Life Matters: Call to Greatness

This is part four of four articles which we highlight each week of October to help us reflect on the many life issues faced by our community. It is summarized, edited, and reprinted, here in the weekly Forum. The four articles are "Life Matters:" 1.) Doctor-Assisted Death by Suicide   2.) Responding to Unplanned Pregnancy   3.) Pornography and Our Call to Love;  4.) Call to Greatness.   For the full text of this article & other resources please see the web site of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:  www.usccb.org/about/pro-life-activities/respect-life-program/

Life Matters: Call to Greatness

(For the St. Francis Forum, November 4, 2012)

 

Much of the period between childhood and one’s first“real job” is occupied with personal exploration and questioning: What do I believe? What really matters to me? What am I supposed to do with my life? With all the suffering and injustice in the world, what could I possibly do to make a difference?

Increasingly, those who were born in the years since Roe v. Wade have found the answers to those questions in the pro-life movement. They have discovered great joy in bearing witness to “the gospel of life.” They’ve saved the lives of countless children, while sparing an equal number of mothers and families the pain and grief of losing a child in an abortion. The wholehearted response of youth to the call of the Gospel energizes us to witness and work all the harder in renewing our culture.

What ignited this fire in the hearts of so many young Americans? It took a man whose own youthful hope, idealism, and courage were tested by the loss of all his family and by the brutal occupation of his homeland by the Nazis and later by the Soviets—Blessed John Paul II. He instituted World Youth Day in 1985; it was a central task of his pontificate to call all young people to follow after Jesus Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI has enthusiastically carried on this task. “The ways of the Lord are not easy,” he has said, “but we were not created for an easy life, but for great things, for goodness.”

Many young women and men have chosen the promotion of human life as their life’s work. The organization Generation Life, for example, is led by young people who believe that abortion will end by addressing its root cause, through spreading the liberating message of chastity and love. One reported, “After a pro-life presentation at a high school in Philadelphia, a student told me that for his whole life he thought he was a mistake, that he had no value. But after the talk he understood that these were lies. How wonderful it is that a presentation on the dignity of all human life from conception to natural death could be the catalyst for transforming the life of a troubled teen.”

Many young Catholics today have become youth ministers, religion teachers, lobbyists, speakers, and leaders in their efforts to build a culture of life. We find them:

• · Advocating against the death penalty
• · Witnessing and counseling outside abortion facilities
• · Leading campus pro-life and evangelization ministry groups
• · Going out as missionaries in U.S. cities and in developing countries
• · Visiting nursing homes and hospices
• · Assisting boys and girls clubs and afterschool programs in low-income areas
• · Serving as coworkers with Catholic organizations and religious orders in pastoral care
• · Working in pregnancy centers and post-abortion healing ministries
• · Promoting marriage and family life

We all are called to witness to life in whatever job and setting God places us. Pro-life youth today are showing us that the pro-life movement is in promising hands. These young people have chosen to live for greatness and great things. They will undoubtedly succeed.

The author, Ashley Brashear, a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, is currently pursuing a master’s degree in theology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies in Marriage and Family in Washington, D.C. St. Francis parishioner Paul Schwankl condensed her article. For the full text of all four Respect Life Month articles and other resources please see the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: www.usccb.org/about/pro-life-activities/respect-life-program.