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1 Kgs 8:41-43
Gal 1:1-2, 6-10
Luke 7:1-10 One of the reasons why, as Paul passionately declares in the second reading, there is and can be no other gospel than the one that has been handed on to us, is that this gospel is universal. It is given by the God of all the universe, and is the last, best offer of everything he has to all of humanity without exception. There can be no other gospel because not even God Almighty can offer more than he has already offered us. This universality marks the Church's mission of evangelization, as the first reading and the Gospel indicate. Nobody is to be excluded from the offer of salvation in Christ. And this universality on the supernatural level is rooted in a universality in the order of nature. We are all created with the same human nature. Even before being incorporated into Christ by faith and baptism, we share that common human nature, and so are already brothers and sisters on the natural level. It is from that basis that the Church reaches out to all humanity with the urgent plea to protect life. The pro-life mission of the Church reaches to this natural level, this common basis, which the further announcement of the gospel presupposes and depends upon. This is why the urgent task of protecting life, in its first and natural rights, can never be separated from the Church's mission of evangelization and catechesis.
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