During the
past few weeks, as many of us watched Terri Schiavo starve to death in
Florida and as Parkinson’s disease sapped Pope John Paul II of life in
Rome.
As I watched
those events, I recalled an interview I watched on 60 Minutes
several years ago. The interview featured Dr. Jack Kevorkian.
You might
remember this fellow. He’s the guy in Michigan who spearheaded the
“physician-assisted suicide” movement in the 80s and 90s. His
detractors gave Jack Kevorkian the nickname, “Dr. Death.”
I believe it
was Ed Bradley who conducted the interview and asked Dr. Kevorkian:
“What is it that you’d like to say to those who are dying?” Looking
straight into the camera, he responded: “Let me ease your pain and
eliminate your fears by eliminating you.”
It was a
great sound bite and CBS used it lavishly to advertise the interview
beforehand.
Wouldn’t it
have been nice had Terri Schiavo and Pope John Paul II enlisted Dr.
Kevorkian? He could have assisted in hastening each of their inevitable
deaths. Then, neither of the two would have suffered as each lingered
until their demise. Wouldn’t that have been the most “kind,” the most
“caring,” and the most “humane” thing to do?
That’s a
question worthy of a well-reasoned response.
But, in
light of today’s gospel where Jesus tells his disciples, “Do not let you
hearts be troubled. Have faith in God and in me,” Dr. Kevorkian has, I
believe, put his finger on something much more important and deserving
of an equally well-reasoned response. That is, Dr. Kevorkian has
offered a prescription to avoid a great fear that terrorizes many people
today, perhaps even some of us gathered here. It’s not the fear of a
nuclear, radiological, or biological weapon attack perpetrated by some
group of fanatical, lunatic, allegedly religious zealots. No, it’s the
fear of becoming ill, dependent upon on others, and impoverished due to
medical circumstances that are beyond our ability to control. The fear
is that many of us may suffer―perhaps suffer great pain―until our body’s
systems shut down and we finally die. This fear terrorizes many people.
So, in a
bizarre twist of a physician’s
logic, people who know they are going to die can visit a physician―a
human being who has sworn in the Hippocratic oath to preserve and
protect life at all costs―to stop and, if necessary, to eliminate the
degeneration that leads inevitably toward death by having a physician
gas or poison one’s
patient.
“These
people are going to die. It will happen no matter what,” Dr. Kevorkian
argued in that interview. Through physician-assisted suicide, he
maintained (and continues to maintain), people can die without having to
experience the indignity of waiting for nature to take its course. With
a little bit of gas or poison, those looking death straight in the eye
will experience no pain. They will not suffer. They won’t linger
on as a vegetable and ward of the state. Instead, they will fall asleep
peacefully. “Dignified” is what Dr. Kavorkian calls his prescription.
Sounds
pretty good, doesn’t it? Considering the alternative, many
Catholics as well as many of their fellow citizens concur.
Frederich
Nietzsche, the 19th-century philosopher who championed the “Death of
God” movement, first envisioned this very physician. Describing his
vision of Utopia, Nietzsche wrote: “A new responsibility should be
created, that of the doctor―the responsibility of ruthlessly suppressing
and eliminating degenerate life.”
Unfortunately, that is not what Jesus teaches.
In today’s
gospel, Jesus tells his disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.
Have faith in God and faith in me.”
All people
fear death! It’s a permanent end to what we’ve come to know through our
experience as mortal creatures on planet Earth. Death means leaving
behind everything we possess and the people we love for what may be an
eternity filled with bliss, pain and horror, or nothing.
Confronting
this reality three centuries before the Resurrection of Jesus Christ,
Socrates said in his Apology as he contemplated his death
sentence that it is illogical for human beings to fear what they don’t
know. “If death is just falling asleep, what is there to fear?”, he
asked the members of the jury. “If death is an opening to an eternity
filled with bliss, what is there to fear?” Then, putting his finger on
what the real issue is, Socrates simply let his jurors contemplate what
it would be like if, in eternity, each of them would be held liable by
Divine Justice for putting a just man to death.
In this
Easter season, we recall that death is something Christians should
neither fear nor allow its attendant pain and suffering to terrorize
them. We are able to overcome what is a natural instinct as Christians
not because it is logical but because as we welcome and embrace our
mortality that we discover God’s presence. We learn this from
Jesus who welcomed and embraced his mortality on Good Friday and
discovered God’s presence at dawn on Easter Sunday morning. As his
disciples, we have the Resurrection not logic to lead us along the
pathway to death.
We don’t
have to look very far for evidence to demonstrate just how close God is
to His People when they welcome and embrace their own mortality.
We can look
to Calcutta and recall the example of Mother Teresa.
Rather than
suppressing and eliminating decrepit and degenerate life, as Dr.
Kevorkian has recommended, Mother Teresa welcomed and embraced the very
dependency many of us fear, the loss of control we dread, and the filth
and indignity we abhor. Does the thought of Mother Teresa welcoming and
embracing those lepers and streetpeople who remind us of everything we
try to shun with all of our might terrorize us? Is it because we
live in fear of our own mortality and are terrorized that might find
ourselves needing the welcome and embrace of a Mother Teresa one day?
Well, maybe
not.
Then, let’s
look to Rome.
When Pope
John Paul II was dying, many people would ask me why the Pope wouldn’t
retire. Before I could respond, most of them would explain that they
felt saddened at seeing the Pope degenerating as Parkinson’s disease
took its toll. And, indeed it did! Some suggested also that the Pope
no longer was the strong and powerful presence he had once been and, it
was obvious, never would be again. That certainly was also true! “If
the Pope would only retire,” almost every one of these people reasoned,
“there would be a new Pope, hopefully a young, healthy, and energetic
Pope, who would pick up and carry on where Pope John Paul II left off
when he became ill and then retired to some backwoods monastery in
Poland where he’d neither be seen nor heard from again.”
Everyone,
then, would be happier with the decrepit and dying Pope out of camera’s
range.
Those
reasons might make sense, unless we understand not only what natural
death can teach us about the dignity of human life but also what dying
can teach us about the dignity of human life.
Through his
suffering and death, Pope John Paul II steadfastly maintained that he
wanted to teach the world that the elderly, the sick, the infirmed, and
the dying are not commodities that have outlived their “shelf life,”
like the articles found on a grocery store’s shelves. The elderly, the
sick, the infirmed, and the dying aren’t to be shuttled away like young
children when their parents have other adults over to the house, neither
to be heard nor seen until the guests are gone. No, the elderly, the
infirmed, and the dying are human beings. That’s
what John Paul II wanted to teach by his example.
God created them in His divine image and likeness. They deserve, at an
absolute minimum, the same dignity and respect accorded the healthy, the
energetic, and those who can take care of themselves. Perhaps the
elderly, infirmed, and dying deserve more! At least, that’s what Jesus
teaches us when he welcomed and embraced sinners, the ill, and just
about everyone else who no one else would come near or touch for fear of
being infected by them.
Did the
thought of watching a decrepit and dying Pope terrorize any of you? Did
seeing the Pope on television, incapable of talking because of his
tracheotomy and drooling from the side of his mouth disgust you? Did
his witness to the dignity of the elderly, the infirmed, and dying force
you to contemplate the idea that you, too, may one day become frail and
decrepit as you die? Did the witness of the Holy Father get you to
wonder whether you’d
also end up hanging on too long, as others wish you’d simply just die
and get it all over with?
Pope John
Paul II’s witness to suffering and pain―the indignity of it all―may well
have made people consider how Dr. Kevorkian’s solution is the best
possible solution not only for the dying but also for everyone else
involved.
For those
who have faith in God and in Jesus, however, Pope John Paul II’s witness
testified to the dignity to can only be discovered as human beings
welcome and embrace their mortality and discover God present in it.
Death can
teach us about the dignity of human life, if we do not fear death.
Then, as we welcome and embrace our mortality as Jesus did, we can teach
others that they needn’t fear death nor allow it to terrorize them.
Likewise, as we welcome and embrace the pain and suffering that end in
death, we can witness what it means to welcome and embrace the
dependency we fear, the loss of control we dread, and the filth and
indignity we abhor.
It’s
not just Saints who do this. It’s also normal, regular saints who
do this.
Look back to
Littleton, Colorado.
Remember the
young high school student who confessed her faith in Jesus Christ as the
power of Evil looked her straight into the eye? For her confession,
this young woman was murdered in cold blood with a single bullet to the
head.
Remember the
teacher whose body was riddled with bullets as he shepherded students to
safety? Then, the students he saved, in turn, themselves shepherded
their teacher as they worked in vain to revive him and save his life.
I look to
the small Midwest town of Pekin, Illinois.
There a dear
friend, Dorothy Slatterly, was dying of cancer several years ago. Her
body had shriveled from 130 pounds to 80 pounds in a matter of just a
few short weeks. Though Dorothy was not in pain, it was a pathetic
sight for others to watch on as she withered away and died.
Because
Dorothy did not opt for the Kevorkian solution:
·
A daughter’s
love motivated Susie to minister to her mother and also to her father,
as he watched on helplessly and in sadness as the love of his life
slowly disappeared.
·
A
grand-daughter’s love motivated Jennifer, who at the time was a nursing
student at St. Louis University, to come home on weekends not only to
nurse her grandmother as she lay dying but also to bolster her spirits.
Jennifer would remind reminding her grandmother concerning what faith
teaches about life and death.
What does
faith in God and in Jesus Christ teach?
Faith
teaches us that it is precisely in our human nature, with its lack of
perfection and, ultimately, its mortality, that God is very much
present. It is in our dependency, in our neediness, and in our
brokenness that God manifests His presence to us. Mother Teresa, Pope
John Paul II, the martyrs of Littleton, CO, Susie and her daughter,
Jennifer, these are the living stones we heard about in today’s Epistle,
who offer themselves spiritual sacrifices. These are the people God
places into our lives to serve us and remind us of God’s
abiding love
when we
experience our mortality first-hand. These women and men live in God
and God lives in them. Their words are God’s words. And, their work is
God’s work.
These
disciples―the
“living
stone”?
Don’t look
for beautifully packaged, “designer” human beings, as if it is what’s on
the outside that counts. Because they are united with God, God dwells
in them and they dwell in God. They see people as God sees them.
They perform spiritual works for those terrorized by the fear that one
day they will be neglected or destroyed, just as we do with stray
animals. In God’s eyes and in the eyes of those who suffer, whose
bodies are riddled with pain and whose death is immanent, these living
stones are beautiful indeed!
Even in the
terror of the moment, when we find ourselves dependent, needy, and
broken, whether the squalor and stench be that of the suffering in
Calcutta, the pathetic sight of a failing Pope, the evil present in
Littleton, Colorado, the reality of death looking a daughter and
grand-daughter in the eye in Pekin, Illinois, these disciples rejoice
for the opportunities that another’s dependency, neediness, and
brokenness presents them to love others as God does.
Jesus says,
“Do not let you hearts be troubled. Have faith in God and in me.”
“But,”
Thomas asks, “Lord, how can we know the way?”
“I am the
way, the truth, and the life,” Jesus responds.
In our own
day and in our own experience, Jesus continues to remain faithful to his
word if we just look around ourselves! The Lord has not abandoned us by
returning to his Father in heaven. All we need is faith in God, in
Jesus, and in his living stones.
Mother
Teresa, Pope John Paul II, the martyrs of Littleton, Colorado, and Susie
and Jennifer who live in Pekin, Illinois, are the living stones who
offer spiritual sacrifices. They live in God and God lives in them.
Their words are God’s words and their work is God’s work. In these
living stones, Jesus has remained faithful to his word. We need not
fear.
“Do
not let you hearts be troubled,” Jesus has said. We will never be
abandoned, neglected, or destroyed if we have faith in God, in Jesus,
and are his living stones. As Jesus’ disciples, these women and
men witness in our own day to the dignity of all human life, as the
Knights of Columbus pray, “from the moment of conception to natural
death.” |