Reflections

       Through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord promises to gather from the ends of the world all who departed in tears, including the blind and those with child. He will console them and guide them and lead them to brooks of water, by roads on which none shall stumble.

       So many have suffered from the violence so brutally present in our society today. Pope John Paul II has called it a "culture of death." Babies whose lives were taken by parents whose hearts are still scarred by what they did. The old and sick warehoused and forgotten, stripped of dignity and sometimes ever their lives. Innocent men and women imprisoned and threatened with death, sometimes proven innocent years after their incarceration.

So many wounds crying out for healing. But God promises to lead us home from the nightmare of our own sins. If we but return to him all our sins will be forgiven. With the gift of repentance, the words of today's Psalm will be ours: Our mouths will be filled with laughter, for we who sowed in tears shall reap rejoicing!

       Jesus tells us about that gift of repentance in today's Gospel. The blind man is healed not first from his physical blindness, for it was faith which saved him. He chose not to dwell in darkness any longer, so he called out, not just once, but twice, "Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!" Christ's response to the blind man is his response to every person wounded by sin of abortion: "Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you."

       May each woman who has aborted her child, each father who has helped in procuring an abortion, each doctor or nurse or legislator or judge who has aided another in taking the life of a child repent, turn to Christ,and begin the healing which only repentance can bring.