Those who use abortifacients commit homicide–Saint Clement
The heinous crimes committed by ISIS have shocked the civilized world. Burning innocent men alive, stoning women in the streets of Islamic countries, beheading captive Christians, and raping women with such abject cruelty and total disregard for the life of another human, have stunned us all. How anyone, in the name of religion, could be so depraved as to murder others, and cause such horrid pain and suffering, is beyond the comprehension of civilized people everywhere. Yet another form of murder, just as cruel and depraved, is the killing of the unborn child in the womb.
We are living in a period of history that has seen the cause of human rights take the forefront as never before. We champion equality under the law for minorities, and continue the struggle for equal rights and equal pay for women, but ignore the rights of the most vulnerable among us, the unborn. We’d rather kill the child in the womb than deprive ourselves of a lifestyle that would be hampered by a baby. Sexual gratification takes priority over the right to life of the unwanted child that is the result of our unchecked lust. We deny the humanity of the unborn by dismissing the reality of a life by deciding the child is not a real person until the moment they are born. We dispose of that which God has created, through the gift of our sexuality, preferring lustful gratification to chastity. The idea of saving oneself for the marriage bed has become as outdated as the Victrola.
We explain away the infanticide that is abortion, while our legal system can find a man guilty of murder should his attack on a pregnant woman result in the death of her unborn child. We think nothing of depriving another human being of life, while we pursue a life of unbridled pleasure for ourselves. Saint Basil the Great said, “The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. The hair-splitting difference between formed and unformed makes no difference to us.”
If we are to be a friend of God, we must keep the laws of God. An unborn child has been given the gift of life, even if under circumstances that are the result of our sin. That the child should forfeit her life for the convenience of selfish parents is unconscionable. The sin of sexual intercourse outside the marriage bed is compounded ten thousand fold by the sin of abortion. The woman who would abort her child to avoid poverty will have placed her soul in a state of absolute poverty. Men must truly take responsibility for their part in a life being formed, and do everything in their power to support the mother in caring for the child, ensuring not only the birth, but also the financial care and loving support of the child, following the birth.
In an age when many question the morality of state sanctioned executions of criminals, or question the justification of war, it is beyond the pale that we would think we have the right to kill an unborn child. We must ask ourselves, as did Saint John Chrysostom, “Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit? Where there are medicines of sterility? Where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain only a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well. Indeed, it is something worse than murder and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you condemn the gifts of God, and fight with His laws? What is a curse you seek as though it were a blessing. Do you make the anteroom of slaughter? Do you teach the women who are given to you for a procreation of offspring to perpetuate killing?”
Let us stand firm for the rights of all people, especially for the most vulnerable, defenseless of them all, the unborn children. The Sixth Commandment tells us that we must not kill, and makes no distinction between the killing of another person, the killing of oneself (suicide), or the killing of the unborn. The Church has confessed from the beginning that each life is created by God, and that human life is the supreme gift of the Creator. Human life is not given unconditionally, but is given under the condition that we will be responsible for preserving it.
The testimony that God respects life above all else is contained in the words of the Gospel: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). In so far as God’s perfection is beyond our understanding, by His grace and mercy we are called to theosis, the process of becoming like God. Theosis (deification) begins from the moment of our conception and continues until the very hour of our death. No one has the right to interfere in this process that was begun when God created us.
And finally, anyone who claims to be “Pro-Life” while not protesting and working against the incredibly massive child poverty problem in the United States is missing a key element of what it means to be ‘Pro-Life.’ One cannot be “Pro-Life” while not supporting the programs that make it a given that our nation’s children will all have health care, a good education, and a chance at making a successful life for themselves.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Saturday January 28, 2017 / January 15, 2017
32nd Week after Pentecost. Tone six.
St. Paul of Thebes, Egypt (341), and St. John Calabytes (“Hut-dweller”) of Constantinople, monks (450).
New Hieromartyr Michael, priest (1942).
New Hieromartyr Benjamin, bishop of Romanov (1930).
Monk-martyr Pansophius of Alexandria (249-251).
St. Prochorus, abbot in Vranski Desert on the river Pchinja in Bulgaria (10th c.) (Serbia).
St. Gabriel, founder of Lesnovo Monastery, Serbia-Bulgaria (980) (Serbia).
St. Gerasimus, patriarch of Alexandria (1714).
St. Maximus, bishop of Nola (250).
Venerable Ita of Killeedy, hermitess and foster-mother of St. Brendan (570) (Celtic & British).
Venerable Maurus, disciple of St. Benedict (584) (Celtic & British).
St. Salome of Udjarma, and St. Perozhavra of Sivnia, Georgia (4th c.).
Venerable Barlaam of Keret Lake near the White Sea (16th c.).
The Scripture Readings
1 Thessalonians 5:14-23
14 Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. 15 See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies. 21 Test all things; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil.
Blessing and Admonition
23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Luke 17:3-10
3 Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you,[a] rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4 And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you,[b] saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”
Faith and Duty
5 And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”
6 So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. 7 And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’? 8 But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not.[c] 10 So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’”
I agree that abortion is murder and should not occur. However, I am saddened that in your sermon you have made no mention of the men who make the woman pregnant. Without a man’s “input” pregnancy would not occur. All of your comments seem to address the woman and how SHE is the murderer because SHE became pregnant and aborted the fetus/child. I know that you encourage abstinence but I do not understand why in this piece it is only the woman who is guilty. You don’t say anything about the responsibility of the man to provide care for both the mother and child. I feel very certain that if all men were truly responsible for their part in a life being formed they would not take advantage of women as they do. I am curious about your quote of Saint John Chrysostom. When was it written and where might one find where it is written? Thank you. I look forward to your response.
Read paragraph 4, and see the added last sentence.
Though unable to attend our local march this year, last year I went alone and was among a large group of ladies from a Catholic Church. As we marched they repeated the Hail Mary in a low, dignified tone and it seemed to sanctify our procession through downtown. It was both sobering and hope filled.
As a man I of course feel less qualified to comment on what a woman must endure in this world, certainly burdens that would humble or break any male. Yet as a person I have never been able to understand how someone could not see the absolute miracle that is life. It seems strange that celebrities and activists rage against those who value life as if it is an attack on womanhood when in fact it is in defense of the amazing position that woman have been placed in this world by God.
Chris,
You speak as one who has been taken advantage of. That, or you have witnessed it first hand with loved ones. If that is the case, I am sorry.
You say ” I feel very certain that if all men were truly responsible….” . Yes, it surely would be certain that if ALL men were TRULY responsible, they would not take advantage. But I’m going to assume you know that this has never, or will never be so, in this world.
So Chris, in the end, when the woman has contemplated abortion for whatever reason, is she not ultimately responsible for that choice? The point that the man has responsibility is not the issue. The ultimate responsibility for carrying that child is on the woman. She is the one in whom God formed the womb.
It is hard for us women to hear words such as Abbot Tryphon speaks. We get defensive when we hear a man say what a woman should do…no matter what the issue is. I have been a single woman all my life…have depended on myself from day to day to get things done…so I understand these issues. Nevertheless, Abbot Tryphon speaks the truth. In the end, we are each responsible for our actions.
Be well. Hope in The Lord Jesus Christ.
Sorry. Misspelled your name…Chis.
Thank you, dear Abbot, for this clear, forceful and loving testimony to the right to life. God bless you always.
Father, thank you for including the photos of the Orthodox in the march. My son and I watched the march on live-streaming video (both on Fox and on EWTN), and naturally there wasn’t much coverage of the Orthodox. Great to see all the hierarchs, including my bishop, his Eminence Archbishop NATHANIEL.
Tough stuff, Father, but well said. And you’re right that men should take responsibility for the results of their actions, all the more so when it results in bringing another life into the world. I know the lust for a woman and fear of fatherhood, both. Perhaps the fear of responsibility is all the stronger when faced with the greatest responsibility most of us will face in life. I know how crushed I felt when I discovered I had suddenly become guardian to a 14 year old boy. I can’t say I’ve been a success in my guardianship–far from it–but I would have been a greater failure for not trying.
Here is what I would try to convey to people from my experience of working with special needs families (and I work with really tough cases). We see life backwards. Only through experience will we learn that what seem like insurmountable burdens are really the means by which we are liberated, and allowed to become real human beings–a rare commodity in today’s world.
The fathers of these families are stand-up guys who went from scarcely having a place to house their families to being successful businessmen. The mothers cannot be done justice with words. One was once an Olympic athlete, the other a high-level fashion agent in London, New York, and Miami. Often nights I lay in my loft and marvel at what I’d seen that day in these women, and this after years of working with them. The qualities they display go far beyond “motherhood”, and no amount of financial success they might have had for themselves elsewhere can equal what they have acquired inwardly.
I can’t help but think of such people when I read of women petitioning the Supreme Court, saying, “I was able to become a stockbroker (or a lawyer) because I chose to have an abortion,” with apparently no sense of irony regarding the possibilities lost elsewhere. From here we go from the occasional grim necessity to wholesale convenience.
Had we known that Van Gough would have a miserable life, and would eventually commit suicide, would we have prevented his birth? And I remember an account from Carlos Castenada, who to his teacher, Don Juan, bemoaned the sight of wretchedly poor Mexican children stealing scraps of food from restaurant tables, and the injustice of it all. His teacher told him that from such wretchedness Masters and Teachers like himself arise.
From a once unwanted child, whose mother loved him all the same,
R
Dear In Christ Abbott Tryphon, Your Blessing, ,
Thank you for this well said, deeply profound message of truth. I would that every person could read this with the grace of understanding.
As an Orthodox woman one wouldn’t suspect that I would not be “pro-choice”. Yet even though I believe life begins at conception that abortion is murder and that we should not kill, I believe safe abortions should be available to a women who chooses to make this regrettable choice.
Our society condones killing. We execute prisoners and we kill during war. All killing injures the soul, yet with repentance, murder can be forgiven. I believe it is more important for a woman to be able to have a safe abortion and the opportunity to repent of this and receive forgiveness, than to die as a result of a botched illegal abortion.
Our Lord sets before us life and death and bids us to choice life. We need to be doing everything we can to encourage others to choose life and prevent the untimely death of an innocent unborn child, but we needn’t condemn anyone to an untimely death.
Susannah
As a public school teacher who has seen examples of every aspect of our culture stream through her room and life for many, many years, and as a woman of deep faith, I would like to say that there are several other considerations to add to the abortion/pro-life issue: We need to change our culture so that our children know that there are morals and reasons for them beyond “because God said so”. Too many young girls who get pregnant for the reasons the Abbot listed above have no idea of what they should be doing or how to live life as the recipients of Grace. Too many young men have no understanding of commitment, and the damages caused by the lack of it. We are not training our women to give up their unwanted children at birth for the sake of the child; we are not holding our men to a high standard of behavior with women; we do not have safe and loving places set aside for those unwanted children; we are not providing enough medical and life support care for these mothers and their children when they are kept. We are not providing loving moral guidance to any of the parties. Pregnancy is the end of a long line of missing or false moves in our culture. During the last ten years of my career, it was my joy to teach sixth grade, where we were allowed to teach the tenets of the major religions of the world, and had a novel to read that referred to several Biblical stories and parables. When I asked my students how many of them knew any of the stories or knew what the Ten Commandments were, no more than five or six out of 25 students had any idea what I was talking about. Perhaps half of my classes were living in unconventional, unstable environments, and of those who were there was virtually no knowledge of Christianity or of moral expectations. I got to explain the Ten Commandments clearly, and got to teach character — what constitutes good, bad and evil in a person. I was able to explain the Biblical references (as literary devices, they were not off limits in class). However, as a culture, we are not providing this information to the populace. Living a hedonistic life of unbridled pleasure is the RESULT of a cultural deficit, and unwanted pregnancies and lives of instability for the children of those unwanted pregnancies is the natural outcome, not an isolated focus. Let’s fix the culture; the abortion issue will retreat and become more manageable as a result.
AMEN Father Abbot. We need to hear these words, and we need to rethink our self-centered ways that have led to this great sin.
It is great to hear the truth from a priest. I wish more Orthodox priests would speak about this in their sermons. This culture deny’s God’s word when it is convenient for them. Thank you for your sermon!