Preaching the “Gospel of Life” Amidst the “Culture of Death”

The following will appear in our Little Flower Parish bulletin this Sunday, January 23rd:

This past Thursday, January 20th, my religious community celebrated the feast of our founder, Blessed Basil Moreau. This weekend, I’ll have the chance to celebrate with several of my brothers in Holy Cross who will travel to Washington, D.C., accompanying groups of students from our colleges and universities on the annual March for Life.

At first, it might seem that these two commemorations have very little in common. And yet, a further examination of Blessed Basil Moreau’s life, I believe, offers us a powerful example of zealous witness in troubled times.

Blessed Basil Moreau was born in France, in the wake of the French Revolution which had decimated the Church in France. Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, C.S.C. describes the society in which Blessed Basil Moreau lived and worked:

“The dominant world culture is aggressively hostile to religion in general and Catholicism in particular . . . Moral lapses are magnified in the popular media, and many religious congregations seem uncertain of their role and their future . . . The great universities of the world are virtual bastions of atheism, while Catholic schools struggle to resist direct control by the state or even by their local bishop. Many prudent and reasonable people of faith are tempted to retreat into their own worlds; others have lost the will and self-confidence to carry on the Church’s great commission to win the world for Christ.”

But Blessed Basil Moreau strenuously resisted being entirely assimilated into such a culture, and never retreated from challenging whatever was un-Christian in the culture. The restoration of the Church was the principal mission of Blessed Basil’s life, and his reason for founding the Congregation of Holy Cross. Blessed Basil worked tirelessly to reunite “learning, holiness, and service into a single religious enterprise” for service to the Church and the conversion of society.

Of course, it’s not much of a stretch to see the parallels to our own day in this description of nineteenth century France. Certainly those of us who will gather on the Mall tomorrow are fully aware of the challenges our Church and society face, especially in combating what soon-to-be Blessed Pope John Paul II referred to as “the culture of death.”

And yet my experience of previous Marches convinces me that there are also many people today – especially young people – who are determined to follow in the path of Blessed Basil Moreau. They refuse to surrender to the dominant “culture of death,” refuse to retreat from evangelizing the culture in which we live. Like the apostles in the Gospels they have responded to our Lord: “To whom else would we go? You have the words of everlasting life.”

Let us pray that all of us – especially young people – will grow in learning, develop in personal holiness, and give ourselves tirelessly in service. This is how we will restore the Church in our own age and proclaim to the world the Gospel of Life.

I will once again be attending the Vigil for Life and the March for Life this year, but this time as a resident of the Washington D.C. area . . . this means I have the pleasure of spending time with Holy Cross seminarians and our college students but don't have to endure two twelve hour bus rides to do it!! More on the weekend's events next week. Let us pray for Life!