Preaching on abortion, 21st Sunday, Year C, Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life

Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, reflects on the Sunday readings for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C and their message about abortion.

For more information about what the Sunday readings, and the whole Bible, say about abortion, and for resources for your Church, see https://www.ProLifePreaching.org. You can order there the book “Proclaiming the Message of Life,” which contains these reflections for all the Sunday readings in the lectionary.

Readings:

Is 66:18-21
Heb 12:5-7, 11-13
Lk 13:22-30

“We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.” Evidently, that is not enough to be saved. The Gospel today challenges us to be disciples internally, not just externally. We may indeed eat and drink with the Lord: he is among us, we go to Mass, we identify ourselves as Christians to others, we have our sacramental certificates, and we might wear crosses and have other religious symbols around us. But that is not enough.

We may indeed hear the Lord teach in our streets. He continues to teach and proclaim his Gospel every time an ordained minister of the Church gives a homily. We hear the Lord speaking through many others, too, and through our own individual contact with his Word. But still that is not enough.

Discipleship requires obedience to the teaching we hear the Lord give us, and actual union with the one with whom we sit at table. This has implications for our pro-life stance. It is not and cannot be enough simply to “be” pro-life, in the sense that we “believe” abortion is wrong, “oppose” it, or have the right viewpoint. Attitudinal opposition to abortion has to translate into behavioral opposition, not just in the sense that we would never participate in it, but in the sense that we do not tolerate it. On the contrary, we reach out and intervene to save others who are being aborted by the choice of others.