Homily for Oct. 2, 2011 (Steve Jobs was a choice for Life)
The Deacon's Bench ^ | Oct. 1, 2011 | Deacon Greg Kandra
Posted on October 6, 2011 9:29:29 AM CDT by ReleaseTheHounds
Since this is Respect Life Sunday, and the beginning of Respect Life month, I wanted to talk about one woman who did respect life – and her choice has made a difference in the life of virtually every person in this church.
Her name is Joanne Schiebel. In 1954, she was a young unmarried college student who discovered that she was pregnant. In the 1950s, her options were limited. She could have had an abortion – but the procedure was both dangerous and illegal. She could have gotten married, but she wasn’t ready and didn’t want to interrupt her education. Joanne opted, instead, to give birth to the baby and put it up for adoption.
And so it was that in 1955, a California couple named Paul and Clara Jobs adopted a baby boy, born out of wedlock, that they named Steven.
We know him today…as Steve Jobs.
It would not be overstating things to say that Steve Jobs is my generation’s Thomas Edison. As one observer put it, he knew what the world wanted before the world knew that it wanted it.
If you have an iPhone or an iPad or an iPod, or anything remotely resembling them, you can thank Steve Jobs.
If your world has been transformed by the ability to hear a symphony, send a letter, pay a bill, deposit a check, read a book and then buy theater tickets on something roughly the size of a credit card…you can thank Steve Jobs.
And: you can thank Joanne Schiebel.
If you want to know how much one life can matter, there is just one example.
But: imagine if that life had never happened.
Imagine if an unmarried pregnant college student 56 years ago had made a different choice.
Now, imagine all the unmarried pregnant college students who make that different choice today.
By one measure, more than half of all abortions in the United States – 53% — occur in young women under the age of 25. That is hundreds of thousands of lives every year, snuffed out. Millions over the last quarter century.
The horrifying truth is this: we live now in a culture that not only does not respect life, but discards it like trash — not only at the beginning of life, but also at the end, and every place in between.
What has happened to us?
In Europe, there’s a new industry of “suicide tourism,” for people who are old or infirm and want to kill themselves.
In California, when it was announced during a recent presidential debate that 234 people had been executed in Texas, hundreds of people in the audience applauded.
What has happened to us?
Catholics can disagree about whether the death penalty is necessary. But we can’t disagree about this: cheering death – any death, especially if it involves someone who may be innocent – is an affront to life. And yet we do it so easily. And that is part of the problem.
Life has become disposable.
In the New York Times recently, there was a long article about the practice called “singleton” – where women pregnant with triplets or twins can arrange to have one or more of the babies aborted, to better manage the size of their family.
We don’t talk about it often, but it needs to be said: the reason we don’t see as many children any more with Down Syndrome isn’t because of some great medical breakthrough. No. It’s because roughly 90% of them are being aborted.
What has happened to us???
If you listen closely, the gospel this Sunday is, in one sense, about respecting life – and choosing death. It brings us the familiar saying about “the stone that the builder rejected.” Well, we have rejected more stones, more lives, than we can count. When will it end?
It’s increasingly clear that the only lasting change will happen when we work to change not only laws, but also hearts.
And that begins with each of us.
. . .
That’s what Joanne Schiebel did. Think of her the next time you make a phone call or plug in your iPod or download music.
. . .
