There Is Death, But There Is Forgiveness And Healing

December 28 Holy Innocents 2024

Voters in the state of Florida awoke on November 5 of 2024 to discover that their fellow Floridian Donald J. Trump had defeated his opponent not only in their state but popularly in the entire country, and decisively by electoral vote count. They also found that, unlike the majority of states with an abortion amendment on the ballot, Florida had defeated the effort to overturn the states ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Pro-life people of faith rejoiced.

But today’s Scripture readings on a Christmas Day commemorating the babies and toddlers that were murdered by King Herod two thousand years ago, confront every American with a stark truth. In Florida, more than half of the voters cast ballots affirming the so-called “reproductive right” to murder children less than six-weeks old. The only reason the initiative failed is that it failed to get sixty percent of the vote. Seventy percent of the states polled changed the fundamental laws of their state to protect the murder of unborn children. The Supreme Court of the US case that overturned Roe v Wade a little over two years earlier, sending the issue back to the states, had resulted in elections that had the opposite of the desired effect. In 2024, more children were killed before birth than were killed two years earlier. Voters or legislators had enshrined murder as a basic right in thirty of the fifty states.

Pharaoh’s desire to kill all the little boys born to Hebrew mothers several millennia ago pales by comparison. Herod’s desire to destroy the life of the newborn King of the Jews, Jesus Messiah, by murdering young boys in the Bethlehem area, is being played out all over the Western world. Satan rejoices, along with his diabolical angel and human minions.

Why does hell celebrate? Not because of the eradicated children, incinerated as medical waste or dumped into sewers because of the “abortion pill.” No, like the little boys of Bethlehem, they are in the hands of God. But everyone else, mothers and their parents and boyfriends and husbands and pharmacists, is polluted in mind and heart and memory of their acting on their “reproductive rights.” So-called. How many millions have participated in this society-wide crime now enshrined as legal? How many millions of souls are thus destined for eternal damnation without repentance, forgiveness and healing? We must all pray for them to turn around, face God, and change their minds and hearts so they can again be among those redeemed by the sacrifice of Jesus.

Now please, if you have found yourself convicted by my words, or more basically by the words of Scripture and the consistent teaching of the Church, please understand that there is hope. There is forgiveness. There is healing. I’ll just mention here two of the many organizations you can call for help, even today. Rachel’s Vineyard and the Sisters of Life. If you have had an abortion, your fellow Christians care and want to assist you. As the psalmist wrote, the Lord is on our side, on your side, even though the moneyed interests who profit from murder are against us. The Lord wants us to escape, wants to break our snares and free us from mindsets that tell us good is evil and evil is good. God’s Word is more powerful than anything the profiteers of death can throw at us. In the words of St. John, God is the strong light that conquers the darkness, and the Blood of Jesus can and will cleanse us from all sin.