Reflections 2006
Life: the greatest gift

“With all your heart honour your father, and do not forget the birth pangs of your mother. Remember that through your parents you were born; what can you give back to them that equals their gift to you?” (Sirach 7:27-28) What indeed?

This year, Respect Life Sunday and Mother’s Day fall on the same day (Sunday, 14th May), and both these emphases call to mind the question posed by this verse of Scripture.

On Mother’s Day, fathers and children delight in giving gifts to Mum, and mothers are delighted, not so much by the gifts, but by the loving thoughts that are behind the gifts. Still, what gift can we possibly give to our mothers that can equal the gift they gave to us: the gift of life itself? Throughout our lives we receive many gifts from many people. But nothing will ever equal this.

Sirach reminds us that God’s commandment encompasses the honouring of fathers as well as mothers. Nevertheless, the observance of a ‘Mother’s Day’ has a far more ancient history than the more recent ‘Father’s Day.’ We seem to understand that the sacrifices which a mother makes for her children are of a different order from those which are made by a father.

“Remember the birth pangs...” writes Sirach. Keep in mind that such “pangs” are only the first that a mother feels for her children. They are multiplied a thousand times as she nurtures her children and worries over them through all the long years from infancy to adulthood and independence.

We can never hope to repay the debt of love and gratitude we owe to our mothers. Those of us whose mothers have now passed beyond this life continue to bear them the filial duty of prayer for their eternal rest. Those whose mothers are still alive are called upon to show them every respect, gratitude, just obedience, and all the assistance they need, especially as they grow older.

We do this because of who they are. They gave us the gift of life itself.

Mother’s Day in the Church in Melbourne is also ‘Respect Life Sunday.’ On this day we are called to remember that the gift of life is ultimately a gift from God.

At the beginning of the Bible we read the story of how God breathed His Spirit into the nostrils of the man He formed from the clay of the earth, and he became a “living soul.” (Gen 2:7) At the other end of the Scriptural testimony, we read that “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” (1 John 5:11) It is this mystery which we have just celebrated in the Easter liturgies.

The gift of life is fundamentally a gift from God. This is why in the Creed we say that God the Holy Spirit is “the Lord and Giver of life.” Despite all the discoveries and theories of modern science, no scientist has yet proposed a truly satisfying answer to the question of the origin of life on earth. Some theories suggest that life arrived here on a meteor or some fragment of ‘star dust,’ but this ‘solution’ just presses the mystery back to another time and another location. The distinction between that which is alive and that which is not is so vast that nothing seems to be able to explain it, although we see living things springing up all around us.

We know the origins of human life in the womb. We know that the new life begins with the gift of living cells from both the mother and the father. We have even been able to map the DNA involved in this process! Nevertheless we are at a loss to say how it is that a new human person arises from this union; a new individual who is destined to grow and address himself as ‘I’ and his parents as ‘you.’ Such new life can only be conceived as a direct gift from God.

The Church safeguards this aspect of her faith with teachings that are very clear, but which are also very obviously mysteries beyond our complete comprehension. She teaches that all human beings are created in the “image of God.”

She teaches that the souls of each and every human being are “created immediately by God” – souls are not ‘produced’ by parents. Human life is thus distinguished from other animal life precisely because it is “animated by a spiritual soul.”

Obviously the simple statement of these teachings is not sufficient on their own. It is the task of theologians and those who teach the faith to explicate these teachings further and to explain them in terms that may be understood by people today. These teachings are, however, the bases for the Church’s insistence that every individual human life – from conception to death – has infinite value. Thus murder, abortion, suicide and euthanasia, as well as the many modern reproductive technologies and cloning technologies that result in the destruction of human beings at the embryonic stage, are completely anathema for Christians.

The value of an individual human life cannot be relativised in relation to any other value except that of other human lives. Each human life is ultimately a gift from God. Sirach was correct in saying that honour is due to parents for the gift of life, but by the same argument infinite honour is due to God who is the ultimate source of all life.

We find here a remarkable congruence in the two commandments that underlie Mother’s Day and Respect Life Sunday. The Fourth Commandment tells us to “Honour your father and mother.” The Fifth Commandment tells us “You shall not kill.” And both of these are given in the light of the First and Greatest Commandment of all: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind.”

It is not possible to love God, who gave life, without loving the parents through whom He has given such a great gift. Nor is it possible to honour God without honouring – in the life of every human being – the ‘image of God’ our Creator.

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.