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February 4, 2017The Lord encourages us to be salt and light. Salt preserves food and gives flavor. Light illuminates a dark space. In order to be the salt of the world or the light in a dark place, we need to witness to the presence of the Creator in our life. In short, our lives should be a witness of faith to those around us.
Living and Dying with Dignity
A fundamental insight of our faith is that God is the God of Creation. We should use our lives and our world in a morally responsible way. We live in a throw away culture. The consumerism that drives our economy also creates lots of trash. We throw it away. That habit carries over into other areas of life. Our nation treats unborn life as something disposable. That attitude carries over to our attitude towards death.
Starting with Oregon, about six states have approved physician assisted suicide for people who have been told that they have less than six months to live. My favorite saint, Therese of Lisieux, as she suffered and prepared for her own death, wrote that she could understand why physicians did not leave drugs by the bedside of the ill. The temptation to end life was strong.
My family struggled with care of my father during the three years or so that he was bedridden before his death. The moral pain, not so much the physical suffering, medical expenses, and our desire to maintain his dignity and his desire not to be a burden to us was all part of his and our experience of death.
First, the most important aspect of the experience of dying is the compassion that our loved ones evoke from us and their concern for our well-being. In my family’s experience, we made regular times for prayer. We let it be known that we would be praying the rosary together at 3 pm. Anyone who could was welcome to stop by. Dad would sometimes mouth the prayers with us.
Second, palliative care is a much more desirable response to the process of dying than physician assisted suicide. My dad received very helpful palliative and hospice care during his final years. Pain medication when needed, good advice to the family on medical issues and support during the process of dying were all part of the experience of our family. It wasn’t perfect, because nothing human is perfect. Although we fear physical pain, the most prominent suffering during the process of dying is the moral suffering. It is also the most profound aspect of dying because of its capacity to draw out our compassion and care.
There is an old adage in medicine, “Cure sometimes, relieve occasionally, but care, always.” At some point in our lives and the lives of those we love, active medical care to try and restore the health of another is useless. We can only prepare for death. Active medical care shifts to palliative care to relieve the physical suffering occasioned by the process of dying. Medicine is tremendous help with physical suffering it can also help with the anxiety that is part of death. What medicine can’t provide is only what family and friends can bring. Prayer, encouragement and support for our loved ones as they die.
We all fear death. But today, excellent pain medications and pain-management strategies help us or our loved ones to navigate those final days. Assisted suicide tries to dispose of this profound experience of our lives. It is a misguided rejection of the value that death has in our life. People are not disposable and, I fear, physician assisted suicide works on the dying person’s fear of being a burden to their loved ones. Palliative care is the response to the misguided fears driving the assisted suicide political effort.
What drives the most significant temptations in our life is our love of pleasure and our fear of suffering. When pleasure becomes the driving force in life, it follows that suffering will be our greatest fear. So, assisted suicide is held up as our salvation from the moral loneliness and physical discomfort of death.
To be the salt of the earth and the light of the world is to remember that both pleasure and suffering are human experiences that deepen us and root us more firmly in our faith in God. Demands are made on us by the gospel. To choose the expedient, the pleasurable or the pain free as our ultimate goods, is to risk disconnection from our Creator and our human existence. When it comes to accompanying the dying, especially those we most love, we ought to make the choice to be present, to pray with them and live the sacramental life with them. In our own preparation, the choices we make now prepare us for the future.
From the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops“Respect for life does not demand that we attempt to prolong life by using artificial treatments that are ineffective or unduly burdensome. Nor does it mean we should deprive suffering patients of needed pain medications out of a misplaced or exaggerated fear that they might have the side effect of shortening life. … In fact, severe pain can shorten life, while effective palliative care can enhance the length as well as the quality of a person’s life. It can even alleviate the fears and problems that lead some patients to the desperation of considering suicide. … (It) also allows patients to devote their attention to the unfinished business of their lives, to arrive at a sense of peace with God, with loved ones, and with themselves. … ”
"To Live Each Day with Dignity," a statement by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
