Posted on 06/24/2005 7:24:47 AM PDT by Salvation
Please take me off the ping list. I am not Catholic.
Thanks!
"If the northern abolitionists had only went for NO SLAVERY except for zambos and those of full African ancestry then slavery could have been ended in the 1840's."
PUH-LEEZE! Abortion, like slavery, is either a human rights issue or it isn't. Murdering innocent human children is either wrong or it isn't. The Right-To-Life effort in this country has always been supportive of any curtailment of legalized abortion no matter how small. You arm chair generals who claim to know that the secret of ending legalized abortion are as unknowledgeable about the pro-life movement as you are uncommitted to the cause. Thank you so much taking time our of your busy day to tell those of us who actually work toward ending abortion how you would do it if you actually cared about it.
And it is your mentality, though well meaning that will always have us losing the 750,000 a year we could save.
I agree with you religiously and ethically, but this country will NEVER abolish ALL abortion.
We could get none except for rape, incest and the life or death issues with mom.
Mind you, if you did that, you stop 98%, leaving the other 2% instead of 100% to fight for in a case by case basis.
Because we are developing a culture if death, IMO we are getting shootings, kids killing kids more and lots of other horrors. This is IMO very attached to the large amounts of easy abortions out there.
Should be no abortion except for rape, incest or the proven live or death issue with the mother.
The rest are all totally selfish abortions of conveniance.
If the parents had to lose ten years off their life if they abort the baby, if their butt was on the line like THAT, bet you'd see almost NO ABORTIONS. It is the most selfish act on earth.
PS, my relatives stirred up the civil war over the slavery issue and were quite involved in bringing slaves to freedom in the underground railroad, so feel free to post your stuff, but you are going to get 750,000 dead a year until you first save the 98% that you can with today's American voter. The 100% all at once isn't going to happen with today's voter.
National Right-To-Life has been trying to ban any category of abortion for three decades and it hasn't worked. Your proposal has been tried and has not resulted in your predicted outcome. Ergo, your assertion of questionable motivation is simply wrong.
I agree with you religiously and ethically, but this country will NEVER abolish ALL abortion.
Based on what you've said in this thread, I doubt you agree with me in either way or that your bleak prediction troubles you in the least.
We could get none except for rape, incest and the life or death issues with mom.
Again, we have tried that approach and it hasn't worked. Your weak attempt at blaming the good guys betrays your false position on this issue.
Kudos to all women who carry their babies to full term, and blessings on those who unselfishly give their children up for adoption.
Excellent advice!
Hope all FReepers are holding up well in this brutally hot weather.
I remember the vicious comments made against Catholics and conservative Protestants in the early days of the abortion debate--in the sixties even. I remember hearing, "Oh those Catholics, handing out fliers with pictures of aborted fetuses. Why do they keep pushing their views on everybody?"
Bump
Where does that graphic come from? Is it available on a T-shirt or something like that?
June 26, 2005
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Psalm: Sunday 29
Reading I
2 Kgs 4:8-11, 14-16a
One day Elisha came to Shunem,
where there was a woman of influence, who urged him to dine with her.
Afterward, whenever he passed by, he used to stop there to dine.
So she said to her husband, "I know that Elisha is a holy man of God.
Since he visits us often, let us arrange a little room on the roof
and furnish it for him with a bed, table, chair, and lamp,
so that when he comes to us he can stay there."
Sometime later Elisha arrived and stayed in the room overnight.
Later Elisha asked, "Can something be done for her?"
His servant Gehazi answered, "Yes!
She has no son, and her husband is getting on in years."
Elisha said, "Call her."
When the woman had been called and stood at the door,
Elisha promised, "This time next year
you will be fondling a baby son."
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 89:2-3, 16-17, 18-19
R. (2a) For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
The promises of the LORD I will sing forever,
through all generations my mouth shall proclaim your faithfulness.
For you have said, "My kindness is established forever;"
in heaven you have confirmed your faithfulness.
R. For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
Blessed the people who know the joyful shout;
in the light of your countenance, O LORD, they walk.
At your name they rejoice all the day,
and through your justice they are exalted.
R. For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
You are the splendor of their strength,
and by your favor our horn is exalted.
For to the LORD belongs our shield,
and the Holy One of Israel, our king.
R. For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
Reading II
Rom 6:3-4, 8-11
Brothers and sisters:
Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?
We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death,
so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father,
we too might live in newness of life.
If, then, we have died with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with him.
We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more;
death no longer has power over him.
As to his death, he died to sin once and for all;
as to his life, he lives for God.
Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin
and living for God in Christ Jesus.
Gospel
Mt 10:37-42
Jesus said to his apostles:
"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Whoever receives you receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet
will receive a prophet's reward,
and whoever receives a righteous man
because he is a righteous man
will receive a righteous man's reward.
And whoever gives only a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones to drink
because the little one is a disciple--
amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward."
Right click on the graphic, and read the "properties."
June 26, 2005 Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reading I (2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a) Reading II (Romans 6:3-4, 8-11)
Gospel (St. Matthew 10:37-42)
First and foremost, it means charity, a life of Christian charity. Charity is the opposite of selfishness. We live in a society that is purely focused on the self. To die with Christ is to die to self, and to rise with Him is to love God and to love neighbor – it is to be selfless. This means that we have to put the Lord first. He makes that very clear in the Gospel reading today: Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. If it were anybody other than God saying that, we would say, “How arrogant and selfish can you be?” Imagine if you were to look at anyone in your family and say, “If you love anyone more than you love me, than you’re not worthy of me.” It is purely selfish, except when we are dealing with God because God is love. Because He loves us perfectly, He desires that we would love Him in return. And when we love God, we lose nothing because God desires, of course, only what is the very best for us.
Therefore, if we are putting God first and we are loving Him more than anything and anyone, what will happen is we will be able to love everyone even more. We will be able to love them purely and perfectly. If you want to love your spouse or your children or your friends more, then love God more. It is just that simple. We have this weird idea: “If I want to love the people around me more, then what I really need to do is spend more time with them and somehow spend less time, therefore, in prayer.” It is just the opposite. What we need to do is spend more time in prayer and spend more time serving the people around us and spend way less time on ourselves. That is the key. The biggest problem in growth to holiness is self. Therefore, we get in our own way. We are our own worst enemy because we are all caught up in ourselves.
Now there are some people for whom it is easy to be fairly charitable. The Lord tells us in the Gospel reading, for instance, that anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet receives a prophet’s reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is righteous receives a righteous man’s reward. Well, how many of us know a prophet? How many of us know someone who is truly righteous? There are not very many, are there? But how many of us know a little one who is a disciple of Christ? We know many, many little ones who are disciples of Christ. How have we treated them? The Lord tells us that even the smallest act of charity, like giving them a cup of cold water, will not go without its reward.
We can see the way all of this works in the first reading. We have this Shunemite woman who receives the prophet Elisha into her home. Elisha would oftentimes stop by as he was traveling past that home, so the woman out of pure charity says to her husband, “Let’s fix a little spot for him up on the roof. We’ll put a bed and a table and a chair and a lamp up there for him, and then when he comes here he will have a place to stay.” It is a room just for him. In the little couple of verses that were taken out of the reading today, Elisha calls the woman and asks her, “What can I do for you?” She did not ask for anything. She was not looking for anything in return; it was purely out of charity that she did what she did for Elisha. So Elisha then calls his servant and says, “What can we do for her?” That is when Elisha is told that she does not have a son and her husband is getting along in years. Therefore, Elisha calls the woman and tells her, “This time next year you will have a son.” She did not do this for a reward, but the reward that God gave her was so far beyond anything she ever could have asked for.
So, too, for ourselves. We know that God is never going to be outdone in charity. His generosity is going to be hundreds of times greater than ours. But if we do something because we want a reward, the Lord reminds us that we have already received our reward. What God is looking for is true charity. Again, all we need to do is look at the One who is true charity itself – Our Lord. Just look at the Cross and ask yourself, “What did He get out of all this?” What He got out of it is us, not exactly something to write home about. However, it was purely out of love for us that He did it. He did not get anything for Himself. Having us does not make Him any happier than what He was. It does not make Him any greater than what He was. It does not add any perfection to Him that He did not already have. God gets nothing out of us. Yet He loves us so much that He was willing to become one of us and die for us. And then He tells us that anyone who is not willing to take up his cross and follow after the Lord is not worthy of the Lord. It is the same point: Anyone who is not willing to die to self, anyone who is not willing to give up the selfishness is not worthy of God.
Of course, we can see the immediate contradiction if we are looking for a reward: “I want to be able to see God. I want to go to heaven. I want the good life. I want to be with the Lord.” Those are all good things, but it’s all about me. “I, I, I, I … I want, I want, I want, I want…” Boy, if this wasn’t a Gospel written for Americans, I don’t know what is – and the Lord condemns it. We need to love God solely for the love of God, not for what we are going to get out of it. Remember, love is seeking the good of the other. God is love. God will always do what is the best for us. We do not need to worry about Him. He cannot do anything other than love, so we do not have to worry about what is coming from His side. We need to worry about what we are doing. Are we loving Him? To love is to be selfless. Are we loving God selflessly? Are we putting God first? That is the greatest commandment in the law, Jesus tells us, to love God with our whole heart and soul and strength and then to love our neighbor as ourselves. Are we doing that? Or are we at least striving to do that? That is what we have to be about.
Saint Paul tells us that in anything we do, whether we eat or drink or anything, to do it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving glory to God the Father through Him. Unfortunately, in our wayward society, if we do things out of love for God and we do everything in the Name of Jesus Christ, people will think that we are crazy. Praise God, because once again you know that you are not doing it in order to get people’s recognition or approval. You know they are going to think you are weird. If you are going to live your life for Christ, you are not going to get all kinds of rewards from worldly people. You will get kicked, but you are not going to get rewarded by them. So you know it is not done out of selfishness in that way.
Then we need to make sure that we are continually working to die more and more to self in order to live for Christ, in order to live in that newness of life. It is to die to sin. Every sin is an act of selfishness. Every last one is a selfish act. Therefore, we can simply examine our consciences and we can see how selfish we are by looking at our own sinfulness. A person who loves does not sin. Therefore, if we achieve perfection in this life, that is, if we love God and neighbor perfectly, there will be no more sin. When there is no more sin, then we are truly righteous.
Once again, we can ask ourselves: How many truly righteous people do any of us know? Probably none. How many prophets do we know? Probably none. So it is not a matter of seeking greatness by doing something kind for somebody who is great and thinking that we are going to get a reward for it. The Lord asks us to look to the little ones, to seek charity in the people around us. It starts within your own family: your spouse, your children, your parents, your brothers and sisters. Treat them with true charity. But charity flows only from our relationship with God. Therefore, it is first and foremost to put prayer as the priority, to make sure we are developing that unity with God, that relationship with Him, and that we are seeking to do His Will; which means we have to know His Will before we can do it, and that comes, once again, only in prayer. Then from that relationship with God flows the love for those around us. As we grow in that relationship with God and as we take up our cross, then more and more we die to self and we are conformed to Jesus Christ, which means that we rise to newness of life. We die to sin in order to live for God, and that is precisely what we are called to do.
It is not easy, but if we think about selfishness, it is not going to be easy to die to self because it is so deeply ingrained within us that it is not going to go away easily – even if we want it to. So we have to pray for it and we have to work at it and we have to recognize the necessity to die to self by loving God and loving neighbor. When we can do that, then we have truly risen to newness of life. We have died to sin so that we can live for Jesus Christ.
Would I have permission to put that graphic on a billboard?
"Jesus said to his apostles:
"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Whoever receives you receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet
will receive a prophet's reward,
and whoever receives a righteous man
because he is a righteous man
will receive a righteous man's reward.
And whoever gives only a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones to drink
because the little one is a disciple--
amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.""
Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Jesus said to his apostles: "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matt 10:37-39).
The second reading is from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans 6:3-4, 8-11. St. Paul stresses that we are buried with Christ in baptism. We die with him to sin. Then we rise with him to a new life.
The Gospel is from St. Matthew 10:37-42. In the first part, Christ tells his representatives, his delegates the Apostles, and those who succeed them, that they must be prepared to undergo great sacrifices, even death itself, if called on to do so for the sake of Christ. Even though they had only a very vague idea then of what he meant, when the time came, they remembered his words and gladly suffered imprisonment, hardships, and finally martyrdom for Christ. This shows how the resurrection of Christ, and the descent of the Holy Spirit on them, changed them from worldly weaklings into fearless heroes. They had become convinced that Christ was the Son of God who had come on earth to bring all men to heaven. They came to realize how transitory, and unimportant, the few years of the earthly life were when compared with the eternal life of bliss to follow.
It was not only the Apostles who gave their lives gladly for Christ. There are thousands of martyrs who, during the first three centuries of the Church, not only accepted but welcomed death for Christ's sake, because they were convinced that it was the door to eternal life, the only life that mattered. Nor did occasions for martyrdom cease when the Church was granted freedom by Constantine, the first convert Roman emperor. Here and there, down through the centuries, the followers of Christ have been persecuted because of their belief in him, and many of us can be proud that we have had among our ancestors men and women who died for the faith.
Today, too, there are still those who are suffering a lingering martyrdom, worse than quick death on the scaffold, because they obey God rather than man. We can help them to persevere, by our prayers. We ourselves, who are free from any overt persecution, must show our gratitude to God for being allowed to practice our religion openly and without fear, by doing just this. We must live according to the convictions of our Christian faith. We are here in this world for a few short years, our real and lasting home is in heaven. We must keep this thought uppermost in our minds, in all our doings and dealings.
As well as carrying out our own personal duties, we must remember the spiritual needs of our fellowmen. They, too, need to go to heaven and anything less will be eternal disaster for them. We may not be able to preach, or teach them the truth of the Christian faith, but we can and must help all those who are doing so.
Remember our Lord's words today. He who receives or gives hospitality and help to a prophet will have the reward of a prophet. He who helps those who are preaching and teaching the message of salvation, the good news of Christ, at home and abroad, will himself share in the reward of these preachers and teachers. When we get to heaven, one of the many pleasant surprises awaiting us will be the gratitude we will receive from saints we've helped to send to heaven, people we never knew or perhaps thought about. We helped those who thought about them and worked for their salvation, and we thus have a share in their reward.
Excerpted from The Sunday Readings by Fr. Kevin O'Sullivan, O.F.M.
Collect:
Father, you call your children to walk in the light of Christ. Free us from darkness and keep us in the radiance of your truth. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
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