Before I Forget…

· Perhaps there is nothing in the world as powerful to break selfishness as is the simple act of looking at our own children.  In our love for them we are given a privileged avenue to feel as God feels - to burst in unselfishness, in joy, in delight, and in the desire to let another's life be more real and important than our own.
-Father Ronald Rolheiser, O.M.I.

· Three Kinds of Souls, Three Prayers
1) I am a bow in your hands, Lord.
Draw me, lest I rot.
2) Do not overdraw me, Lord.  I shall break.
3) Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break!
-Nikos Kazantzakis
· Three kinds of Sex, Three Effects
1) Abusive sex--destroys the soul.
2) Casual Sex--trivializes the soul.
3) Sacramental Sex--builds up the soul.
- Rolheiser, O.M.I.

Over the past 30 years of priesthood I have known the suffering of unmarried couples facing the unhappiness of an unwanted pregnancy.  Emotions came before the responsibility in the moral choices made by some wonderful sons and daughters who acted prematurely in the act of life.
I was a young priest in my first assignment.  I was in the parish for about two weeks when a great kid, about 22, came to talk to me.  He was hurting.  "What should I do?  My girlfriend is pregnant and it will kill my parents if they discover that she is pregnant.  I know that abortion is a sin, but what can we do?" 
"Why don't you tell your parents?"
"They won't understand.  They'll be ashamed of me."
"Go ahead and trust them.  Just tell your parents."
"They are good Catholics.  They sacrificed and sent me to Catholic Schools for sixteen years.  I never got into trouble.  They think I am a good son.  This will be a terrible disappointment for them."
"Tell your parents.  You know what?  I've never met a grandmother or grandfather who died from the pregnancy of their grandchild."
How many of us know some grandparents who love beyond words the child their own son or daughter almost didn't want to keep?  Or what about the couples who would love to hold an unborn child and teach him or her about life and God; give the child an education and watch the child grow up and fall in love as an adult?  I know parents who love a son or daughter who was born as somebody else's child.  How do we help a young couple realize in their tears and misgivings, the miracle of life that they have created?  Is an unwanted pregnancy simply an accident?  Where does God, the Creator of all life fit into the picture?  And, Jesus tells us to think about the ravens and how God takes care of them!
The Church teaches that sexuality is good, beautiful, powerful, a sacred energy, given to us by God.  I grew up believing that sex and love go together.  Did you?  There are some people who believe that sex without love is okay. They think the Church is out of touch with sexual energy.  That sex is no big deal.  Does sex destroy the soul or trivialize the soul or build up  the soul.  Sex and soul go together.  It is a BIG DEAL!
If we believe that sex and the soul go together, and that it is a Big Deal, how do we teach our young people to wait?Carlo Carreto, a good spiritual writer of our time, spent a number of years as a hermit and living a life of prayer in the desert.  When someone asked him what he thought he heard God saying to him in all the silence and in all the prayer, Carretto replied:  "God is telling us:  learn to wait- wait- wait for your God, wait for love, be patient with everything.  Everything that is worthwhile must be waited for.
We live in a society that hates to wait for anything.  Is there anything that we long for?  How do we deal with the tensions in our lives?  Do we tell sons and daughters about our own experiences with loneliness?  Love, gentle and great love, takes time and effort and commitment.  The mystery of love and sex!  That's the way God created us.  Do you believe that secular culture really understands the great mysteries of love and sex?  Dare I say that even the church doesn't totally understand the great mysteries of sex and love?
Next weekend, at all our liturgies, we will have a woman tell her story about her story about being young and pregnant and choosing to have an abortion. It is her story, and a story of God's great forgiveness.  If you think it would be too much for your child to hear, you might choose to leave them with a sitter or attend a Mass somewhere else. I've heard the story … I was moved by God's goodness in this woman's life!
Wishing you and yours all the best in this complicated, mysterious and beautiful life!
           Fr. Bill
          Note:  The Collection for Retired Religious will be next weekend at all Masses.