Swords, Roses, and Feminism!

thatothersmaybelovedmorethani:

[TW: abortion, suicide, language]

It’s more than just abortion. It’s more than just euthanasia, physician assisted suicide, suicide, eugenics, etc.

It’s about the culture we live in. JP II said in his encyclical on life that there is a culture of life and a culture of death.

A culture is an unstated yet still known rules of the way we act = we’re accustomed to it, and it manifests itself in our presumptions, the way we think or talk about things.

In our culture, death has become something that is prescribed. Whether it be suicide, abortion, or something else. Death is prescribed in the way we speak to one another and treat one another. It comes in anonymous messages that say “kill yourself you fat whore” or “I hope you die you ugly bitch”.

In our culture, death is something we are uncomfortable with. The word death is so stark and ugly. It makes us feel remorse, loss, regret, pain, anger, and a whole spectrum of human emotions and, lately, it seems like emotions are crippling. Feelings are for the weak? No. Feelings are for the strong.

It takes a strong person to deal with death. It takes love to deal with death. And love is something our society has been lacking for a long time now.

In a Death Cab for Cutie song that Mike Gomer mentioned in his talk (I can’t remember the name of it) there’s this girl who is dying. The last thing she said to her fiance, the last words of the song, is “love is watching someone die.”

That simple action, that loving action, of being there, holding their hand when they breathe their last, walking with them to the gates of heaven and not letting them take that final step alone is so so important.

People dying cannot talk about it. It makes us uncomfortable. They cannot start a conversation with “So, I’m dying” because it makes people uncomfortable. When they can’t talk about it, they end up taking this important journey into the next life alone.

Now, there is a movement where the goal is that doctors can prescribe suicide. “If you can no longer contribute to my pleasure, you no longer have quality of life” seems to the be the argument used. When an elderly or sick person ceases to benefit others, death is prescribed.

The crucifix reminds us that where there is suffering, God is there. Even when your grandfather is not the way you remember. Just because he is not the way you remember, that does not mean he is not himself. Just because he might not remember you, that does not mean that his life is not worth living. Every life is worth living.

Our doctors - our healers - are being made into contracted killers. The Hippocratic Oath first took out the vow not to administer abortion. Soon, will they take out the do no harm?

Death is not for us to decide. Death is not a course of treatment. While there is physician assisted suicide, there is also physician prescribed suicide, in which a doctor can write the patient a prescription, fill it at the pharmacy, go home, and take the pills alone.

And die alone.

No one used to die alone in the Church.

What is the Church doing when she ceases to be a home for the poor? For the elderly? For the sick? For the dying? For the lonely? For the outcast? For the sinner?

And since we are the Church, what are we doing?

We are not called to mediocrity. We are called to live out our Catholic faith. When we live our Catholic faith to the fullest, the Eucharist should mean more to us than our own life. When we live with the Body and Blood of the One who Died on the Cross for us as to most important thing of our lives and to please Him and to do His will, radical things happen.

When we start living out our Catholic faith - whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, so too you do for me - when we are living pro-life, being there for those who need help, we will radically change this culture around us.

Laws change last. The culture must shift first and, currently, we are live in a culture that is at war.

It is the war of the strong against the weak. So many are weak, and we, who in Christ are made strong, need to stand up for them.

“If we don’t stand up, no one else will and our culture will commit suicide.” - Mike Gomerly