Whatever it takes to preach a homily that connects the Gospel of the day to the crisis of abortion and the Fortnight for Freedom, Deacon T at our parish has it. And then some.

Our parish is blessed to have three deacons whose faith very obviously animates and guides them, who are not afraid to keep it real and who speak simply from their own experience. Each deacon, of course, has different stories, different strengths, different gifts that benefit our parish.

Deacon T is an attorney who is well-read, well-informed and well-spoken. He is not afraid to discuss difficult topics from the pulpit.

He made me think of Pope Francis when he began his homily by stating that he didn’t have all his notes because his computer printer had broken–and that he was sure Satan was behind that technical difficulty. (But guess what, Satan–Deacon T managed without those notes, because the force of grace will always prevail.)

Deacon T spoke very plainly about the leading cause of death in our country. It is not car accidents, cancer or heart attacks. It is abortion, which kills more people each year than the “top 2 causes of death” put together. He had the numbers to prove it. He spoke about how our tax dollars pay for this–and how it is absolutely against what we as Catholics believe. He spoke about how, if we are to follow Jesus as he called us to do in this Sunday’s Gospel, we need to take action to prevent government actions like the HHS mandate that rob us of the freedom to live as we believe. He spoke about the tragedy of millions upon millions of lives lost, and how we do not know how those lives would have touched others.

If you didn’t hear about the Fortnight for Freedom at Mass this weekend or last, you can learn all about it here. I encourage you to pray, listen, ask questions, learn and find a way to get involved. It is our right and our responsibility to protect our freedom to live our beliefs and to defend the lives of the most vulnerable. If we do not protect our freedom, we will surely lose it. And too many lives have already been lost.