its forms. As I said, the Church preaches the Gospel of Life in season and out of season, not as a political platform but as a moral vision that flows from our faith. As Catholics, you and I have the responsibility to listen to what our Church teaches on these issues and to be formed by that teaching in our understanding of them. The world needs to hear this Gospel, this “Good News,” again and again, and it must be our charge, our sacred duty to affirm life as the God-given gift that it is. When we do so, we continue the legacy of John the Baptist – we too announce to the world that Jesus, the Lamb of God, has come to give life to all.

Photo Credit: Alessandra Tarantino, Associated Press

Friends, as I told our school children, no matter what we do in life, we are all called to love as Jesus loves and to fulfill the purpose for which God has given each of us life. We also must tell others about the sanctity of every human life, so that every person can be afforded the chance to strive for the God-given purpose for which they have been created. Jesus, the Lamb of God, has come to give us the fullness of life, for he is the Author of Life itself, and it is only in him that we find true and lasting happiness. May we, as individuals and as the Church, continue to speak as one in promoting and protecting the sanctity of all human life.