VIEWS

What better time to remind ourselves of the value of life than at Lent, when the message of sacrificing for others beckons us to see and respect the value of all humanity.

Years ago I met a man from the former Soviet Union who had grown up in a family of atheists. He was living with his girlfriend when I first got to know him, but a few weeks later, he had moved out.

Hope is a concept we can speak about blithely until everything falls apart. It’s when troubles abound that we find out how much we need the unshakeable hope that’s rooted in Christ and His triumph over sin and death.

St. Paul sounds extreme sometimes, but not so extreme as some modern atheists. Here’s Paul: “If Christ has not risen, then our preaching is groundless and your faith is groundless.” He writes that to the Christians, some of whom seem to have been claiming that the dead don’t rise again.

A hundred years ago, on the 13th day of every month from May through October of 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to three children near Fatima in Portugal, bringing them an urgent message, calling for repentance and prayer, a message that has no less urgency today.

Hace cien años, el día 13 de cada mes de mayo a octubre de 1917, la Santísima Virgen apareció a tres niños cerca de Fátima en Portugal, trayendo un mensaje urgente, pidiendo arrepentimiento y oración, un mensaje que no tiene hoy en día menos urgencia.

Can prayer change the direction of history? Are prayer and acts of penance capable of preventing nuclear annihilation? Can prayers and penance increase our freedom? “Yes, yes and yes.”

¿Se puede cambiar la dirección de la historia por medio de la oración? ¿Se puede prevenir la aniquilación nuclear por medio de la oración y los actos de penitencia? ¿Puede aumentar nuestra libertad por medio de la oración y penitencia? “Sí, sí y sí”.

There were maybe a dozen or so of us in the Bible study group, seated on comfortable chairs, a candle flickering on the table in the center of the room as we discussed a chapter of Acts.

The fruit of the womb is holy. Every child is a blessing. A child is never an evil, even if the circumstances that led to the beginning of a new human person were not morally upright.