Print Issue: January 30, 2003

Paige Lemoine, an expectant mother, stands with her 3-year-old daughter Sara during the commissioning of parish pro-life representatives on Jan. 22. Lemoine is a member of Prince of Peace Church, Buford. (Photo by Michael Alexander)

Dear Friends in Christ,

On this day in the Gospel, when our Lord stood before the people, and the Pharisees and law-givers, we are told that He was angry, and deeply grieved. How strange this is for us to hear-how unusual for this man of kindness and peace, of compassion and patience, of hope and healing-to be pictured as deeply grieved, and angry.

Of course, we know why, for the evangelist tells us-He was upset that the Pharisees were trying to trap Him, and that they were using as an excuse, the law concerning work on the Sabbath. If our Lord were to cure the man of his withered hand, then work would have been performed, and the Sabbath profaned. How blind to the true meaning of the law are the eyes of those who see the law as rigid, as unforgiving, and as a means of issuing condemnations, and insisting that the condemnation comes from God.

But Jesus drew the argument into a higher context-not an argument over keeping the letter of the law, but an argument as to whether it is right on any day, to do good or to do evil. If He had refused to cure the man of his withered hand, then by refusing to do good, our Lord in effect would have done evil. But God is not capable of evil-Our Lord cured the man -good was done, and the truth was established, that no law can stand in the way of good-the truth was established that what pretends to be law, if it stands in the way of good, is in fact, no law at all.

And it seems to me, as a teacher of the Church, that perhaps our Lord's anger and grief, was not just for the plotters and connivers gathered around Him that day. Our Lord was God, and God suffers no restriction of past, present and future. Perhaps our Lord's anger and grief were just as focused on the connivers and plotters of our own day, in 2003, this year which is His.

For can we not say, that like the man of the Gospel, our country stands before the world. Its one hand is healthy and whole, dispensing the ideals which we associate with America: freedom, opportunity, justice, kindness, and self-sacrifice. But on the other side, in truth's naked light, what do we see, but a hand withered with an evil beyond belief: a twisted, deformed hand which signs into law privileges of privacy permitting murder-a withered hand which dispenses protection to builders of death mills, abortion mills-a withered hand which embraces in the guarantees of equal protection, the comings and goings of executioners of innocent babes in the womb, who wield the knives and instruments of infant murder for the sake of profit, calling it a matter of choice, a matter of "reproductive freedom."

Perhaps it was this withered hand which our Lord saw, in the boundless distance of His vision-a hand sickened and twisted by the one-day plague of January 22, 1973, the day of Roe vs. Wade-a day not confined to memory, but a day of living infamy, with 30 years of unceasing murder, as an open wound on this country-30 years and 40 million unborn children-40 million lives denied. Can we even wonder why God, who chose to be born on earth as compassionate, forgiving, and full of hope, would be aggrieved so deeply? Can we even wonder why, with the unprecedented greatness of this country's natural and human resources why our Lord should be angry, to see it all compromised and distorted by this incredible stain of crime and guilt-the crime of having annihilated 40 million lives for expediency, and the guilt of trying to live with that knowledge?

Jesus Christ stands before this nation, as He stood before His own, and He asks again, "Is it permitted . . . to preserve life-or to destroy it?" His own answer was to do what He did. He commanded-commanded the man with the withered hand to stand up in front of everyone, and to stretch out his hand.

When he did so, the hand was perfectly restored. And still, in the face of this truth and heroism, our Lord's enemies could not wait to begin plotting His death. He knew this-but He was not afraid.

Shall we be frightened at the forces who plot the death of the pro-life movement-deranged and deluded groups like NARAL, the Abortion Rights League, and perhaps the worst affront to our Lord of all, "Catholics for Free Choice"-shall we feel fear before the shrill outcry of their selfish and sinful propaganda? I think not. I know not.

But I do think and I do know that the force of our Lord is at work within the pro-life movement of the Catholic Church- and the force of the Lord is turning the tide. I think and know that this country is awaking more every day, to the sorry sight of that withered hand of the pro-abortion factions. I think and I know that with every election, the former strength of their 1973 victory is weakening by ever increasing degrees, as one by one, we work to overthrow the representatives of their blighted view, and put into office, men and women who know the value of life, the value of love, the value of innocence. And I believe that the Lord is with us, before us, inside of us, and that His power will finally cure the withered hand of legal abortion, and restore to the body of this nation, health-a health which is whole and complete and coming once more from that law which is of God, and which admits no violence against innocent life.

Dear friends, righteousness swells in our hearts, and we offer this feeling, to the Holy Spirit on this anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, and we pray that He will keep alive in us, that strength which will give us the ultimate victory. For we know that the battle we fight is not just of the earth, but a battle of principalities, of angels against demons, and of God against the Prince of Darkness. We know who will be the ultimate victor-but we want to be sure that our lives are given totally, to the right side.

And finally, let us also consider this. Our Lord may well have been full of grief that day, not just for the hard-heartedness of those who hated Him, but also because of the terrible sorrow He knew, and felt-the sorrow we know and feel in our own day-the sorrow of life's wonderful gift being denied to every one of those 40 million little children, dead on the altars of evil's holocaust, these past thirty years of American history.

Today, for that sorrow of the Lord, which He carried with Him on the day of His sacrifice, let us fall on our knees before God, and beg His mercy-mercy on our souls, that can always do more-and mercy on the souls of those who are blind to the sanctity of life.

And let us do penance, promising even greater work, in reparation for our sins, and for the sins of the many who do evil in our sight. For justice will be restored before the end of all things comes.

May God accept that our penance, and our good work is given for His cause here on earth, the cause of life, and life's redemption. And when Christ the Redeemer comes again, and brings justice to its final conclusion, may the work we have done be pleasing to Him, so that He will forgive us, and take us home, to be with all who have loved Him, and cast themselves on His mercy.