“You know they often say you don’t really notice something until it hits home. They say that about war, but in some ways the same is true for us especially on this Respect Life Sunday because the battles on abortion and Pro Life has been a nation-wide thing, but it comes now to Kansas. It really in a moment when the Kansas Supreme Court is showing that there is a right to abortion within the Kansas constitution. It’s starting to change things even from here. They’re afraid that the national Supreme Court, that laws will change and it falls back on the states, but now in Kansas it comes to us, it comes to us to make a decision about life, about unborn children and now it’s a time to act, to know more about it. We will have more resources in the gathering area, we will have people talking this coming week about what you can do and I know it’s something that we don’t want to think about, we don’t want to talk about. It’s something that maybe brings up anger, maybe it brings up fear, maybe it brings up…whatever it brings up, let it bring up. ‘Cause the thing about pain in our lives whether it be physical, emotional, or spiritual is that pain isn’t for nothing. Pain is there to tell you something, but often times in our lives when a pain is there we want to numb it out, we want to forget about it. Hopefully it goes away, but it never goes away.
Today in the Gospel, the apostles ask Christ for more faith and maybe we ask for that in our lives, but Jesus is saying the faith you have is a gift. It’s not something you can earn. It’s not something you can lose really either, but even faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains. He’s saying it’s what we do with our faith, what would we do with our faith, our faith in Jesus Christ? Will we lose despair? Will we lose hope and go in despair about the things in our world? And yes, there are tragic things in our world, but do we look at it, do we feel it, do we acknowledge it’s there, or do we go on with our everyday life expecting things to change without any action of our own?
Today in the first reading there’s a lament and in some ways that’s like us. We’re lamenting of the pains of our world and especially of the unborn, is the biggest social issue of our time. It has killed more than all of the world wars that we have seen, but the thing is that we don’t see it. It’s not really part of our lives, but now it’s coming to our lives and we have to acknowledge it for what it is, but what does your faith tell you to do? You know, the thing about Christ is, in the strategy of Jesus Christ isn’t making the right stance on issues or problems, but it’s standing in the right place with the outcast, the lowly, the forgotten, the unspoken, and that’s where we should stand with the unborn, the women who have suffered, the families who have suffered. People might say that it’s a political thing, but it isn’t. We’re not advocating any politician or politics, but this is about a human rights issue, about life, so let us in communion pray for all of those children who have been killed, all the women all the families, the husbands, the grandparents, uncles, the aunts effected by this tragedy in our world and this month let us continue to read up on it and see what we can do, especially in Kansas. As we come to the Eucharist today where Christ is truly present before you, let us not lose hope, but come to Him with our pain, our suffering so that he can lift us up with Him one day in Heaven. Amen.”