ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

Trinity III – B. High Mass 02.07.06

Fr Ivan Aquilina

On Good Friday 2005, as Terri Schiavo lay dying of thirst in Woodside Hospice, Gabriel Keys took her a cup of water. Gabriel was arrested, handcuffed and taken away. Apparently, no one taught Gabriel that you do not disobey a judge's order, even to bring water to someone dying of thirst. When this incident took place last year Gabriel was 10 years old, he is probably not yet conversant with the new morality, where a corporal work of mercy can be a crime. Perhaps his parents filled his mind with such subversive texts as: "Whoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones, a cup of water shall not lose eternal life”.

From abortion, to a right to die, to a right to suicide, to involuntary euthanasia, this sad litany seems never ending. This is an "anticulture" manifested also in drugs, in the flight from reality to what is false to a misleading happiness expressed in deceit, fraud, injustice and contempt for others; it is expressed in a sexuality that becomes sheer irresponsible enjoyment, that makes the human person a thing no longer considered a person who deserves personal love which requires fidelity, but who becomes a commodity, a mere object.

Let us say "no" to this promise of apparent happiness, to what may seem to be life but is in fact merely an instrument of death, let us say NO to this "anticulture" and cultivate the culture of life. The Christian "yes", from ancient times to our day, is a great "yes" to life. It is our "yes" to Christ, our "yes" to the Conqueror of death and the "yes" to life in time and in eternity.

In our baptism, the sacrament of life, our "yes" is expressed in three expressions of loyalty: "yes" to the living God the Creator who gives meaning to our lives; "yes" to Christ, to God who did not stay hidden but has a name, words, a body and blood; to a concrete God who gives us life and shows us the path of life; "yes" to the communion of the Church, in which Christ is the living God who enters our time, enters our daily life.

This is the culture of life that becomes concrete and practical and beautiful in communion with Christ, the living God, who walks with us in the companionship of his friends, in the great family of the Church.

It is a "yes" to the challenge of really living life, of saying "no" to the attack of death that presents itself under the guise of life; and it is a "yes" to the great gift of true life that became present on the beautiful Face of Christ, who gives himself to us.

This is the message that leaps at us from today’s Gospel. It is a proclamation, it is indeed a gospel of life. Jesus walks among his people and he is approached by Jairus and the sick woman who seem to be giving up. Jesus restores and gives life. Those entangled by the anticulture of death laugh at him, he keeps on his work. “I am the Resurrection and the Life”. Christ looks at each one of us in here, his disciples who love him, and summons us: “Child rise and stand up for life.” The Church is calling us today, even though people will laugh at us, to continue the work of Christ and witness and bring about a culture of life.

Let us thank the Lord for the gift of life and pray that all may truly have life: that the sacredness of life from conception to death is upheld and cherished. Let us reflect during the silent moments in our new week about the part we are to play in proclaiming this gospel of life. Let us pray and work that all may have authentic life – the beginning of eternal life. Amen.