Lifeissues is mainly concerned with publishing thoughtful articles directly related to issues raised in Evangelium Vitae. However, from the very beginning, we have also published a few related homilies, notably by Fr. Al Cariño, O.M.I., Fr. Tony Pueyo, and others.
Please use the pulldowns below to select a homily by Liturgical Calendar date.
God the Son became man and, in a mysterious way that I couldn’t even begin to explain, he took upon himself the sins of the entire human race. In his Passion, he knew and tasted the entire weight of the world’s sin, past present, and future. He knew it all at once, as only a divine Person of the Trinity could know it. That was the greatest suffering Christ experienced.
Our culture of death is an affront to God's creative work in the world. The 'becoming' or the loss of human life we can no more explain by our empirical sciences than we can manufacture life, spirit and truth. Anyone who destroys human life at any stage of inception strikes at the goodness of the Creator. Ninety-eight percent of us during our child bearing years have used contraceptives or have sterilized ourselves! We have made the 'modern' world into a mortuary for the living dead incapable of procreation for our sins against humanity.
For those who have suffered great tragedy in life, their entire identity no longer has to be defined by that tragedy. It has been made relative. Tragedy no longer has the final word over your life, over my life, over any human life. The answer to that tragedy is the resurrection of Christ.
Christ's death and resurrection has reduced tragedy from the absolute to the relative. The crucifix, once a symbol of horror, has become a symbol of power, victory, and glory.
When Jesus heard that his friend Lazarus had died, he did nothing for a few days. Not because he didn't care but because he saw in this death an opportunity to show his followers more clearly who he is and was. The story is complex and raises lots of good questions.