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| Abortion…The Ultimate Crime…The Gravest Sin. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in Reparation for Abortionby Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. Abortion is the ultimate crime. Other crimes can be perpetuated for some profit or gain. But there is no gain in abortion, except a lifetime of pathetic quiet. Other crimes can be provided by some deadly passion, like lust, or anger or revenge. But there is no real passion in abortion, except an idolatrous self-love or inhuman self-will. The killing of innocent unborn children goes back to the dawn of recorded history. In the Roman Empire, at the dawn of Christianity, there were no laws prohibiting abortion. The one effective control was to allow the husband to impose the death penalty on his wife if she aborted a child without his permission. Every husband had the right to order his wife to abort if he did not want the child. The father had a legal right to demand that his wife abort if he told her to, and Roman law backed him in insisting that his wife should abort an unborn child. There the matter stood until Christ came into the world. With His coming, His invitation to “let the children come to me” took on a cosmic significance that world historians are only now beginning to recognize. Abortion, An Abominable Crime A person’s index of morality can be gauged on where he or she stands on the practice of abortion. For those who really believe in Christ and are Catholic in reality, and not only in name, abortion is a detestable crime. It is a criminal attack not only on the innocent human beings who are murdered in their mother’s wombs. It is a savage attack against the rights of God. God alone can create a human soul, which He does every time a child is conceived. The father and mother provide the human body but God creates the human soul Himself. He must produce out of nothing, the human soul, which He infuses into the fertilized ovum at the moment of conception. What makes abortion so criminal is its cruelty against the unborn child and its flagrant violation of the most fundamental rights and practice towards God. He alone may decide who is to be conceived and born. He alone determines how long an unborn child is to remain in the womb. He alone may terminate human life, whether unborn or born. Why? Because He is Master and Lord of His rational creatures whom He wants to glorify their Creator here on earth as a condition for their eternal beatitude in the world to come. Reparation for Abortion The very word, “reparation”, has meaning only for a believing Christian. As followers of the Christ, we believe that God became man precisely to redeem us from sin by suffering and dying on the cross for our salvation. But we are Catholic’s and not Protestants. We believe that these graces necessary for salvation have to be obtained from God, through Christ, in the way that Christ has determined to confer blessings on sinful children of Adam and Eve. Among all the conditions determined by our Lord, none is more effective for obtaining divine mercy than the Sacrifice of the Mass. This is only to be expected. In the Mass, it is the same identical Jesus who died on Calvary, who is now offering Himself for us in an un-bloody manner. Every Mass is a re-enactment of Calvary. Jesus is really and truly on the altar, made really present by the words of consecration of the priest. In the double consecration, Jesus tells us He is ready to die for us, if He could. On the Cross His blood separated from His body causing His death. In the Mass, the separate consecration symbolizes His willingness to shed His blood for our salvation. But He is now immortal and can no longer die. Yet, what an important “YET”, He would die if He could. So much did He love us on Calvary, so much does He love us now in our day. As defined by the Council of Trent, the Sacrifice of the Mass is offered, “For sins, for punishment for sins, and for reparation.” The Sacrifice of the Mass does not remove the guilt of sins immediately by conferring the grace of repentance, as happens in the Sacrament of Baptism and Penance. Rather, the Mass obtains for sinners the grace of repentance. They are enlightened to recognize their sinful state, and inspired to return to the God from whom they had strayed Graces of Repentance for Abortionists By abortionists we here mean everyone who in any way is responsible for the murder of an unborn human being. By the graces of reparation, we mean the light and strength that abortionists need to be reconciled with a deeply offended God. Light for the Mind All sin, as all virtue, finally depends on the will. The crime of abortion is no exception. A woman makes a “choice” with her will, to murder the infant in her womb. These who encourage her to abort, and the medical executioners who perform the abortion, also commit the sin of willful homicide, because they choose to. However, the human will is a blind faculty. It cannot choose on its own, but must first be informed by the mind that the abortion is a good thing to do. What abortionists first need therefore is light for the mind, They must by God’s grace, see that abortion is not a good but a terrible evil. The must realize that abortion is a crime crying to heaven for revenge. They must be made to understand that the consequences of abortion are destructive in the extreme. Millions of human beings whom God wants to know, love and serve Him by being born and reaching eternity are killed to satisfy some whim or emotional fancy. Strength for the Will So too the will of the abortionist must be strengthened by the divine inspirations that come from the Sacrifice of the Mass. On both counts, abortionists can be corrected only by a deluge of divine graces, available from the Sacrifice of the Mass. The Basic Graces of Reparation We are now in a position to ask ourselves: What is the most fundamental grace that abortionists need to be converted from their evil ways? The most fundamental grace they need is the grace to believe in life after bodily death. Modern society, especially Western, and once Christian, society is so hypnotized by the baubles and tinsel and toys of this world that it actually thinks this is the only world that exists; or at least the only world we are sure exists. No wonder crimes follow this mentality, including the crime of abortion. Once you question or deny eternal life then human life here on earth becomes an end in itself.
Why? Because it interferes with your pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. Why not? On these terms, selfishness becomes the norm of morality and self-worship becomes the guiding principle of the New Paganism. The Sacrifice of the Mass in Expiation for Abortion We are now in a position to ask how the Sacrifice of the Mass is such an effective means of making retribution for the global crimes of abortion. There are three ways, and I recommend all these for your consideration.
Assisting at Mass There is no substitute for personally assisting at Mass as often as possible. I cannot exaggerate the importance of this practice. Inevitably as a society weakens in its hold on the Catholic faith even the daily offering of the Mass drops off and priests may go for days without offering the Holy Sacrifice. This places an intolerable burden on the faithful. Whatever you can do to encourage priests to offer daily Mass will be blessed by Our Lord. One way to insure this is for you to attend Mass during the week, at no matter what inconvenience to your daily schedule. In the early Church during the major persecutions, the faithful went to Mass and Holy Communion daily. So convinced were they that the Holy Sacrifice would enable them to expiate the pagans hatred of Christianity. They were right. The pagans were converted in such multitudes that by the year 100 A. D. there were over 100 Catholic diocese established around the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Living the Mass Assisting at Mass is not enough. We must also live the Mass if we wish to make effective reparation for the deadly crime of abortion in the modern world. What does it mean to live the Mass? To live the mass means to join our sacrifices with those of Jesus Christ, our sufferings with His; our rejection by the world with His rejection, our sorrows with His. Christ being now glorified can no longer suffer in His own physical person. But suffer He can, in the mystical person of His Church. When then, we speak of the Mass in reparation for abortion, we mean the Mass which Jesus offers in union with us. There is more hidden here than the words may imply. The Mass is both Christ’s sacrifice and ours. He has already made His sacrifice ours by our patience endurance of the Cross. The more patient our endurance, the more resigned to the will of God; the more ready we are to die in obedience to God’s will in our lives, the more will the Masses we attend be effective means of repairing the awful consequences of abortion. It was the great apostle of the Eucharist, Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, who wrote that the world would long ago have been destroyed for its sins except for the thousands of Masses offered each day throughout the Catholic Church. I make bold to say that as Masses are offered in reparation for the murder of our unborn human race, God’s mercy will melt the hearts of stone that are responsible for this mass genocide. But remember our duty. We are indeed to assist at the Mass, if possible every day. We are to have priests offer Masses in expiation for abortion. But we must live the Mass ourselves. We must live the Mass, Which means we must live lives of self-sacrifice. We must live the Mass there is no option. It is a divine obligation if we hope to expiate the Satanic crimes of almost a hundred million infant homicides throughout the world each year. We must live the Mass, which means die to our selfishness and pride and greed. God must have a profound reason for allowing us to live in the most homicidal country in human history. It can only be because He wants to make the twenty-first century the most glorious in the annals of humanity. Where sin has so abounded grace will ever more abound. But we must do our part by living the Cross that our Loving Savior asks us to carry.
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