Without Our Lord Jesus Christ, I don't think we will cope. We in the West appear to have an existential crisis. We cope with life in our strength, but cannot bear to imagine utter dependence on others. I know a few people who basically say that when they believe that they will need care, nursing in their old age and need someone to help them go to the toilet and shower them and the rest, that they'd quite like to have the option of a ticket out of this life. "There is no dignity in that", they hold.
It's understandable. Our society now values people more on what they do that who they are. It has become a vainglorious society, one that values only success, strength and wealth. Yet, if we ever go down that road of ending our own lives with the help of others, we will lose a lot more than the elderly, sick and terminally ill who take up that option, if, God forbid, it should ever come to pass. We will all, the sick as well as the healthy, lose sight of our humanity because the truth of the matter is that our humanity begain in the womb, when we were utterly dependent.
Society doesn't value the elderly very much because some of the elderly are dependent on us. The sick and elderly need our care and our help. Because of their frailty they are unable to do very much. Some need nurses, care workers or volunteers to help clean them up and maintain their dignity, wash them, shave them, comb their hair, give them a glass of water. We look forward to our own possible state of dependence in the future with horror, yet why should we be ashamed?
In the womb, were we not totally dependent on our mothers for sustenance? In our first years, were we not totally dependent on our parents for food, water, nourishment, care, washing, going to the toilet. Some of the elderly wear incontinence pads, just as, when we were babies, we wore nappies. We are frightened of such a prospect, yet are we more in God's Eyes now than we were when we were babies? Does God love us because we are more learned and educated now than when we were babies or in the womb, or are more conscious of our condition? Does God respect us more now that we are independent, or behave as if we were and think that we are? Does God love us only in our strength and our youth?
No. We are in God's Eyes now what we were in God's Eyes when we were, I dare say, just one minute after conception, His children, or 5 months in the womb, or just as we were born, or just as we were Baptised, or in our formative years, teenage years, adulthood and 'prime'. We may feel ashamed of our dependence on others when we get old, but God is not, even less so, given that He became a Baby and became dependent on His Creation, humans, Himself and so knows our frail condition.
What we do for the elderly and sick, we do for Christ Himself for He is close to them and defends them. Woe to us if we should lay a finger on them or try to coerce them ever to consider ending their own lives. Woe to us if we neglect them, or ignore them and leave them as orphans, forgotten with nobody to tend to them and minister to their needs with love, since it will not be just their humanity we are neglecting or despising, but our own.
The suffering, the poor, the sick, the elderly, the dying, we wonder why God permits it all, the sadness, pain and sorrows of the human condition. Yet, all are great gifts from God. When we give love, care and compassion to these, 'the least' of Christ's brothers, we receive back tenfold what we have given. Not only do works of mercy, even small works of mercy, benefit our souls, but our outlook changes. When we tend to the sick, elderly and dying we see our end, how, short of a sudden death, we shall be. It is salutary and humbling and takes away the pride and vainglory of this earthly life. In a society driven often by fantasy, dreams and illusions, the elderly, sick, dependent and the hospitalised give the young, healthy and far less dependent some real perspective on our humanity. We may like to think we are strong, but our strength is fading and passing.
St Paul said that the among faith and hope, the only thing that truly abides, truly lasts forever, is love. If we should ever go down that road of euthanasia and assisted suicide, then not only will there be a great and unholy, premature loss of life of the vulnerable at the hands of the untrustworthy and wicked, but we who are at the moment healthy shall be deprived of the gifts of God, for all people, whatever their state, are a gift from God. We shall be depriving ourselves the opportunity to love, to care, to show compassion, tenderness and mercy to the afflicted and suffering. Suffering is redemptive, not just to and for those who suffer, but to those who alleviate their pain or show them mercy and love. Like all of humanity shares in the merits of Christ's Agony, Passion and Death, so we who are healthy share in the merits of the sufferings of the sick, elderly and dying. Without us, they are lost and without them, we, too, are lost.
17 comments:
Wow...this is one of the most awesome things that I've ever read. Especially now that I'm middle-aged and starting to worry about these things. Thanks again!
There's a lot of people at the moment who wish you would volunteer for euthanasia. I mean, you're obviously a tortured individual so why not put yourself out of your pain?
Because without suffering there is no salvation. Anyway, you don't live in my skin, so you don't know whether I'm tortured or not. For all you know I could be happy as Larry.
Good post!
Laurence - do put a stop to these nasty comments as at 04.45 They all seem to be coming from one person. Can't you eliminate them before publication?
No. People are free to comment. I don't mind nastiness towards me, but obviously I try to remove anything defamatory towards others.
You write well on a topic that needs more attention. Secular governments increasingly say that our faith must be "private"; which is their way of telling us to shut up. "Tolerance" for them means that we accept their ideas, one of which is that people are commodities to have around as long as they're useful - that is, contributing to the upkeep of the state. Once their usefulness runs out, the state's directive is that these now "useless" people be eliminated as a drain on the system. This used to be called evil. It's now called compassion.
Laurence, I think you should make this a moderated blog, at least until the bullies go away.
This is an excellent post.
Dr Death spouted, without forethought.....
'There's a lot of people at the moment who wish you would volunteer for euthanasia. I mean, you're obviously a tortured individual so why not put yourself out of your pain?'
Oh yeh, you're right. We see that, because so many commenters have reitterated your words (not). I hope you aren't the person, who has been arguing and debating anonymously or using pseudonyms in comments, on the previous posts here, because it makes your points rather moribund and also does the LGBT movement absolutely, no favours.
Laurence, here's a textual toast to long life for you!!
Cheers!
Good post, deserves a wider audience.
Yeah but it would only be persuasive to a Catholic (since it relies upon our viewing ourselves as a piece of God's property) and a Catholic would already agree with it
Yeah but it would only be persuasive to a Catholic (since it relies upon our viewing ourselves as a piece of God's property) and a Catholic would already agree with it
No, it would be persuasive to most theists. Not to atheists and agnostics, though.
Yeah but it would only be persuasive to a Catholic (since it relies upon our viewing ourselves as a piece of God's property) and a Catholic would already agree with it
No, it would be persuasive to most theists. Not to atheists and agnostics, though.
I don't think it would - Catholicism places heavy emphasis on the interconnectedness of things. Suffering is good because X, death is wrong becasue Y, marriage is good because Z: Ultimately all these things point toward some holistic cosmos sustained by God's laws. This is a very different picture from a lot of theisms, which would say (for example) that it is perfectly possible to conceive of a suffering person being morally justified in taking their own life (as the Catholic sect, the Donatists, would do)
"death is wrong becasue Y" - I mean to say 'taking one's own life is wrong'
This is one of many sites in America that sprout up to combat the onslaught that ensued after the 2008 Presidential election, since most voters knew that the liberal sect planned to pass a 'national healthcare' bill to include abortion and euthanasia.
Would like you to know that we will add the U.K to our prayers as well and ask that you pray for the U.S.
Please feel free to pledge Rosaries at the site if you would like. In advance, I thank you, England.
http://rosariesforlife.com/
i would also like to add, that the opportunity to experience unconditional giving, to another, is the greatest gift that i have received from God. i could not begin to express the depth of love and understanding that i have experienced through this journey...(tho i do not always manage to give as much as i would want to), but i do feel very close to God through this... we really do not know what we are doing as a society when we comodify human life as we do. we do not realise the numbness that we inflict on our own souls and the sense of depth and meaning that we are missing...
Post a Comment