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Year 112 - Issue No. 26|| Jun 26— July 2 2022
the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, was properly celebrated on Friday, eight days after Thursday of Corpus Christi. The Church often celebrates beloved feasts more than once—we just can’t get enough of them! For example, we celebrate the Resurrection for seven weeks in succession, and the Church often permits us to celebrate a weekday feast again on the following Sunday. We also celebrated on that very same day, June 24th, the Nativity of John the Baptist, him being the child who leapt in the womb of his elder mother Elizabeth at the encounter of the Divine Child Jesus in Mary’s womb, interestingly on that very day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, holding that there is no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion, “this decision means that states, including Ohio, now have the option to legally protect the most vulnerable of all human beings: babies in the womb. The constant teaching of the Catholic Church is that human life begins at conception. God alone is the Author and Lord of life. Therefore, the intentional taking of innocent human life is intrinsically evil and must always be opposed. Modern science only strengthens the Church’s opposition to abortion, as advancements in genetics and prenatal imaging increasingly demonstrate that a unique human life begins at conception.
For the past 50 years, Catholics and other people of good will have peacefully prayed in front of abortion clinics, marched in Washington, D.C. and petitioned their lawmakers, hoping that the blessed day would come when communities would no longer be required by law to sanction the killing of innocent human beings in the womb.” (From the letter of the Most Reverend Dennis M. Schnurr, Archbishop of Cincinnati, June 24, 2022).
The miraculous decision taken by the Supreme court justices, is sealed by Divine providence, (the feast of the Sacred Heart and the birth of John the Baptist). God works through us, when we conform our hearts and wills to his Sacred Heart and obey His Holy will. Yes, we live in a time of cultural decline. As those around us deny truth and mock goodness, and are tempted to close our hearts. Certainly we must protect our children and our culture, but we must keep our hearts open to others, imitating Jesus. He opened his heart, knowing that men would misunderstand him, abuse him, and pierce him. We Christians, we Catholics, choose to become warmer, more charitable, more thoughtful, even as the world around us is growing colder, less caring, less reasonable, and more violent. We can do this only by devoting ourselves to Christ’s Sacred Heart, open and bleeding for the life of the world. As Mother Teresa would say: “thoughtfulness is the beginning of great sanctity.”
