Ordinary 28

The Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Respect Life Month

Isaiah 25:6-10a; Psalm23; Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20; Matthew 22:1-14

The image that the US bishops have chosen to mark Respect Life Month this year is The Virgin of the Lilies, painted in 1899 by French artist, William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

 

Academic in style. Serene and quiet in atmosphere. It is a tender image as the Virgin’s eyes are humbly cast down holding her child.

 

It is a beautiful image but is it true?

 

The child who looks out at us is too serious and gives the lie to the truth for many women in our world. This idolized image of the virgin-mother is removed from the experience of contemporary women. It is the age-old submissive image of woman wrapped [or is she trapped?] in beauty and a false sense of respect.

 

Women are complete in their own person as seen in the lives of strong, independent women throughout our Church’s history and society. Though complete in their humanity, women still need men and men need women. Which highlights a missing element in the image the bishops have chosen. Men.

Like women, we suffer but in different ways. Burdened as we are by unrealistic cultural expectations that are being exacerbated by the manosphere and a return to a hyper sense of masculinity wrapped in displaced anger and fear. Not a healthy mix for us. We too are wounded. That is not an excuse but an acknowledgement. The Book of Genesis teaches us that we need each other as helpmates, partners – companions to walk with each other and heal each other’s wounds.

 

To heal each other’s wounds…

To respect life, we must first acknowledge the woundedness of all members of humanity.

To respect life, we must accept our responsibility to bring healing to the lives of people.

To respect life, we must accept the fullness of God’s presence in each human being,

particularly in those who are the cause of much of the world’s suffering. Those leaders, corporations and people of power who put greed, pride, financial profit, and the corporate bottom line before people. What our Church calls in her Social Justice Teaching, the ‘common good’. What the Enlightenment philosophies of Hume, Locke and Rousseau called forth to underpin the Social Contract of democracy.

 

We’ve seen the images from our borders to the Gaza Strip;

from the tents of Yemen to the city streets of Kyiv;

from Afghanistan to Sudan to Lebanon.

 

The elderly and families on the march.

Fathers helplessly tightly hugging their hungry children in refugee camps.

Mothers wailing over their dead children in bombed out hospitals.

 

Who heals them?

 

Who heals the wounds of the “Jane Does” of Cornell University? And the “John Does”?

Who provides food for the 53 million, mostly children, in our country and in refugee camps

            who will go hungry today?

Who will intently listen to people filled with anger and a sense of revenge?

Who cares for the sick, the lonely and the elderly

            so they do not perceive themselves as burdens and choose assisted death?

 

Do we ask ourselves why 10 million/ 80% of single-parent families are headed by women?

Do we reflect why so many youth and young adults are attempting suicide?

Do we ponder why anger and jealousy fill the hearts of some men [and women]

            that they abuse their spouses, partners and children – even murder them?

Do we reflect why our country is returning to the barbarism of the death penalty;

            considering livestreaming firing squads. Death as entertainment under the guise of justice.

These are the realities of women, men and children, the elderly, sick and refugees throughout our world. It is the underlying causes of these realities that need to be confronted if we are to speak of respecting life.

 

We are not shown the pathways to respecting life with beautiful, sacred images whose truth is questionable but by active recognition of people’s humanity and gifts. No person is collateral damage to be discarded and all people are needed as helpmates.

 

I want to call your attention to…

 

Simona Brambilla, Maria Montserrat Alvarado, Raffaella Petrini, Mary Barron, Alessandra Smerilli, Barbara Jatta, Tiziana Merletti and Nathalie Becquart, names you may not be familiar with but should. The voices of these women are in the center of Vatican life and making a difference in our Catholic Church from the choice of bishops to immigration; from the church’s communications to its missionary outreach; from the allocation of our church’s resources to the life of clergy and religious; as executive of the Vatican City State to the director of the Vatican Museums.

 

Canadian poet, essayist, and translator Anne Carson who won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature for her bold and inventive work that creates new forms for contemporary literature.

 

Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, South African human rights lawyer and former judge on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) who was awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her lifelong efforts to promote peace and international law.

 

This is respecting life.

Recognizing people.

Accepting their giftedness.

Addressing the underlying causes of death in all of its forms that women, children and men may flourish.

11 October 2026