Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle C

Zec 12:10-11; 13:1
Gal 3:26-29
Lk 9:18-24

“Whoever would save his life will lose it…” The paradox of Christianity is that life finds its most profound meaning precisely when it is given away in love for God and others.

This is at the core of the pro-life effort. We confront a culture in which many think they find their own life by taking someone else’s. The pregnant mother sometimes feels she has to choose between her own life (not necessarily in a physical sense, but in a psychological sense) and the life of her baby. But the Lord says that those who seek to “save their life” will lose it. Rather, we find our own life precisely by putting the other person’s life first.  To deny ourselves and take up our cross brings us to the essence of life, which is to give and receive love.

The pro-life movement, in urging this dynamic, breaks down false barriers, just as Paul indicates in the second reading. “Neither slave nor free.” Jesus did the same, showing his love for the outcast and those against whom society had mistakenly set up barriers and false divisions. In the culture of life, there are no false divisions. All are equal. There is no “slave or free.” No person can enslave, own, or devalue another, or declare that other to be a ‘non-person’ or beyond the protection of law. We are here to set the slave free, to set the unborn free, to proclaim all human beings as equals.