In recent years, some medical practitioners have suggested that death from dehydration may not be such an unpleasant way for patients to die. This conclusion, however, remains rather doubtful.
Thirst and appetite are very primal drives, and anyone who has ever done a voluntary fast knows well the discomfort that arises from even a single day of fasting.
On April 22, we celebrate Earth Day. Earth Day was founded in 1970 by Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. senator from Wisconsin. On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans crowded streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment. Earth Day’s time had come.
Earth Day offers us Catholics opportunities to reflect upon statements by recent popes and bishops regarding our moral responsibility towards creation. In his address on the World Day of Peace 2010, Pope Benedict XVI focused upon the theme “If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation.”
On March 20, in the early hours before dawn, with two of our faithful daughters at his side, my husband Bob entered into eternal life.
Within moments the remaining eight of us arrived at Countryside Home and joined our pastor, Father Jay, to offer a final prayer over a body that seemed chiseled out of marble. We were all enveloped in a spiritual embrace of peace that can only come after a long and difficult battle.
As the public becomes more concerned over the health of our environment, Catholics and Church leadership at multiple levels have engaged environmental issues.
In recent years, Catholics in the U.S. have participated in environmental advocacy through the efforts of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change, Catholic Relief Services, and other groups.
During the preparation of the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Pope Paul VI proposed that the constitution’s discussion of papal primacy include the affirmation that the pope is “accountable to the Lord alone.”
This suggestion was rejected by the council’s Theological Commission, which wrote that “the Roman Pontiff is also bound to revelation itself, to the fundamental structure of the Church, to the sacraments, to the definitions of earlier councils, and other obligations too numerous to mention.”
Pope Paul quietly dropped his proposal.
A great conductor rehearsed a choir for a performance of the Messiah. The chorus sang through to the part where the soprano sings, “I Know That My Redeemer Lives.”
Her singing was flawless: perfect phrasing, pitch, enunciation, and all of the singing qualities that I wish I had. When she finished, the choir waited eagerly for the applause that would surely follow.
Instead, the conductor glared at the soloist and growled, “My dear, you do not really believe that your Redeemer lives, do you?”
Carolyn Gordon Tate, a major figure in the literary renaissance of the 20th century American South, once wrote Flannery O’Connor of the impact that her conversion to Catholicism had had on her writing.
As Miss O’Connor recalled in a letter, “Mrs. Tate told me that after she became a Catholic she felt she could use her eyes and accept what she saw for the first time, she didn’t have to make a new universe for each book but could take the one she found.”
Catholicism, Carolyn Gordon Tate recognized, was realism. Catholicism means seeing things as they are. Catholicism means finding within the grittiness of reality the path God is taking through history for the salvation of the world. Lent is a good time to be reminded of these truths.
The story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus that we read during the Easter season is one of my favorites. I often wonder if I would have recognized the Lord walking the path with me. Hopefully I would, but, like the disciples, I may have not.
During these Sundays after Easter the Scripture readings tell of several appearances Jesus made to the disciples after his resurrection and how the faith of his followers (like Thomas) was challenged and deepened.
Today the resurrected Jesus is all around us in our daily lives. He is present in the persons we encounter. It is up to us to recognize him.
The story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus that we read during the Easter season is one of my favorites. I often wonder if I would have recognized the Lord walking the path with me. Hopefully I would, but, like the disciples, I may have not.
During these Sundays after Easter the Scripture readings tell of several appearances Jesus made to the disciples after his resurrection and how the faith of his followers (like Thomas) was challenged and deepened.
Today the resurrected Jesus is all around us in our daily lives. He is present in the persons we encounter. It is up to us to recognize him.
When I make presentations on end-of-life decision making, I sometimes have audience members approach me afterwards with comments like, “You know, Father, when my mom died six years ago, and I look back on it, I’m not sure my brothers and I made the right decisions about her care.”
Remarks like these serve to remind us how the circumstances surrounding death are important not only for the person who passes on but also for those who remain behind.
