Christians must make peace even when they feel that they are victims of those who have struck and hurt them unjustly. This was how the Lord himself acted.
If you pray outside abortion clinics and you want them to close, love everyone that walks through that door. Love the "doctors", love the "deathscorts", love the women, love the supporters.
It's possible if you say with our Lord, "Father, they know not what they do."
I cannot forgive those who do not harm me, such as physicians who work the abortion clinics. That is the crux of Luke: a relationship of victim to victimizer grounded in forgiveness and love. I am not the victim of the abortion.
We must love (that is, the Christian love of 'caritas') those whose actions we abhor or dislike, while despising the sin (the action) and the mens rea (the intention to act) exhibited.
I can hate abortion, but I am not able (logically or theologically) to 'forgive' those you get them or those who perform them.
One of the prevalent problems with discussing abortion is the confusion many make between the concepts of Free Will (God given) and Choice (mankind driven). If we choose in accordance with Love and Life (two miraculous gifts) then we will always find ourselves in the shadow or 'imago' of God: 'holy,' that is, 'separate' from our selfish nature. If we choose for purposes of Self (the lesson of Adam and Eve with the Temptor in the Garden), then we choose Death (the negation of Love and Life). The question is twofold, but one of essence: Are we created in utero with a unique soul, and did we choose to end our lives through a medical procedure?
It is impossible to answer 'yes' to both forks of this question. This is the stumbling block many Catholics have when they try to reconcile their support of the Death Penalty and their loathing of legalized abortion. The soul determines the Free Will. The convicted felon on death row exercised his Free Will, he has chosen Death. (Dante's idea of 'contrapasso' in the Commedia) but the unborn fetus (or nascent human, or named boy or named girl) does not choose at all. There is where the evil is: we murder (not kill) another (through commission or omission of the act) human soul-inhered life.
Thus, I am not able to 'love' those workers in abortion clinics, those selfish women and men who prefer convenience (O the bother of having a child!) or subterfuge (But I'm not married! or, What would my [fill in the blank] think of me!?).
Pray and sing, yes.
Pray and sing and watch, even better.
Better yet, shame those before they sin: it is nonviolent ('loving') and witnesses your Faith, your Free Will to protect (within current legal restrictions) those who cannot protect themselves.
Last Sunday I went down to the "March for Women's Lives." It was amazing!! I just want to publicly thank God for the grace and joy he poured into my heart that day. I carried a sign that said, "Pro-choice" in bloody red font. It took most people a while to "get it"... even pro-lifers. This is because the "Pro-choice" message has been cleansed and sanitized in the political justice of 'women's rights'. The political pro-choicer is so far removed from the bloody clinic, that when someone sees a bloody representation of the pro-choice message, it boggles the mind. That is how embedded we are in the cultural lie that death is a choice. We are living in a present day Holocaust. Which is why I went down last Sunday to personally face the confused Nazis of our time, and to teach them the truth and to love them despite their confusion. For I too was confused like they are only 7 years ago. We are all children of God... all of us. The sun shines on all of us (yet interestingly, it did not shine AT ALL that day), the flowers bloom for all of us. "He's got the whole world in His Hands..." I do not doubt they will learn the truth someday. PRAISE GOD THAT HIS MERCY IS GREATER THAN ANY OF OUR SIN!! Praise God.
It was me. I was 19 and she was 16. When I returned from Basic Training (my future mother-in-law telephoned my Company commander who then [*&@#&%**@%$] me out and told me to call home, propose and finish basic!) We have been married for over 30 years. 3 children, 2 miscarriages, 3 grandchildren, and we are still improving and growing and understanding God's gift of Love to us every day.
It doesn't matter, as long as we (men and women) commit to marriage and work at it to love. The initial physical attraction is ephemeral (witness the number of abortions due to the oops! contraceptive method or I-want-sex-with-you-but-not-marriage) and never will be a lasting foundation for love. It is a shortcoming of our English language that the various Greek words for 'love' in the NT have been traditionally translated or understood in a flat, two dimensional way: Agape: love, Philos: love, Caritas: love, Eros: love. No wonder we are widdershins about Romance and Love and Marriage for "loving, committed same-sex couples." O mores O tempores
Siena, please do not misunderstand: what I said is not hateful of those women who prefer abortion over the gift (and WORK) of childrearing. I pity us, who disdain that rarest of gifts from God, and I must speak and act out against those who support the (doublespeak) "pro-choice" movement.
I could be passive-aggressive and hold up a threatening or taunting sign at their marches in Washington, or I could speak and believe as our Mother Church teaches and continue to watch and pray: in other words, confront them, witness to them the evil that on-demand abortion is.
Thanks for sharing such a sweet story so close to your heart. Congratulations on your beautiful generations of love! We are both fighting the good fight, Jonathan. Praise God. Keep fighting for love... it's how true heros are made.
I met a man on the metro the other day, he's Jewish and pro-choice. We argued about the issue on the silent train for, I'd say, 10 minutes straight... and everyone was forced to hear it We left peacefully, and we're still friendly, but after that talk, I wanted to SCREAM so loud that the scales would be forced to fall from his eyes! But our God does not force, He waits. I can love him as a child of God on a journey, and still blow a fuse. Loving your enemies doesn't mean that you're quiet & nice all the time. And who knows? Maybe SOMETHING got through.
The message that "Christians must make peace even if they feel that they are victims of those who have struck and hurt them unjustly," is the message of the cross that "we must take up" (Mt 16:24). It is an inspiring programme for every Christian, instituted by Jesus Himself! I do not dispute that. Who should? This is how Our Lord Himself acted! But let us not forget that the Lord was God, whereas we are only human. Let us never forget about this! For I hear many well-off, well-positioned in the Church's hierarchy, Christians, just quoting these words as a testimony against those who were hurt by injustice within the Church, those who now, like scrambling eggs on afrying pan, are desperately trying to make peace, trying to regain faith - trying to forgive while everything in their whole being cries out Why?! All I am saying is this: not all people's crosses are of the same size and of the same weight! The Church should do more not to hurt the innocent, given that their wounds become for them an addictional cross! On the other hand, it is also true that God has said, "My Grace is enough for you." And this should be the real hope of people who have been hurt!
February 22, 2004 10:19 AM
We left peacefully, and we're still friendly, but after that talk, I wanted to SCREAM so loud that the scales would be forced to fall from his eyes! But our God does not force, He waits. I can love him as a child of God on a journey, and still blow a fuse. Loving your enemies doesn't mean that you're quiet & nice all the time. And who knows? Maybe SOMETHING got through. 