The Family Foundation School Catholic Community Bulletin
Pauca Verba (a few words)
October 4th was the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi. Our library is a wonderful source of information about the saints. Catholic heroes. We should be very familiar with their lives. We read all kinds of books that do nothing to help us to be better people. It doesn’t even occur to us to make the live of the saints part of our regular reading. We should change that!
Francis is called the Seraphic Patriarch of Assisi: a man especially raised up by God in the Middle Ages with the mission to reconvert the world to Christ. Francis was born in a stable, like Jesus. He commenced his work with twelve followers whom he sent two by two to preach the Gospel. He wedded himself to Poverty, and received in his own body the marks of the Sacred Passion (stigmata) on Mount Alvernia. Francis’ message of charity, peace, and justice was heard by men and women of every level of society, and thousands in consequence, desired to leave everything and follow Francis in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Therefore he founded the Order of Friars (brothers) Minor, the Second Order (also known as the Poor Clares), and the Tertiaries or Third Order, which bear his name. Saint Francis died about sunset on Saturday, October 3, 1226.
When Francis was rebuilding the crumbling church of San Damiano, a wealthy friend came out to see what he was doing. Impressed by the simplicity of Francis he said, “Francis, I would like to come out here and work with you.” Francis answered, “I no longer believe in words, only actions.”
Francis wrote in his own testament: “This is how God inspired me, Brother Francis, to embark upon a life of penance. When I was in sin, the sight of lepers nauseated me beyond measure; but then God himself led me into their company, and I had pity on them. (Testament 1-2) After that I did not wait long before leaving the world.” (Testament 4)
By “leaving the world” Francis does not mean his physical death, but rather that he now saw as empty and worthless, all that he had pursued as valuable and meaningful before. He set out to live a radical response to Jesus Christ who owned nothing, depending upon God’s Providence alone. Dead to the world and its power-possession agenda!
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Did you know that October is “Respect Life Month”? Still, on average of 4,400 abortions take place in our country alone everyday. Science knows that what’s in the womb is not plant life. Nor is it lower animal life – worm, snail or fish. All it needs is time and nourishment to be able to survive outside the womb. “Oh, look at the baby” the sibling said when invited into the doctor’s office where his mom was having a sonogram to check out the health of a younger sister.
Girls in the womb are aborted in much higher numbers throughout the world than boys. Why aren’t women screaming to protest that? Especially the women of the First World?
Some of us have siblings with handicaps. Downs Syndrome kids are almost extinct because the handicap is detectable in the womb and so they are aborted. But Downs Syndrome kids give more hugs in a day than some of us give in a life time. And they can be helped to live wonderfully productive lives. We’re the poorer for their absence from our own lives.
When the baby’s handicap is detected in the womb, abortion is advised. We will see the day (perhaps sooner than later) when the insurance companies will say to the mom, “If you don’t have an abortion, this company won’t pay for the future health care of the baby.”
We’ve all been given a chance to live. Maybe we’ve made poor life choices. Maybe we’ve ignored the value of our lives. Maybe we’ve lived undignified lives. But we were given a chance. Every life has value! No one, not even a nation, has a right to say, “This life has no value or less value and should not be allowed to be born.”
“Oh, oh, oh, what about babies conceived of incest or rape?” A Catholic nun was raped during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. She conceived and chose to allow the baby to be born. She said, “I had to stop the cycle of violence. Killing the baby would only perpetuate the violence.” She gave birth to the child and is raising him as her own. I hope the nuns of her community and the local people are surrounding her with all the support they can give!
We are living in what Pope John Paul II called the culture of death. This means, we solve our problems with death. We don’t know what to do with the criminal – kill him. We don’t know how to deal with an enemy – kill them. We don’t know what to do with the people who take too long to die – kill them. We don’t know what to do with the baby who arrives unexpectedly, inconveniently, or with problems – kill them. Death doesn’t solve problems!
And if we’re not convinced that we live in times when choices are made solely upon convenience/expediency: a funeral director told me that now people regularly forgo funerals for their relatives because they don’t want to interrupt their work week to attend. Or that the deceased are now regularly just sent off to the crematorium from the place where they died, like bags of newspaper or leaves, to be burned and “disposed” of. It’s cheaper and easier.
“Out of my way,” seems increasingly to be the world’s method.
If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts! (Psalm 95:8)
