A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Mark. Jesus returned to the synagogue where there was a man whose hand was shriveled up. The pharisees kept an eye on Jesus to see whether he would heal the man on the Sabbath, hoping to be able to bring an accusation against him. Again, the Sabbath, you're not supposed to do work. To heal a man with a shriveled hand is work, ergo.
So our blessed Lord, seeing the situation and knowing what it was all about, addressed the man with a shriveled hand. Stand up here in front, he said. And then he said to them, is it permitted to do a good deed on the Sabbath or an evil one? To preserve life or to destroy it. At this, the pharisees remained silent.
Jesus looked around at them angrily. This is one of the few instances instances where where our lord is said to have been angry. At least this is what the English says. At this, they remained silent and our lord looked around at them angrily for he was deeply grieved that they had closed their minds against him. Then he said to the man with a shriveled hand, stretch out your hand.
The man did so, and his hand was perfectly restored. When the pharisees went outside, they immediately began to plot with their rodents on how they might destroy Jesus. Jesus. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise be to you, lord.
In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen. There are many battles in this life that you cannot win. Now, what more could our blessed lord have done here without taking away men's free will, which he's not about to do. But what more could he have done to try to open up the minds of these people?
Notice, here is whatever you may say about it. It was a very phenomenal thing, a very abnormal thing, a very extraordinary thing, a very unexpected thing. Notice it says a shriveled hand, not a paralyzed hand, not a hand that simply didn't have motion. Motion. This This was was a a shriveled shriveled hand.
Hand. And notice, our Lord doesn't hide his light under a bushel. He tells the man to get up here in front so that everybody can see him. And he says, hold out your hand. And the man with a shriveled hand found his hand in perfect condition.
You don't do that simply by some kind of a psychological trick. Now the point is this, what's the reaction of these critics of our lord? They get out of the synagogue as fast as they can, and then they plot to destroy him. I tell you folks, that is really down to earth, down to earth. You see, this is the horrible thing about prejudice.
Prejudice means a prejudgment. And when you have a person and remember, this is contagious because it gets worse when you're dealing with people in some kind of a collectivity. When you have a mind closed by a prejudgment, what can you do about it? It's hopeless. You'll never get through it by any appeal to the intelligence, because it's closed.
And this goes for any kind. I'm just talking I'm not talking about just racism or anything. I'm talking about any kind of pre judgment. It closes the mind. And when the mind is closed, what can you do about it?
There's no way of getting into it with reason. As I say, the best argument is a two by four. Hit them in the head, they do some good. And that's what happens in life. That's exactly what happens.
We get hit with a two by four sometimes, not always, but sometimes. Now there may not be much connection between these two things that what happened yesterday in that pro life parade. Remember, there were it was unbelievable. There were between seventy and eighty thousand people downtown yesterday, And the weather wasn't that much different from the previous day when the parade had been canceled. That was a tremendous a tremendous outpouring of people, men and women and young I was amazed at the number of young people.
Now but then on the news last night, they gave the result of a national poll on this abortion issue. I think the figure was fifty three percent of The US citizens who favor, but they say pro choice, which means they're pro abortion. Notice that's a very slick phrase, pro choice. Then they went on to say that the same poll trying to count Catholics came up with about the same figure. Now, if that isn't something, if that isn't unbelievable, that the that the Catholics of The United States, if their poll's worth anything, and I don't know what they're worth, you can suit yourself.
But beginning with the fact that they took the poll and taking the same poll and comparing the Catholics with the non Catholics, that Catholics, so called Catholics and many of these people you will find in church on Sunday, that you will find them supporting their church. You will find them going to the sacraments. You will find them trying to have a good marriage. These are good people, but they certainly are not good Catholics. Catholics.
They are not even good thinkers. But leaving that aside, how do you explain this? How how can you make any sense on this? It's unbelievable because to me, don't if there's any issue that is perfectly clear today and becomes clearer all the time on a perfectly rational point of view, that there's practically nothing to be said for abortion. Leaving aside the church and Humanae Vitae and all the rest of it.
And yet you and then the church knows the church's attitude is absolutely translucently clear. There is no doubt about where the Catholic church stands on this issue, and has always stood. There's no question about this. We're not talking about contraception. We're talking about abortion.
We're talking about direct abortion. And to think that 53%, according to the blooming poll, favored. How do you how can you make any sense out of this? How can those people go to the sacraments? It's beyond me to figure how what's going on in their heads.
Now, this is just an indication. I was just reading yesterday the letters of Flannery O'Connor, the great short story writer from the South. Flannery O'Connor. It's not my opinion, but plenty of good people consider her one of the outstanding, among the absolutely outstanding literary figures of our century. Anyway, was reading some of her letters last evening, and here's what she said.
And now this was written about nineteen fifty something. She says that Cath she's she's from Georgia, and this was in the fifties. Not the Georgia of today, which has changed, but this was in the fifties. She says that when the Catholics living in a secular environment are are absorbed by their environment and reflected. These are almost her exact words.
And this was before I saw the news last night on that on those abortion figures. I'd heard those figures before, they're not new. And this is absolutely true. This is absolutely true, and we might just as well face it. That the Catholics of The United States have become absorbed in what we I can call it secular humanism.
I don't care what you call it, but they have become part of it. I care how much they go to church. I don't care how often they go to the sacraments. They are renouncing their faith. In fact But of course, they'd be the first ones to say, oh, no.
We have the privilege of choice. You don't in the matter of truth. And so anyway, this is a tremendous It's a real scandal, and a scandal means an an obstacle, some kind of a barrier. And this what must non Catholics think of this? I mean, honest to God, non Catholics.
Here, because plenty of them, you take Mugridge long before he ever became a Catholic. He was one of the most outstanding champions of the anti abortion forces. And it's that and and it's for that as well as the church's stand on contraception, that he greatly admired the church. This is before he ever became a Catholic, years before he became a Catholic. This is not a Catholic issue.
And yet you find 53%, according to those figures, supporting the pro life attitude. This is really unbelievable, is what I say. It shows you where our Catholic thinking is. It shows you where they where our our Catholic reaction to our environment is. We are not standing up and being counted as a people, if these figures are true.
Now, if they are true. Because when you had 70,000 people and they weren't all Catholics down there, believe me, far from it. But the point is a lot of them were. It's a remember, when the mind is closed, you can't do much about it. Not when you can't appeal to the reason because it's closed.
How could you appeal to those pharisees today? It's impossible. All they wanted to do was to destroy Jesus. Notice that. Destroy him.
Not to argue with him, not to debate him, not to say, well, now look, this is a very peculiar thing, or this is a very outstanding, this is extraordinary, this is startling. We better stand up and look at this. Let's have a debate about it. A man that can do a thing like this, who who is he anyway? Did they take that attitude?
Not in the least. They left the synagogue, went outside, and then plotted how they could destroy. Notice, they didn't ask themselves whether we will destroy. There wasn't any argument. How will we destroy?
There you have it. It's prejudice, a closed mind. And so as the you see, it used to be that the Catholic church's problems were had a lot to do with dogma. Today, the church in America at least stands on these moral issues. And the fact of the matter is the church, not the church, but many Catholics in this country are divided from the and that is they can appeal to their leaders.
Just remember that advertisement in the New York Times. And so and you have people criticizing the Pope for the disciplinary action that was taken against the signers of that statement. By by I'm talking about good Catholics who are doing this sort of thing. As far as I can see, the only solution to the problem is not a two before, but prayer. In the name of the father and the son and holy spirit, amen.