Tough Loss for Livni, the Caps, Etc.

President of Israel Shimon Perez nominated Benyamin Netanyahu to be the new Prime Minister. Tzipi Livni has refused to co-operate in a unity government. Netanyahu was Prime Minister before, in the late nineties.

May God grant peace and stability to Israel. Let us pray that our Holy Father will have a spiritually profitable visit in May–and our little band of pilgrims in November, too!

Tower of Babel by Erich Lessing

In ancient times, we human beings tried to build a tower to heaven. It did not work.

Our deepest longing is to see God. But we cannot go up to Him by our own power. Only pride could make us think that we could.

God, however, has come down to us. By becoming one of us, He has made it possible for our desire to be fulfilled. We can get to God. Christ the man is our way to God.

The Word was made flesh here

Do you hesitate, man, to go this way, when this is the way that God came to you? –St. Augustine

A year ago today, I was at the place where the Incarnation took place, the grotto of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

Archbishop Burke made a number of beautiful points in his homily: The Incarnation was for the sake of the Redemption. The Incarnation continues in the Holy Mass in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. The Blessed Virgin was preserved from original sin for the sake of her Yes to the Archangel Gabriel.

The words that struck me the most, however, were these: “The child was to be named Jesus.” Not “named Jesus,” but “to be named Jesus.”

The Lord received His Holy Name eight days after His birth. We receive our names after birth. Parents can discuss names during a pregnancy, even decide on one. But the name is not given until after birth. And, of course, our names are written in the Book of heaven at our Holy Baptism.

The time we spend in the womb is a particular phase of life. It is a phase in which we do not have a name. We know much more about this phase than we did thirty years ago, thanks to sonograms and such things. Surgeons routinely save the lives of sick unborn children by operating on them in the womb.

We know that there is no point in the development of a baby when the baby “becomes” a human being. The baby is a human being from the moment of conception.

Unborn children, though, do not have names. They have not entered the phase of human life when we have names. They have not entered the phase of life where people take a whole lot of trouble to distinguish the sex. The sex may, in fact, be unknown. People routinely refer to an unborn child as “it,” without meaning the slightest bit of harm.

Many people die of natural causes in the womb. Some unborn babies die so early in their lives that no one except God and the angels even know about it.

My point is: I think it is a mistake for pro-life people to overstate our case. We don’t know that much about what life in the womb is like. Life in the womb is certainly human life. But beyond saying that, we have to admit that the whole business is a great mystery.

No one should perform abortions. No one should co-operate in performing abortions. No one should seek to have an abortion. St. Thomas Aquinas admitted to knowing little about fetal development. He nonetheless insisted that abortion is a self-evident evil.

Abortion involves snuffing out an innocent life. It is an utterly unjust act. An upright person would never have anything to do with something so manifestly evil. We can appeal to native moral reasoning. It is not necessary to make embryological claims that we may or may not be able to support.

Avalanche 4, Capitals 1