Two life-giving women, Mary and Elizabeth, come together in this Sunday’s Gospel. They are cradling within and between themselves the power of life. They respond to each other from that power: “At the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.” For Christmas to be a celebration of joy we do well to cradle, or nurture, within and between us their life-giving power. There is great meaningfulness in women cradling or nurturing the life of another human being. There is great meaningfulness in men, in their way, cradling or nurturing the life of another human being.
Nurturing life is so dearly needed because too many men and now increasingly more women are alienated from their life-giving power and the joy it effects. To many men and an increasing number of women are promoting a willingness not to give life but to take it, to kill. Some are going so far as to promote the morality of killing. This is increasingly the case with abortion. Abortion is being promoted of late less as a sad choice and more as a moral choice. California Senator Diane Feinstein has consistently promoted the killing of unborn children as a moral choice. Her response to the recent San Bernardino shooting was therefore perplexing. She addressed the question of a young mother’s alleged involvement in that shooting by saying: “We (women) wouldn’t leave a six month old – our baby – to do this, to don tactical gear to go in and kill a bunch of people. It’s not something a woman would easily do. …A woman is a woman. And her child has to be of maximum importance to her.” But U.S. practices prove neither the mass shooter’s child nor any other child in this life-taking culture is of maximum importance. The killing of unborn babies in the abortion industry proves this is a life-taking culture. This empire’s many wars prove it is a life-taking culture. So too Sandy Hook during the Christmas season of 2012 and the impotency that has followed proves men and women have crafted the U.S. as a life-taking culture. The NRA’s assistance in the mass killing of people in unrelenting gun violence proves the U.S. is not a nurturing culture but a life-taking culture. Killing has taken hold of our personal and collective consciousness. Killing has taken hold of our identity. Self-titled Christians are among the most ardent in cradling guns close and dear. For example, NRA and Tea Party member Michele Fiore (R-Nev) sent out Christmas card this season depicting her and family members, including a 7 year old boy, each cradling a gun. Jesus’ Happy Birthday card bore each person’s name and the name of the weapon they cradled in their arms.
Jorge Bergoglio, Pope Francis, laments the “disappearance of a culture” under the “imposition of a dominant lifestyle.” (LS#145) The disappearing culture is the culture of life. The dominant lifestyle imposing itself upon a culture of life is the morality of killing. “Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, … and the joyful celebration of life” (LS#207)
Prayer: Spirit of Life, we cradle all creatures in our hearts
Question: How have I nurtured life in this culture of killing?
December 20, 2015 Gospel Luke 1:39-45 Fourth Sunday Of Advent