Celebrant: Like the Canaanite
woman, we now approach the Lord with persistent faith and ask Him to grant
what we need.
Deacon/Lector:
That the Church in every community may continue to be a house of prayer
for all people, we pray to the Lord...
That many may hear and answer God's call to become priests, deacons, and
religious brothers and sisters, we pray to the Lord...
That we may do more to welcome, cherish, and protect the gift of life
which, like all God's gifts, is irrevocable, we pray to the Lord...
That those who are vacationing may draw closer to the Lord and find
refreshment in body and spirit, we pray to the Lord...
That the sick, the poor, and the lonely may find the consolation of God's
presence and the love of His people, we pray to the Lord...
That those who have died may be purified of sin and rejoice in the
eternal life of heaven, we pray to the Lord...
Celebrant:
Father, in this house of prayer, we turn to You. Grant what we have asked
you, and keep us faithful to Your will. We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Bulletin Insert
"Personally Opposed” – Bishop Robert Vasa (Baker, Oregon)
“There seems to me to be a disconnect when someone insists that they have
a personal appreciation for the person of the Holy Father while adamantly
rejecting the very things which he is teaching and upholding. Pope Benedict
made reference to this during his visit. He talked about the impossibility
of separating our private life from our public life. Consistency between
what we believe and what we do is essential. Remember the politicians of a
decade or two ago who were straddling the fence on abortion. Their standard
line: “I am ‘personally opposed’ to abortion but I would not impose my view
on anyone.” They seemed to recognize the need to present a pro-life private
life while maintaining a pro-abortion public life. Now they feel no such
need. Now even Catholic politicians, not all of them certainly, seem to have
no qualms of conscience about making public declarations that they will
always act, in their public life, to defend and protect, not the life of the
child, but the right of the mother to kill that child, while maintaining
that they are Catholics in “good standing,” not excommunicated, and
communicants. There does not even seem to be any vestige of “personal
opposition” to abortion left. Indeed, this is not surprising. It is simply
not possible to hold to a so-called “personal opposition” and to act, in a
public or external fashion, in a way which consistently undermines that
“personal opposition.””
Homily Suggestions on Pro-life Themes
Is 56:1, 6-7
Rom 11:13-15, 29-32
Mt 15:21-28
Catholic means “universal.” Everyone is called to salvation in Christ;
everyone is called to his house of prayer, his Church, his family. The
Church, at her core, is missionary, and all her efforts are geared toward an
ever-wider expansion and growth, that she may embrace every human being.
This universality, reflected in all of today’s readings, is rooted
ultimately in the meaning of the Incarnation itself. "By his incarnation the
Son of God has united himself in some fashion with every human being"
(Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World
Gaudium et Spes, 22). This reality raises the dignity of human life
beyond what it already had as God’s creation in his own image, and is also
the basis for the urgency of the task to announce the Gospel to all people,
that they may know the meaning and promise of the dignity they have.
“The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable,” as today’s second
reading tells us. That is why the Church is pro-life, and why, as Paul VI
declared in Humanae Vitae and John Paul II repeated in Evangelium Vitae,
“this tradition is unchanged and unchangeable” (EV 62). Our stance in favor
of life, and in defense of life, does not spring from us, or from some
inclination we have toward a particular philosophy, ideology, or political
platform. It is based, rather, in “the gifts and the call of God,” which
“are irrevocable” and universal. He has chosen to create and redeem us, and
reserve a place for us on his throne. His choice is what makes human life
sacred, and is the basis for our choices.
Today’s readings, therefore, provide a foundation for a strong
affirmation of the essential and integral pro-life stance of the Church, of
its meaning and origin, and of the need for that pro-life witness to be
given to the whole world and to every culture and subculture.
