Correction
Clarification is noted for Respect Life Sunday Mass article in Oct. 9 issue
In its Oct. 9 print issue, The Criterion inadvertently left out of the article about the archdiocesan Respect Life Sunday Mass a portion focusing on the homily shared by Father C. Ryan McCarthy during the Oct. 4 liturgy at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis.
The section is reprinted below.
To read the entire Respect Life Sunday story, go to tinyurl.com/RespectLifeMassAward or scan the QR code at the bottom of this article.
Seek ‘unmediated experience’ of others
Father McCarthy began his homily by addressing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ theme for Respect Life Sunday this year: “Mary, the Mother of Life.”
“What does it mean that Mary is the mother of life?” Father McCarthy asked.
For one, he said, she is “the mother of God, the mother of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is … the way, the truth, and the life, quite literally … [since she is] the source of the Incarnation.
“And from the Incarnation we receive the sacraments. … So, Mary allows us to celebrate the goodness of life in coming in direct contact with God in the Holy Eucharist.”
Respect for life involves relationship, said Father McCarthy, and relationship involves “a commitment to the other and a willingness to be in their presence.”
Praying for others is essential, he noted. But praying “with them” and having “an interpersonal relationship with them,” when possible, shows a particular respect for life.
“For us, as Christians, it’s important that we reach out as best we can to other human persons and have personal relationships with them,” Father McCarthy said. “So, talk to people, respect their life, see their person—their actual person.”
He encouraged the congregation to “make the effort to go to someone and be with them personally. … Support the poor and those who are in need, and do this as personally as you can.”
The same holds true for visiting the elderly in nursing homes that “oftentimes become storage facilities for those who are inconvenient to our lives.”
Participation in prison ministry is another way to be physically present to those “who are lonely and who are isolated and feel particularly unloved,” Father McCarthy said. And if such ministry is not an option, he suggested researching organized “pen-pal” programs.
“We respect life by loving others in a very personal way,” he concluded.
“And so, I’d encourage you to look at your life and figure out how you can do just that. How you can do what our Lord Jesus Christ did, which is … to remove the obstacles to an incarnational, unmediated experience of the other so that they could know and love God and experience God in this life and be with him in the next.” †