Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
(Daniel 3:14-20.91-92.95; John 8:31-42)
In 1969 Dr. Jerome Lejeune received a prestigious award for
uncovering the genetic condition that results in Downes Syndrome. His friends advised Dr. Lejeune to say
nothing about abortion at the reception ceremony if he wanted to receive the
Nobel Prize for medicine. But he couldn’t
be silent about the awful truth that some would use knowledge from his
discovery to secure abortion. At that ceremony Dr. Lejeune said that
medicine should never serve the taking of human life but always the support of it. Dr. Lejeune never received the Nobel Prize,
but he likely died a free man. In today’s
gospel Jesus provides the principle on which Dr. Lejeune acted.
Jesus is in a running interrogation with the Jews. He states that truth will set a person
free. He is referring to the truth of
God’s love which sent him into the world to make up for sin’s deadly effects. The Jews respond that they are not children of
sin but of Abraham and of God. Jesus
retorts that true children of God would be heeding his word, not trying to kill
him.
We may find similar attacks on Jesus today. Desecrating his image is becoming
acceptable. It is the work of dishonorable
people trying to deny Jesus’ sacrifice and his teaching. We need to raise our voices in protest. Such distortion of the truth of Jesus is
outrageous. When we say this, we will experience
the freedom that Jesus brought into the world.
