Why Martin Saints Marches
Here is our group of Martin Saints students, faculty, parents, and Holy Martyrs parish members getting ready for the 2019 March for Life, paused for a minute on the steps of the Basilica at Catholic University. (Wondering about those scarves? They're to keep track of everyone in the crowd!)
It's a long day to get everyone to Washington and back for the March. Generous and apparently indefatigable teachers, parents, and Holy Martyrs parishioners make it possible. Thank you. We had Mass at 6:30am, made the journey, and were back at school around 10pm. All that for a short walk in a city far away, with several hundred thousand of our closest friends.
Why bother? Because there are times when we all need to stand up and testify to the truth.
At the Mass before we left, Deacon Roberts offered a brief homily explaining our reasons for going. We're offering that homily, below, for those with time for a little more detail. Thank you for your prayers and support.
Deacon Roberts’ Homily
March for Life
Friday, January 18, 2019:
Five men are central characters in today’s Gospel. One man is paralyzed. The other four lower the paralyzed man through the roof so that he can meet Jesus. One man’s dependency and disability brought them all together. When these men embraced the opportunity to help, Jesus was waiting to meet them all.
Friends, Jesus is waiting for us to go and do likewise. We are created in the image of God. God is love. When we love and serve one another, we begin to realize our dignity. The men lowering their paralyzed friend to meet Jesus – this is the kind of co-operation and communion that begins to explain why human beings were created. We were made for this.
This theology also explains why we march today. If God is love, if human dignity is rooted in the image of this God, then it means, despite what pride and selfishness tempt us to think, that being helpless and dependent is no obstacle to human dignity. Remember this paralyzed man. Behold a baby in the womb. Spend time with somebody who has Down’s Syndrome. Befriend an elderly person suffering with an illness. Every life is an occasion to give and receive love, and therefore precious, no exceptions.
Today we march in Washington to remind ourselves of this truth. We march to insist that the truth is visible in our culture. We march to testify that in a world where all of us are vulnerable to lapsing into selfishness, the Gospel of Life is nevertheless real.
It is no accident that we begin today with Mass. The first steps of our March are from these pews to this altar to receive the Eucharist. Our faith, our identity, our dignity, and today’s March – they all begin with the love and the sacrifice enacted on this altar.
