Called to Be
Soldiers for the ‘Culture of Life’

By NADIA POZO
CS&T Staff Writer

Most of those born since 1973 don’t think of themselves as survivors of what others have called the ‘holocaust of abortion.’ It doesn’t occur to them that they could have been one of the 40 million whose lives have been deemed expendable. They’re even less likely to consider the fact that they have been called to be soldiers of the ‘Culture of Life.’
Yet that is exactly the message that Curtis Martin, the founder and president of the Fellowship of Catholic University Student, delivered to the 1,400 young adults at the 2004 Choose Life FOCUS Leadership Conference Jan. 16-18 in Denver, Colo.
“ I believe you are the golden generation; the generation of the ‘Culture of Life,’” Martin said. “...I believe this is true because, at every point in time God is about to do something amazing in history, the devil senses it and wages war.”
In fact, Martin recalled that when Moses was to be born to save Israel, the devil inspired the Egyptians to kill the Hebrew male children. Moses survived and liberated Israel.
The same was true of Jesus. Herod, inspired by the devil, sensed the danger and had all the male children killed. Jesus survived and liberated humanity.
“I don’t think it’s an accident that we’re commemorating the anniversary of Roe v. Wade when the decision to kill as many of you possible was made. You escaped death, so how is that you are not called to be soldiers of the ‘Culture of Life?’”
But Martin warns that if members of the ‘golden generation’ are to answer this call, they will need to have a pure heart to see God’s vision clearly.
Martin remembers St. Paul who said that Christians have two options in a world that competes for their hearts: “Conform to this world or be transformed by the renewing of your mind in Christ Jesus.”
In the Beatitudes, Jesus taught that those who are pure in heart will see God. Martin reminded the students that nowhere is one to see God more clearly than in the passion of Jesus Christ because that is where God clearly shows how serious He is about the battle the current generation is called to fight.
“If the life of man is the vision of God and blessed are the pure of heart because they will see God — if these two things are true — what do you think the devil is going to do?” Martin asked. “My thought is that he’s going to attack our purity so he can obscure our vision. He’s not going to allow us to be pure of heart.”
Martin explained the two levels of purity of heart. The first deals with sexual purity but the second deals with a much deeper concept of purity of heart — a single-mindedness in allowing Jesus to have complete control of our lives. It is in this constant renewing of the mind that Jesus allows each person to see things as they truly are.
“Here is the trap. Satan is a master of counterfeit. He’s absolutely powerless to create anything, but what he can do is take what God has made and distort it, twist it, and render it poisonous to us. Not just poisonous, but very attractive.”
Martin gave this example. Like a humming bird that feeds on sugar water, if it is given water with Nutra Sweet, it will think it is the same thing. It feeds until it’s full, but it will eventually die of starvation because the nutrition, which is the sugar, is missing. Likewise, the devil gives us counterfeits that make us believe we are full, but we are actually starving our souls.
One way he does this is by making lust look like marital love. Marital love, which is meant to be for a lifetime in a faithful and committed relationship, has been distorted. God made marital love beautiful so that it would give new life and create a union like no other, he said.
“It’s at the heart of the ‘Culture of Life,’ but the devil has seen this and given us lust. The moment we participate in it, even in the midst of unchaste actions, we may feel as though we are giving and receiving love. The counterfeit is that good. It’s that deadly. It hollows us out inside. We give to someone what should have been reserved for someone else.”
Martin challenges young adults to see the traps the devil has made in the area of sexual purity.
He pointed out that pornography has grown to be a greater financial industry than major league sports.
“This is true for all of us, but gentlemen … we’re a majority of the problem here. You have to surrender this part of your life to Jesus Christ. I don’t care how much you love Jesus … you are not going to be fruitful in the spiritual life if you are addicted to pornography. Even if you dabble in it. You’re like that seed in Matthew 13 that grows up and the weeds choke it out and it can bear no fruit.”
He also pointed out how the culture of death has made women doubt their worth to such a degree that women have succumbed to the idea that they must be physically beautiful to feel worthy of love. He encouraged women to ignore the lie and focus on their internal beauty.
“We were made to be warriors and if all your warring takes place [in front of a video game], you are not doing much for the Culture of Life.”
The solution? Spiritual multiplication. Martin encourages Christians to really know Jesus and to learn about the Catholic faith so each person can teach others to teach the faith. In this way, exponentially within 33 years, every man, woman, and child will have received the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
“Jesus Christ is calling us to wage war with the culture of death. As Christians, we don’t wage war the same way. We don’t kill for Jesus. We live for Jesus — we may even die for Jesus.”

To learn more about FOCUS or to get a copy of Curtis Martin’s talk visit www.focusonline.org or contact nberan@focusonline.org


Contact Nadia Pozo at (215) 965-4614 or npozo@adphila.org