Day of Prayer for
the Legal Protection of Unborn Children
(Hebrews 5:25-8:6; Mark 3:7-12)
The first reading today speaks of Jesus as high
priest. It says that he was unlike any
other. For one thing he did not have to offer
sacrifice for his own sins because he did not have any. For another Jesus did not have to offer many
sacrifices because the one he made – himself on the cross – was of infinite
worth.
Although we cannot equate him to Jesus, Fr. Matt Robinson,
O.P., compares in many ways to our Lord.
Like Jesus he was a person of great virtue – temperate, wise, but most
of all kind. He always had time to
welcome a stranger or to hear someone’s confession. Also like Jesus, those who knew him have a
sense of his becoming a member of heaven upon passing from this life. He was the salt of the earth as common as the
sunrise. He was also a light of knowledge
in a great array of fields.
Today there is special reason to recognize Matt
Robinson. The People of God recall with
great sadness exactly forty-two years ago when the Supreme Court of the United
States de-penalized abortion in practically all cases. Fr. Robinson spent half his remarkably long priesthood
ministering especially to those who worked to protect the unborn. He did it in many
graceful ways like writing poetry. Here
is a sample of his moral sensitivity, so fitting a Dominican priest, expressed
in verse: “The cruelest part is not the pain,/ Or that the blood is shed,/ But
that the measure of one’s gain/ Is that a man is dead.”
