Oct. 10, 2008: 27th Sunday Ordinary (A). Respect Life Weekend
It's not easy being a sign of contradiction in this world. And that's who we are as Catholics, a sign of contradiction, contradicting the ways of the world. Many times we can blend in with the rest of the world, but some times we stick out like a sore thumb. And our presence can make others uneasy.
One Friday weekend evening when I was still a seminarian, a few seminarians and a priest got together to have dinner. On the way back, we stopped at a Shell station. As one seminarian was putting gas in the car, the priest (who was in his clerical) went inside to buy a gum. The line was long, and a couple of persons ahead of him were two high school or college aged young ladies. They were dressed up for going out Friday night; and when I mean dressed up, they had strapless shirts and way short skirts. And then they noticed the presence of the priest behind the line. And boy their conscience must have been pricked because they were trying to lower their skirts realizing that what they were wearing were immodest.
Sometimes when we speak our Catholic convictions in public, we can be accused of creating division. The world does not like to hear what Our Lord has to say through the Catholic Church. In 1994 Mother Teresa was invited to address the National Prayer Breakfast held in Washington DC. About 3,000 were present; most of these were Who's Who of politics in DC. The President, the First Lady, and the Vice President were sitting next to the podium from which she spoke. People were letting their plates full of scrambled eggs, sausage, and bacon go cold because they were so captivated by Mother Teresa. At the beginning there were lots of applauses. She spoke of God, of love, and of families, and she mesmerized everyone present. Then she dropped this following line: "I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because Jesus said, 'If you receive a little child, you receive me.' So every abortion is the denial of receiving Jesus, the neglect of receiving Jesus." There was no applause, only several seconds of cool, deafening silence. Then began few applauses in several tables. No one at the head table was applauding. With few more lines of speech, Mother Teresa dropped an even bigger bomb. She said, "I know that couples have to plan their family, and for that there is natural planning. The way to plan the family is natural family planning, not contraception. In destroying the power of giving life or loving through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns the attention to self, and so it destroys the gift of love in him and her...Once that loving is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily. That's why I never give a child to a family that has used contraception, because if the mother has destroyed the power of loving, how will she love my child?" Then began a real long silence. One senator turned to his wife and asked her if his jaw was still up. Didn't Mother Teresa know that we don't talk about abortion and birth control in public speeches in America? What she said divided not only the protestants from Catholics but Catholics from Catholics.
Some would ask Mother Teresa, 'Mother, what you are teaching is out of touch with reality.' How would she have answered that question? She would have said that Jesus himself asked her to teach that message. Some of us find this part of message of Jesus difficult. As many of his disciples said in John Chapter Six, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?" Many years ago in my beginning college days, when I did not have faith or knew Jesus, my belief about abortion and contraception were opposite that of Jesus' teaching. Once I got to know Jesus few years later, I had to tell Jesus, 'Lord, I do not understand what you are teaching. But I do trust you that Your ways are above my ways. Your thoughts are above my thoughts. Help me understand."
Lord, I do believe and trust in you. Help my unbelief.
