I still remember one specific teaching during my high school Confirmation preparation. Though I did not fully understand the depth of this teaching at the time, it has stuck with me for all these years; and I still appreciate its profoundness especially now as a wife and mother.
We are invited to be co-creators with God.
As humans, we create many things (artwork, blog posts, career projects, DIY home improvement, etc.). We can create with the gifts God has given specifically to each of us. This Confirmation lesson was not on stewardship, though that is essential to our calling as disciples. Rather this lesson was on one specific way that we as human can truly co-create with God – the gift of human life!
Through a gift of mutual love and openness to life, God creates a new soul within a woman. Within her protective womb, God carefully designs each new human being to develop into a unique person made in His image and likeness. But it not just a random lottery draw for what the person will be like. Rather, God has a precise plan and from the parents’ DNA this new unique life is created.
I can tell you that all three of my children are as different as they can be, so God sure does loves creativity. I would not have it any other way! I love the gifts that each of my children utilize. I cherish the way each of them sees the world differently. Personally, I have grown in more ways than I can count learning how to protect and train these precious souls that God has entrusted to me. They have taught me how to love, how to be mature, how to still have fun, how to teach others, and how much God loves me! Children are God’s gift to us, and I pray more people in this world will come to acknowledge and appreciate this amazing responsibility and love that God had gifted to us.
Sadly, this gift of unborn life is not treasured or protected as it should be. Being open to life and co-creators with God, we must remember that we are not the authors of life. God alone creates the body and soul for every human being.
“Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being” (CCC 2258)
This vision of life protected as God intended must be nurtured in the family from an early age and throughout. It is the vocation of every family to be a cell of love and protection for themselves and for future generations. Here are some simple but profound ways to instill within our children the appreciation of being a co-creator with God:
- Be witnesses of loving marriage to our children. Allow them to see that exclusive marital love and affection is a beautiful thing. Help them to know that seeking love in the wrong people or things only brings pain not fulfillment. Be open to them about the work that love for them and for our spouse is, too. Though it is not easy, and we will not be perfect every day in our family life, we want to help our children witness good marriage and the joy of raising children.
- Be selective in what media our family engages in. Do the words our families hear through news, songs, TV shows, or talk among the family build up the culture of life or tear it apart?
- Teach our children about the gift of marriage and the unitive gift. The culture, media, and their peers (or a girlfriend or boyfriend) are not the place where they should learn about this precious gift. They need to hear it from their loving parents because the culture is screaming a completely different message. They need to know that the protection of the gift of oneself to another should not easily be given away. Enable them to know that God does not want to take away “their freedom” but rather to secure true love and happiness by protecting our hearts and bodies from pain and sin.
- Pray for unborn babies especially today on Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children. Add prayers to your meal’s blessing or nightly prayers for unborn children.
- Consider joining Sacred Heart Parish in Pro-life Eucharistic Adoration today, beginning at 9:30 am and ending with the Chaplet of Divine Mercy from 3-4 pm. Also join in for the Public Prayer Vigil @ Frazier & 105 from 4-5 pm (meet in the Church parking lot at 3:45 pm.)
- Spiritually adopt an unborn baby through saying daily for nine months a prayer written by Archbishop Fulton Sheen for the protection of a baby you name that is in danger of abortion. If you start now you can pray for 9 months for the baby and that leads perfectly into Respect Life month which is October. Find out details on Spiritual adoption at this prior blog post – Spiritually Adopting an Unborn Baby/adopción espiritual para los nacidos.
May we seek daily to promote a culture of life that remains in awe of the opportunity to co-create a new human being with God.
References:
Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) paragraph 2258 retrieved from http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2258.htm
Author: Laura Stephens, FF Sacrament Preparation Catechist
