Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle B

Gen 3:9-15
2 Cor 4:13 - 5:1
Mark 3:20-35

Two kingdoms are at war. One has already been defeated, yet still exercises a harmful though limited power. The strife between the kingdoms is described in the first reading, as is the outcome. The serpent is striking against the heel of the seed of the woman.

The seed of the woman is Christ, into whom we are all incorporated by our obedience to the word of God. As Jesus explains in the Gospel, that obedient union with his will is what makes us his brothers, sisters, and mothers. And this is precisely how he (and we in him) cast out devils and crush the head of the serpent: obedience, leading to unity, is what undoes the disobedience of Adam and Eve, which led to chaos and strife.

The fight over abortion is not simply a worldly struggle between philosophies or political parties. It is the embodiment of the Biblical struggle laid out in today's readings, and the promised solution to it is the same. Abortion is a great "NO" to the will of God, expressed in every child. Abortion brings division within the most basic relationship, a mother and her child, and spreads more division throughout the human family. The culture of Life, on the contrary, is a great "YES" to God, spoken in Christ, marked by obedience to his will, and by the fruit of that obedience, which is the unity of all God's children and, as the second reading indicates, life eternal, both in body and soul.