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Life is worth living. Life is beautiful.
By Bishop Peter F. Christensen
This past week, the Church celebrated with great joy the beatification of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, the gifted priest, bishop and evangelist who brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ into millions of American homes through radio and television.
With little more than a camera, a blackboard and a remarkable gift for communicating our Catholic faith, Sheen proclaimed the truths of Christ to the world. The title of his beloved television program expressed something at the heart of his ministry: “Life Is Worth Living.”
How beautiful those words sound today. Our lives are worth living because they come from God. We are not accidents. Each of us has been created intentionally by God, in His image and likeness, and called into communion with Him. Our lives have a purpose the world cannot give and cannot take away.
Sheen also understood that if life is worth living, then life must be protected. He spoke forcefully in defense of unborn children and encouraged Catholics to spiritually adopt children in danger of abortion.
How fitting, then, that the mir
acle recognized in connection with his beatification involved a child. In 2010, James Fulton Engstrom was born without signs of life and remained without a heartbeat for 61 minutes as his family prayed through Sheen’s intercession. His heart began to beat, and he eventually recovered without the severe neurological damage doctors expected. The Church recognized the healing as medically inexplicable.
Think about that. The man who spent his life telling the world that “Life Is Worth Living” would one day be declared Blessed following the recognition of a miracle involving the life of a newborn child.
That causes me to think about another image. Many of us recently saw on the cover of the Idaho Catholic Register the beautiful face of a child accompanied by three simple words: Life is Beautiful! Those words are also at the heart of our diocesan prayer campaign: “Heavenly Father, Thank You for the gift of life.”
The gift of life. Before life is a political question, it is a gift. Before we accomplish, own or choose anything, we first receive something we could never give ourselves. We receive life.
Because life comes from God, every human life possesses an inherent dignity. That includes the child hidden within the womb. The Church has consistently taught that human life must be respected and protected from conception. The child in the womb is one of us — small, dependent and unable to speak in his or her own defense, but human and alive.
This is why the question before us in Idaho concerning Proposition 1 is so serious. We hear words such as freedom, privacy, choice and rights. But before considering them, we must ask a more fundamental question: Who is the child?
If the child in the womb is a human life, that child cannot disappear from our moral consideration. Authentic freedom must be ordered toward what is true and good, and a just society must protect those who cannot protect themselves.
I wrote recently that “the strongest members of society have a particular responsibility to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Few human beings are more defenseless than a child in the womb.” This is where our Catholic faith asks us to look. Look at the child. Not first at a political party, advertisement or slogan. Look at the child.
And never forget the mother. The Church does not ask us to choose between a mother and her child. We are called to love them both. A woman facing a difficult pregnancy deserves our compassion, accompaniment, medical care, assistance, prayer and love. Her child deserves our love and protection as well. Mother and child. Both possess dignity. Both are precious in the eyes of God.
Blessed Fulton Sheen understood that evangelization requires courageously bringing the light of Christ into our culture. Our proclamation begins with the invitation to encounter Jesus Christ, to conversion and faith. From that encounter comes discipleship, which calls us to holiness and sends us on mission to love and serve others, especially the smallest and most vulnerable.
Perhaps that is why these two messages belong together so naturally: “Life Is Worth Living.” Life is Beautiful. But before either can be experienced, something must happen first: That person must be allowed to live.
Every friendship, prayer, laugh, embrace, vocation and opportunity to love begins with life. Every possibility of knowing Jesus Christ begins there. Before we can discover that life is worth living, we must possess life. Before we can discover that life is beautiful, we must have the opportunity to see its beauty.
As we consider Proposition 1 here in Idaho, I ask all of us to pray, read the measure carefully and form our consciences according to the truth revealed by Christ and taught by his Church. Pray for mothers, fathers and families, for those who are afraid and for those who disagree with us. And especially, pray for the child whose voice we may never hear. Then, on Nov. 3, let us fulfill our civic responsibility by going to the polls with consciences carefully formed in the light of faith, truth and the dignity of every human life.
Perhaps we might imagine that child speaking the simplest prayer of all: Let me live. Let me discover whether life is worth living. Let me discover whether life is beautiful. Let me discover the God who gave me life.
Blessed Fulton J. Sheen, pray for us. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. And may the Lord give us the wisdom, courage and charity to cherish and protect his beautiful gift of life.
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