Please pray for our students preparing for confirmation! SSP School students will celebrate the sacrament of confirmation this week, and our Parish School of Religion students will have confirmation in May at the Cathedral. In the past two weeks, I’ve spoken with many of our students who will be confirmed. It’s been wonderful to see their faith and to hear about the ways our parish has helped them. The conversations gave me a lot to think about, some good ideas, and a lot of encouragement, so much so that they made me wonder if I should make time for interviews with our students also in the years when we don’t offer confirmation!
First Communion was a wonderful experience of faith last Sunday. I hope on my last day I am as excited to meet Jesus as our second graders were. Many thanks to Msgr. Bommarito, Deacon George, Mrs. Judy Birk, and Mrs. June Wood for the love, time, and joy they gave to our First Communion class. Thank you also to the music team led by Anne and David Borgmeyer!
As a Catholic Church, we believe that every human being is loved by God from the moment their life starts in conception. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. “From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth. … The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined” (nn. 2270, 2273).
At present, the state of Missouri gives legal protection to the lives of children in the womb in a variety of ways. However, some citizens are gathering signatures for an amendment to the state constitution which would make abortion widely available in our state. Please join me this weekend in praying for the cause of life and the legal protection of all human lives in our state. If you have questions or thoughts on this important topic, either I or Msgr. Bommarito would be happy to talk with you. May Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas and Protectress of Unborn Children, teach us well how to love each mother and each child as Jesus would.