Warm Greetings in the Risen Lord!
Sisters and Brothers, as you know, we have moved the Reverence for Life month to May. It is appropriate that we celebrate life in a special way in this month where life is bursting forth from the earth. We see it in the crops planted and sprouting, the leaves burgeoning forth on the trees, the spring flowers budding and opening in their simple splendour. It is also the month of Mary, Patroness of our Archdiocese and of our Cathedral, Holy Rosary.
When God in Christ embarked on the extraordinary journey of becoming human, he began, like each one of us, as a child in the womb of his mother. As I tell kids at confirmation, God has authored each one of us, personally, with the help of our parents; has moulded and fashioned us, breathed life into us. To be human is to be touched by God, created for life with God. All of that is deepened in an unfathomable wonderful way when God takes on human life. What it is to be human, bones, breath, growth, wonder, thinking, feeling, touching, loving, this is made holy in an altogether new way by God’s becoming who and what we are. Jesus’s Incarnation sanctified not only Mary’s womb, but the wombs of all mothers. In becoming one with us, the Lord made all human life holy and taught us again and again to recognize our dignity and our identity as beloved children of God.
It is this identity that he shows to us when we are tempted to believe we are not worthy of love. And it is this identity that he asks us to recognize in every human person, at any stage or condition of life, whose life and dignity is threatened. Life is the first gift. It is precious and holy. This is why is it essential for us, as followers of Jesus, to work to defend the right to life of all our brothers and sisters with courage and determination. A just society can only be built on the recognition of the dignity and right to life of every human person.
Today it can be easy to be discouraged on this front. But, as disciples of Jesus and as the Church, we also know that we are in this for the long haul. Be encouraged, then, brothers and sisters, because the Lord of life, who came into the world as a little child 2000 years ago, is with us still today and because no darkness can ultimately prevail over the light and truth of Jesus Christ.
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