July Saints

It is the first of July and as summer heats up we have a few saints’ feast days on the horizon. Who are they?

Catholic Culture’s got your overview of everything liturgical in July here.

July 1: Juniperro Serra. That’s today! I was at St. Juniperro Serra’s canonization in 2015, when Pope Francis visited the United States. He was the first, and only, saint ever canonized on American soil. A Californian by way of Spain, a missionary, the apostle to America’s western natives.

July 8: Aquila & Priscilla. This couple named in the Acts of the Apostles were Jewish tentmakers brought to the faith by St. Paul. They were early disciples instrumental in the early formation of the Church, opening their home as a place of worship and formation for the early Christians.

July 11: St. Benedict. Father of monastic life, savior of Western tradition. Work and prayer, hospitality, and groundedness in one geographic spot are signs of the Benedictine order.

July 26: Sts. Anne an Joachim. Parents of the Blessed Mother, blessed with her birth in their old age. They are the patron saints of grandparents, being the grandparents of Jesus.

July 29: St. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. This used to just be the feast of St. Martha, but in 2021 Pope Francis changed it to include all three holy siblings. Known for being close to Jesus, enduring the usual human trials of doubt tempered with faith, they are a model for our need to balance “doing” for Jesus vs. “being” with Jesus.

July 31: St. Ignatius of Loyola. Founder of the Jesuits and their beautiful, soul-searching contemplative form of prayer. Missionary, discerner of spirits.

May these and all of July’s holy friends pray for us!

Celebrating Life: a Conversation on Morning Air

This morning I joined Morning Air to talk about the one-year anniversary of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. You can catch the audio here, starting at 10:25.

On the one-year anniversary of the celebration of the overturn of Roe v. Wade, there was celebration, both in the nation’s capital and elsewhere. As I mentioned in my last post, the literal increase in life certainly is reason to celebrate! And yet, the mission is not over, and there is much work to be done.

Mary Margaret Olahan has a good thread here on some of the ways laws have changed to protect life in the past year. For example, she states that abortion is completely banned in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Spaces previously used by abortion clinics are now operating as totally new businesses, having nothing to do with abortion or even healthcare (though the greatest justice is when an abortion clinic becomes a pro-life pregnancy center, in my humble opinion).

But why should we care? What if you don’t have kids, or don’t get what all the fuss is about? I come back again and again to the fact that it’s not just about the evil of abortion, but the cultural and moral downstream effects. To applaud abortion is to applaud violence against women and children, and to state that there are certain lives that just don’t matter that much. From, there, what? Do we say it’s okay to end the life of a disabled child after it’s born? What would be the difference, really? The issue of abortion is connected to our overall throwaway, self-driven culture. It is, as Pope Saint John Paul II called it, a culture of death.

And what else has happened in the past year? Well, those who support life, whether as pray-ers, or clinic workers, have suffered persecution and violence. CatholicVote has been tracking these instances, noting, “CatholicVote has tracked nearly 80 pro-abortion attacks since then, including arson, vandalism, and firebombing. In addition, CatholicVote has tracked 116 attacks on Catholic churches since May 2022, and 273 such attacks since May 2020.” This is not being reported in the mainstream news, naturally.

So what is the future? That remains the question. Those who are on the side of life - probably you, reading this - have a call to become involved. You just do. And if the idea of praying outside an abortion clinic, or volunteering at a pregnancy center, is too much, then pray within your own heart. Prayer is powerful, and it is needed. In the words of St. Paul: pray without ceasing!

In the meantime, trust in God to take care of everything, in His time. It took nearly 50 years for Roe to be overturned. Let us see what He will accomplish next.

A reason to celebrate: new life in America

This Saturday is the one-year anniversary of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. A natural consequence of this decision is a predicted increase in life - that is, a decrease in the number of abortions. And, as predicted, that is just what happened in the last year.

FiveThirtyEight blog reported that “there were 24,290 fewer legal abortions between July 2022 and March 2023, compared to a pre-Dobbs baseline.” While states that passed laws expanding the availability of abortion saw their individual numbers increase, it did not overall make up for reductions in abortions in states that passed restrictive laws. So, overall, more children were saved.

Abortion is a complex issue literally involving decisions of life and death. To have a child is a permanent thing, even if you give him or her up for adoption. Nonetheless: to have reduced the number of children sent to their demise is a truly beautiful thing. To have increased life on this planet, and this country, is unequivocally a positive. We have a long way to go to truly create a “culture of life,” and I pray that these lives saved were met with love, compassion, acceptance, and a change of heart.

If you are not already, pray for all women, families, and children every day caught in this difficult decision. Begin to financially support your local pregnancy center. Learn what it means to create a culture of life,, not just spiritually and relationally, but politically, as well. See yourself not as a bystander, but a part of the solution.

And remember, life wins.