Preaching on abortion, 18th 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 18th 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.

Is 55:1-3
Rom 8:35, 37-39
Mt 14:13-21

Abortions do not happen because of “freedom of choice,” but rather because some mothers and fathers feel they have no freedom and no choice. They have needs that they think cannot be met without aborting their child. They are captive to the coercive power of despair.

Today’s readings are about the Lord providing for our needs, issuing an invitation to us to come to him confidently, to trust that he can fulfill all those needs. Fundamentally, of course, this is an invitation to salvation. But salvation is integral; it is bodily as well as spiritual, it is communitarian as well as individual, and it extends its effects to our daily needs, including those related to parenting.

No trial, such as the intense anxieties that can accompany pregnancy, is too great for the love of Christ.

It is in that power and with that confidence that the People of God are not only to come to him for their needs – for the grace to do what is right and choose life in every circumstance – but also that the People of God are to go to others who have such needs and trials, and strengthen them. We are to ‘feed’ one another. The Gospel passage for today does not say that the Lord simply went ahead and fed the crowds himself. It says he ordered his disciples to feed them. They weren’t sure how to do that, but he enabled them to do so.

And so it is today. Together, as the People of Life, we can meet the needs faced by those who are tempted to abort, and we can meet their anguish and distress with the victorious love of Christ.