The Community at Prayer
Reflection by Father Paul M. Baca
April 10, 2011, 5th Sunday of Lent
See the readings
The scripture readings for the Fifth Sunday of Lent provide us with an opportunity to reflect on the gift and the blessings of this life. For many years now my first prayer in the morning is one of thanksgiving for the gift of life, faith and freedom. I have been very healthy most of my life and have been able to enjoy life from my first days during the Roaring Twenties through the Great Depression, and until now. I have no complaints and many very happy memories.
The First Reading from the prophet Ezequiel is more than a little bit challenging. "I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people." Those words provide us with a mystery as to their meaning, but I like to focus more on the words that follow, "I will put my spirit in you that you may live." And in those words I find the meaning of a real life with happiness. I have met people who equate life with bodily functions even if a person is brain-dead. I believe God puts his spirit in us so that we may enjoy life and that life may be an exciting adventure.
Since abortion became a political issue, it seems that many of us have lost sight of the real meaning of life. Not too long ago I read that one of our southern states that has the toughest laws on abortion also has the highest rate of infant mortality in the country. It made me realize that we must appreciate the fact that God's concern is also for life beyond birth. I firmly believe that God intends for everyone to live with dignity. When I returned to Albuquerque in 1965, several of the men and I started spreading the work of the St. Vincent de Paul Society from the slums of Paris. It made me realize that the unspeakable conditions of the poor there were not the conditions that Almighty God, our loving mother and father, intended for anyone.
The social teaching of the church has some strong words for all of us: that everyone has a right to live with dignity. Perhaps the story of the robber barons who became extremely wealthy on the backs of the working poor to teach all of us a lesson not to be forgotten. That story provoked and challenged popes to write encyclicals like Quadragesimo Anno and Rerum Novarum. You don't hear much about those anymore nowadays and that is sad because in some way those Documents motivated many workers to fight for better working conditions, just salaries and all that created a middle class in our country. All of us living now have benefited by those efforts. 
I have often wondered how Lazarus lived the rest of his life when Jesus gave him back his life. To me, he has always been a symbol of new life, God's gift to every one of us who live, and that life is to be celebrated as a joy. In so many ways I feel that the gift of life is wasted by so many who are enslaved by greed, power, money or possessions, and their only goal is to have more. For more than 60 years as a priest, I have worked with many happy people, many of them working poor and others who had more. But one quality common to all of them was a real concern for others. That, I believe, is the basic secret to real living. This whole concept was brought home to me by a quotation from Norman MacEwan, a senior commander for the Royal Air Force, "Happiness is not so much in having as in sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."
Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone were truly pro-life in its real meaning, fighting to preserve all our God-given rights and making every effort possible for everyone to enjoy a happy life?
Response: The Padre is a good man. Wish he'd have been here in Dayton, Ohio to give guidance to our roving band of change-makers and all-round good human beans. maddi in Ohio
Thank you Father Paul. Let’s all work and pray that our elected leaders will have the strength and vision to maintain and improve the Social Programs that have been created in this country to enable everyone in the USA to live with dignity. Steve