By Judie Brown
Catholic Exchange encourages us to reflect:
O Root of Jesse’s stem, sign of God’s love for all his people: come to save us without delay!
The third O Antiphon [prayed today] calls us very specifically to remember that the Messiah, the Chosen One of God, is part of a royal family tree.
This prayer is a reminder to every believing Christian that the world is not our ultimate destination on the road we travel. These comforting words come at a time when human beings are growing ever more distant from the truth that our destination is eternity with God.
A case in point is a children’s book that labels abortion a superpower! Only in a culture drowning in evil would such a notion even be considered. But sadly, this is not an isolated case.
Recently, Illinois became the twelfth state to legally permit “physician-assisted suicide for adults who have a terminal disease with a prognosis of six months or less to live.” This is a sad commentary on the hubris of powerful people who want the rest of us to believe that man should have the final say on when and how his life will end.
Additionally, for the past 14 years the Little Sisters of the Poor have been fighting to protect their civil rights, including their right to refuse to provide contraceptive coverage in their health insurance plans. This debacle exposes the dangers inherent in relying on lawmakers and judges to render moral judgment on matters that clearly reflect the faith of Christ’s children.
We also see the flimflam being pursued by the Trump administration that pits the promises Trump made about abortion being left to the states with his Food and Drug Administration’s inability to follow through on a thorough review of abortion pill safety. Instead, as ALL stated in a press release, “the FDA’s decision to approve yet another form of the deadly abortion pill” has occurred. And such action “should spark outrage from all Americans of good conscience. It is a sick irony that, one week, the FDA warns pregnant mothers of the dangers of Tylenol, and the next week it approves another drug designed to kill preborn children.”
In the wake of such dreadful events occurring during this Advent season, we are reminded that, as Mary’s fiat to God showed her immense trust in the Lord, we are called to be ever willing to trust in Him, even when the world seems to be falling deeper into the clutches of evil.
The real superpower in our midst is the consistent push by the evil one. As Fr. William Saunders wrote, “Jesus referred to Satan as the Father of Lies: The devil perverts the truth, as he did with Eve. He fills our minds with doubts. He provides all the rationalizations why something is right even though our Lord and the Church teach it as wrong.”
During these final days before our Lord’s birth, we would do well to think about how blessed we are to be His children. In the William Wordsworth poem, we read, “The world is too much with us. . . . We have given our hearts away.”
Let us strive to assure Christ that we have indeed given our hearts to Him, to His will, and to His glorious, unfathomable love for us. For only through Him will these evils in our midst fade into nothingness beneath the glow of His divine majesty.
“O Root of Jesse’s stem, sign of God’s love for all his people: come to save us without delay!”