From Archbishop Donoghue

Mass for the Unborn
January 22, 1996
Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
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Dear Friends in Christ,

What we have just heard in today’s Gospel is in fact a sermon of our Lord concerning the Last Days. And if our true feelings are admitted, we can easily say that this story is indeed a sad story. Why do I say it is a sad story? Because, in it, our Lord teaches us something that is very hard for us to accept - something that we would rather not confront - something that we wish would just go away.

And it is this: that on the last day, the final judgement of every human person will take place and be visible to all - on one side will be the elect, those who have kept faith with God, and with His law - and on the other side will be those who have lost their faith, and whose eternity is too terrible to think about.

This is a very hard teaching - one of the hardest for believers of the Gospel to think about. We would rather be generous - we would rather hold out for the optimistic notion that at the end of time, all people will somehow be reconciled to God, and live in eternal happiness - and because of this inclination of ours to feel pity for those who are unfortunate, we find it easy to say, “Well, there may be a hell, but I don’t believe anyone goes there”

Simple enough to say, but I am afraid that this is taking the easy way out - a way that ignores the many times our Lord spoke, as He does today, about the division between the just and the condemned, between the saved and the lost - and in words that describe not just a possibility, but, in fact, a reality.

And I am also afraid, that we must accept this teaching, and admit, even though it may cause us pain, and even though it may go against our benevolent natures, that there are good people and there are bad people, and that as a result, both good and bad things are done, and that God holds both in the balance of His judgement.

To believe this, one must feel pain down deep inside - one must be as the ancient Hebrews who, when the law was read to them, wept aloud - not because they feared the law, but because they knew that the judgement of God would fall on those who rejected His law. To believe, and to be a good Christian, one must accept the knowledge that evil does exist, that people do get hurt because of it, and that, in some cases, when people surrender completely to evil, they become damaged beyond repair, and beyond the reach of any helping hand we might extend to them.

And though we may believe these things, it is unlikely that we will ever understand why some people are bad, and why they do bad things -

we will never understand, for example, why so many doctors are willing to murder so many children in the womb -

we will never understand why so many medical professionals will stand by, helping them to do this terrible thing -

and we will never understand why so many people - people who live right next door to us, people who work beside us in the office - are willing and eager to carry signs and to march publicly in favor of protecting judicial homicide.

We ask ourselves in amazement, how could anyone do all these things - how could anyone want to be identified with a culture that exists and seeks to make a profit because of the death of viable human persons?

As Christians, it is natural for us to experience these feelings of repulsion and indignation - but as Christians it is also necessary that we see our feelings in broader context - in the context of the battle fought before and against life - in the context of Christ’s life - for all human meaning must derive from Christ and from His teaching.

And so, just as we will never understand the cruelty of abortionists and their cohorts, it is equally true that we will never understand why Christ Himself suffered -

why it was necessary for Him to face the rebuke of an imperial judge, and the scorn of a howling mob -

or why it was necessary for Him to face being abandoned by all His friends, so that when the time of His condemnation came, He had but one friend nearby, and this one, Peter, refused, with a violent tongue, to even acknowledge that he knew the Lord -

or why our Lord had to stumble under the Cross, why He had to be nailed to the Cross, why He had to suffer cruelly and to die on the Cross - truly brothers and sisters, we will never understand why these things must have been so.

But it is exactly here, at the lowest point - the point where, in our own lifetime, we consider and confront the evil of abortionists and the death of millions of children - and at the lowest point in the history of mankind - the point where we stare into the face of the suffering, dying Christ - it is here, at the edge of our worst fears that the miraculous spark springs up, the spark we try to protect and to fan into the warmer flame of faith - the spark of the soul which is called hope and which is breathed into us by the Holy Spirit- the spark whose light is the only way out of our present suffering, the only way out of the suffering of all the past, and the only way out of fearing that the worst will happen to humankind.

And so, on occasions like this, where we gather to pray about the worst crime, the most evil sin of our time, the clinical murder of children - the Church, through the Gospel, teaches us to have hope in God, and to trust the everlasting might of His justice.

And so we do hope, and we entrust the souls of all the innocents whom we remember today, to the everlasting mercy of God, that they may know Him and enjoy eternal life with Him - and we build our hope on the action of Christ, who when faced with the inevitability of His own suffering and death, spoke the words of trust and hope - “Not my will, Father, but Thy will be done.”

But hope - though it may lift us, and give us the wings necessary to rise to the future - hope is never far from the suffering which gives it birth, nor the suffering which brings it to full maturity. St. Peter reminds us why, teaching that,

. . . it is better to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit.

So, my brothers and sisters, if we must suffer, and we see that we must if we are to be true followers of Jesus Christ, then let us suffer for the good. Let us cling to what we know is right, the Gospel of life, when so many around us opt for another way, the way of death - let us preserve our enthusiasm for the good cause, and act as witnesses of the Truth before our society, when so many others are willing to stay at home and never brave the public fight for the public’s good

And finally, let us look to Mary, the Mother of Jesus - the Woman of Revelation and of the Gospel, who defies the power of the dragon, who sweeps up her Son into her arms, and flees down into Egypt - the woman who, as our Holy Father has written, “helps the Church to realize that life is always at the centre of a great struggle between good and evil, between light and darkness.”

My brothers and sisters, today, as a sign of hope, we have gathered here in Mary’s house, to follow her example - by praising God, and by celebrating and protecting the love of Jesus Christ, as it existed unharmed, in His mother’s womb - as it existed flowing from His wounds on the Cross - and as it exists now, here, among the brethren, among the vigilant sons and daughters of the Lord. We know that things are very bad - but as the Gospel has taught us, and as the Holy Father has reminded us, this is a real struggle, a struggle with real pain as well as real gain - a struggle between the light and the darkness. Our hope today is our trust in God, whose victory will come in the end - for the end will be as the beginning, and from the Book of Life will again be read those words heard at the dawn of time:

And so it happened. God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good. Evening came, and morning followed. .

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