The Real Problem

Seeing how babies are the solution not the problem

01/23/2023

Lk 1:39-56 Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled."

Today marks the tragic anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in 1973 establishing the legal right to an abortion. And last year, thank goodness, in a case by the Supreme Court that decision was overturned. And so now it is illegal to take the life of unborn children. And that is a good step in the right direction.

But I believe the deeper issue is still very much with us. And that is the question: are children a problem, or are children the solution to a problem. What problem are children the solution to? The problem of our selfishness. Children do many things, but one thing they do in spades is they help us to overcome our selfishness. And the more children you have the more they help you overcome your selfishness; they sort of squeeze all the self-love out of their parents. This question, therefore, has not been answered by our society: are children a problem or are they the solution to the real problem, which is our selfishness.

Over the course of human history, different peoples and different cultures have seen children as the problem. And so children need to be eliminated. Of course we can quickly peruse Sacred Scripture to see examples of this. Pharaoh, in the time of the slavery of the Israelite people in Egypt, saw Israelite boys as the problem, and so he had them killed. Boys two years old or younger were thrown into the Nile River and killed. The children are the problem, and so Pharaoh continued to be selfish because he didn’t allow the children to help him overcome his selfishness.

Of course the same thing happened at the time of Jesus’ birth, the time of Herod, another king who saw children as a problem. So, he was convinced he had to get rid of the children because they seemed like a threat to him, but really they were a threat to his selfishness, what he wanted. In other words, do we see children as the problem, or are they the solution to the real problem which is our selfishness?

This is the same dynamic at work in our society today. Do adults see children as a problem or as a solution. Here are Immaculate Conception Church, we have various agencies that we support. Every month we send hundreds of dollars of the weekly collection to these various agencies, and one of them is called the Clearinghouse. Perhaps you are not familiar with this agency, but this agency has a backpack lunch program. That means every Friday they prepare backpacks with meals to send home with public school children.

Do you know why the Clearinghouse sends home meals with public school children for the weekend? Because their parents do not provide food for them. You see, these parents have somehow begun to see their children as the problem, instead of the children as the solution to the real problem, which is their selfishness. You see, the children are here to help us overcome our selfishness. And the more children we have the more they help us overcome our selfishness, until there is none of it left. Because we have given it all to the children to raise them.

I have a very unusual theory that I would like to share with you this morning. I have lots of unusual theories. Today’s unusual theory is how the Catholic Church sees children as the solution and not as the problem. It used to be said that a good Catholic family (you’ve heard this before) has a ton of kids. That was the basic definition of a good Catholic family. And the reason that is good is on a number of different levels.

Mom and dad do not have any time for themselves because they are running around chasing their children. But in doing that, they are (perhaps unknowingly) overcoming their deepest problem, namely, their selfishness. But this having many children also has a pretty profound economic impact. Let’s say you have eight children. And often one or two of those children will feel a vocation to the priesthood or to the religious life.

Children from large families feel that since I have all these siblings, someone else can have grandkids for my parents, I will become a nun or a priest. As a result, the pressure is off to get married and have children. So, now you have this kind of pipeline for priests and nuns. And that is why this building behind me was filled with nuns back in the day, when we had good Catholic families with 8 or 9 kids. And the IC rectory would have 3 or 4 priests living there.

And the reason is that we saw children as the solution not as the problem. Because we could see that the real problem, my dear friends, is our selfishness. And that is why today we still need to pray for the protection of life, especially of unborn children and of all children. God is sending them to us, to help us overcome our selfishness, which is the real problem. And by the way, please don’t hear this homily as a criticism of those who only have a few children. I can barely take care of one dog, so who is the really selfish person here today?

Praised be Jesus Christ!