Love One Another

Tiber Judy ^ | 6-23-13 | Tiber Judy

[mlizzy]

Last week in this blog I wrote about suicide, specifically I recalled my grandfather’s suicide and its lingering effects on my family. I wasn’t prepared for the reaction that my words encouraged. I had struggled with publishing our family story because I didn’t want the legacy of my dad and grandfather to be changed in any way by my writing. But I shouldn’t have worried. Instead I’ve heard many stories of other families whose lives have been altered forever by suicide. Beginning in 2009, suicide surpassed car crashes as the number one cause of accidental death in the United States. Everyone knows someone who has died in a car accident so it follows that we all know someone who has taken their own life. Many of us have loved people who killed themselves. And all of us are left with questions.

Is suicide always a sin? The short Catholic answer us “no.” In order for an action to be a mortal sin, the person must 1) know the action is sinful, 2) deliberately and freely consent to the sin, and 3) the action must be gravely sinful. Most people in most circumstances would know that suicide is a grave sin. But there are reasons that can keep a person from being able to make a clear, informed, rational choice. We can imagine so many situations and life events which can conspire in a person’s soul and can affect their ability to think clearly and mindfully. Their thoughts and emotions may have been very impaired at the time of their death. You may have known they were in difficulty. Or maybe you didn’t. Maybe their suicide came as a complete shock—a moment of unbelievable, unknowable loss. We try and understand how they came to want to end their lives. We may never really know the answers to our questions. We wonder if somehow we missed the signals they might have been giving—of despair or hopelessness, or of the plans they were making to escape their pain.

Yes, we can always take better care of one another. If a friend or family member makes us wonder if they might be considering suicide, we should ask them. This is an act of love. Your care and concern might be the very thing they’ve most hungered for. There are resources in every community that can help someone who’s hurting and desperately sad. We’re connected to each other and the Lord binds us together in His holy communion. That binding isn’t just symbolic but is a true “oneness” that exists in Christ and His Church. It means that we bear with one another through all difficulties and we stand with one another in our pain. We pray for the hurting and the lonely in our midst. Loneliness may be at the heart of so many of our world’s hurting ones. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta thought so. She said, “The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.”

Who do you know that is lonely? The widow down the street. The young man living on his own. The retiree diagnosed with a return of his cancer. Our lives are knit together through Christ’s redemptive love and He commands us to love one another (John 13:34-35). This is not a theory or idea. This is how we love: by being Christ to our neighbor. It means taking the time to get to know the people in our lives. It means introducing ourselves to the new faces at Mass and taking an active part in the ministries in our parish that serve others. Stewardship is more than dropping an envelope in the offertory and getting up to lector every month or so. A steward cares for God’s creation and that means caring for the vulnerable. Don’t be afraid to reach out. Ask the young man to your family table. Offer to drive the widow to Mass next Sunday. You may be the light they’ve been searching for. And pray, always pray. A Rosary for their intentions can open the floodgates of grace. And help is out there. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is a network of more than 150 crisis centers around the country. Calling 1-800-273-8255 can get free, confidential and local help for anyone who’s suffering and depressed. Don’t miss the chance to be the love and the help someone needs when they need you the most. You’ll be sharing the love and the hope of Christ and His Church. And you just might save a life.

“They help each other and say to their companions, ‘Be strong!’ —Isaiah 41:6

[mlizzy]

Another outstanding [caring, loving, beautiful] post by Tiber Judy, and this is the post that led to it:

A Suicide in the Family

[Responsibility2nd]

Beginning in 2009, suicide surpassed car crashes as the number one cause of accidental death in the United States.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Say What?

News flash here. Suicide is NOT an accidental death.

[HiTech RedNeck]

It’s a lesson that (in analogous actions, e.g. not all use the rosary system) can be useful for good in any arm of Christendom. Doing a supernaturally empowered kindness to a neighbor in spiritual need is acting as what you as a Christian are, which is an incense offering in the Son’s hands to the Father. And blessings have great power to overcome curses; it can be as simple as raising the person up in prayer before God the Father and requesting that the Father bless them, which the devil is hoping to use for evil, for good instead. Be ready for spiritual warfare yourself if you ask blessings upon someone who is affected by curses; Satan will not at all like what you did and will try hard to rattle you. Be ready to cast your own cares upon the Lord, and thus rebuff Satan when he attacks.

[Nemoque]

Suicide is contrary to the 5th Commandment, Thou shalt not kill (murder). Life is sacred, and the taking of life for selfish reasons is always sinful. Someone that gives his life for others, such as those in the military, is the opposite of selfishness. Suicide is often the most selfish act that someone can commit. The person that kills himself is only concerned about himself, and does not consider those that love him, nor does he care what God thinks. I do recognize such things as clinical depression and organic causes. There may also be some demonic activity, too. I feel doubly sorry for those who have lost a loved one to suicide, but suicide, which is murder of oneself, is a grave sin.

[bicyclerepair]

If I wasn’t a Christian.......

[Nemoque]

I do not understand your reply. Are you stating that you aren't a Christian? I am not being snarky here, I really do not understand if you are asking a question or making a statement.

[mlizzy]

Thanks for your reply. At one point in time I would have agreed with it completely.

In the beginning of the second paragraph the author explains how suicide could possibly not be a sin. Coincidentally, recently Jimmy Akin tackled this same question to do with mortal sin (not suicide specifically). I think what Tiber Judy has accomplished by her writing is offer people hope who have loved ones who have committed suicide. I wonder to myself if her middle name isn't Hope, because ALL of her postings reflect it.

[mlizzy]

Be ready for spiritual warfare yourself if you ask blessings upon someone who is affected by curses; Satan will not at all like what you did and will try hard to rattle you. Be ready to cast your own cares upon the Lord, and thus rebuff Satan when he attacks.

Good advice!

[HiTech RedNeck]

While I am not a Roman Catholic myself, I am an evangelical (right now, an honorary Southern Baptist, so to speak) I believe myself to be a small-c catholic Christian... and it was a Roman Catholic doctor who first taught me about casting my cares upon Jesus. So much of the religious Christian world (in all arms of Christendom) scrambles around in its own power to try to solve its own problems. Jesus says something more like “Lean back on Me and learn from Me.” Not at all like the uptight world.

[mlizzy]

“Lean back on Me and learn from Me.” Not at all like the uptight world.

Ah, yes, reminds me of yesterday's Gospel... Mt 6:24-34

[Nemoque]

I am not certain of the point that you are making. I did say that in the event of someone giving his life up for others was not a sin. If someone is so mentally impaired that he does not realize what he is doing, that too would not be a sin. I would consider that a disease. The vast majority of people committing suicide do not fall into those categories. We all die as sinners. Taking your life is a sin, but that does not mean that you automatically go to hell. Suicide is not the unforgivable sin. My concern is for the example it sets for others. All too often, especially in the case of young people, suicide is almost glorified.

[mlizzy]

I feel doubly sorry for those who have lost a loved one to suicide, but suicide, which is murder of oneself, is a grave sin.

I'm talking about the above sentence. Suicide is not [necessarily] a grave sin, due to the points the author mentioned.

[Nemoque]

I do not know how you can call killing yourself anything other than a grave sin? Perhaps we are using different definitions of sin. If you can find anything in the Bible that uses the phrase “grave sin,” please share it with me. God considers all sins to be grave sins. There are no little and big sins. “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” James 2:10. This distinguishing between grave sins and lesser sins is a purely human invention with absolutely no biblical support.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

-— If you can find anything in the Bible that uses the phrase “grave sin,” please share it with me. -—

1 John 5:16-17 (RSV): “If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is a sin which is not mortal [I.e., leading to death].”

[mlizzy]

There is some biblical support at this link: http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/04/mortal-venial-sin-garden-variety.html.

[mlizzy]

Thanks! I was fetching while you were posting. :)

[HiTech RedNeck]

A corollary to this gospel passage. Thank you for reminding me of it.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Or as evangelical (more literal, generally) translations put it, sin unto death. In the evangelical environment this is generally taken to mean a sin so bad that God actually takes the sinner’s life as a consequence.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

—— In the evangelical environment this is generally taken to mean a sin so bad that God actually takes the sinner’s life as a consequence. ——

The Catholic Church teaching regarding “mortal sin” derives from this idea of “sin unto death.” Non-mortal sins are classified as “venial sins.”

For Christians, physical death is, hopefully, but a transition to our permanent Home. The Church teaches that the phrase “sin unto death” regards eternal separation from God, that is, spiritual death.

So sins can be classified as those that break our relationship with God (mortal), and those that weaken our relationship with God (venial).

In either case, this rupture can be healed, by the grace of God, through repentence. For Catholics, this normatively comes through the sacrament of reconciliation. For non-Catholics, again, by the grace of God, this reconciliation can come about through repentence.

But again, as the Church teaches, the surest and normative means of repairing this rupture is through the sacrament of Reconciliation.

[johngrace]

Great Post.