28th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Valuing Human Life)

Our readings today speak of healing and restoration of life, and the response of gratitude and glory to God that follows. And it all fits in this Respect Life Month of October. When we think what pertains to the Respect Life movement, we tend to think about the issues themselves: abortion, capital punishment, assisted-suicide, euthanasia, and given our current realities, perhaps we could add the threat of the use of nuclear arms. But maybe it’s more correct to think of all that as merely effects of an over-arching problem: an insufficient regard for human life in general.

I’ve heard it said that it’s easy to see the value in people who are smart, popular, rich, powerful or people we know. Yet conversely, how easy it is for us to overlook the value in those who are weak, dependent, and vulnerable – like the elderly, the sick, and the dying, or any whose voice is never heard—especially one who has yet to be born, or who lives on the other side of the globe. Why? They aren’t members of our beloved sports teams, people we admire on TV, or titans of industry. In fact, some would say that the weak, the dependent, the vulnerable, and even the unborn, aren’t contributing to anything meaningful, but instead using up our valuable resources. But we know, that’s not what Jesus showed us.

It's this same Jesus, at work in this Mass, as our high priest, and the Mass is always a Respect Life event. In this momentary withdrawal from the world’s disregard for life, we participate in the life of heaven, with the angels and saints—with all the lowly, the forgotten, with all creation—in their perpetual song of adoration to the Father: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts”. Here, we receive the gift of life from God in the Eucharist. Here, Jesus gives over his own life, so that we might have abundant life. May it be our joy, our strength, and help us be fully alive and therefore life-giving.