Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle C

1 Kgs 17:17-24
Gal 1:11-19
Luke 7:11-17

Both the first reading and the Gospel speak to us today about a mother, with no husband, who loses her son, and then a man of God -- in the case of Jesus, the Son of God -- gives the child back to his mother, alive. In both cases, this victory of life over death for a woman's child is a sign of God's favor. God is in the business of destroying death and restoring life, which, in the end, he will do for us all.

This is a key characteristic of the mission of the Church and of each member of the People of God: be a sign of God's preference for life over death, a sign of the power of life over death. We cannot raise the dead as Elijah and Jesus did, but we can save children from death through our involvement in the pro-life movement. The witness, the words, and the compassionate intervention of the pro-life works of the Church bring to pass each day the words of today's Psalm, "You preserved me from among those going down into the pit," and the words of the Gospel, "Jesus gave him back to his mother."

A further application of this theme is in the whole arena of healing after abortion. Each day, through ministries like RachelsVineyard.org, parents who have lost children to abortion are experiencing what it means that "Jesus gave him back to his mother." They are led, by the Word of God and the sacraments, to life-giving repentance, to reclaiming their  responsibility for their children, and to experiencing the hope that both they and their children are in the hand of God and will be reunited one day. The hope given by today's readings can be the opportunity to call people to healing and to be witnesses both to life and to mercy.