The end of the season

As I sit here in my office, trying to put together a column for this newspaper, I wonder what I should say. A great many things are happening in the world in religious circles.

Those Orthodox Christian Churches who use the Julian or Old Style Calendars in two days will be wrapping up their Christmas Season and celebrating the Octave of the Feast of the Epiphany or Theophany. The Feast of the Circumcision which was celebrated on our January 1st commemorates Jesus’ dedication to God as the first born son of Mary. It was also the day when Jesus received the name Mary was told to give him by the Angel. Theophany commemorates Jesus’ baptism and the beginning of His public ministry.

Considering that the secular world began celebrating Christmas the day after Halloween, most of us are glad to see it end although we hope that we are able to retain what the Feast of the Nativity is all about in our hearts and minds throughout the rest of the year.

But to get back the religious news elsewhere, The Roman Church has announced the appointment of 19 new cardinals and for the first time since 1979, no Americans are on the list. But now, many places in the world will have a Prince of that Church for the first time once again showing the world the universality of Christianity. This week in Washington, D.C. we will have seen the Right to Life Annual March. There will be many participants of different faiths demonstrating their opposition to abortion and the decision many years ago in the case of Roe vs. Wade which incidentally was approved by the Supreme Court of the land even though much of the brief that was cited throughout the decision was false in several areas.

All too often lately, it seems that the Court is more interested in politics than in law. The anti-abortion laws of the 19th century were not so much a defense of women’s health as they were a protection of the human life of the child inside the womb. If this were not so, why would so many of those laws specifically point out the that the death of a child in the womb was murder, or at the very least manslaughter. It has been scientifically proven that life begins at conception and that movement in the womb is no longer the determinant factor in acknowledging life in the child.

The sexual revolution of the sixties was devoted to bringing us a feel good philosophy. If it feels good, it is our pleasure that is important. What is important is how it feels to us. All too often we seem to have lost the intrinsic values of the natural law—God’s Law instilled in us with the infusion by God of our immortal souls.

More and more, secular society is still trying to undermine the relationship of God and mankind. No longer, it says, do we have to wonder what God expects of us. More and more governments are trying to make us all more dependent on them than on the God-given talents which have been imbued in all of us.

Let us at this time pause and take a few minutes to pray for all those involved in destroying human life, that they may realize the harm they are doing and how their actions are working to destroy the morals they claim to support. Let us give thanks that more and more doctors are refusing to perform abortions. Let us pray for the safety and the life of the unborn. And let us, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto or whatever, pray that we might remember that Almighty is much more powerful than all the Herods of this world whatever title they might call themselves. Let us pray that those who rule anywhere and everywhere recall the words of Christ as He stood before Pilate and reminded Pilate that he would have no power at all had it not been given him from above. And let us give thanks to God the Father, Jesus, His divine Son, and the Holy Spirit for He is Lord and God, now and always and unto the ages of the ages.

Amen.