Lenten Meditations on the Last Words of Christ - Week 1

By Tom Ponchak

"Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34)

Dr. Bernard Nathanson passed away on February 21, 2011. Dr. Nathanson was a leader of the pro-abortion movement and founding member of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL, now the National Abortion Rights Action League). He estimated that he had supervised or performed over 75,000 abortions including the abortion of his own child. He admitted that he and his associates purposely feed misinformation to the media and deliberately attacked the Catholic Church in order to change public opinion to support legalizing abortion in the late 1960’s. Then something happened. Dr. Nathanson started to question the pro-abortion claim that the unborn child was merely a collection of cells and not a human life.

A longtime atheist, Nathanson still continued to support abortion rights despite his growing doubts until the mid-1980’s when he finally became convinced through advances in medical science that abortion was, in his words, "unjustifiable murder." He then helped to produce one of the most famous pro-life videos, The Silent Scream. Nathanson devoted the rest of his days to fighting legalized abortion. More significantly, he came to faith in God and was baptized into the Catholic Church in 1996.

At the moment of his baptism, every sin he had ever committed, every abortion, every lie, was forgiven. Think about that for a moment. The guilt of 75,000 murders was wiped away, cast as far as the east is from the west. It doesn’t seem fair. It doesn’t seem right. Shouldn’t he have to pay for all those innocent lives he claimed? Welcome to the scandal of the cross.

When I think about it, really think about it, I want Bernard Nathanson to be completely washed cleaned. I don’t want him to have to pay for his sins because I know I can’t pay for mine. If God can forgive Dr. Nathanson then I know he can forgive me. The cross means there is nothing I can do that’s too big for God to forgive. This is what St. Paul had in mind when he wrote, “For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Cor. 5:21)

Forgiveness is the meaning and purpose of the cross. Jesus focuses our attention on this fact by praying for the forgiveness of his executioners. Most victims of crucifixion shouted out curses at their executioners, Jesus cried out for mercy for them. Nowhere else is the scandal of the mercy and grace of God on display more than at the cross. Humanity’s greatest sin, killing God's Son, is met by God’s greatest display of love, the life of his Son given for us.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Being and Doing

By Tom Ponchak
Image
"Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her." (Luke 10:42, from the Gospel for the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time) I was listening to a podcast with Fr. John Riccardo and he said something to the effect of “we often think that the calling to be a disciple is to work for Jesus, but the calling of a disciple is to be with Jesus.” The Gospel account of Martha and Mary this week is so important for us to hear and learn from.  Over the last six years, I have worked in two suburban parishes doing adult formation. Both parishes are located in very affluent areas and have a large number of upper middle class, white collar professionals. We have CEOs, attorneys, physicians, salespeople, pharmaceutical professionals, corporate executives, and even professional athletes. I’ve joked at times that our home could probably fit in the garages of some of the parishioners I kn...
Read more

Cultural Insanity and The Christian

By Tom Ponchak
Image
On multiple occasions over the past year I’ve had a reoccurring dream. I find myself in an insane asylum where the inmates have taken over and have the appearance of zombies. I was going from room to room looking for other trapped people, some asleep and others unaware of what was happening, and leading them to escape. At the same time, I encounter a few of the insane zombies and I am able to cure them so they become “normal” and leave with us. I believe this is a prophetic dream speaking to the nature of our culture and our mission as Christians. In the early telling of the story of Narcissus in Greek mythology the young man become enamored with his own image and committed suicide after despairing that no one could love him as much as he loved himself. It’s from this story that modern psychology takes the name Narcissistic Personality Disorder to describe an individual with an inflated sense of their own purpose and a lack of empathy for others. The Mayo Clinic lists the followin...
Read more

Loaves and Fishes

By Tom Ponchak
Image
  “Give them some food yourselves.” Jesus’ words to his disciples were surprising, challenging, and seemingly impossible. They responded as most of us would have, taking a quick inventory of their resources and realizing their limitations. In making such an outrageous suggestion Jesus was trying to get his students to live by faith not by sight. As St. Paul would often refer to in his letters, Jesus was trying to get the disciple to be transformed by a renewal of their minds (Rom. 12:2), to no longer behave like unspiritual men, but as spiritually minded disciples (1 Cor. 2:14-16). It is important to keep in mind when the feeding of the multitude took place. Sunday’s reading was taken from Luke 9:10-17. Leading up to this event, the disciples had witness Jesus calming the storm (Luke 8:22-25), a woman healed just by touching is garment (Luke 8:43-48) and Jesus raising a girl from the dead (Luke 8:49-56). Furthermore, the disciples had just returned to Jesus after he had sent them...
Read more