Each person is unique, special with immense dignity. In a normal family life each is treasured and loved by parents, siblings and extended family – uncles, aunts, grandparents.
All normal parents have fond memories of the birth of their children. Of nurturing them through babyhood, as toddlers, young children and teenagers.
The hopes and dreams of parents for their children; giving their all to care for them, making whatever sacrifices may be necessary to keep them safe and to care for their needs body mind and spirit.
From a Christian perspective each life was seen by God at the dawn of time and in the womb. In Jeremiah we read, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
Each is made in God’s image and likeness. Each with an immortal soul with an eternal destiny. A vocation to fulfil, a contribution to make to society and to the world. Most are called to have children and to carry on the family legacy. No one can take that person’s place. Premature death brings great sorrow and loss to loved ones, and a vocation undiscovered and lost to the world renders the world the poorer. The loss is irreparable. Beauty and creativity lost forever.
We think of the soldier in Ukraine, killed in battle. His relatives whether wife, children, parents or grandparents left to mourn – lives forever changed.
We think of the pre born baby whose life is taken.
We think of the person killed because of their religion.
We think or those who died due to natural disasters because of climate change.
We think of the interconnectedness of everyone – a unity of being which evil seeks to destroy.
We think of the invitation of God to love and the death of Jesus Christ on the cross which opens up an eternity of Love…
Do we ever reflect upon the crucial importance of the family-
For the personal development of each person?
For the well being of society?
For the future of humanity?
Walking in a local park recently I was struck by the endearing sight of parents and children happily walking together.
And at a granddaughter’s Confirmation Mass in a local church, how this sacred moment and rite of passage is so precious for the young people, their families and the Church.
The Church has just celebrated the great feast of the Holy Trinity Father Son and Holy Spirit the Godhead family of love which breathes life into all creation. Christians are immersed in God’s family at baptism, “I baptise you in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit,” says the priest as the cleansing waters are poured over the head of the baptised signalling entry into a new life which reaches far beyond this life into eternity.
The 10th world meeting of families is currently taking place in Rome from the 22nd to the 26th of June. This is wonderful celebration of family love. This is the prayer for the meeting –
Family Love: Vocation and Path to Holiness
Heavenly Father, We come before You to praise You and to thank You for the great gift of the family. We pray to You for all families consecrated by the Sacrament of Matrimony. May they rediscover each day the grace they have received, and as small domestic Churches, may they know how to witness to Your presence and to the love with which Christ loves the Church. We pray to You for all families faced with difficulty and suffering caused by illness or circumstances of which only You know. Sustain them and make them aware of the path to holiness upon which You call them, so that they might experience Your infinite mercy and find new ways to grow in love. We pray to You for children and young people: may they encounter You and respond joyfully to the vocation You have in mind for them; We pray for parents and grandparents: may they be aware that they are signs of the fatherhood and motherhood of God in caring for the children who, in body and spirit, You entrust to them; and for the experience of fraternity that the family can give to the world. Lord, grant that each family might live their specific vocation to holiness in the Church as a call to become missionary disciples, in the service of life and peace, in communion with our priests, religious, and all vocations in the Church. Bless the World Meeting of Families. Amen.
This prayer is inspired by the theme chosen by Pope Francis for the meeting: “Family love: a vocation and a path to holiness.”
By contrast it is tragic that family walks and church celebrations are seriously curtailed if not made impossible by the invasion of Ukraine where generations of families have died or been seriously injured and where millions of families are displaced and family members separated.
This is true of any war and all violence. Bishop Emmanuel Badejo spoke out against the inactivity of the Nigerian government to protect Christians in view of the killing of 40 at the attack on St Francis Xavier parish church in Owo on Pentecost Sunday. There have been many other worshippers killed and kidnapped in Nigeria as we know.
It is very good news however that Roe and Wade has been overturned by the Supreme court in America. This is a wakeup call to countries throughout the world that many still believe in the sanctity of human life from conception. This is an answer to prayer. There will come a day when the scourge of the killing of unborn babies will end throughout the world for all time and the word abortion erased from dictionaries so that children if they hear the word will say, “abortion what is that?”
Jesus said, “This is my commandment: love one another, as I have loved you.
Love is the panacea for all ills.
Love engenders peace and harmony in every situation whether personal or between nations.
What are the characteristics of true love? Love demands respect and sacrifice.
The example of love par excellence is the death of Jesus on the cross to save humanity from dereliction and open the way to our Creator Father God in the here and now and transcending to eternity.
This commandment was given to the disciples but is an invitation to everyone.
Where is the love in the war in Ukraine? This quest for territory and power at such a cost is the very antitheses of love. Death, destruction, displacement of millions of families.
What dose Jesus Christ say to this? “Love one another as I have loved you. This is my commandment.
This is a commandment of God who created everything which exists and all life on earth.
This commandment is not an option. We ignore it at our peril as individuals and as a world.
In The gospel reading for the fourth Sunday of Lent we hear the story of the Prodigal (lost) son from Luke’s gospel 15: 1-3. 11- 32.
In this well known parable which Jesus told, a young son goes to his father and demands his share of the inheritance? The son then goes off and squanders the money on fast living and ends up hungry and takes work feeding pigs. Having reached rock bottom he returns to his father to say sorry in the hope he can enjoy the comparative luxury of being treated as one of the servants. What he didn’t realise is that the Father was constantly on the look out for his son’s return and when he sees his son coming in the distance rushes out to embrace him without even waiting to hear the apology.
The elder son was like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day without mercy who criticised the father for welcoming the younger son back to his status in the family. He would not join the celebrations.
Lent is a time for owning up to our mistakes knowing that that we are children of God and he loves us. It’s never too late to return to sanity and fraternity, to realise what is ugly and wrong in our lives. Like the father in the story God is distraught when we go astray. No sin is greater than Gods love, however, for those willing to leave the pig sty and run into the Father’s loving arms.
There is a way out of the pig sty and into the light. It starts with an honest examination of conscience leading to realisation and sorrow and a quest for forgiveness from the Father who waits with arms outstretched. In the words of Pope Francis the name of God is mercy.
There is the wonderful story related in the film Ghandi when a Hindu confesses to killing a Muslim child at the time of partition and social upheaval. He is broken for what he has done when full realisation dawns on him. Ghandi tells him there is a way out of his hell. To find an orphaned Muslim child and bring him/her up as Muslim.
There are millions of innocent children killed in their mother’s womb and many who campaign under the false banner of women’s rights who campaign for abortion on demand as we saw this week when the UK Parliament voted 1015 to 188 to keep DIY abortion post covid following a telephone consultation with a doctor – even minors. Let’s be clear. This is killing babies (even by minors) with a minimum of supervision! Abortion warriors are far from the Father’s loving arms.
And contrary to the peace which Ghandi stood for we see killing, wounding, starvation, privation and displacement of millions and the bombing homes and civilian areas and even war crimes committed in the Ukraine.
Surely it’s time for the perpetrators of these atrocities to return to being human beings, to carry out reparation and seek forgiveness.
‘My plans for you are for peace, not for disaster;
To give you a future, a future filled with hope.’
‘My plans for you are for peace.’ (Jer 29:11)
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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ
Dear friends and people of good will
The news and images from Ukraine in recent days are truly devastating. Our eyes are filled with tears; tears of anguish and tears of sorrow. Our hearts are heavy, weighed down with immeasurable sadness. God’s plan for his people is peace, not disaster, not war. But peace in Ukraine has been stolen and the consequences are disastrous.
Before I say anything else, it is so important for you to know, dear brothers and sisters from Ukraine – and for your fellow countrymen and woman suffering in your beloved homeland – that we stand with you. We stand with you shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, and soul to soul. We stand with you in undivided solidarity, as must every person and nation that believes in peace.
I am British by birth; but like so many people across the globe I have become Ukrainian in spirit. We are one with you. We are one with you in faith, one with you in prayer, one with you in grief, and one with you in hope.
The invasion of Ukraine is an act of unjustified aggression against a democratic and sovereign nation. It has brought war to your people and to Europe. Since early Thursday morning we have watched in desperate disbelief as your country has been violated; and it continues. The death toll is rising. Each day loved ones are being killed. Families are being torn apart and people displaced. Those who, only a few days ago, were residents are now refugees. The sick and the elderly, babies and young children, are forced underground as life is threatened and homes are destroyed. This is outrageous. It is outrageous before Almighty God, it is outrageous before the world.
Dear friends, no right-thinking person, no right-thinking nation, can possibly believe that, in our day and age, this attack is acceptable in any sense. Unwarranted oppression casts its dark shadow across your country and our continent, and we weep. We weep before God who demands that war must cease. We weep before God who demands this war in Ukraine must end. We weep before God for all those who have already lost their lives.
I am not a politician. I am not a statesman. I am a disciple and a shepherd. I follow the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. I, with so many others, long and yearn for all God’s people to be gathered in unity and harmony. Christ our Saviour commands that we love one another; and he permits no exceptions. This is not some fanciful ideal. His commandment to love our neighbour cuts to the heart of what it means to be human, of what it means to belong to the human race, of what it means to share the earth as our common home.
When anyone chooses violence to achieve their goal, nobody wins. Everyone loses in war and the face of humanity is disfigured. We cannot, none of us, be indifferent to the evil taking place in Ukraine. We are our brother’s and sister’s keeper. We each have responsibility for one another, person for person, and nation for nation.
Today, we heard the Gospel of the Last Judgement as recorded by St Matthew. It makes for exacting hearing, but we must listen attentively.
‘Whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters,’ says the Lord Jesus, ‘know that you do it to me.’
Actions have consequences. Everyone, one day, will stand before God to give an account of their choices. What have we done to others? How have we treated the weakest and the poorest? When could we have acted for good, acted in love, acted for peace, but chose not to? When could we have protected the innocent, defended the helpless, and strengthened the weak, but instead imposed our will, trampled down human rights, and extinguished hope? Not all justice is achieved in this life. The ultimate judgement belongs to God. Let the words of Christ thunder from the heavens: ‘What you are doing to the least of my brothers and sisters you are doing to me.’
My friends, we can feel paralysed in the face of military might and political will. We ask ourselves, what difference can I make? I am nothing; nothing but a powerless witness to bloodshed, to a country and people torn apart. There is, and will be, material support that we can and must give. But there is another battle in which we can take up arms from afar. It is the spiritual battle for conversion which can only be won by prayer.
Every war that plays out its ugly terror is first conceived in the heart. It comes from within, from a fixation to dictate, from an obsession to dominate by force. When the Bible speaks about the heart, it refers to the deepest truth of the person. ‘It is from within,’ said the Lord Jesus, ‘from within the human heart, that evil plans emerge.’ (Mk 7:21)
We must pray for the conversion of heart of all those who think war is the answer. We must pray they come to their senses. We must pray the scales fall from their eyes to see that nothing enduring, nothing honourable, nothing true and nothing holy, is ever built through warfare. We must pray that everyone committed to war has their heart broken; broken open to embrace peace.
As we pray in earnest for the people and government of Ukraine, we pray also for the courageous people of Russia who are raising their voices to say ‘no to war.’ Only hearts that seek peace can lay claim to civilised humanity. War should have no place in anyone’s heart. War only ever destroys our present and poisons our future. No to war, yes to peace. Through our words and actions, through the words and actions of governments, we must make this real. No to war, yes to peace.
Today’s Gospel places a question on all our lips: ‘Lord, when did we see you in need and did not come to your aid?’ When did we see you bombed and wounded, oppressed and persecuted, driven from your home, terrorised with fear, and not help you? ‘I tell you solemnly,’ said the Lord Jesus, ‘in so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of my brothers and sisters, you neglected to do it to me.’ Lord, break every war-filled heart, and give us new hearts for peace. Lord, break every stubborn, arrogant, and selfish heart, and give us new hearts for justice.
We turn to our Blessed Lady, to our Mother Mary, Queen of Peace, and we beg in prayer that she intercede for all her suffering children.
May God’s plan for peace triumph; may God bring forth a new future filled with hope. May God bless everyone who is working for peace. Amen.
Archbishop John Wilson
Metropolitan Archbishop of Southwark
Ash Wednesday has a special significance this year
Addressing St Peter’s Square pilgrims last Sunday (27th February), Pope Francis said Catholics had been shocked by the outbreak of war, after “repeatedly praying this road would not be chosen,” and repeated his call for March 2nd, Ash Wednesday, to be marked by prayer and fasting for peace. “He who wages war forgets humanity – he does not think about people, or have before his eyes the concrete life of people, but puts partial interests and power above all,” Francis said.
In this Sunday’s Gospel we hear about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness (Luke 4: 1 -13) where Jesus after forty days of fasting is tempted to turn a stone into bread, to worship satan in exchange for the kingdoms of the world and to throw himself down from the parapet of the Temple in expectation of being rescued by angels.
Jesus’ responses to these temptations show what his ministry is to be about. Jesus will not simply be concerned with people’s needs. He will neither be the kind of warrior king the Jews expected the messiah would be nor a wonder worker: he will be a servant king, bringing God’s love and salvation to everyone.
There is a message here which Putin will not see because he is a man very far from the God of love. As Pope Francis said, “He who wages war forgets about humanity- he does not think about people…”
Deaths – so many – and the bereavement of loved ones, millions suffering trauma, countless injuries, much hardship and hunger, displacement of hundreds of thousands and destruction – this seems to matter little to him; even the deaths of young men in the Russian army sent to kill their neighbours across the border without knowing why there being no legal or moral justification.
As Pope Francis says we must pray and fast. Miracles abound in the support for the Ukrainian people from around the world. We must pray for this senseless and evil attack to end before much worse happens.
This Sunday’s Gospel reading at Mass is the familiar account of Jesus and his disciples and Mary the mother of Jesus, at the wedding feast of Cana in Galilee.
In this first miracle of Jesus, 880 litres of water are turned into wine. Not only that, the best wine, unusually saved until last was the comment.
This Sunday is also Peace Sunday where the Church reflects on the great need for peace in the world.
If only the world could emulate the wedding party at Cana and joyfully celebrate all that God imparts to us. Instead, we see squabbling, fighting and killing over national borders and dictatorships and religious persecution. But it has always been like this. Kings and governments pushing out national boundaries and influence and subjugating others by means of naked aggression and the threat of incarceration or death.
It’s on the news in media free countries every day.
Jesus came to show a better way. He calls upon everyone to join the party – a life of peace and selfless concern for others especially the poor, marginalised and the down trodden.
For those who accept this invitation, an eternal banquet is assured where there are no more tears only peace, joy and ultimate fulfilment.
In this week’s Sunday Gospel, we see how Jesus was immersed in His Father’s affirming love by the words spoken from heaven following his baptism in the Jordan “You are my Son, the beloved.”
The Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit signified by the dove, were present at this event.
What does this mean for Christians? Christians are resident aliens in this world. We are the children of God, brothers of Jesus imbued with the Holy Spirit. At baptism we become members of God’s family the Church and are commissioned to play our part in transforming the world.
Our family characteristics can be summed up in the Fruits of the Spirit in St Paul’s letter to the Galatians 5.22 – 23. Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self Control.
These fruits are transformative and run counter to war, greed, indifference to the plight of others and such qualities challenge the world to find a new way as we face climate change with the threat it poses to our God given home – planet earth.
Jesus emerges from his baptism as the light of the world which the Church has just celebrated in the feast of the Epiphany and as brothers and sisters of Christ and members of the family of God we can reflect this light which has the power to put an end to darkness and give new hope.
When Christians make the sign of the cross we can recall the baptism of Jesus and the greatest act of love ever which opens for us the way to eternity.
Continuing the theme of human rights, just last week the House of Lords passed unopposed the second reading of the assisted dying bill – a euphemism for assisted suicide, which has now gone to committee stage. I pray it may never see the light of day.
As with the 1967 Abortion Act which gained sympathy due to the horrendous and illegal practice of back street abortion and worst case scenarios such as rape and which has led to routine abortion of healthy babies – the assisted dying bill, whatever the supposed good intentions of the proposer and supporters, is likely lead to widespread euthanasia threatening the right to life of the old and those with incurable disabilities.
Does the Christian Church want this bill?
Is it in line with our Christian heritage?
Is it part of God’s plan for society?
Emphatically NO!
Those whose ideology or mindset is characterised by a lack respect for human life from birth to death will welcome it.
Life is sacred.
People of faith must make their voice of reason and rationality based on the premise of the sanctity of human life clear – this is not of us, our community, and our world.
In the Gospels Jesus reached out to the poor, outcast and disabled.
God loves everyone, the unborn, and the disabled, those who suffer.
Human rights are for all.
Let’s mitigate and relieve suffering by better palliative care for all.
A suicide pill will not address the problem of a lack of love and palliative care championed by Cecily Saunders, pioneer of the hospice movement who said, “The way we die lives on in the memory of those who survive.”
It is a human right to die with dignity, not a suicide pill.
Heidi Crowter, a young woman with Downs Syndrome lost her High Court challenge to the Government over a law that allows abortion up to birth for a baby with Downs Syndrome. The High Court judges deferred responsibility for the law that allows discrimination against people with Downs Syndrome back to Parliament.
The court refused to declare the relevant law, the Abortion Act of 1967 as amended by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act of 1990, as being contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act.
This is not “unlawful discrimination” says the High Court.
My nephew with Downs Syndrome is a wonderful Man and valued and loved by all the family. Always full of fun, great conversation, thoughtful and deeply spiritual praying each day and participating reverently in the Eucharist. Not long ago he gave an extemporary blessing over my daughter and son in law at their wedding reception in front of us all.
Rory belongs to a singing and dance company and has been in several performances and I pay tribute to the organisers and theatre staff and production team and the funding stream who make possible.
There are many people who have helped Rory to reach a high level of literacy and I pay tribute to them all. My nephew loves life, the family, friends, TV, reading, dancing, singing and acting. If only we could all be as happy as he is.
That Down Syndrome babies can have their lives ended up to birth is an abomination and blatant discrimination not only against people with Downs Syndrome all those with disabilities detected before birth.
Moving on from this –
Mary Onuoha, a nurse I know personally is suing a London NHS Trust for being forced out of her job for wearing a cross. She says she was “treated like a criminal.” She is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre. Her lawyers argue that the Trust has breached her freedom to manifest her faith under Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights and the Equality Act – ring any bells?
The Trust says it was a beach of the Trust’s dress code and uniform policy and therefore a risk to her and to patients. Yet the Trust welcomes the wearing of saris, turbans, kirpan, skullcaps, hijabs, kippahs clerical collars. This is welcoming diversity.
It seems that human rights do not apply to Christians or to those with disabilities in Britain.
