“Good morning,” Wagner began, the small microphone clipped to his robe carrying his words clearly to all in attendance.
“Good morning, Father,” came the joined response of the congregation.
Wagner smiled and stepped out from behind the pulpit. He walked down the steps and stood in the center aisle. Husbands stole glances at wives and neighbors at friends. Eyebrows rose. Another twist. Father Wagner never left the lectern. He stayed there, hunched over, avoiding eye contact, reading word for word tired sermons written decades before. But here he was now, standing tall. Beaming. No notes in hand.
“I should say that it’s a great morning,” Wagner continued. “This is the day we celebrate the coming of our Lord, God, and Savior. It’s a great day indeed!”
He looked around the church and tried to really see every person seated before him. “I want to start this morning with an apology. In the past I’ve spent the bulk of each Christmas sermon chastising those who come to Church only one or two times a year, criticizing you for a lack of either faith or commitment.” He paused and shook his head. “What a waste. How wrong I was. How terribly wrong. Please, forgive me. Today, instead, I welcome all of you who haven’t been with us for a while. Like the prodigal son, we rejoice in your return. If we can rekindle a small spark inside you, that would be amazing. But if you are only here to share this hour, then thank you for that blessing. I love you. Welcome home!”
In the pews, glances were stolen quickly left and right again.
Father Wagner smiled. “I know,” he said, “you’re all wondering what the heck has gotten into me. I don’t blame you. I’ve been with this parish thirty-five years. That’s a long time for a priest to be with one parish in our faith.” He chuckled and said, “I don’t know if it’s because no other parish wanted me or if I was simply forgotten. My first five years I tried to be the best priest I could be. I hope you believe that. But, little by little since then, I gave up. I regret the fact that for these past decades I’ve been coasting at best. Somewhere along the way, I started feeling sorry for myself. I put in the least amount of effort I could. That’s no way to be a good priest, a good shepherd. Frankly, it’s no way to be a good man, a good father, a good son, or even a good neighbor or friend. But that’s a topic for another homily.
“Last night, on Christmas Eve, I was given the most perfect gift imaginable.” Wagner began walking slowly down the aisle, turning to touch a parishioner’s shoulder or arm or to look directly into their eyes. He looked up and over the congregation and said, “Last night Christ appeared to me and gave me new life!”
A murmur arose from the crowd. But Wagner’s words were strong and clear and he let them sink in. He nodded with surety, “I said, last night Christ appeared to me and gave me new life.”
He was striding as he made his way to the back of the church. He shook his head animatedly and raised his hands and looked up at the choir in the balcony above and said, “I know, right? That’s unbelievable. Most of you believe God sent his angels to talk to a poor shepherd boy, or you wouldn’t be sitting in your pew today. But the thought of Christ himself appearing before your own stumblebum of a pastor? No way! Heck, you probably think Christ would appear before a donkey before he would seek me out. Right?”
Some in attendance snickered. Some laughed nervously. But Wagner turned quickly serious. He lowered his voice but everyone heard him clearly. “I would have thought the same thing, until Christ came to me last night. Until he came to me and gave me new life! God sent his only son to us more than twenty centuries ago to save us from our sins.” He looked around again, nodding, and said, “And he sent him to me last night for the same purpose.”
He paused and looked around before continuing. “He came to me and asked that I bring you a message this morning about abortion. And His message is a strong reminder that abortion is murder, pure and simple.” The spell that was being conjured wasn’t broken, but hairline cracks and more appeared. A different murmur arose and a woman in the middle of a pew stood up and glared at Wagner before worming her way out of the pew and down the outside aisle and out of the church. A few more people, young and old, men and women, alone and in couples, excused themselves to their neighbors and left the church, most shaking their heads in dismay. The priest watched them go with a sad, but determined, look on his face.
“This isn’t an easy topic, but I have no choice but to bring it up,” Wagner said after the echo of his parishioners’ heels receded and one of the big doors at the back of the church closed shut. “And for those of you along the walls, I can announce that a few more seats just opened up.” His attempt at humor only heightened the tension and anticipation.
The priest started to walk again and stopped. “I know that abortion might seem like an odd topic for Christmas morning, confrontational even, but Jesus called me to discuss the issue today. And when the Lord speaks to you, he can be very compelling. Before I finish, I hope you will agree that there could be no better day for this talk.
“Think of all the ways that Jesus could have appeared to us initially, and remember that he came not as an adult, but as an infant. The Christ Child. He wasn’t born in a palace. He wasn’t invincible. He came to us as a poor, helpless baby. Was that by accident, or part of God’s grand plan? I think probably the latter. And could you imagine if God tried to send his son to us in this day and age only to have him aborted before he could save His people?
He surveyed the crowd and changed gears. “Ever notice how neat and tidy abortion clinics are portrayed by the media? Spic and Span. They adopt names like ‘Women’s Health Clinics’ or ‘Family Planning Centers.’ But these sterile clinics don’t exist to plan families, but to downsize them…in the most inhumane ways imaginable.
“Everybody in these clinics wears white, bringing to mind holiness and not the evil that takes place there. The doctors wear clean, crisp white medical coats, like the doctors who dedicate their lives to healing. In nearly every respect these death clinics are set up to look, feel, and even have the antiseptic smell of any other physician’s office. But remember that Jesus is often thought of as a healer, as a physician. Remember him helping the blind to see and the lame to walk? That’s a far cry from what happens at an abortion clinic. The abortion clinics are a carefully orchestrated charade meant to confuse all of us, but especially fragile young women. They try to show that abortion is not just okay, but the embodiment of goodness. But abortionists aren’t healers. Instead, they take lives. That’s their job description. Their sole purpose.”
Wagner kept walking the center aisle of the church, touching as many people as he could. They were listening intently. “I need each of you to look deeper. I suspect if you looked more closely at the clinic walls, the white would fade and you’d see them consumed by blue and orange flames. And your nose would burn from the pungent odor of sulfur.
“And if you looked even closer, squinting your eyes a bit, you might see the charlatan of a doctor a bit differently. His white coat would vanish in a cloud of ash and a monster would be revealed…one so hideous and evil that you would quickly look away, screaming in terror. And as this demon went about his nasty work of tearing a baby from its mother’s womb and shredding it with its claws, it might throw its head back and unleash a shrill victory cry in a tongue that wasn’t of this world. But you would know what the demon shouted as surely as if it came from someone in a neighboring pew today in the most impeccable English. You would know the blasphemy. The demon would cry out, ‘Victory is mine. I have claimed another of your innocents!’
“Who is this abortion doctor?” Father Wagner asked, nearly spitting the word ‘doctor’ out with distaste.
“He is the devil. Satan. Beelzebub. He is the Prince of Darkness,” he shouted, “and he goes by the name of Dr. Smith or Dr. Jones, but always he is the Evil One!”
Father Wagner lowered his voice to normal and sighed. “The media tells us abortions are down across the country. If that’s true, then God help us. Because the truth is that one million babies are still slaughtered here every single year. One in three women in America will have at least one abortion during her lifetime. And one in every five pregnancies in our twisted society is aborted! One in five! Think about that.” He waited, letting the numbers sink in. He nodded his head to one side of the aisle and then the other. Look around the church today at all the women here and imagine that one out of every five who might be pregnant will take their own baby’s life.
“If you believe abortion is wrong as I do, as the Church teaches, then you are in the minority. Two-thirds of the men and women in the United States today say they support Roe v. Wade.
“Do I blame the women who turn to abortion? No. I don’t. To me, it’s akin to a person whose body is overtaken by a demon, and who needs an exorcism.” He stopped and looked around. “Is that a poor analogy? I don’t think so. If you look at the media and entertainment industries these days, they’ve turned into twenty-four-hour marketing campaigns for abortion and other abominations. Hollywood starlets, their breasts hanging out of the small bands of cloth they call dresses, tell talk show hosts how easy and natural abortion is. They sit there with their legs bare to their crotches and describe abortion as routine. Like popping an aspirin or sipping Champagne. They make it attractive. They seduce our young into thinking that abortion is the most natural thing in the world.
“The same celebrities who lead marches on our city streets because we kill animals for sustenance, march down those same city streets with pickets advocating for, and even celebrating, the heinous murder of our children.”
Wagner’s voice rose again and hardened as he continued. “And make no mistake, abortion is an industry. It’s a for-profit industry with armies of highly paid lobbyists. It’s an industry where evil people get wealthy carving up the lives of the most innocent and vulnerable of God’s creatures!”
He paused and scanned the crowd again. “Who will stop this? I think to myself that I am old. I’m a tired old priest from a small town who has mostly lost the respect of those he was called to serve. I have a hard time believing that God is really calling me to wage this fight. It seems overwhelming and an insurmountable challenge.”
Father Wagner looked down, contemplating, and in a clear, quiet voice he said, “But if not me, then who?” Looking up again and more loudly he said, “If not us, then who?” And after a pause, his voice echoed off the stone walls of his church, “And if not now, then when?”
He turned around as he shouted even louder, “Who will help me shoulder this burden? Who will stand with me? Who is ready to take a stand for our children? Who among you will carry that cross?”
Two-thirds of the congregation clapped wildly, while the other third looked on in stunned silence. Some of those still in attendance, who were strongly on the pro-choice side of the abortion debate, were unsettled and upset with Father Wagner. Only a few of these began to quietly reconsider their position. Some in the middle shifted to the pro-life side. And some of those who were firmly on the pro-life side when they walked into church that morning became die-hards. A few were now off the scale.
The priest shook his head then, like waking from a reverie. He rubbed his eyes and looked out over the crowd. He saw John Lawler and Grant Grae standing tall in their pews on either side of the church and he smiled.
“John. Grant. Bless you. You can sit down. When I asked ‘Who will stand with me,’ I was speaking rhetorically. But I love your enthusiasm.” He chuckled and most in the audience let out a laugh that released some of the tension that had built over the course of the sermon.
“I know this wasn’t an easy homily to hear,” Wagner said. “Especially on such a Holy Day of celebration. But please think about what I said and what each of us is called to do about it. Sometimes things seem so big, so entrenched, that we feel helpless. We give up. But the stakes here are much too high to throw up our hands in meek surrender. One child, like the Christ Child whose coming we celebrate today, is worth fighting to save. One million a year? I’d say we have no choice but to get involved.
“On this day as you celebrate the birth of Christ with your own children, think of how blessed you are…and what you can do to save other children created in God’s likeness. Thank you all. I love you more than ever. Amen.”