March 17th, as you know, is the feast day of St. Patrick. Saint Patrick
is the secondary patron of the Archdiocese of Ottawa. It is rather
providential that this feast day falls on a Saturday when we have one of
our monthly Pro-Life Masses. The readings from today’s Mass are proper
to the feast day. The Gospel, as you just heard, recalls how Jesus calls his
12 Apostles and sends them into the world to be Fishers of Men. This
expression, “Fishers of Men,” refers of course to the Apostolic Mission
given by Christ to the Twelve. They were sent by the Lord to proclaim the
Gospel of Salvation to the whole human race: in other words, to bring the
True Faith to a world that did not know Christ or His mission of redemption
— just as St. Patrick was sent to Ireland to bring the True Faith to the
peoples of the Emerald Isle.
We come together every month to offer a Mass for the success of
the Pro-Life Movement and for the establishment of a Pro-Life medical
centre right here in Ottawa. We pray in a special way for our health care
providers (doctors, nurses, medical assistants), that they may be
respected in their right to follow their conscience and to not perform
procedures that go against their innermost beliefs. We fight the culture of
death through the natural means that are afforded us: through political
activism, through education, and by increasing awareness of the dignity of
the human person, created in the image and likeness of God. However,
these natural means often fall short of their intended results, for the simple
reason that the battle that we are fighting is not just a battle that takes
place at the natural level. The greatest opponent to the culture of life is not
our civil authorities, the mainstream media, or the secular schools and
university campuses of our country. These are just the instruments used
by the true Opponent of Life. The true Enemy of Life is the one Whom we
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know as the Prince of Death. Life, truth, and love are all things that come
from God. God is not just the author or source of these things: God is the
fulness of them in His very Being! God IS Life; God IS Truth; God IS Love!
So, let us not be mistaken: any attack against life, against truth, or against
love is a direct attack against God.
The anti-life movement, therefore, can only be conquered in one
way. Because it is fundamentally an anti-God movement -- and more
specifically, an anti-Christ movement (because Christ is the Way, the Truth,
and the Life) -- the only way of overcoming it is by a return to God, a return
to Jesus Christ and to His Gospel. And this is why we need today, more
than ever before, Apostles and missionaries like St. Patrick, who will
voluntarily give their lives in order to spread the truth of the Gospel and to
lead a humanity that has wilfully fallen astray back to the source and origin
of all Truth, all Beauty, and all Goodness: that is, to lead the human race
back to GOD! Although there are self-proclaimed atheists who say that
they are "pro-life," the reality is that we CANNOT be pro-life unless we
stand on the side of God and of Jesus Christ. A society or an individual
that rejects Christ, by the very fact, rejects Life itself. And so the only
solution to recovering a culture of life is to restore a culture of Faith.
Faith gives us eyes to see what we could never possibly see without
it. The reason why the pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia, pro-contraception
and pro-unnatural marriage movements cannot see why their position is
wrong is because they reject Faith, and especially, Christian Faith: in
rejecting Jesus and His Gospel, they have become blind to the truth (for
after all, Christ Himself is the fulness of Truth). Truth then, for them,
becomes something that is relative: you have your truth and I have mine.
And because we each have our truth, the only thing that really matters is
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what you choose to do, what I choose to do. Thus, truth becomes reduced
to my personal choices — even if I choose to do wrong, to do evil. Even if I
choose to kill. But brothers and sisters, what if your truth contradicts my
truth? Which one is right? How can two mutually exclusive and
contradictory ideas both be true? Either abortion is wrong or else it is ok.
Either euthanasia is morally evil or else it is not. Truth is not just relative; it
does not just depend on one’s personal opinion: there are certain absolute
truths. Some of them can be known by the light of natural reason; but
many of them only become clear by the assistance of divine revelation:
that is, through Faith.
We are pro-life because Jesus said, "I am the Life." We are pro-life
because Christ taught us that death is not from God. Human mortality is
the direct consequence of sin, or disobedience to God. And therefore to
wilfully choose death is a direct rejection of everything that God stands for.
To choose death is to choose to be on the side of the Enemy of God:
Satan. The very name "Satan" (sa-tàn), in fact, means "Adversary." Satan
is the adversary of God and therefore he is the adversary of life.
On this feast day of St. Patrick, let us pray that through the
intercession of this great Apostle of Ireland (and the secondary patron
saint of the Archdiocese of Ottawa), the Lord may send forth into His
Church Apostles and missionaries burning with zeal to proclaim the One,
Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith! If we want to restore a culture of life to
Canada, we must return Canada to that Faith that was present from the
very moment our country was colonized. When the French arrived in New
France, they brought with them governors and civil authorities; but they
also brought with them missionaries: men and women who would implant
the light of Faith on Canadian soil. If we wish to save Canada from the
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culture of death and restore a culture of life in this country, then the only
way of doing it is by placing our nation under the Kingship of the Author of
Eternal Life. There is no other way of restoring life than by restoring Faith.
A world, a nation, a society that rejects Jesus will necessarily reject Truth,
Beauty, and Goodness, and embrace a culture of lies, of ugliness, and of
evil.
May glorious St. Patrick intercede for us this day from Heaven, and
strengthen us in our resolve to fight for what is true, what is good, what is
noble: what is of God and that leads to the Kingdom of God!
I leave you, dear brethren in Christ, with these words from the great
St. Patrick of Ireland. May they strengthen us in our resolve to hold on
firmly to what is pleasing to God:
May the Strength of God pilot us.
May the Power of God preserve us.
May the Wisdom of God instruct us.
May the Hand of God protect us.
May the Way of God direct us.
May the Shield of God defend us.
May the Host of God guard us.
From the snares and temptations of the world.
May Christ be with us,
And Christ before us.
May Christ be in us,
And Christ be o’er us.
Christ to comfort us,
Christ to restore us.
This day, O Blessed Trinity, and for evermore.
Amen