Before getting into the different sins against life, we must first look at the dignity of life. We have to look at the reasons for protecting life, building a culture of life, and defeating the culture of death.
During his papacy, Bl. Pope John Paul II paved the path for the theme “the Gospel of Life”. What is the Gospel of Life? “The Gospel of Life is at the heart of Jesus’ message. Lovingly received day after day by the Church, it is to be preached with dauntless fidelity as “good news” to the people of every age and culture.”[ii]
VIDEO – Building Up the Culture of Life
This video was from Mother Angelica LIVE and the priest, who is speaking, is Monsignor William B Smith. He gives a great overview of not just this lesson, but also all the lessons in this packet, and it is recommended that this video be viewed before going further in the lessons.
What is the culture of life? Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly”[iii], and that goes for every life. The culture of life is seeing that every life is created by God and is good. Life must be protected and cared for at every stage. It started from the very beginning, “At the dawn of salvation, it is the birth of a child which is proclaimed as joyful news: ‘I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior; who is Christ the Lord’[iv]. The source of this ‘great joy’ is the birth of the Savior; but Christmas also reveals the full meaning of every human birth, and the joy which accompanies the birth of the Messiah is thus seen to be the foundation and fulfillment of joy at every child born into the world[v].’”[vi] Sadly, there are many factors at play that want to destroy the joy of the conception and birth of a child in this world. There are those, knowingly and unknowingly, who help push a culture not of life, but of death.
What is the culture of death? Someone, who does not celebrate life and promote it, is helping the culture of death. The culture of death, simply, is stripping someone of his or her dignity and essence as a person. “Whatever is opposed to life itself such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or willful self-destruction; whatever violates the integrity of the human person such as mutilation, torments inflected on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and other like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator.”[vii]
What are some forms of the culture of death? The culture of death and those that push the various forms (abortion, euthanasia, etc.) seem to have the upper hand at times. For example, “In order to facilitate the spread of abortion, enormous sums of money have been invested and continue to be invested…”[viii] to help kill babies. Companies like Planned Parenthood have billions of dollars at their disposal and some of their money comes from taxpayers. People, who help promote these things, will try and twist the truth by saying that offering contraceptives and abortion is “safer” and actually helps reduce the number of “unwanted pregnancies”.
However, if you look at contraceptives, abortion, and “unwanted pregnancies”, we see they come from an unwanted responsibility due to their sexual activity. “Still, in very many other instances such practices are rooted in a hedonistic mentality unwilling to accept responsibility in matters of sexuality, and they imply a self-centered concept of freedom, which regards procreation as an obstacle to personal fulfillment. The life which could result from a sexual encounter thus becomes an enemy to be avoided at all costs, and abortion becomes the only possible decisive response to failed contraception.”[ix]
ACTIVITY – Life is Not
The chorus is taken from the following quote from Blessed John Paul II. “But it often happens that people are discouraged from creating the proper conditions for human reproduction and are led to consider themselves and their lives as a series of sensations to be experienced rather than as a work to be accomplished. The result is a lack of freedom, which causes a person to reject a commitment to enter into a stable relationship with another person and to bring children into the world, or which leads people to consider children as one of the many "things" which an individual can have or not have, according to taste, and which compete with other possibilities. It is necessary to go back to seeing the family as the sanctuary of life. The family is indeed sacred: it is the place in which life — the gift of God — can be properly welcomed and protected against the many attacks to which it is exposed, and can develop in accordance with what constitutes authentic human growth. In the face of the so-called culture of death, the family is the heart of the culture of life.”[x]
What actions and/or ideas keep individuals and couples from desiring to be open to life?People desire to be sexually active, and live as they wish, but do not want to commit to fidelity (marriage) or fruitfulness (children). This life style leads to a type of imprisonment and poverty. The self-centered concept of freedom leads people to be “imprisoned in a consumer mentality and whose sole concern is to bring about a continual growth of material goods…”[xi] While the life style appears to be a life of wealth as material goods are sought, the ultimate material and spiritual good, a human life, is avoided. This avoidance of life is a great poverty. “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”[xii]
How can we combat the culture of death? “In seeking the deepest roots of the struggle between the ‘culture of life’ and the ‘culture of death,’ we cannot restrict ourselves to the perverse idea of freedom …We have to go to the heart of the tragedy being experienced by modern man: the eclipse of the sense of God and of man, typical of a social and cultural climate dominated by secularism, which, with its ubiquitous tentacles, succeeds at times in putting Christian communities themselves to the test. Those who allow themselves to be influenced by this climate easily fall into a sad, vicious circle: when the sense of God is lost, there is also a tendency to lose the sense of man, of his dignity and his life; in turn the systematic violation of the moral law, especially in the serious matter of respect for human life and its dignity, produces a kind of progressive darkening of the capacity to discern God’s living and saving presence.”[xiii] Another way looking at it is “Without the Creator, the creature would disappear… But when God is forgotten, the creature itself grows unintelligible.”[xiv]
What things in our society cause the “sense of God” to be lost? How can we help bring back the “sense of God” in our life and the life of others? Blessed Pope John Paul II says the reason for the mentality of the culture of death is the absence in people’s hearts of God, whose love alone is stronger than all the world’s fears and can conquer them.
We must realize that we are indeed unique from all other living things on this earth. We must see that every person is not the same, that we have a unique quality that we bring to the world that no one else can and no one else will, and when we rob this from a person, we rob the world and God of His creation. What are some ways can we bring about a culture of life?
We should remember that all life is good! Why is life good? Life is good because we are created in the image and likeness of God. “This question is found everywhere in the Bible, and from the very first pages it receives a powerful and amazing answer. The life which God gives man is quite different from the life of all other living creatures, inasmuch as man, although formed from the dust of the earth[xv], is a manifestation of God in the world, a sign of his presence, a trace of his glory[xvi].”[xvii]
We are sent out, as the disciples were, by Christ to preach the Gospel; the Gospel of Life. We are to do this in our families, our communities, and in society.
How do we spread the Gospel of Life in our families? The family is the start and very heart of the love of life. “The family has a decisive responsibility. This responsibility flows from its very nature as a community of life, and love, founded upon marriage, and from its mission to ‘guard, reveal and communicate love.[xviii]’”[xix] It first starts with the celebration and giving of love between husband and wife, who work in cooperation with God’s love to bring about and foster life. Parents, who see their children “as the fruit of their mutual gift of love, is, in turn, a gift for both of them, a gift which flows from them.”[xx] “It is above all in raising children that the family fulfills its mission to proclaim the Gospel of Life.”[xxi] Families are to be raised knowing that they are a gift, raised to be faithful Christians, and aware of suffering and death. They can do this if they are close to assisting the sick or elderly members of their own families.
The rock of a family is a marriage. What does a married couple commit to? What vows do a husband and wife take when they get married? “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized.”[xxii] The vows of the marriage are centered on the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring. During the rite of Marriage during the statement of intentions, a couple is asked, “have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage? Will you love and honor each other as man and wife for the rest of your lives? Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”[xxiii] The vows are summed up in four words: Free, Total, Faithful, Fruitful. If this is not the intention, the validity of the marriage is jeopardized. This intention and consent is necessary for the sacrament of Marriage. Families depend on these four words and the intention and consent to live out these four words.
How do we spread the Gospel of Life in our community? No matter our vocation and where we work, we have a duty to uphold the gift of life. For example, hospitals or clinics should be more than just giving care to the sick and dying, but also should “be places where suffering, pain and death are acknowledged and understood in their human and specifically Christian meaning.”[xxiv] As volunteers or employees, we must exercise our consciences when we see the belittlement of life.
How do we spread the Gospel of Life in our society? Everyone is responsible for the defense and promotion of the culture of life. “No single person or group has a monopoly on the defense and promotion of life. These are everyone’s task and responsibility.”[xxv] We cannot rely on other groups, politicians, or anyone else to handle it all on their own. If we want to change the society, we must change hearts and minds starting at home, Church, community, and society. “There can be no true democracy without a recognition of every person’s dignity and without respect for his or her rights.”[xxvi]
To carry out the Gospel of Life can seem daunting in the face of what we are up against. We must remember that the fruit we bear is abundant and that by definition the “culture of death” bears no fruit, for it is dead. “There is certainly an enormous disparity between the powerful resources available to the forces promoting the ‘culture of death’ and the means at the disposal of those working for a ‘culture of life and love.’ But we know that we can rely on the help of God, for whom nothing is impossible[xxvii]”[xxviii] We must seek life from the source of life, Jesus Christ. On Easter Sunday, two angels asked the women who had come to the tomb of Jesus, “Why do you seek the living one among the dead?”[xxix] How does our society and we seek “life” among the “culture of death”? Why is it that we can be so easily fooled into thinking that the “culture of death” is fun, life giving, and good for us?
[i] Blessed Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae
[ii] Evangelium Vitae 1.1
[iii] Jn. 10:10
[iv] Lk. 2:10-11
[v] cf. Jn 16:21
[vi] Evangelium Vitae 1.2
[vii] Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 27.
[viii] Evangelium Vitae 13.1
[ix] Evangelium Vitae 13.3
[x] Blessed John Paul II; Centesimus Annus; Section 39
[xi] Spiritual Reading in this Link to Liturgy packet
[xii] Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
[xiii] Evangelium Vitae 21.1
[xiv] Gaudium et Spes, 36
[xv] cf. Gen 2:7, 3:19; Job 34:15; Ps. 103:14, 104:29
[xvi] cf. Gen. 1:26-27; Ps. 8:6
[xvii] Evangelium Vitae 34.2
[xviii] Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 50
[xix] Evangelium Vitae 92.1
[xx] John Paul II, Address to Participants in the Seventh Sympoosium of European Bishops on the Theme of “Contemporary Attitudes toward Life and Death: A Challenge for Evangelization” (October 17, 1989)
[xxi] Evangelium Vitae 92.4
[xxii] Code of Canon Law; Can. 1055 §1.
[xxiii] Rite of Marriage; Statement of Intentions
[xxiv] Evangelium Vitae 88.5
[xxv] Evangelium Vitae 91.2
[xxvi] Evangelium Vitae 101.4
[xxvii] cf. Mt. 19:26
[xxviii] Evangelium Vitae 100.1
[xxix] Luke 24:5