For Life III

Mass for Life Homily ~ Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception ~ January 21, 1999 Part 3 of 3

Tomorrow, we shall pray again for life. Let us pray as well for God's blessing on the great apostle for life, our Holy Father, as he arrives in Mexico City to bring to this hemisphere his exhortation following the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for America. He will surely call us to a greater solidarity with our sisters and brothers of North and Central and South America and of the Caribbean Islands. He will help us see more clearly how we ought to help those of Honduras and the neighboring countries rebuild after the devastating hurricane. He will remind us that throughout this hemisphere God's gift of life, especially in the weakest and most vulnerable, is in peril.

I ask you now: will you pray this evening for the pastoral mission of our Holy Father? Can we, who are going to join him for his visit to Mexico City and St. Louis, bring him the assurance of your love and prayers?

We began our reflection with the vision of Isaiah the prophet, called from his mother's womb to a mission of service to God's word and work. Let us go back to the prophet, to the moment in his life when he personally realized what that call meant for him. He was an adult, living some seven centuries before the birth of Jesus, when God admitted him to a vision of heaven, and sent one of the seraphim with a burning coal from the incense on the altar to touch and cleanse his lips, preparing him for a mission to the people which would last for all his life. (Cf. Is. 6:1-13)

You, too, are people with a mission. Your mission is to secure the foundations of the American house of freedom. You do that by working, by praying, and by marching tomorrow for the day when every unborn child in America is welcomed in life and protected in law. You do that by defending the human dignity of the sick, the suffering, the handicapped, the dying, and all those whom society is tempted to think of as “inconvenient.” You help secure the foundations of the American house of freedom by reminding our fellow citizens and our public officials that America's independence began when the Founders pledged their sacred honor to the defense of the inalienable and self-evident right to life. America is in your debt for what you do and for what you are.

At the moment of his vision Isaiah saw “the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne” surrounded by the singing seraphim, whose hymn we shall soon echo here: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts! All the earth is filled with his glory!” From his call, and glory, and presence, and most Holy Communion we draw strength. And in this glorious church dedicated to the Mother of God and our Mother, we offer our prayer to her as well. In these coming days at Guadalupe in Mexico, Pope John Paul II will lead a prayer that can be ours as well this evening: may Mary, whose request to her son at Cana of Galilee led him to change water into wine, now hear and pass on our prayer that the weak, sometimes lukewarm water of our human efforts be transformed into the strong wine of God's powerful grace in action. May her prayer and her example of faith as she lived out the first Advent give meaning to our every effort to explain, respect, defend, and promote God's unrepeatable gift of life.

May Mary's prayer win for us the strength and power of the Holy Spirit, as we continue to walk toward the mountaintop. We shall persist. We must persist. In God's name, in God's time, and with God's help, we shall prevail.

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