21 June 2026 – 12th Sunday, (A)

21 June 2026 – 12th Sunday, (A)

Day for Life is celebrated today, also Father’s Day

Message for Day for Life 2026 

“The humanity of the unborn child”

https://councilforlife.ie/day-for-life-2026

Every year our Day for Life falls on Father’s Day and we wish our fathers a blessed day.  Today we remember with gratitude the loving care and direction our parents gave to us, whether they are still with us or have gone to the Lord.

Parenthood is a vocation of joys and hopes, of griefs and anxieties.  On this year’s Day for Life, we would like to acknowledge the particular grief of mothers and fathers who have lost a child before birth or in infancy. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day can be especially difficult for parents who experience the loss of an infant. Such loss often takes its bodily toll upon the mother, and it can leave fathers feeling helpless and unsure of how to support their family, or of how to express their own grief.

The Church wants to be especially close to parents who have suffered the loss of an infant. We try to offer spiritual support through the pastoral care and blessing of our priests, and through the comfort of our liturgy. You only have to reach out to your priest or deacon if you would like to know more about this.

Just as importantly, many parents find consolation in their faith and its assurance that God has created, willed and deeply loves from all eternity every child, including those who lose their life before they are born or soon after. We have the LORD’s promise from the Scriptures that: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you” (Jer 1:5).

The Word of GOD reveals the sacred humanity of the unborn child and perhaps helps us understand why we feel such profound grief at the loss of a baby. Parents instinctively grasp how precious and unique the child is whom they have lost and whom they often name. They know how no other child can ever replace them.

From this perspective, how inconsistent is the language that the life in the mother’s womb is just a clump of cells.  How can that life be a someone so precious and loved to parents and at the same time a mere something to be disregarded as worthless.

Science is clear that life begins at fertilisation when a new and unique living human being comes into existence. Every technological development in recent decades has given us insight into how life in the womb unfolds for each of us. At conception, our gender, genetic makeup, and eye and hair colour are already determined. As early as five weeks, our heart begins to beat. By ten weeks, we can move and respond to touch and, beginning two weeks later, we have the capacity to feel pain. By eighteen weeks, our mother can sense our movement in the womb. By twenty-seven weeks, we can recognise the voices of our parents.  For some decades, parents have been able to observe some of these stages through ultrasound scans during pregnancy.  The more we learn about the science, the more we understand the teaching of the Church on the unique value of the unborn baby.

This understanding, however, is not complete without the recognition that, from the beginning, every human being is not just a body but also an immortal soul, with a unique and eternal connection with God, our Creator.

It is because of what both science and faith reveal to us that the Church and many people of good will have always held that the unborn child merits the full protection of the law, and why we have always rejected elective abortion.

This Day for Life 2026, we reflect on the wonder of human life from the moment of fertilisation. We remember how the LORD Jesus Christ Himself sanctified and experienced the beginning of life in the world as an unborn child, hidden in the womb of Mary. Mary knew that she was carrying the Son of God – God and man – as soon as He was conceived.  John the Baptist leapt in his mother Elizabeth’s womb when Mary greeted her. Our Lady treasured Our Lord in her heart and womb until His birth.

We, in our turn, commit ourselves to work and pray for our society to cherish the value of every little one, especially those at the earliest stage of human life, and to help our parish communities support all those in our midst who have suffered the loss of a child.

Most Reverend Kevin Doran
Bishop of Achonry and of Elphin
Ireland

Most Reverend John Sherrington
Archbishop of Liverpool
England and Wales

Right Reverend John Keenan
Bishop of Paisley
Scotland

(1) Jeremiah 20:10-13

Jeremiah is under stress from enemies, yet holds to his confidence in God

For I hear many whispering: “Terror is all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” All my close friends are watching for me to stumble. “Perhaps he can be enticed, and we can prevail against him, and take our revenge on him.” But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonour will never be forgotten. O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous, you see the heart and the mind; let me see your retribution upon them, for to you I have committed my cause. Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.

Responsorial: Psalm 68:8-10, 14, 17, 33-35

R./: Lord, in your great love, answer me

It is for you that I suffer taunts,
that shame covers my face,
that I have become a stranger to my brothers,
an alien to my own mother’s sons.
I burn with zeal for your house
and taunts against you fall on me. (R./)

This is my prayer to you,
my prayer for your favour.
In your great love, answer me, O God,
with your help that never fails:
Lord, answer, for your love is kind;
in your compassion, turn towards me. (R./)

The poor when they see it will be glad
and God-seeking hearts will revive;
for the Lord listens to the needs
and does not spurn servants in their chains.
Let the heavens and the earth give him praise,
the sea and all its living creatures. (R./)

(2) Romans 5:12-15

The effects of Adam’s sin are cancelled by the death of Christ

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned- sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.

Gospel: Matthew 10:26-33

Jesus forewarns his disciples to be prepared for trials and suffering

Jesus said to his disciples, “Have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.”

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Christian, but not offensively so

When professor Mahaffey, a with and scholar at Trinity College Dublin, was once asked if he was a Christian, he drawled, “Yes, but not offensively so.” Clearly he felt that Christianity should not intrude on the society he kept, nor put obstacles in the pursuit of any pleasure that attracted him. This could easily be a description of the Christianity of many of us here and now also. While we are quite prepared to admit that we are Christians, we are, by and large, careful not to take religion too seriously. I think it’s fair to say that rarely do we in any practical way so shape our lives according to our religious beliefs, that they offer and reprimand, however silent, to people who live by totally different standards.

A genuine Christian cannot fully escape Christ’s call to be different from the world. What he asks us is not to conform to the standards of this world, but rather to transform those standards. St Paul thought of Sin entering this world through one man, Adam, and through sin death, so that death has spread throughout the whole human race, because sin is so universal. The world’s greatest sin is unbelief, and the task of the Church is to challenge this unbelief, relying on the help of the Holy Spirit. The last words of Jesus, according to St Matthew, were, “Go and make disciples of people everywhere; baptise them and teach them to observe all that I taught you. And I am with you always, yes to the end of time.”

While we live in this world, we are meant to remain aware of the world to come, and live for God by pursuing the standards Jesus set for us. When the Apostles worried about the future, Christ encouraged them, “Don’t be afraid. I am with you always.” The deepest truth about God that Jesus taught is that he is a caring God, compassionate and forgiving, a God who is on our side. Our attitude to life can be that of the psalmist who says, “In God I trust – I shall not fear” (Ps 56:1. The only thing to fear is losing God, loss of trust in God. This lack of trust begins when I look for security through my own efforts, in the works and wealth of my own making. Jesus criticised the feverish efforts, the anxious haste and worry of those worldly people, who refuse to grant God any part in their lives. “In God I trust; I shall not fear.”

Jesus himself on the night of his last Passover, was about to suffer more than anyone had ever suffered, or ever will suffer in time to come. Yet, he remained affectionate and caring towards his friends and shared the meal with them, even the one who was plotting his betrayal. Later in Gethsemane when the terror of what lay ahead caused his sweat to fall like great drops of blood, his prayer was still, “Not my will but yours be done.” No matter how awful the future may seem, this should be our prayer and our spirit too.

A prophetic people

Today’s first reading reminds us of the trials of the prophet Jeremiah, and the Gospel speaks of our duty of witnessing to Christ in the world – both reminders that all members of the People of God are potentially prophetic and that all should play some part in handing on the truth about God. In a sense, we are all successors to Jeremiah and to the apostles whose job it was to share Christ’s message with the world.

Not all Christians have equal opportunities of being spokespersons for God. Bishops and priests have the official duty of encouraging and teaching the faithful. Their difficult but worthwhile task is to faithfully hand on Christ’s teaching, and correct errors that threaten the integrity of the traditional Christian doctrine or ethical standards. Like Jeremiah and other Old Testament prophets, they remind their people of God’s revealed will and of the high moral standards God asks of us. And, like the prophets, priests can often expect criticism and opposition, just for doing their job.

Theologians too have an important work to fulfil in the Church, to deeply study the revealed truth, and then blend that traditional teaching with modern knowledge, so as to honestly apply the Christian message to new problems. To help them in this daunting work they have the light of the same Holy Spirit who guided the prophets of old, provided they do their research not as masters but as servants of the word of God. But it is not only priests and theologians who have the prophetic role towards God’s people. The Second Vatican Council taught that every Christian should give a living witness to. Christ, at least through living a life of faith and charity and by joining in worship and prayer.

This is not such an easy matter. The spirit of today’s society, the example of our contemporaries, and the irreligious mood of much of the media do not always foster God-fearing attitudes or encourage sound moral standards. In most countries today, Christians are not persecuted for showing faith in Christ and his Gospel, but when she or he lives according to this teaching they will be swimming against the tide of a materialistic culture and will not find the going easy. Jesus warns that being a Christian will cost sacrifice and suffering. We are bound to face opposition from a world that does not gladly submit to the word of God, that makes so many demands on human nature. But there is real satisfaction, too, in standing up for the truth of things. In the centre of their souls, prophetic people have the happiness of working with the Lord, who is the ultimate truth on whom we all depend.

Wherever you go, I shall go

Wherever you go, I shall go/ Wherever you live, there shall I live/ Your people will be my people/ And your God will by my God, too. This promise of fidelity from the book of Ruth reminds us that Christ will live and go with us, wherever we live and wherever we go. But it also invites us to care for people because they are his people, too. Christ asks each disciple to be his partner in the work that God the Father sent him to do in this world. And he promises to be our partner, whatever our work, whatever kind of life we live, wherever we go. We follow him, trusting that he is with us, not just for a moment, but for the whole of our lives. Wherever we go, however we live, “the Lord is at my side.” His commitment to us is lifelong despite our own inability to think of him always, or even despite our occasional thoughtless rejection of him. The mystery of God’s call to us and of our response to him is that he is always there for us. “I am at your side; you are my friends,” said Jesus, even to disciples who sometimes lose the way.

“Wherever you go, I shall go.” If we take those words to heart we can accept the risk of going out to others in his name. In saying “yes” to our life as Christian disciples, we can, like Jeremiah, go forward in a zigzag fashion, going somewhere, but not always directly or in a predictable manner. “Do not be afraid,” Christ said and still says. Christ is not for the fearless but for those who must control their fears. Neither is he for the perfect but for those who need his word of forgiveness. If this ideal of going the journey of life with Christ seems beyond our reach, remember how once said to his friends, “With men it is impossible but not with God; for all things are possible with God.” I follow Christ best when I realise that the gospel ideal is beyond the reach of my own strength. It is then that I can lean on him and build on the strength of the Lord who is always at my side.

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