THE GOOD NEWS
ARCHBISHOP BELTRAN
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January 24, 2010 The Good News... ...Celebrating the Sanctity of Life Homily, Sanctity of Life Mass My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ: We gather together tonight in faith and with love. We believe in Jesus Who is the Eternal Son of God. We love God Who created all life on this earth and Who is Life itself. God alone is eternal. He has no beginning and no end. All else is created by Him. God alone is the eternal Supreme Being. It is truly inspiring and hopeful to see so many young people here tonight for this celebration of the Sanctity of Life Mass. I appreciate your presence and I assure you that whatever you do to promote respect for the dignity and beauty of human life will redound to your well-being and happiness. We know that all human life is sacred because God creates us in His own Image and Likeness and for a sacred purpose — life in Him. Tonight, therefore, as we are all aware of the tragedy and human suffering in Haiti, I ask your special prayers for our injured, sick and suffering brothers and sisters there. May God grant them healing, health, recovery and peace. One of the richest men in the history of our country, John D. Rockefeller, admitted before his death that his great wealth brought him no happiness. Another fabulously wealthy industrialist, Andrew Carnegie, observed that millionaires seldom smile. Powerful and wealthy men and women throughout history testified that neither money nor power can buy happiness. In our own day, we observe that celebrities are often very unhappy people. Their possessions, popularity, physical beauty, athletic skill or intellectual achievements or accomplishments do not guarantee happiness. A verse from the Psalms gives us a hint as to the source of true happiness: “Happy the people so blessed; happy the people whose God is the Lord.” The message in that verse is that only God can make us truly happy since it is He Who created us with longing souls that He alone can satisfy. Or, as Saint Augustine put it, “O Lord, our hearts are restless until they find rest in you!” We all want to be happy. In other words, we want to be joyful, content and satisfied. Yet, why do so many people seem to be angry or sour and downright miserable? Why are so many people unsatisfied, restless, looking for something else? Perhaps they are pursing happiness down the wrong path. Perhaps they have been led astray. Perhaps they have lost sight of the inherent dignity and beauty of the human life which God has given to all human beings. The Gospel which we heard proclaimed tonight is often called the Beatitudes. Beatitude means happiness or blessings. These are the teachings Jesus gave us regarding the intrinsic beauty and life of human persons. They give us direction and purpose and incentive for a life of fulfillment and joy. The Beatitudes express the hope every Christian person should have that Jesus will bring us to eternal life. In the meantime, we are challenged to fulfill correctly the obligations we have to each other. The inherent dignity of life is integral to each human being from the moment of conception to death. It cannot be removed by law or edict. Even the reality of sin which occurs in every human person does not diminish human dignity and worth. Sin certainly affects our relationship with God, which is why Jesus is constantly calling us to repent, to change and to follow Him more closely. Among the many blessings that we here in the United States have received was a constitution that recognized the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Thus our society began to build up a culture of life which redounded to the benefit of every person. However, as time went on and people drifted from sound principles to selfish opinions, the culture shifted. Pope John Paul II had warned us that the loss of respect for human life was turning society into a culture of death. Today there are many threats to our inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The most alarming and devastating of those threats are abortion, which is the deliberate killing of a human being before birth, euthanasia, which is putting to death those who are sick, disabled or dying, and assisted suicide, which aids a person to terminate their own life. As Pope John Paul II had warned, we are indeed surrounded by a culture of death. Tonight we have gathered here to celebrate the Sanctity of Life. Therefore, we proclaim the Good News of Jesus — that He has come so that we might have life and have it more abundantly. We have come to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus whereby we are healed and restored, nourished and inspired. We have come to be instructed in the program after this Mass. But most important of all, we have come to give thanks and praise to Al-mighty God. It is He Who created each of us in His own Image and Likeness. It is He Who gave us our human dignity. It is He Who sanctifies us and redeems us because He is our life and our salvation.
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