Preaching on abortion, 19th Sunday, Year A, Pro-Life Leader Frank Pavone of Priests for Life

Pro-Life Leader Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, reflects on the Sunday readings for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A 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.

1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a
Rom 9:1-5
Mt 14:22-33

St. Paul expresses profound anguish in today’s second reading for his people. He longs that they accept Christ, who is “God blessed forever,” and the only hope of the human family. For every disciple, Christ is everything. Each event and decision of life, each project and plan, finds its standard, meaning, and fulfillment in him.

Yet those events, projects, plans, and the circumstances of life under which they unfold, are very much like the tempestuous behavior of nature that we see in both the first reading and the Gospel. Wind, waves, earthquakes, noise, danger, and the confusion of constant change mark many chapters of life. Yet there isn’t a single chapter, nor a single moment, in which the believer cannot cling to Christ, find him present, and embrace his hand that saves them from drowning.

In the pro-life effort, this theme applies directly to those confused by a pregnancy they feel they cannot handle, those who have had an abortion and are suffering the storms of anguish that follow – and risk drowning in despair – and those who are in the heat of the battle, defending life against numerous odds and attacks.

In all of this, we seek and cling to Christ, who gives us the strength to stand on the side of life and experience his forgiveness and strength for the battle.