Build world where life is loved

September 29, 2005

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

"Help build a world where human life is always loved and defended, every form of violence banished."

This sentence comes from Pope John Paul II's prayer to the Virgin Mary on Dec. 8, 2004 and is the theme for this year's Respect Life Program. As we enter the month of October we are reminded to begin anew our focus and attention on various attitudes hostile to life.

In the Gospel of the first Sunday of October we hear the parable of Jesus about the tenants in God's vineyard. Admittedly, a number of Scripture scholars put a narrow interpretation on the parable: the property owner represents God the Father; the vineyard the Jewish nation of old; the workers the people of Israel and the son is Christ Jesus. So rejection of the son is a repudiation of the Messiah by Israel of old only. We would never do anything like that! We would never mess up our vineyard and waste the son of the owner!

That is putting the blame on the other person and the running away from our responsibility for the mess we have made in the many vineyards that God the Father has designed and prepared for us - for all of us - not just a limited few. This enlightening parable of the tenants is about all of us who have ever been messed up in sin, any kind of sin. For sin, after all, is an abuse of what the Father has designed - a messing up of His property, stealing His share of the harvest, and especially a disregard of His Son who came to the property, the vineyard of the Lord, to correct its problems, to make all things right.

Jesus desired this teaching story of creation and gifts and talents and salvation for all. He implied, therefore, that we all have a part in it, not only the people of old. As we are reminded again to focus on the respect of life in a special way during the month of October these topics are given for us to address: 1) justice, mercy and capital punishment, 2) our understanding of what it means to die with dignity; 3) the lasting contributions of the Gospel of Life and its great exemplar, Pope John Paul II; 4) the Roe Courts abandonment of science and reason; 5) the links between contraception and abortion; and 6) the moral and social dimensions of human bio-engineering.

All of these topics we might say are vineyards and we need to be concerned about each. We are challenged to become more knowledgeable about them and thus know of our responsibility. Christ, the Son of God, comes to all of them and would like to be present with us in all of them. He prefers not to be tossed out of any of them much less to be utterly suppressed. They are the vineyards His Father has made and He has come among us to help restore their beauty - in which human life is always loved and defended - by His redemption. "I have come that they might have life and have it to the full" Jesus says about us and all the vineyards created by God the Father.

To respect life in all its phases is a large challenge. This challenge is found in the vineyard of just plain work. Sometimes we might be so fascinated with work we can sit all day and just look at it. That is the problem, which we can't be part of, namely, rejecting our honorable part in this vineyard. Each of us needs to do our part - toiling in the heat of the day, not sitting in the shade waiting for others to do the work. Only then will our world "know that human life is always loved and defended and every form of violence banished."

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Rev. Msgr. Roger J. Augustine,
Diocesan administrator