by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. | courageouspriest.com

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in Reparation for Abortion

The Real Presence Association

Abortion is the ultimate crime. Other crimes can be perpetuated for some profit or gain. But there is no gain in abortion, except a lifetime of pathetic quiet. Other crimes can be provided by some deadly passion, like lust, or anger or revenge. But there is no real passion in abortion, except an idolatrous self-love or inhuman self-will.

The killing of innocent unborn children goes back to the dawn of recorded history. In the Roman Empire, at the dawn of Christianity, there were no laws prohibiting abortion. The one effective control was to allow the husband to impose the death penalty on his wife if she aborted a child without his permission. Every husband had the right to order his wife to abort if he did not want the child. The father had a legal right to demand that his wife abort if he told her to, and Roman law backed him in insisting that his wife should abort an unborn child.

There the matter stood until Christ came into the world. With His coming, His invitation to “let the children come to me” took on a cosmic significance that world historians are only now beginning to recognize.

Abortion,  An Abominable Crime

A person’s index of morality can be gauged on where he or she stands on the practice of abortion.

For those who really believe in Christ and are Catholic in reality, and not only in name, abortion is a detestable crime. It is a criminal attack not only on the innocent human beings who are murdered in their mother’s wombs. It is a savage attack against the rights of God.

God alone can create a human soul, which He does every time a child is conceived. The father and mother provide the human body but God creates the human soul Himself. He must produce out of nothing, the human soul, which He infuses into the fertilized ovum at the moment of conception.

What makes abortion so criminal is its cruelty against the unborn child and its flagrant violation of the most fundamental rights and practice towards God. He alone may decide who is to be conceived and born. He alone determines how long an unborn child is to remain in the womb. He alone may terminate human life, whether unborn or born. Why? Because He is Master and Lord of His rational creatures whom He wants to glorify their Creator here on earth as a condition for their eternal beatitude in the world to come.

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