On April 24,
2007 Mexico City legalized abortion for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. That same day, as Catholics Gathered in the
Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, the Tilma of Juan Diego,
started to glow with an image of a fetus in Mary’s womb.
Our Lady of
Guadalupe is the Patroness of the Pro-Life movement because in 1531, it was the
first Church-approved Marian Apparition where our Blessed Mother appeared
pregnant (the black band around her waist signified pregnancy in the culture at
the time.
Approximately
70 MILLION children have been aborted in the United States. And relatedly, it is estimated that 100
MILLION more children have died through the use of the contraceptive pill,
which has as one of its mechanisms reducing a child’s chance of implanting on
the mother’s uteran lining.
Even the
United States Supreme Court has recognized the link between abortion and
contraception when, in 1992 in “Planned Parenthood v. Casey”: "in some
critical respects abortion is of the same character as the decision to use
contraception . . . . for two decades of
economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships
and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in
society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that
contraception should fail."
So as Catholics
we are leading the charge in a lot of ways against abortion and helping women
choose life, but we are not doing nearly as well supporting families who are
not using contraception, as no Catholic marriage should be. I was talking to one of my sisters at Thanksgiving
and she said an elderly lady sat down next to her in her pew right before Mass
started, and began grilling my sister about how her and her husband could
possibly their 4th child, my sister was grilled on their grocery
bills, electricity bills, and lots of other total boundary violations, but the
main point is that we, as Catholics, need to be SUPPORTING families who are
having children, not doing the horribly sinful things of DISCOURAGING
families from having more children.
So what are
we doing, as a parish, to support families who are having children? Let’s build and even better and more flourishing
culture of life at this parish, helping support families with children, and never
discourage a family. I will end with
this: St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said this: “Saying there are too many
children is like saying there are too many flowers”. Amen!
