“My Soul Proclaims the Greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”

This past Sunday I did a Holy Hour for the Holy Name Society at Holy Rosary Church in the Bronx, New York. Following is the homily I gave that I wanted to share with you.

During this month of October Holy Mother Church commemorates the patronal feast of this beautiful parish: the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. Holy Mother Church also commemorates October as Respect Life Month.

The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, celebrated on October 7^th of each year, was instituted by Pope Pius V, originally known as Our Lady of Victory, but later changed to Our Lady of the Rosary by Pope Gregory XIII.

Our Lady is someone who was always open to doing the Holy Will of God. She can be best described as an active contemplative, always meditating on scripture and how it applied to her life. She was so open to scripture that when the Angel Gabriel approached her to be the mother of the Messiah, after some careful thought on the explanation the angel gave her as to what this means, she said “yes” and as a result changed the course of human history by being the mother of the savior: Jesus Christ. By her “yes” she was able to bring Christ into the world. She would then go visit her elderly cousin, Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist, and bring her comfort and help in her time of need.

Elizabeth and the child in her womb, John the Baptist, were the first to realize that the child that Mary was carrying was someone special. Elizabeth said to Mary, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” (Luke1:41-45) Mary’s response was, “My soul proclaims the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

Mary carrying Jesus in her womb and Elizabeth carrying John the Baptist in her womb are two examples of the sanctity of life from conception. In other parts of scripture, we hear of the fact that life in the womb from conception should be respected and protected. In Psalm 139 verse 13 we read “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” What beautiful words acknowledging that life begins at conception!

Yet we live in a society where the child’s life before birth is not respected. Instead we hear of the mother’s right to choose what to do with her body, forgetting that there’s another body in her starting from conception. Further, since the legalization of abortion through Roe v. Wade, we have seen our society become more violent.

St. Theresa of Calcutta once said, “I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.”

How do we, as Catholics, bring about a greater understanding of respect for life from conception to natural death? First, we start with how we live as Catholics! We are called to love God with our whole mind, heart, and body, and to love our neighbor as our self. By loving God and loving our neighbor, we are showing respect for life in each person we meet. We are recognizing that everyone we meet is made in the image of God.

Next, we can show respect for life from conception to natural death. One way is that we can get involved with the pro-life movement through the Sisters of Life here in New York. They have plenty of opportunities for us to help women in crisis pregnancies. There are those women who turn to abortion because they feel they are caught in a situation where they have no other alternative. But the Sisters of Life are there to help the mothers make a choice for life, and to help them in that most difficult time in their lives. If we can’t volunteer, we can show financial support to the Sisters of Life who are carrying out this great work. There’s also an opportunity of praying outside of an abortion clinic with those who are there to pray for the mothers entering these clinics, ready to do something they will regret for the rest of their lives. By being present and praying for the mothers and for their children, you can save a life.

In January of each year there’s the Right to Life March in Washington, D.C. If you’re able, try to join this march to help send the message out that the killing of an innocent baby in its mother’s womb is wrong and needs to come to an end.

Being pro-life is also loving those who are at the end of their lives living alone in nursing homes, that have no one to visit them. These are lonely people who spent their lives taking care of their families, but find themselves living alone, being ignored by family and friends. By arranging to visit those in nursing homes that have no one to visit them is being pro-life. This way, we can respect the life of those who are near the end of their lives here in this world. As Mary visited her elderly cousin, Elizabeth, in her time of need, we should also visit those who are near the end of their lives to comfort and love them as well.

Get involved in whatever way you can, whether it’s through the pro-life movement or by spending time with a lonely elderly person in a nursing home. Then you can say, like Mary, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.”

What About the Other 9?

Today we have a guest blogger, Arlene Muller. Arlene B. Muller, OSF, is a Professed Secular Franciscan, lector & Extraordinary Minister at St. Pancras Church, Member of St. Margaret's Choir, and Itinerant Speech/language Therapist.

The scripture readings for today's blog can be found at http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/101319.cfm

Whenever I read or listen to today's Gospel account of JESUS healing the 10 lepers, only one returning to thank Him, & JESUS' reaction, I wonder about the other 9 lepers.

When the 10 lepers stood apart from JESUS (since the laws concerning leprosy demanded distance) & begged for mercy, JESUS clearly instructed them to go & show themselves to the priest. The Jewish Law, especially the detailed prescriptions regarding leprosy outlined in the Book of Leviticus, required lepers who were healed to be declared healed by the priest before they were allowed to return to their families & the rest of society & to be no longer considered social outcasts. All 10 lepers began their journey to the priest out of obedience to JESUS, & making this journey required & demonstrated great faith on their part, because it would not have made sense for them to appear before the priest unless they believed they could show proof of  their having been healed by the time they arrived.

The one leper who returned to thank JESUS was a Samaritan. The Samaritans were commonly thought of as being a group of people who were a mixture of Jew & Gentile due to intermarriage, & so they were not as strictly attached to the Jewish Law. They worshipped God on their mountain instead of going to Jerusalem (see the account of JESUS' dialogue with the Samaritan Woman at the Well in John 4), & their laws & customs were different. The Jewish people were very strict in their observance of the Law of Moses & I would imagine that obedience was greatly emphasized in their upbringing. Centuries after the Babylonian exile the Jewish people were very aware of the consequences they had experienced as a people because of their disobedience to God's Law.

The difference between the Samaritan view of the Jewish Law & the Jewish view of the Jewish Law would probably have made it much easier for the Samaritan to be less fastidious about arriving promptly where the priest was located & thus it would probably have been easier for him to pause in his journey & to return to JESUS to thank Him.

I suppose many people reading this blog are "cradle Catholics" like myself, educated in the Catholic school system. My education in Catholic schools spanned the pre-Vatican II, mid-Vatican II & post Vatican II eras. My parents, aunts, uncles, and at least my maternal grandmother were all educated in the Catholic school system prior to Vatican II. Learning the value of obedience was an essential part of our formation, and I remember reading about the virtue of "right away obedience". When instructed to go on an errand we were encouraged to complete our errand and come back without unnecessary stops or delays along the way. In this way I can relate to the sense of urgency that faithful Jewish lepers might have felt in seeking to obey JESUS & the Jewish Law promptly and completely. I imagine that in their place I would have wanted to complete the assigned task before returning to seek out JESUS to thank Him.

Several years ago while on retreat I was taught what I considered a new insight into the intentions of the priest and the Levite who passed by the injured victim in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. If the victim had actually been dead instead of being half dead (which was hard to discern from their view on the road) and they had touched a dead body, they would have been made ritually unclean & unable to perform their service at the temple for a specified period of time. So it was not necessarily simply a lack of compassion on their part that caused them to fail to perform an act of charity by caring for the injured victim, but their strict observance of the Jewish Law & their vocation, which was not an issue for the Good Samaritan (although the Samaritan had to transcend cultural prejudice in order to treat the Jewish victim with compassion).

The question that haunts me whenever I hear or read the account of the 10 lepers is whether the other 9 lepers were merely very focused on obedience--if, like young Frederic in the Gilbert & Sullivan opera THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE they were "slaves of duty"--or whether they were, in fact, carelessly ungrateful. Would they have returned to seek out JESUS to thank Him IMMEDIATELY AFTER they had fulfilled their assignment of showing themselves to the priest & been declared cured? Or would they have merely returned to their lives, complacent, comfortable, forgetful & ungrateful? JESUS, since He is God, was and is able to read the hearts of every human being, so certainly He could read the hearts of all 10 lepers and understand their intentions. Was his annoyance at the return of only 1 leper merely His human reaction of hurt human feelings at a seeming lack of appreciation, especially on the part of his fellow Jews? Or did He, as God, recognize a lack of gratitude in the hearts of those who failed to return? Only God can read heart so only JESUS could tell us if the fault of the other 9 lepers was neglecting the prompt expression of gratitude due to over-conscientiousness or if they were, in fact, insufficiently grateful.

Obedience is still essential to us in our day, although as Christians we are not bound by most of the Jewish Law. Even in the Gospel of John JESUS equates love for Him with keeping His commandments. As Catholics we are supposed to abide by the commandments of God & His Church. From the account of the healing of the 10 lepers & the Parable of the Good Samaritan I would suggest that obedience is still vital to us today but there are two necessities of the Law of Love (the two greatest commandments) that should modify strict obedience: (1) expressing thanksgiving to God (like the Samaritan leper), and (2) acts of charity toward people in need (like the Good Samaritan).