“When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’”  Today our gospel reminds us that there are basic, fundamental requirements in the life of every disciple.  We are all called to be servants of a loving God of mercy, a God of life and love.  We are called to serve God by imitating his Son Jesus in spreading the gospel of mercy, of life and of love.  God is the Creator and source of life for all people and we are called to respect and protect that life that he has created and gifted us with.  As children of God who have received the gift of life and a new life in Christ, we are obliged to spread the gospel of life to all people.

     This Sunday is “Respect Life Sunday” which begins a new season of prayer, education, sacrifice and commitment to promote a greater respect for all human life, from conception to natural death.  Every disciple of Jesus is obliged to serve our brothers and sisters in love.  These brothers and sisters include the preborn and the elderly, the handicapped and the incarcerated, for all human persons have a right to life and all human persons are subjects of God’s tender mercy and love.  This Sunday marks the beginning of Respect Life month, when we pray for a greater respect for human life and an end to the culture of death.  The theme for this year is “Life: Our Sign of Hope.”  During this Jubilee Year we have been called to be pilgrims of hope in our world today.  The Jubilee year is a sign of mercy, compassion and the restoration of life.  Jesus has come into our world so that we might have life and have it abundantly.  The abundant life is a sign of hope for a greater respect for all human life.

     Our world is in desperate need of a sign of hope that we might have a greater respect for life.  We have witnessed in these past few months the shadow that the culture of death has cast upon our world.  We hear all too often of mass shootings at schools and churches, acts of violence and death that have robbed the innocent of life.  Just in the last couple of months we have seen an increase in mass shootings and violence.  Recent incidents include the Michigan church shooting where a gunman rammed a vehicle into a Latter-day Saints church, opened fire, and set the building on fire. The attack resulted in four deaths, including the shooter, and eight injuries.  The North Carolina bar shooting when a shooting at a bar in North Carolina killed three people and injured six others.  The Louisiana shooting on Bourbon Street in New Orleans which left one woman dead and three others injured.  A Texas apartment shooting in which five teenagers were wounded in a shooting at an apartment complex in El Paso, Texas.  A Colorado high school shooting where two students were injured in a high school shooting in a Colorado mountain town.  The Minneapolis church shooting in August, where a gunman shot through the windows of Assumption Catholic church in Minneapolis, during a school mass, killing two children and injuring 17 people.  The Charlie Kirk assassination in which conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while speaking at a college in Utah.

     The prophet Habakkuk cries out today, “How long, O Lord?  I cry for help but you do not listen!   I cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not intervene.  Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery?  Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and clamorous discord.” (Hab 1,1f)  We must halt this downward spiral of death and violence and open our hearts to a greater respect for human life.  What does it mean to open our hearts to life?  It means to search our souls and acknowledge our deepest longing for Christ’s love.  Though we are capable of sins against human life, we are not beyond Christ’s mercy.   Opening our hearts to life in Christ empowers us for loving, merciful action toward others.  We must give witness to the Gospel of Life and evangelize through our lives.  We must personally engage others and share the truth about human life.  We must continue to show love and mercy.  All members of the Church can bring healing to the world by upholding the beauty of human life and God’s unfailing mercy.  Only a tender, compassionate love that seeks to serve those most in need, whatever the personal cost, is strong enough to overcome a culture of death and to build a civilization of love. Let us open our hearts and reflect on how God might be calling each of us to witness the sacredness of human life.