Given at the Mass for the March for Life, Equal from Day 1, 13th June 2020, at Our Lady and St Vincent, Potters Bar
Introduction
You are welcome to this Mass streamed from Our Lady and St Vincent, Potters Bar in Hertfordshire in the Diocese of Westminster. Thank you to Canon Shaun Lennard for welcoming me today. My name is Bishop John Sherrington, Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster.
The celebration of Mass is the only possible way to begin our March for Life, offering our prayer and uniting it with the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
The statistics released on Thursday by the Department for Health are deeply shocking and present a terrible human tragedy. In 2019 there was a total of 209,519 abortions in England and Wales, an increase of 3.4% from 2018. 3,183 abortions were carried out on the grounds of disability, a 53% increase compared with 2009 when there were 2,085. 656 babies with Down’s syndrome were aborted in 2018.
Our prayer and work today is to promote a culture of life centred on the dignity of every human life at all stages and in every condition, to support pregnant women who are struggling with difficult choices, and pray for the healing of all those who have suffered the trauma of abortion. We must now strengthen the resolve to foster a culture of welcome and acceptance of new life, as well as pray and work for the better legal protections for pregnant women and the child in the womb. May St Anthony of Padua whose feast we celebrate today intercede for us.
Homily
This year the March for Life will witness to the beauty and wonder of the unborn child in a creative and powerful way through livestreaming. Many will be disappointed not to meet others who share their belief and unite together to witness to the good and worth of unborn life, not only in London but across the world. This year many will participate through livestreaming uniting friends to work together in solidarity.
To open the day with Mass is the most powerful way we can unite in faith and prayer around our theme ‘Equal from Day 1’. In the intercession of the sacrifice of the Mass, we join with all the saints and the angels in offering our prayer and intercession to the Father through the Son. In particular we join with the saints of life, to name some of them, St Gerard Majella, St Anthony of Padua whose feast we celebrate today, St Raymund Nonnatus, St Gianna Beretta Molla, and our own St John Henry Newman, whose miracle preserved the life of Melissa Villalobos and her child. The chorus of heavenly voices unites with ours as we pray for a change of hearts and minds that all will come to see the beauty and wonder of new life in the womb. The saints give some helpful and fruitful examples of those who help educate, motivate and witness to being equal from day one, and more importantly intercede for the unborn, uniting them with the holy innocents.
The words of psalm 139 powerfully convey this truth: ‘For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. You saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.’
The unfolding of each life is held under the gaze of a loving Father, whose divine artistry through the Holy Spirit is active from the very beginnings of conception. In a mysterious and powerful way, God shapes the inestimable worth of each and every human life and sees it as whole under his watchful care. The care and protection of human life is entrusted to us as stewards of God’s creation of life filled with awe and wonder. This truth is most profoundly revealed in the mystery of the Incarnation when the Word became flesh and entered into our humanity through the invitation of the angel Gabriel and the absolute freedom of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As St John Paul II said in his prophetic encyclical Evangelium vitae whose twenty-fifth anniversary we celebrate this year: ‘In Jesus, the “word of life’, God’s eternal life is thus proclaimed and given. Thanks to this proclamation and gift, our physical and spiritual life, also its earthly phase, acquires its full value and meaning, for God’s eternal life is in fact the end to which our living in this world is directed and called. In this way the Gospel of life includes everything that human experience and reason tell us about the value of human life, accepting it, purifying it, exalting it and bringing it to fulfilment’ (EV 30). We give thanks and praise to God as we renew our commitment to be ‘a people of life and for life’ (EV 78).
The early Christians recognised this truth in the midst of the Roman culture which denied it and practiced the horrors of abortion and infanticide. Early Christian writings present the moral life as Two Ways, the Way of Life and the Way of Death. In the Didache, The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations (c.50-120 AD) we hear, ‘You shall not kill the foetus by abortion, or destroy the infant already born’ (Didache 2.2). Later in the text, the way of death is identified with those who are ‘destroyers of the handiwork of God’ (φθορεá¿–ς πλá½±σματος θεοῦ) (Didache 5.2). In these early Christian texts and those which follow, there is a deep sense of the mystery of the Incarnation and the wonder of God’s handiwork. Part of the appeal of the Christian faith in the earliest period was the care of the sick, and the protection of unborn children and their mothers because the weakest found their place in the Church. Women were given a freedom to keep their child and not simply be the object of men’s decisions.
Part of our contemporary task in educating and motivating others to love life is to open them up to the wonder of the mystery of life, not only in imagination but also in practice. We can witness to this truth and educate by example when we show acts of kindness in caring for those women who are pregnant in difficult circumstances and want to keep their child. I commend and thank the relevant charities for their good work in this area. Such action proclaims ‘Equal from Day 1’ in practical and loving steps.
One of the great anomalies of the present abortion legislation is that it does not protect the child with disability. Once born, a person with disability is treated equally and many supports are there to help their development and fostering of life. We are all aware of the arguments and voices which have furthered and enhanced the place of those people who live with disability in our society. Better protection of unborn children predicted to have a disability is necessary, as we seek to improve the law for the common good in this country.
The Stand Up and Smile campaign is encouraging members of the public to visit the campaign page at www.standupandsmile.org.uk where they can ask their MP to support a new Bill. This Bill, led by Fiona Bruce MP, ‘will clarify that cleft lip, cleft palate and club foot are not grounds for abortion. This is a sensible law change that I am inviting all MPs, regardless of where they stand on the wider issue of abortion, to get behind and support.’ A small step but every small step is important in saving lives.
Twenty-five years ago, St John Paul II wrote, ‘In this great endeavour to create a new culture of life we are inspired and sustained by the confidence that comes from knowing that the Gospel of life, like the Kingdom of God itself, is growing and producing abundant fruit (cf. Mk 4:26-29)’ (EV 100).
May this day be one of prayer and learning so that we can witness to the good of all human life, especially the unborn. As Pope Francis said in his recent message for the Day for Life 2020, it is his hope that ‘amid the present crisis all will be led to a greater appreciation of the moral imperative to build a “culture of life” marked by ever greater concern for nurturing, protecting and promoting the integral welfare of all God’s children, beginning with the most vulnerable’ (Pope Francis, Message for the Day for Life, 2020). In all that we do, we know we can rely on the help of God for whom ‘nothing is impossible’ (Mt 19.26).
Bishop John Sherrington