Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle A

Is 56:1, 6-7
Rom 11:13-15, 29-32
Mt 15:21-28

Everyone is called to salvation in Christ; everyone is called to his house of prayer, his Church, his family. The Church, at her core, is missionary, and all her efforts are geared toward an ever-wider expansion and growth, that she may embrace every human being.

This universality, reflected in all of today’s readings, is rooted ultimately in the meaning of the Incarnation itself, by which God unites himself to all humanity. This reality raises the dignity of human life beyond what it already had as God’s creation in his own image, and is also the basis for the urgency of the task to announce the Gospel to all people, that they may know the meaning and promise of the dignity they have.

“The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable,” as today’s second reading tells us. That is why the Christian Church is pro-life, and why that position is neither optional nor changeable. Our stance in favor of life, and in defense of life, does not spring from us, or from some inclination we have toward a particular philosophy, ideology, or political platform. It is based, rather, in “the gifts and the call of God,” which “are irrevocable” and universal. He has chosen to create and redeem us, and reserve a place for us on his throne. His choice is what makes human life sacred, and is the basis for our choices.

Today’s readings, therefore, provide a foundation for a strong affirmation of the essential and integral Christian pro-life stance, of its meaning and origin, and of the need for that pro-life witness to be given to the whole world and to every culture and subculture.