no killing without cause

Homily
Thursday of the 2nd Week of Ordinary Time
St. Agnes, martyr
Year for Priests
21 January 2010

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Today two busloads of KU students have arrived in the nation's capital to begin a prayer vigil for life. Tonight the shrine of the Immaculate Conception, as it is every year, will be packed with priests and young people who will pray with all their might that God will intercede to change the hearts of a nation that has desensitized itself to the horror of abortion. They will pray too that the Lord will send them like Jonathan went to his father Saul to be missionaries of reconciliation and hope to those who believe they have no choice other than to kill an innocent child.

Tomorrow these same students, and tens of thousands of others, will March for Life in Washington, marching prayerfully but joyfully each year until the scourge of this greatest civil rights abuse of all time is removed from the history of our country. On their side is the truth that life begins at conception, as it did for each of us fortunate enough to be alive today. On their side is the love that knows that it is always better to save life than to destroy it, for life is a gift!

May these Marchers be the agents of hope and change and love, and with Jesus be the true healers of the evil that threatens to destroy us. May they feel the support of all of us who are praying for them, and all those children in the future who are urging them to keep marching so that one day, they too will have a chance to live!