Pbro. José Juan Sánchez Jácome / ACN.- It does not have merely anecdotal relevance. It is not just about remembering it as if it were only a painful event that stained the kind and joyful soul of the Veracruz people. It is not a matter that happened in our recent past as if it were something that already occurred and has been left in the past.
Unfortunately, it has not remained only as a shameful date in our recent past, for the consequences of the decriminalization of abortion in our beloved state of Veracruz, since that fateful July 20, 2021, have opened a spiral of violence that will be practiced in the very health centers destined to care for and save lives, not to take them away violently and heartlessly.
The terrible wave of violence that we have suffered for more than a decade—and which continues to claim innocent lives and fill Veracruz families with mourning—now opens a new front to exercise violence with the backing of the law, by taking the lives of children in the very health centers where doctors traditionally zealously fulfill their Hippocratic oath to use their knowledge and power to save lives, especially those of the most innocent and helpless.
The consequences of this legislation are dire, for in addition to depriving defenseless children of life, it favors and normalizes this wave of violence that despises, instrumentalizes, and degrades human life. Normalizing violence with legislation like this is the most regrettable, scandalous, and dangerous thing for a society that has developed scientific knowledge, and it also dishonors and undermines the moral authority of a government that claims to be different, but precipitates the country with these mechanisms of destruction.
How much we lament, in these days of Christmas, the decision of our rulers, because it would be very naive of us to believe that only the Veracruz deputies were the sole responsible for this atrocious decision, completely contrary to the centuries-old tradition of the Veracruz people to love, respect, and serve human life.
In this time we may have reason, but unreason reigns and imposes itself in the atmosphere and in politics, before laws like abortion that mock the evidence and despise the order of nature. When we trample on sacred things and disregard values, what security can there be, what respect can be asked for, what more will happen. No one will be safe. That is what has happened with abortion, with marriage that is parodied and with the family that is trivialized.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta said: “If a mother can murder her own child in her own womb, what is left for you and me to kill each other?”. If the baby is no longer safe in the mother’s womb, no one else will be in this world.
In these days of children, parties, and family, the normalization of violence hurts more and opens even wider the wound caused by the very authorities who swore and promised to defend the weakest, and who now serve foreign and ideological causes, to the detriment of the idiosyncrasy of the Mexican people.
In the midst of the reflection generated by this Christmas time before the arrival of Jesus, we recognize that it is up to us, like Joseph and Mary, to defend the Child and not to stop marveling at the goodness and beauty of life so that we never falter in this mission to protect the weakest, despite pressures, threats, and ideological impositions.
Chesterton explained it this way: “Because abortion is and will be a crime, even if it is defended by those who self-declare as defenders of Human Rights”. For her part, Amparo Medina pointed out that: “Every time a child is murdered in an abortion, the very image of God is murdered… Every time an abortion is performed or an abortion is legalized, we abort a gift from God”.
In a reflection on abortion, the Italian cardinal Angelo Comastri said:
“My God, I cannot imagine a child who cannot say: Mommy.
Likewise, I cannot imagine a child to whom the joy of being able to say: Daddy is denied.
No, my God.
This is too much.
It is too much against life.
It is too much against humanity.
It is too much against the truth”.
Therefore, celebrating Christmas is celebrating the birth of Jesus and the gift of life that will continue to be a blessing for peoples and families. Within this atmosphere of reflection, the story of Herod is also not anecdotal, as it continues to be well represented in this type of ideologies and political trends that side with the powerful, eliminating children.
Christmas is about saving life, favoring birth, and marveling at the gift of life. Christmas is offering shelter to a God who continues to ask for our welcome so that this mystery ends up illuminating us and leads us to the wonder of human life.
It would suffice for our rulers to return to the wonder and mystery that surrounds the day of their own birth, precisely because they continue to recognize the gift of life every time their friends and family celebrate the day of their birth.
We have received life and that always becomes a reason for celebration, by recognizing the immense good that God has done us by giving us life. Chesterton puts it this way: “The first fact about the celebration of a birthday is that it is a defiant and even extravagant way of affirming that it is good to be alive. But there is a second fact about birthdays: by rejoicing in my birthday, I rejoice in something I did not do myself.”
Our rulers will continue to celebrate the day of their birth and their friends and family—intimately and festively—will continue to say to them: “thank you for being born”. However, in a contradictory way, they will prevent the birth of so many babies.
Henri Nouwen explains the wonder of our birth with these words: “We must celebrate birthdays. I think it is more important to celebrate a birthday than to pass an exam, a promotion, or any victory. Because celebrating a birthday means telling someone: -Thank you for being you!- Celebrating a birthday is celebrating life and rejoicing in it. On a birthday we do not say: -Thank you for what you have done, or said, or achieved-. No, what we say is: -Thank you for being born and being among us! On birthdays we celebrate the present. We do not lament what has happened nor speculate about the future, but we congratulate them and say: -We love you!-”
The generation that held us in their arms on the day of our birth rejoiced and marveled at our life. Therefore, this Christmas, by holding the Child Jesus in our arms, let us rejoice in his coming, thank the life we have received, celebrate the life of our fellow human beings, and commit ourselves to defending the birth of babies, even facing Herod himself.