This weekend at OLG, we celebrate and thank God for his gift of creation, especially his gift of human life. Saturday morning, we have the blessing of animals. And then at all of our Masses this weekend, Respect Life Sunday, we kick off the Pennies from Heaven campaign benefiting our local La Habra Life Center.
But there is nothing more precious or important in God’s creation than his gift of our own human lives. In the very first chapter of Genesis, the very first book of the Bible, we are taught that God creates us human beings in his “image” and “likeness” (Genesis 1:26). That makes all human life very precious indeed, from conception to natural death. Human embryos are precious, babies are precious, children are precious, young adults are precious, not-so-young adults are precious, death row inmates are precious, and our brothers and sisters who are sick or dying are precious. All human life is precious, regardless of age, stage of development, health, innocence or lack thereof.
So as much as we may value the beauty of a sunset, ocean view or mountain setting, as much as we may love our puppies and kittens and our older family pets, there is nothing in creation more precious than human life, including a human embryo or fetus. Sometimes I hear people describe their pets as being their children. They are not. We love our pets, but they are not our children. Human embryos and fetuses ARE our children, precious like us, made in God’s image and likeness.
And we are morally obliged, called by God, to care for human embryos and fetuses and to support their parents in bringing them to birth, loving and nurturing them. Our La Habra Life Center does awesome work in this regard. Our support of the La Habra Life Center through the Pennies from Heaven campaign each year is an important way that all of us can share in the Life Center’s work of helping and supporting parents to bring their children to birth and to provide loving, nurturing homes for them.
Praise be to God for all of creation, especially for all of us human beings blessed to be created in his image and likeness!