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When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and
Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said,
“Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to
me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant
in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken
to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:41-45)
We know the story. The
Archangel Gabriel had announced to the Virgin Mary God’s invitation to
become the mother of the Messiah. As further evidence that nothing is
impossible for God, Mary’s elderly cousin Elizabeth, thought to be barren,
was also expecting a child, John the Baptist.
Both Elizabeth’s pregnancy and
Mary’s – despite their unusual circumstances – are cause for rejoicing. By
the power of the Holy Spirit, the unborn child Jesus announces his presence
to John, his unborn cousin. John leaps for joy, proclaiming to his mother,
in effect: “Behold! The Lamb of God!” Elizabeth, too, is then filled with
the Holy Spirit, and recognizes Mary as the blessed tabernacle of our Lord
and Savior. Through the evangelical witness and sacrificial love of Mary,
Jesus, and John, the work of our salvation has begun.
The Old and New Testaments are
filled with such passages extolling children as gift and blessing. It is
disheartening, then, to see how far our culture has diverged from this
view.
To be sure, most parents love
their children generously and even unconditionally. But today the inherent,
priceless value of every child – as a unique individual created and loved by
God – is no longer universally accepted. Before birth at least, a child’s
worth seems to depend on his parents’ attitude toward him. A Planned
Parenthood ad illustrates this point well: “Babies are loud, smelly, and
expensive, unless you want one.”
We need to start seeing human
life as God sees it. From the moment of our conception, God does not see us
superficially as a microscopic, unformed cell. In every child, born or
unborn, God sees the individual he created to love, and be loved by, for all
eternity.
At the other end of life, as
well, the bonds of love between generations are being stretched thin. Some
doctors and ethicists claim that patients with dementia or in a so-called
“persistent vegetative state” are no longer really persons, and that
families should deny them even the most basic forms of nourishment and care.
And yet, however weak and vulnerable such patients may appear, they the
awesome power to inspire heroic, sacrificial love from their family members
and caregivers—a power that can lead to the sanctification of those who care
for them.
It matters not to God whether
we are now, or ever, conscious of our existence or capable of “higher
thought.” The value of a human life does not depend on exercising one’s
intellect; it comes from God’s fatherly love for each human, created in his
image. His love is present long before our brain waves can be measured at
six weeks’ gestation, and long after our brains no longer function so well.
His love is present long before our heart begins to beat at 22 days after
conception, and long after our hearts begins to fail. His love is present
at every step and misstep of our lives.
And to some of us who are
humble and lowly, God grants the privilege to be his instrument in bringing
forth holiness from others. God loves, and wants us to love, the
grandfather lying unconscious in a hospital bed, the child with severe
physical and mental impairments, the frightened teenaged mother, and the
unplanned embryo nesting in her womb. Each of these vulnerable persons is
given to us so we may learn to love as God loves—generously, sacrificially,
unconditionally.
May we never tire of
proclaiming the dignity and worth of every human life. May we never tire of
serving the vulnerable and their caregivers with generous hearts. And may
we never cease to pray for the day when all people, and all societies, will
defend the life of every human from conception to natural death. |
