{"id":1694,"date":"2015-10-04T12:58:29","date_gmt":"2015-10-04T16:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1694"},"modified":"2015-10-04T12:58:29","modified_gmt":"2015-10-04T16:58:29","slug":"27th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-b-respect-life-sunday-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/27th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-b-respect-life-sunday-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B (Respect Life Sunday) – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

27th<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B<\/a>
\nGenesis 2:18-24
\nHebrews 2:9-11
\nMark 10:2-16
\nOctober 4, 2015<\/p>\n

The Lord God said: \u201cIt is not good for the man to be alone.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

God created the Garden of Eden and everything in it, including man.\u00a0 God knew what He had created was good.\u00a0 He knew the \u201cman\u201d was not meant to be alone.\u00a0 God had given Adam life itself so He knew Adam better Adam knew himself.<\/p>\n

For Adam to find fulfillment and all he was meant to be, God created Eve.\u00a0 When Adam saw Eve, he knew that she was the bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh.\u00a0 This is not simply a physical reference to the fact the story says the Eve was created from Adam\u2019s rib.\u00a0 It goes deeper than that.<\/p>\n

No, it is about a spiritual connection.\u00a0 In Eve, Adam finds fulfillment and becomes a better person for having known Eve.\u00a0 In coming together as male and female, complimenting one another, their spiritual togetherness is manifested physically.<\/p>\n

People talk about divorce and the reasons for it.\u00a0 Right now, I would like to talk together about why a couple should come together.\u00a0 Some will talk about making each other \u201chappy\u201d.\u00a0 I like to think of it as realizing we become better for having the person with us.<\/p>\n

Happiness is often seen as what makes us happy today<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 We need to look beyond that. \u00a0When we looking at someone you might be dating, are you interested in their body or what they can do?\u00a0 The person is so much more.\u00a0 What we can do does not define who we are.<\/p>\n

Do we see the person we are dating as a means for pleasure and when they no longer make us happy we leave them or do we share our beliefs with them?\u00a0 Are we willing to make sacrifices for them?\u00a0 It is when we are willing to make sacrifice that the love of a couple becomes a sign of God\u2019s love (Jesus\u2019 death on the Cross).<\/p>\n

It is when we look beyond the physical that we can see the gift that life is, to understand that we are not defined by what we can do but rather by who we are inside and what we believe.<\/p>\n

Only then, do we understand that every life is worth living<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If we only see a person for what they can do, then it might seem appropriate that when a person can no longer \u201cdo\u201d stuff, that it is time to end their life.\u00a0 There are people who think people should be able, when faced with a terminal diagnosis, to choose to end their life.<\/p>\n

People who think this way talk about \u2018dying with dignity.\u2019\u00a0 They talk in terms of ending suffering and pain.\u00a0 I can relate in wanting to avoid the pain and suffering but I don\u2019t get how this is \u2018dying with dignity.\u2019\u00a0 Ending one\u2019s life in this way says to me that when the person becomes severely ill and cannot no longer do work, that they are no longer worth having around.<\/p>\n

I believe the best way to show dignity for the person is by showing we value them for who they are and not just what they can do.\u00a0 In desiring to have them remain with us, we are saying they are still important to us.<\/p>\n

When facing end of life decisions, when is it killing and when it is turning it over to God?<\/p>\n

We would like clear answers.\u00a0 We want the decisions to be black and white but when people are involved, often the decisions are not clear.<\/p>\n

I think about my mother\u2019s final days in this world.\u00a0 She had had emphysema for around ten years.\u00a0 It slowly worsened and she could do less and less.\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t even walk very far, needing a power chair to get around.\u00a0 Even in her declining health she was still \u201cmom\u201d.\u00a0 I kept doing what I could for her.<\/p>\n

In her final weeks, they found lung cancer and began treatment but it was too late.\u00a0 Barely four weeks after they found the cancer and began treatment, she was placed on a ventilator while we waited to see if the treatment would work.\u00a0 When the treatment couldn\u2019t do enough, it became time to make a decision about the ventilator.<\/p>\n

My brothers and I made the decision to withdraw the ventilator (fortunately, mom had said she didn\u2019t want to remain on the machines in such circumstances).\u00a0 In her case, she became unresponsive.\u00a0 Were we killing her by pulling the ventilator?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 We were allowing the natural cycle of life to take its course.\u00a0 The ventilator was artificial means.<\/p>\n

We did not act to end her life.\u00a0 We were handing it over to God to make the choice.\u00a0 Nothing was done to hasten her death.\u00a0 No medicines were given to end her life.\u00a0 We just let nature take its course.<\/p>\n

Sometimes when people ask about making end of life decisions I ask are they \u201cgiving up\u201d or \u201cletting go\u201d.\u00a0 By \u201cgiving up\u201d I mean are we sick and tired of the pain and suffering and want to make it end or are they \u201cletting go\u201d and placing it in God\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiving up\u201d means saying my life is not worth anything now.\u00a0 \u201cLetting go\u201d means appreciating all the time we have had in this world but realizing we won\u2019t live forever.<\/p>\n

How do you look at other people?\u00a0 How do you look at yourself?\u00a0 Do you see a physical body or do you see the real person?\u00a0 Do you see their soul?<\/p>\n

Every life is worth living.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B Genesis 2:18-24 Hebrews 2:9-11 Mark 10:2-16 October 4, 2015 The Lord God said: \u201cIt is not good for the man to be alone.\u201d God created the Garden of Eden and everything in it, including man.\u00a0 God knew what He had created was good.\u00a0 He knew the \u201cman\u201d was …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B (Respect Life Sunday) – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[136,137],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-rk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1695,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694\/revisions\/1695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}