Text of homily delivered by Father Bob Poole
During the Pro-life Mass at St Philip Parish
Saturday July 27th 2013
Click HERE for the readings
"Have you ever wondered why God does not just end abortion immediately? It would be so easy for Him- with a flick of his little finger, He could close down all abortuaries, overthrow the culture of death and make politicians pass anti-abortion legislation. Why does he go about things so differently? It seems so painstakingly slow and our victories so small- another abortion clinic closed down, another woman decides to keep her baby. But still the abortion industry rolls on. Why does God allow it?
Part of the reason lies with our gospel parable today about the weeds and the wheat. While we as Church were "sleeping" in complacency, ignorance and denial, the enemy -Satan- was busy building a Culture of Death. We ignored the warnings of such as Bishop Fulton Sheen "a religion which does not interfere with the secular order will soon discover that the secular order will not refrain from interfering with it ". We ignored the warning of Pope Paul VI in his encyclical "Humanae Vitae" (1968) that once we open the door to artificial contraception, we will allow in all kinds of moral disorders: abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality. At last we have woken up and begun to fight back. But God still wants to save those who are opposed to Him and are anti-life, still hopes for their conversion. And so he waits and waits, not wanting any to be lost . The examples of Dr Bernard Nathanson and Abby Johnson, both very involved in the abortion industry and who converted as a result of ultra-sound technology and what it revealed about the reality of human life in the womb , and the example of the Silent No More women who witness publicly to the pain and suffering of the abortions they now regret having, all show that we should be praying for our opponents, and not rushing to condemn them out of hand.
A second reason why God does not simply end abortion now lies in the book of Judges in the Old Testament where we are told that God did not remove all the nations who opposed Israel's entry into the Promised Land. He left five nations to oppose Israel, so that his people would get the experience of battle. God wants us to learn to engage in warfare - spiritual warfare, which we carry out with spiritual weapons, not the weapons of this world (2 Corinthians 10:4) - weapons such as prayer and fasting and intercession and suffering - we think of those pro-lifers who have been regularly arrested while counselling women outside abortion clinics, women like Linda Gibbons. We think of those who , while quietly praying outside abortuaries have been subjected to vile abuse and threats from passersby or staff in those clinics. For too long, as church, we have been silent and passive, and waiting for God to simply deal with the problem of abortion. We need to realize that we CANNOT do it on our own, and that God WILL NOT do it on HIS own. He looks to make a covenant with us, as he made a covenant with the people of Israel in our first reading, a covenant sealed with sacrifice. Our covenant with God regarding the abortion issue must involve our sacrifice as well - our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, of prayer, of nonviolent protest, contacting our MPs and informing them of our views on the foremost issues of our time - life and family and urging them to support legislation which furthers these two causes. I invite you to stand and repeat after me the words that the people of Israel declare in our first reading:” All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and WE WILL BE OBEDIENT !!"