TIME TO MOVE ON

A REFLECTION FOR THE 21ST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Has anyone noticed how often the topic of assisted suicide is coming up in our modern media?  Barely a TV show crosses our screens without some subplot about a poor elderly person who begs a younger person to provide him with the means to “die on his own terms” or “die with dignity.”  This is a whole new adventure in blasphemy, and one which is growing in popularity.  It has even become lawful in some states, and is seen as a sign of a more “progressive” approach to life and death.

We need not wonder why there is this gradual acceptance of assisted suicide.  It is simply the logical progression from the tired old abortion argument that it’s a “woman’s right to choose.”  If we can choose to kill our babies, then why should we not have the power to decide how and when we ourselves die?  It’s just another example of how the whole notion of God is being removed from the consciousness of the masses.  If we take God out of the equation, then his laws no longer apply, and we are free to invent our own morality.  Obviously, we will then choose to make up moral laws that we perceive will bring us the greatest happiness and the least suffering.  Euthanasia is fast becoming the latest stage of the greater plot to rid us of God.

It may be the latest, but it will not be the last.  The whole subject of eugenics is raising its ugly head again in public debate, and it looks like it won’t be long before our brave, new, and Godless world will be building clinics for the mercy killing of the terminally ill, the deformed, and the mentally sick.  Human beings who are incapable of making a sufficient contribution to society will simply be annihilated.  Society will be rid of these so-called burdens, and everyone will be better off…

As Catholics, we believe that such atrocities offend God.  Every human soul is created for a purpose, and no individual is ever worthless in the eyes of God.  He died for the ugly as for the beautiful, the sick as for the healthy, and we all must live with our crosses until God determines otherwise.  It is never for us to decide when it’s “time to move on.”  Life and death are in the hands of God, and if we dare trespass on his prerogatives by “putting someone out of their misery” as though they are a sick animal, it is nothing short of murder.

There will be circumstances in which this simple truth will be seen as harsh.  The TV script writers are sure to come up with harrowing stories in which our adherence to Catholic morals are tested.  But even as we weep for the suffering, we must never waver in our refusal to usurp God’s power over life and death.  If we are ever faced with such a situation ourselves, we should do our best to bring the one suffering to recognize the hidden beauty of his cross and the power to help others by his humble offering to God of all he endures.

I know a Vietnam vet whose comrade was mortally wounded in battle.  The poor soldier was in terrible pain, completely disfigured by shrapnel, and he begged his friend to end his life.  But his friend was a Christian and although he held his gun to the wounded man’s forehead, he couldn’t pull the trigger.  He wept and he prayed, and as he did so, his friend simply died in his arms.  God decides when it’s time to move on.