Thursday after Ash Wednesday Homily

or to further fuel a mutual animosity that is already dividing many catholics around the world by touching on the controversial topic of choice in today's homily it just so happens that both our readings today are about making correct choices in life which god expects of us i do not know when it started that the word choice began to be associated or practically equated with being the opposite of pro-life when actually being pro-life is itself a choice perhaps it is time for us to rethink our vocabulary there shall never be a time when the church will will ever deliberately take an anti-life stand and still claim to be church or claim to represent christ well at least not consciously however there have been many times in history when some people could seem to reconcile their christian faith with anti-life tendencies like slavery and racism colonialism and environmental abuse misogyny and other forms of bigotry and so even some people who might claim to be pro-life can sometimes be espousing anti-life attitudes without their realizing it until circumstances or historical developments get to open their eyes about it like now we can plainly say slavery is immoral even if we know there used to be times in the past when christians saw nothing wrong nothing unchristian about it perhaps if the anti-abolitionist had won in the civil war in america perhaps slavery would still be legal up to now i also wish to presuppose that people cannot be so evil as to deliberately wish to kill a defenseless child in the mother's womb for no reason i may sound naive in saying this but i firmly believe that it is blasphemy to regard any fellow human being as by nature evil or intrinsically evil because that is an insult to our creator remember we read from genesis god looked at everything that he had created and he saw that it was good and he looked at human beings as very good because we're supposed to be image and likeness of god our creator no doubts no doubt although all people are by nature good all of us are capable of committing evil sometimes even with the best of intentions and often without realizing it we make it a point to always distinguish between persian person and action that is why we say god hates the sin but loves the sinner that is why i cannot believe that a human being can be so depraved so intrinsically wicked as to deliberately want to harm or murder her own child it is every human mother's natural instinct to protect to protect and not to harm the life that is in her womb and she cannot harm her own child without causing a more serious harm on herself too [Music] both psychologically and spiritually you know i have encountered a lot of women who are forever scarred by the experience and who continue to wallow in guilt and self-punishment long after they have confessed their sin and made penance and even received absolution for it they end up confessing it over and over again okay i find it cruel when we [Music] rub it in without minding scarred people like them those that i know who resorted to the choice of terminating the life of their own child they often talk about finding themselves in not choice situations and had to make a judgment call and obviously not all the decisions that we make in judgment call situations will turn out to be right when we realize the wrong the harm has already been done and the damage is irreversible this is where the wisdom of the church's sacrament of reconciliation comes in you may not be able to undo the sin but you can live with it and still carry on with your life because we believe in forgiveness because we believe in the mercy of god when people claim to find themselves in a not choice situation and claim to have followed their conscience in making a judgment call honestly personally i choose not to judge only god will judge because it is only god who knows all the circumstances that make people decide on which ever options they take even against their own will no matter how i might feel about it in all humility although i hold on to the sacredness of life i was born to a family of thirteen seven boy six girls and my parents welcome all 13 of us talking of pro-life but i always say i am not in a position to judge others i would rather take the standpoint of the merciful god who always makes a stubborn choice of redeeming not just the righteous but the sinners as well no matter if he has to suffer for it listen again to what was proclaimed to us in the first reading today from deuteronomy chapter 30. today i have set before you life and prosperity death and doom make your choice it is god who is saying make your choice of course god as it were is saying my ardent wish is that you choose life but i will not stop you if you choose death and doom for yourself i take responsibility for your choices god would say i take responsibility because it was i who chose to create you i created you with a free will and a capacity to make choices capable of deciding right or wrong but i endowed you with a conscience sometimes we don't realize immediately that our choice leads us to the path of self-destruction god as it were is saying if you make the wrong choice it will hurt me it will make me helpless but never choice less and this leads us now to the good news of christ the good news is god's stubborn choice is to save us even if it can cost his own life even if it might demand his own suffering and death it may be a human choice to take the opposite path that leads to hell we might choose to go to hell but it will remain as god's choice to descend into hell if necessary only to get us out of the hell we love to make of life for god to deny himself to take up his cross and become the sacrificial land god teaches us that it is only in doing this that we can defeat the real enemy ang the real enemy are not human beings but the evil one who knows well how to manipulate us especially in regard to the choices that we make you

Channel: Diocese of Kalookan

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Id: W9CAuQoXdZs

Length: 12min 40sec (760 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 18 2021