From Archbishop Donoghue

Mass for the Unborn
January 23, 1995
Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
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[See Georgia Bulletin account]

Dear Friends in Christ,

Today it is our privilege, along with millions of other good people across this land, to remember in our offerings and prayers, the souls of countless children, who have fallen before the greatest scourge of our times or any, the terrible crime of murder in the womb. And as we gather, it is not wrong or unnatural for us to feel to some degree the weariness of the fight we are waging - a fight which has now gone on for twenty-two years, since that day when the highest court of our land erred grievously in judgement, and declared that the helpless unborn child is not protected by the law of this land, and that if a mother decides or is persuaded to terminate the life of her unborn child, then hers is the right to do so.

But ours is not the first generation to meet and combat such a terrible crime - the words we heard in this morning's first reading were spoken by a priest and leader of the Jewish people, almost 200 years before the birth of Christ - they are words of hope, constructed by this priest, whose name was Mattathias, on his deathbed. Many had been the challenges he faced in protecting the covenant between his people and the mighty God, Yahweh. He had witnessed the introduction of pagan worship and culture into the holy city of Jerusalem, to such a degree, that eventually he was forced to leave that city with his family, and seek a place of safety - for in Jerusalem, those faithful to the covenant were being sought out and put to death on account of their beliefs. And so when the time came for him to die, Mattathias spoke those strong words to his children and his followers that we have heard - words which evoke the deeds of the great patriarchs of Israel, who faced tremendous and perilous challenges, but who remained true to the law of God, and who kept alive the promise of the Redeemer.

And just before Mattathias spoke his farewell, he also said this, as a preface to the words of hope which followed. He said: "Arrogance and scorn have now grown strong; it is a time of disaster and violent anger. Therefore. . . be zealous for the law and give your lives for the covenant of our fathers."

We who live in this year of our Lord 1995 cannot but agree that the words hold true now, even as they were true for Mattathias and for his people some two thousand years in the past. Arrogance and scorn have grown strong - we live in a country where people have decided that they can do whatever they think best, with no regard for the ancient laws and commandments of God, and with callous disdain for the lessons taught by history - and just as these premises are true and observable in the culture that surrounds us, so too is the inevitable conclusion - that this is a time of disaster and violent anger - the disaster which we observe in the breakdown of fundamental morality, and the violent anger which is most intensely felt in the thousands of clinical murders performed in this country every year.

And now, in recent months, we have seen a further dimension of violence added where no addition is needed - the violence of those who would oppose abortion by murdering the abortionists - the arrogance of those who would create for themselves the display of being a martyr for the cause, when in fact, they are no better in their souls than the murderers they seek to murder, having in their hearts, scorn for the law of God as it has been given us.

Truly, my friends, we live in an era that is insane with greed and expediency, an era that rejects derisively the wisdom of the ages, an era that weighs life in the balance with personal convenience, and decides that convenience is the better good.

Before these ominous perversities, then, it is not unnatural or wrong that we should feel some weariness, some exhaustion, some semblance of despair about the fight for right, or about whether we shall ever succeed in our quest. But though we night feel these things, we must, nevertheless, resist the temptation to succumb - for our faith tells us that God uses the weakness of men and women for His own purpose, and that one ounce of courage offered to God is stronger in the end than all the weight of evil which might press against that courage. What else could St. Paul be teaching us when he says:

God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise. . . God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong. . . God chose the lowly, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something.

And so we agree, and say, "Then let me be a fool for God, let me be weak for the sake of His strength, let me be nothing, that He might be everything."

My brothers and sisters, in a world which seems to have defeated God, and which murders its own children, we must not capitulate. Instead, we must take the higher road, a road which is concealed from those who have no heart, but a road which stretches out clearly before those of us who have God in our hearts. And though we protest, though we call upon the evil-doers to stop their terrible acts, though we lobby our government and harangue our errant neighbors, let us never stoop to violence in order to achieve our goal, but always bear in mind those binding, if mysterious words of Jesus Christ: "Love your enemies, do good to them, be merciful, just as your Father is merciful, for upon those who show mercy, shall mercy be shown."

Perhaps we lack the strength necessary to carry out these commandments perfectly, but here is where the mercy of God enters the play, here is where the mercy of God takes up the slack in our own weak courage, for the mercy of God is in the heart of Jesus Christ, and when we partake of the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, as we will today, the mercy of God also fills our hearts, and makes of us, something far greater than we are on our own.

Jesus Christ endured the consequences of His belief, even to the point of rejection and scorn - undergoing an agonizing death on the cross, giving His life for the covenant, because we - we - are worth the suffering. Today, we pray, that in His ineffable generosity, God will also accept the suffering of the millions of infants whom we remember, and through the merits of their suffering and the perfect suffering of Jesus Christ, will have mercy on this world, and bring it new healing, new peace, and everlasting love.

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