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Stained Glass Manifestations

 We have very beautiful churches in our Archdiocese and beyond. The various religious art pieces and sacramentals enrich our life of prayer, such as the Stations of the Cross and the statues. As a child, I remember staring at the beautiful stained glass windows in my parish church. The sun shone beautifully through the colored glass and brought the picture to life more vibrantly. Through the centuries, the art of creating more detailed pictures of saints has grown, and still today, they lift our eyes upward. 

When we were baptized, we were christened with the name our parents gave us. At Confirmation we choose a saint whose life touches us in some way and becomes our intercessor.

Saints are very important in our faith formation because they inspire and encourage us, on our journey to holiness.  I remember a sister from my religious education class told us, “Saints are human beings. They become a saint the moment they know they are loved by God.”  Wow, simple, profound, and yet a challenge.

On our parish pilgrimage to France, Spain and Portugal, we stood on the ground where St. Dominic, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Ignatius of Loyola lived. They once walked this earth and now are living legacies and powerful witnesses to Christ’s love in their lives. They are intercessors for us. Also among the “communion of saints” are those loved ones in our lives who died and continue to intercede on our behalf in heaven. This could be your grandparents, parents, siblings, children or friends. Their faith lives on in us.

We are all called to holiness. We are grateful that God continues to call men and women to ministry, where they give witness to God’s love through their unique vocation. Each of us can be that “walking saint” in our world, leading others to Christ through our words and actions. We are strengthened when we walk together in that path for holiness.  It is not an easy task. Christ calls us to discipleship where we can be a stained glass window, manifesting the love of God that shines in and through our lives. My friends, it’s a blessing to know you as living saints in the making. 

Sacredness of Life

Each year, the Church in the United States designates October as “Respect Life” month. 

As Catholics, we believe that all life is sacred and that life begins at the moment of conception…that all human beings have an inherent value and dignity. Sadly, there continues to be constant violations to the Christian principles of human dignity; from simple road rage and injustice to the poor and elderly, to euthanasia, and the death penalty.

Through Jesus, God blessed and sanctified all life, becoming one like us; humbling himself by sharing in our humanity. Every human being has an inherent dignity and sacredness that must be respected and never exploited, violated, or disposed of. Our dignity, our value, is not a matter of the gifts we have, the contributions we make to society, our physical beauty, or intellectual abilities, rather, our dignity comes from the God who created us, loves us, and became one like us. 

It is in that relationship, that gift, that as people of Faith, we strive to see God in one another….especially those we are most likely to overlook or dismiss. 

Caring for another person with dignity and respect as a child of God and our brother in Christ…Isn’t that what our St. Dominic mission statement is all about? “To Seek, Know and Become Christ, each for the sake of all”. 

Choose Life

While in graduate school, I spent a year serving as a crisis pregnancy counselor at a Christian organization that seeks to provide women and couples with the resources necessary to choose life. I had always been anti-abortion, so I saw this as an opportunity to do hands-on pro-life work. What I experienced will forever change the way I understand what it means to be “pro-life.”

I’m not really sure what I was expecting to encounter when I agreed to the opportunity, but whatever it was, the actual experience was a completely different reality. I encountered women who lived with abusive husbands, but were dependent on them for financial support or had other children with these men that they had to consider. I encountered men and women who had been laid off from work and were unable to find gainful employment to support this new child. Families whose jobs didn’t provide medical coverage so they couldn’t even afford prenatal care, let alone the exorbitant cost of child birth. Teen mothers who were kicked out of their homes when their parents found out they were pregnant. Women whose husbands walked out on them when they found out, and left them to face the pregnancy alone. I walked these women and couples through the process of procuring government assistance and saw, time and again, how it failed to meet their needs, how it provided only a fraction of what it would take to raise their child to maturity, how the abundant requirements for assistance disqualified people who desperately needed help. For all that the center did to provide aid, most of this assistance only lasted until the age of two.

It is because of this experience that I came to understand the totality of the Christian call to be pro-life. It was in walking with these women and seeing the enormity of what they faced that I realized how much work needs to be done, starting with birth and every single day after. It was there that I realized I couldn’t simply pat myself on the back for changing a mother’s mind; I then had to do the even harder work of electing leaders, supporting policies, and donating to charities that would continue to give her and her child the assistance they needed.

So today, on Respect Life Sunday, let us of course pray for an end to abortion, pray for all of the children we have lost to abortion, and all those we still stand to lose. But let us also be sure to remember those parents who feel like they don’t have any other option. Let us pray for them and pray for the creation of a society that makes it possible for every family to unequivocally choose life.