Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.

 

Today we have a recurring guest blogger:  Fr. Arthur F. Rojas, administrator of PRESENTATION OF THE B.V.M CHURCH, PORT EWEN AND SACRED HEART CHURCH, ESOPUS. For more information on this parish, check out their website at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary & Sacred Heart Churches - Port Ewen - Esopus, NY (presentationsacredheart.org) 

Submission to the blog of Dcn. Thomas Tortorella for Word of God Sunday

by Rev. Fr. Arthur F. Rojas © All Rights Reserved © Jan. 19, 2023

Scripture readings for today can be found at Third Sunday in Ordinary Time | USCCB

“Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Mt 4:17 (from the Gospel in the Ordinary Form today)

Today, January 22nd, marks the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the ruling by the United States Supreme Court that invented and imposed for 49 years the “right” to abortion-on-demand across America. To me, it seems Divine Providence and not mere coincidence that on the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus last year, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled that holding via Dobbs v. Jackson, which effectively returned the issue of abortion to the states, which was the situation before January 22, 1973. Indeed, in November 2020, our parish was honored to serve as the host parish to the Forty Hours Devotion by the Ulster Deanery Respect Life Committee (www.ulsterdeaneryrespectlife.org) in prayerful support of the challenge by the State of Mississippi in the Dobbs case to Roe v. Wade. Although the Dobbs holding was cheered by faithful Catholics and tens of millions of Americans who understand that human life is sacred from the moment of conception until natural death, as “one nation under God” per the Pledge of Allegiance, we Americans owe repentance and reparation to God if we are serious about the conversion of hearts, starting with our own, and the healing of our divided people and culture.

Far from being a means of emancipation and social advancement for women and men in our country, the toll of more than 60,000,000 aborted children also claims millions more broken hearts and wounded psyches of their mothers – many of whom were coerced into getting abortions – as well as many of their fathers, whose suffering still is little acknowledged by our society, and even living siblings who discover that they had a close relative who was extinguished before birth. For all the recourse of the “pro-choice” side to awful instances of rape and incest, proof abounds that abortion-on-demand has done nothing to stem the grave evils of domestic and sexual abuse. Instead, abortion-on-demand merely responds to violence with more violence and even more victims. Abortion-on-demand has become America’s largest self-inflicted wound arguably since the practice of slavery.

As with the struggle against slavery, our determination to end the intrinsic evil of abortion will require a variety of tactics and strategies for the abortion issue is not merely a matter of politics but one of right and wrong, which includes public policy but involves so much more than civil and criminal laws. Thus, we are called to seek changes of hearts, minds, and habits as well as laws and policies. If we really believe that God is the Supreme Being (First Commandment) and that our land is “one nation under God” (Pledge of Allegiance), considering also the appeal to God as author of inalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence and the wish to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” as stated in the preamble of our constitution, then let’s take a first step tomorrow, January 23rd, with extra prayer and some kind of fasting/abstinence, maybe an additional work of charity as part of the National Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children, as requested by the Catholic bishops of the United States. I hope and pray that your first step tomorrow will be followed by more steps of prayer, good works, and witness towards achieving the legal and social respect of the life of the preborn child as well as our fellow Americans and human beings who are frail and disabled. If we want the Lord to heal our nation, then firstly let us seek His forgiveness and reconciliation. Kyrie, eleison!

N.B. This article is adapted from an item by Fr. Rojas for today’s bulletin at St. Joan of Arc Church, Spring Hill, Fla.