25 June: Life Is A Gift

A post from Fr Anthony Charlton of Canterbury.

There have been some special moments in my life that will always remain with me. As a young priest I was called to the local hospital to anoint a man who was close to death. There was no family, nor loved ones, present at his bedside. He was alone and unconscious. I anointed him and said the prayer for the dying. I decided to remain seated with him, and very soon after he gently breathed his last breath. I felt I was present at a profound moment of his life and death, and it was a privilege to witness this sacred moment.

I recall this special moment today as we celebrated recently A Day for Life. The theme this year – chosen by the three Bishops’ conferences, of England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland – is The Lord is my Shepherd: Compassion and Hope at the End of Life.

A debate on end-of-life issues has been in the headlines in recent months, with calls for assisted suicide being expressed, especially by celebrities – a view that opposes the Catholic view, that life is a gift and that we are called to care for others at the end of their lives. The Bishops encourage us in our parishes to promote the Catholic view of life as a gift and the importance of care at the end of life.

Henry Nouwen, a Catholic priest, writes:

‘Life is a gift. Each one of us is unique, known by name and loved by the One who fashioned us. Unfortunately, there is a very loud, consistent and powerful message coming to us from our world that leads us to believe that we must prove our belovedness by how we look, by what we have and by what we can accomplish. We become preoccupied with “making it” in this life and we are very slow to grasp the liberating truth of our origins and our finality. We need to hear the message announced and the message emboldened over and over again. Only then do we find the courage to claim it and live from it.’

In the Roman Missal, under the section Masses and Prayers for Various Needs and Occasions, there is a prayer for the Grace of a Happy Death:

O God, who has created us in your image
and willed that your Son should undergo death for our sake, 
grant that those who call upon you may be watchful in prayer at all times, 
so that we may leave this world without stain of sin 
and may merit to rest with joy in your merciful embrace. 
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son. Amen

When Elijah was ready to starve himself to death, frustrated that his mission seemed to have failed, the Lord sent along a raven to feed him in preparation for his next task as prophet to Israel. City of Amsterdam Museum, photo MMB.

15 June: A pilgrimage to true happiness

From the Catholic Union. Let’s pray for all who are approaching close to death and for their loved ones. May we do all we can to value the elderly and frail, not letting them feel they are an intolerable burden; and may we encourage the close carers to seek and accept the help they need.

Thought of the week:   “Death haunts us when viewed as a journey into nothingness, rather than a pilgrimage to a place where true happiness is to be found”    (Cardinal Hume) In our guest editorial this week, Bishop John Sherrington, Lead Bishop for Life Issues, writes. Tomorrow is the Day for Life with the theme: The Lord is my Shepherd – Compassion and Hope at the End of Life. The journey through death to merciful judgement and the hope of eternal life is unknown. For the person who is dying, it might therefore be a time of testing and apprehension. The theme offers hope and teaches that the lives of persons nearing the end of their earthly journey have infinite dignity, that life is a precious gift to be protected by law, and that each person deserves to be accompanied with compassion as they approach the moment of death. The Day for Life is an opportunity to speak of the Christian witness of appropriate treatment, palliative care, and tender compassionate presence. The gathering of the Church around the person who is dying is a sign of solidarity as well as a pledge of hope in eternal life. Thank you to all the healthcare professionals and carers, whose work is motivated by the love of Christ present in the most vulnerable, and to the members of the legal profession and parliamentarians who strive to protect persons from the threat of assisted suicide and euthanasia.   Bishop John Sherrington Mosaic from Broadstairs Baptist Church, Kent. Learn how you can support us

13 March: Individual good or the common good?

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This monument in the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park in London remembers John Booth, ‘who lived a happy life and died aged 38’. It seems to me that John may have been disabled in some way to have died so young – though with Victorian standards of public health even Prince Albert died young. But John lived a happy life, so happy that his family saw it as an essential part of him, to be remembered long after anyone remembered him in the flesh.

Disabled people have had a raw deal since before John Booth’s happy life. Once many of them were deemed ineducable and seen as no use to society. They could be put into asylums with sometimes hundreds of others. But their lives had value that was not appreciated.

Deputy Director of the Catholic Union, James Somerville-Meikle, writes:

Recently we saw the publication of a parliamentary report into assisted suicide. It seems that MPs on the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee are just as divided as the nation, as the report did not recommend a change in the law one way or another. It did not even recommend another vote in Parliament on the matter; something which proponents of a change in the law had been seeking, although that will not stop some parliamentarians from trying.

At the back of the report (p. 100) is an interesting table comparing attitudes of responders to the consultation who were in favour or against a change in the law. Those who were in favour cited personal autonomy and dignity as their main reasons. Those against cited risk of coercion or of devaluing the life of certain vulnerable groups in society.

Assisted suicide is becoming another case where the dividing line is based on whether you view what is right through the lens of individual good or the common good. In a society that seems to prize personal autonomy above anything else, arguments for the common good are getting harder to make. But we need to keep making them, and assisted suicide is one area where we might have some success.

While the Jews demand miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, here are we preaching a crucified Christ; to the Jews an obstacle that they cannot get over, to the pagans madness, but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is the power and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. 1 Corinthians 1:22-25.