Preaching on abortion, 31st Sunday, Year A, Pro-Life Leader Frank Pavone of Priests for Life

Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, reflects on the Sunday readings for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A and their message about abortion.

For more information about what the Sunday readings, and the whole Bible, say about abortion, and for resources for your Church, see https://www.ProLifePreaching.org. You can order there the book “Proclaiming the Message of Life,” which contains these reflections for all the Sunday readings in the lectionary.

Mal 1:14b-2:2b, 8-10
1 Thes 2:7b-9, 13
Mt 23:1-12

The first reading from Malachi asks, “Have we not all one Father? Has not the one God created us?” This theme is echoed in the Gospel’s teaching, “Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven.”

In a culture of death, the worldview is that we are responsible only for those for whom we choose to be responsible, and that this choice is a purely individual, private matter. Such a culture would have us believe that someone’s decision to abort a child is “none of our business.”

But if we all have one Father, then that makes us brothers and sisters, and means that our lives are entrusted to one another’s care. We are responsible for each other before we choose to be. The abortions that others have are our business, because those children – as well as their parents -- are also entrusted to our care, in the one family of God. Ours is the business of love, to care as much as we can for all our brothers and sisters.