Preaching on abortion, 3rd Sunday, Year B, Pro-Life Leader Frank Pavone of Priests for Life

Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, reflects on the Sunday readings for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B 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.

Jon 3:1-5, 10
1 Cor 7:29-31
Mk 1:14-20

“Repent” is the first message of Jesus as he begins his public ministry, as today’s Gospel makes clear. It was also the first message of John the Baptizer as he began preparing the way for Christ (Mark 1:4), and was the first theme that Peter proclaimed on the first Pentecost (Acts 2:38). The preaching of Jonah foreshadowed all of this, and the work of the Church today echoes it.

Our world needs to repent of the sin of abortion.

Many pro-life believers think that our first spiritual duty in the face of abortion is to pray. But it is not. Our first duty is to repent. God does not simply prohibit us from committing abortion. He prohibits us from tolerating it. He calls us to become active in fighting it.

January 22, 1973 was the date of the tragic Roe vs. Wade decision that permitted unlimited abortion in the United States and prevented the people from protecting the unborn. Fortunately, that decision has now been reversed, though the work of protecting the unborn is not finished.

The date of January 22 will remain a sad commemoration of the tens of millions of lives lost to abortion. This commemoration should stir us each day to a deeper and deeper repentance from the works of death.