Respect Life Mass honors truth that each person ‘is loved into existence by God’
Participants in the Life Chain event in Shelbyville pose on Oct. 5 for a photo in front of St. Joseph Church in Shelbyville. (Submitted photo by Mackenzie Nugent)
By Natalie Hoefer
It is a primary teaching of the Catholic Church: As beings made in the image and likeness of God, each person has inherent dignity that is to be respected from conception to natural death.
But such respect is not always shown.
“We, and our sinfulness, obscure our vision of this dignity,” said Father James Brockmeier, rector of SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis. “We choose to see only ourselves, our interest, our will, our bias, our hatred, our limitedness, our need.”
But those of us “who have received the gift of faith,” he continued, “… are called to be servants who love in response to sin.”
Father Brockmeier made these comments in his homily during a Mass held at the cathedral on Oct. 5, Respect Life Sunday. The day and the Mass are part of October as Respect Life Month in the Church in the United States, an annual, intensified focus on the dignity of all human life.
The recipients of this year’s archdiocesan Office of Human Life and Dignity adult and youth respect life awards were also honored at the Mass—respectively, Annissa Kellum of St. Michael Parish in Bradford and Madilyn Wethington of
St. Jude Parish in Indianapolis. (Read about the recipients here)
Kellum and Wethington are examples of the call to uphold the sanctity of life.
Because, as Father Brockmeier noted in his homily, “Life, as it is lived in each human person, in each story, everywhere and in every time, possesses infinite dignity.”
God ‘breathes his divine life’ into each person
The story of man’s creation in Genesis served as the opening of the homily. Father Brockmeier called it “one of the most important stories in the Scripture that tells us about who we are.”
In Genesis, he said, “God forms together the dust of the Earth and breathes his divine life into the dust. And God says, ‘Let us make man in our image’ ” (Gen 1:26).
Sweeping his gaze over the congregation, Father Brockmeier proclaimed the truth of each person’s existence.
“Your creation was not a random accident,” he stated emphatically. “You were made with the tremendous dignity of God’s intention and love. You are a gift from God.
“And what we know to be true of you and I is true of every human life. Every human life is the intention of God our heavenly Father. Every human life is loved into existence by God.”
The Church proclaims that this infinite dignity begins at conception and continues through natural death.
“But at times in our sinfulness, we choose not to see the dignity” of others, including “the child in a mother’s womb,” said Father Brockmeier.
When sin obscures our vision, we must “allow faith to change our stony hearts,” he said. In doing so, then where we were “clouded by our bias, clouded by our own will, we would see the infinite dignity” of each human life.
Servants ‘who love in response to sin’
Father Brockmeier noted that in the day’s Gospel reading from Luke 17:5-10, Jesus lays down a challenge.
“We who have received this gift of faith, we who have received the divine life, are called to be servants … who love in response to sin.”
He offered Project Rachel as a “tremendous example” of a ministry that “sees the woundedness of our sin and seeks to respond in faith and love.”
Project Rachel was created by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. It provides specially trained priests, religious, counselors and laypersons to care for those suffering in the aftermath of or any involvement in abortion. The ministry is offered at the diocesan level, including in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
“Jesus tells us that we are to serve in faith, in love, because we have received this great gift of God’s dignity and life,” said Father Brockmeier.
And according to the Gospel reading, “We should not see this as anything but what we must do as those who have been made in God’s image, as those who have been given the gifts of faith and love. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what we were obliged to do.’ ”
He closed the homily with a desire for the fruition of the Church’s mission “that all would see the dignity of each human person from conception to natural death. …
“As we celebrate this Respect Life Month and this Respect Life Sunday, pray that our vision be restored [and] that we may respond in love.”
(For more information on the archdiocese’s Project Rachel ministry, other resources for healing from abortion and other respect life issues, go to tinyurl.com/ArchIndyLifeAndDignity or contact Brie Anne Varick, director of the archdiocesan Office of Human Life and Dignity, at bvarick@archindy.org or 317-236-1543.) †
Related: See photos from the Life Chain prayer events took place in communities throughout central and southern Indiana
