"...the parts of the body that seem weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts of the body that we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety..."
"God constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, so that there be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. If one suffers, we all suffer..."
"Now you are Christ's body and individually parts of it."
The analogy of the body that St. Paul uses and develops in his letter to the Corinthian community it by far the easiest and most clear to follow.
We all have bodies and we all understand how our body is affected when one part is afflicted or diseased or paralyzed or even cut off. Our body seems some what unbalanced, incomplete. Its ability to perform is greatly affected by the smallest of hurt in the smallest part.
I think of athletes. How often are athletes sidelined for an injury to their toe? The "turf Toe" ailment afflicts great discomfort and limits the body's ability to perform as it should.
Think of our own life. A simply tooth ache can be debilitating. A pimple on the tip of the nose can cause excruciating pain. A cut on a finger can limit one's ability to do daily and routine activity.
The body is a well designed work of art that needs full cooperation of all its parts for performance to be what it is made to be.
Such is the life of society. We are all one body. We are all affected by each other. What one does has a pull on the other. We are not isolated nor private. Especially as Baptized Christians, together collectively we all serve to build society; only together can we function properly and beautifully.
St. Paul mentions in the letter that "the parts that seem weaker are all the more necessary."
Isn't this true for our society, our life together as a human family? Isn't this true for our public reality as the body of Christ? Isn't our weaker parts in need a much more concern and attention and protection?
And yet, we fail at our duty. And yet we let them down.
This pass friday we marched on Washington, some estimated 250,000 to 300,000 men, women, and children seeking to take a stand for the weakest of our parts in the body, the unborn child in his/her mother's womb.
The weakest yet the most necessary is under attack. A new Holocaust has been ripping through our body, our society, our life. The most vulnerable has been left exposed to violence and they are in need of our help, our protection, our voice.
We are called to have "the same concern for one another."
Should not the unborn child get the same attention as the victims of the Earthquake in Haiti. Should not the 50 million that have been killed in their mother's womb be just as important as the 200,000 possibly killed in the earthquake.
Where is red cross, where is the clinton bush fund, where is the telethon raising money, where is the news media for the most vulnerable and weakest and yet most necessary part of all?
Our faith demands action for our body suffers.
When you visit the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C. and you go through the exhibit that tells the reality of what the Nazis did to exterminate the Jews and anyone else who stood in their way you discover an important part of the Nazi Germany's weapon.
Half way through the exhibit there on the wall is written this note: the one thing the Nazia counted on and the on thing the that did not let them down was they trusted that people would remain bystanders. They trusted that people who saw what was happening would simply turn away and choose to be spectators.
We cannot be spectators or bystanders. Whether we like it or not we are involved.
St. Paul says, "God constructed the body in such a way that one part is concerned for the other part." We must choose to act, to take a stand for the weakest and most vulnerable part of the body of society: the unborn child.
Just as we enter fully into Ordinary Time in the church and focus our attention on the public ministry of Christ in the gospels, so too we remember that our faith is not a private affair. We must live it publicly. Just as Jesus lived his faith publicly so too we must as the body of Christ.
We must stand and march forward defending the weakest and most necessary parts of the body. If the child in the womb is not important then what is? If we have no concern for this part, what part is of concern?
I was marching for life this past Friday...where were you?
"He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord."
"He said to them, 'Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."
Do not close your ears. You can no longer be a bystander. Your voice is not only needed but demanded by God, "You are the body of Christ.'
The unknown in the womb need your voice to be known in the public square.
They tried to silence Christ on the cross, yet his voice still echoes forth carrying the same message, "what you do to the least of my brothers and sisters you do unto me."
If life in the womb is not sacred and worth fighting for, then life as we know it shall be destroyed.
Quote on the wall at the Holocaust museum as you leave the exhibit, perhaps as a warning for us all,
"first they came for the communist, and I did not speak out- because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionist, and I did not speak out- because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me-there was no one left to speak out." Martin Niemoller
We can all say that we are not many things. But the one thing we can never say is that we have never been an unborn child.
If we do not stand for life, we can not stand at all.
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