Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

The Gospel passage today ends with our Lord placing a child in the midst of the Apostles, saying to them, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.” Though it is the last word of Scripture read to us this Sunday, this passage gives us insight into the beginning, the foundation, of all Catholic social justice teaching. Selfish ambition, hatred, violence, rejection of the truth and recoiling from being reminded of our imperfection is rooted, fundamentally, in a rejection of the gift of life. The Catholic Church teaches that all of our social action, everything that we do in the world, is rooted in the fundamental dignity of every human person created in the image and likeness of God. And so the Church also understands that if we wish to promote, protect, and defend the dignity of human life, we must recognize that dignity at every stage of life and in every place. We can, at one and the same time, see the full spectrum of human need as well as the logical sequence in time and space of the development of the human person and the just needs of humanity in each of those moments. Thus, before we ever speak of poverty, illness, and the countless other ways in which human life must be cared for, the Catholic Church begins with the dignity of human life present in the gift of a child. Receive the child, Jesus tells us, recognizing the gift of God’s life handed on.

Receptivity, though, is no longer a native skill for our society. True to the American manifest destiny attitude (which even if not explicit, has implicitly held sway in our culture for nearly two centuries), we can make ourselves whatever we want, and make of ourselves whatever we want. There is no need to receive anything. If we are masters of our own domain in everything, we become the final arbiters of how our life will pan out. If faced with a contrary message, such as that presented by the Church’s authentic Gospel teaching on the dignity of human life and all that follows from it, we become like the wicked described in the book of Wisdom, angry at the just one, or like those James writes to, filled with selfish ambition and demanding, consuming, and taking, rather than receiving. Enter the child, placed in the midst of the Apostles by our Lord, who instructs them to receive.

Human life is a gift to be received. This is why the Church believes that every child is a gift from God. Abortion, which makes the child a burden or an enemy to be killed, denies the truth that a child is a gift. Contraception, which claims that we get to decide when and if the gift is given, stands athwart the attitude of receptivity which Jesus teaches. IVF and various other forms of unethical reproductive technology make human life a commodity to be bought and sold at will, rather than a gift to be received. If we lose the attitude of receptivity, that life is a gift received from the God of all creation, then we can never have an authentic attitude of charity for the poor, the migrant, the sick, the dying, the marginalized, for our attitude toward them will always be infected by false self-determinism, and the same selfish ambition that the Apostles argued about as they walked along. Our society is full enough of such selfish ambition, full enough of such violent rejection of the gifts of God. We, as a Church, are called to be different.

There is good news in all of this. As the Apostles walk along the way with Jesus, even in their imperfection, He never stops teaching them, never stops calling them to something greater. His mercy endures in all things. And so there is always mercy for my selfish ambition, there is always forgiveness for my sinful choices, there is always good that God can bring out of even my worst decisions. If the first word of the Gospel that Jesus preaches is “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand,” then we ought to take that as our starting point. Let us repent of our rejection of God’s gift of life, our rejection of the child. And let us then follow the command of Jesus to His Apostles and receive. Receive the gift of life, receive the joy of the life that God offers, receive His grace, His mercy, and His gifts. Having received, our lives will be transformed, and with that personal transformation, we will stand as witnesses for life which is God’s gift, and as counter signs to a self-centered, divided, and violently ambitious culture that robs our world of the true peace given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Peace,

Fr. Sam