Can It Really Happen?
Last Friday, June 24, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, was a day that shook our nation in profound ways. Roe v. Wade, together with Casey v. Planned Parenthood, were overturned by the United States Supreme Court. Though what this decision means is often misrepresented in the media, the decision of the Court did not make abortion illegal; it simply returned the issue to States for the people to decide. It looks as though half of the Republic will legally allow abortions, whereas the other half will make abortion illegal. What lies ahead for our country is uncertain, to say the least. The anger and rhetoric from those who decry the decision of the court is fierce, and there are threats of violence in various parts of the country.
When an unjust law is overturned it is momentous for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is because law is educative. In other words, laws tell us what is and is not acceptable. Two generations of Americans have grown up under a law that taught it is acceptable to kill an innocent human being at its most vulnerable stage. No wonder there is so much anger and confusion.
As significant as law is, however, it cannot solve the matter on its own. Law can do lots of things, but it cannot change the heart. Only God can do that. And the human heart is the fundamental problem. Not their hearts, my heart. Our hearts. Alexander Solzhenitsyn famously wrote, “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.” In other words, as important as it is to work for just laws, laws that are in accord with reason and truly promote and protect the dignity of every human person, the disciple of Jesus has added work to do. That added work is to beg the Holy Spirit to conform our own hearts to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the eternal Son of God who, out of love for this race made in God’s image and likeness, became one of us and went to the cross for us to defeat the powers of Sin, Death and hell.
That work, however, is also to pray, fast and work for the conversion of other hearts. With regards to the matter of abortion, that means to pray, fast and work for the conversion of the hearts of those men and women who, for whatever reason, are blinded by the god of this world, cannot see the dignity of unborn children, and often at times champion the right to kill innocent human life.
But can that really happen? Has it really happened?
Yes.
Shortly after the news of the Supreme Court decision broke, I found myself asking Dorothy Day to pray for those men and women who are now as she once was. As a younger woman, Day was a communist and an anarchist. She lived what we might call a Bohemian life, sexually promiscuous, and herself had an abortion. In December of 1927, Day was baptized in the Catholic Church and became one of the most disturbingly consistent witnesses of Jesus this country has ever seen. As Mary Magdalene says in The Chosen, the remarkable series on the life of Jesus and His disciples, “Here’s what I can tell you: I was one way. And now I am completely different and the thing that happened in between was Him [Jesus].” So, too, did that happen for Dorothy Day. And one day, when the Lord returns and all is made manifest, we will find out how many people were praying, fasting and working for Day’s conversion.
Bernard Nathanson is another person the Lord keeps bringing to mind these days. Nathanson was a New York obstetrician and gynecologist who passed away in 2011. Nathanson helped to found the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) in 1969. He oversaw some 75,000 abortions between 1970-1979, and personally performed more than 5000, including one on his girlfriend. However, in 1973, after watching an abortion using ultrasound imaging technology everything changed. Suddenly, the man who had been known as “the abortion king” began to undergo a conversion — first in his mind, and then in his heart. Based on what he knew to be scientifically, medically and reasonably to be true, he became a leading advocate for the dignity of human life from the moment of conception. And, in 1996, Bernard Nathanson, “the abortion king,” one of the founders of NARAL, a man who had personally killed some 5000 human beings, became Catholic and a disciple of Jesus. And, when He returns, and all is made manifest, we’ll come to find out just who was praying, fasting, and working for his conversion.
It can happen.
May we, disciples of Jesus, pray, fast and work for the conversion of the hearts of our brothers and sisters who are now as Day and Nathanson once were.
