“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” (Hebrews 3:15)
Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who even before he was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world’s rejection. And every elderly person…even if he is ill or at the end of his days bears the face of Christ. They cannot be discarded, as the ‘culture of waste’ suggests!–Pope Francis
We live in a world that is not for those who fear pain and suffering. Though many of us do in fact run from this reality; it will come to us all. It is part of every stage of life, though I believe that the very young and the very old suffer much from powerlessness and being at the mercy of others. Each year I experience this growing in myself. Health issues, not being able to do the jobs that when young were easy, are now a challenge and may even be dangerous. So I have to step back and let younger and stronger men do what needs to be done. Like fixing a flat tire, I can’t do that anymore. So I have to learn to let go, I guess this is suffering, but the intensity of it depends on how hard I fight it.
From working in the Infirmary here in the community I saw that first hand. Now as I age I am slowly starting to experience what so many of my charges went through…most gracefully, a few not so much. I don’t mind really, since it is just as much a part of life, as growing in strength and ability to ‘do’, is part of being young.
Today the ‘unborn’ have no right to life and many believe that the mother has the choice to cut short the life in her womb; in fact it is of course legal to do so. In the future I believe our descendants will look back in horror on how we treated the life in the womb as well as our elderly Of course the real shame will be in how we allow greed to take over one’s reason for living and how that shaped our values and life’s choices as well as cultural ones.
Another scandal for those in the future will be the crisis in the family, where so many men seem to think that sex is a simple sport, fun, with no consequences or sense of responsibility. Women are left alone, and many are very young and do not have the means to support their child. Then families may turn on their ‘disgraced’ daughter and force her to get an abortion. Many such parents are Christians who are afraid of the scorn they will be visited on them from their church. So in some instances, Christian’s may be part of the fuel that keeps abortion going.
Of course, I may be naive in believing that there will be such a culture, where life is respected to the extent that all will be treated with the dignity that they deserve as human beings no matter their stage of life. It has never happened in the past, so why would it happen in the future.
When there is tragedy, and abortion is a true tragedy, the reasons for the abortion can have many influences that lead to that choice. A law will not stop abortion; it is a symptom of something much deeper and destructive. A law will only create a whole new class of criminals….is that really a solution? I think about prohibition, the law only made it more lucrative for the criminals.
In the very young and the very old we do see the face of Christ Jesus, who became flesh and took upon himself our death and suffering and in doing that has allowed the gates of mercy to open on all. Yet if Christians don’t show mercy and love, how can change happen? I doubt we can point to any one source for our problems today, but I believe we all play a role in it. How you may ask. By not living out what we say we believe. If we are pro-life, do we show that in how we treat others? Many do, others try and fail, yet get up and continue, and then apathy is also very strong.
To pray, love, help and speak truth in a manner that will not make things worse is what we are called to do. We do not see into the hearts of anyone. In fact, I can barely understand my own heart. I am not better than anyone, for I do not know how I would react under certain circumstance. However while there is still today, we can all begin again. A new beginning because of mercy and that mercy is passed on to others. When we understand the Love that Christ Jesus has for us and the mercy we have received, how can we not pass it on to others. For mercy is freely given for those who ask, so just as we received freely, so we must pass it on, for to harden ones heart is easy, to keep a fleshy human heart touched deeply by Christ Jesus is a death to old ways of being and not easy at all, but is a choice that comes from deep within, its roots watered by the Blood of Christ and the Fire of the Holy Spirit.
Br. Mark Dohle, OCSO
Holy Spirit Monastery
