Leprosy

Last Sunday, was the gospel of Luke 17:11-19. The gospel of the ten lepers, and only one came back to thank Jesus for healing him. I just wanted to share something that Father said in his homily.

He said something like this---
  We all have wants. We all look to material things to bring us happiness. But let's be like the 10th leper... and come back to thank Jesus. Let's give it all to Him. We all have different leprosies, but isn't it greater to have Jesus holding our hand. And look to Him always for our true happiness.

And then in the Magnificat,

"We all have leprosy, even the greatest and most admired among us. I mean that we all have something that bedevils us, embarrasses us, humiliates us. Maybe no one else knows about it, but we know about it.....   Usually it is not our accomplishments, our gifts, our talents, our beauty, or our success that lead us to God; usually, it is our suffering. As you contemplate your leprosy, whatever it is, you could bemoan your fate, you could curse God, you could last out at others in resentment, or you could see it as the vehicle that will bring you to God." 

Just something beautiful to think about.

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And just one more thing I wanted to share... as with the election coming so close. I know there are lots of emotions out there, and lots of uncertainity, and lots of anxiety, lots of scaredness. I keep praying, and trusting that Jesus and Mary will help the right person come into office, to defend life, to defend religious freedom, to defend love. But this insert from Saint Teresa of Calcutta, says it best I believe.

But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. 

And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. 

By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. 

And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. 

Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.