If you ever get caught sleeping on the job, slowly raise your head and say, “In Jesus name, amen.”
In a sense we have all been asleep as Christians. Too many decisions in this world are made to be popular and politically correct. Our outrage comes too late.
A crowd, by definition, is a group of people moving without direction. Jesus came to give us direction. Don’t follow the crowd on moral issues. Better to be unpopular for a short time and right for all eternity.
A recent headline read “Canada’s Supreme Court Reverses Its Earlier Ruling on Assisted Suicide”. In a related article John Burger cited the following cases:
“…a depressed healthy man who was recently retired, but alone and lonely, died by euthanasia in the Netherlands. In Belgium, a healthy depressed woman died from euthanasia after experiencing the break-up of a long-term relationship. In Switzerland, a man died by assisted suicide after receiving a wrong diagnosis.”
The Saskatchewan Pro Life Association now raises this alarm:
“The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan (CPSS) have a proposed policy that would require doctors in Saskatchewan to refer for, or in some cases provide, services to which they are morally opposed.
“This could include assisted suicide or abortion. Some physicians may leave the province rather than comply with such a policy. Others will suffer moral distress that will compromise their care for their patients. Saskatchewan physicians should be free to engage their consciences and honour their commitment to do no harm [Hippocratic Oath].
“This is an URGENT matter. The CPSS wants to control our doctors. Let’s make it LOUD and clear to them that we demand and appreciate our doctors’ freedom of conscience.”
I favour a practical Christian approach to issues raised about life. To borrow a phrase from Father Miec, “I was born at a very young age – nine months.” I am glad my life was respected during those nine months.
I recently saw an ultrasound of my new grandchild. The image was beautiful and very recognizable as a baby at twelve weeks. I shudder to think of the painful deaths inflicted on so many innocents even beyond this age. I don’t mean to sensationalize, only to be moral.
As a child I faithfully prayed: “from this moment I accept whatsoever death thou shalt send me, and I offer up all the pain and suffering for my salvation.” This suffering is united with the suffering of Christ to save the entire world.
Pope Francis in his message for World Day of the Sick said, “‘Quality of life’ proponents who think the gravely ill lead lives not worth living are peddling a great lie… they make people think that lives affected by grave illness are not worth living.”
Spending time with the sick and infirm, Pope Francis said, “is holy time. It is a way of praising God who conforms us to the image of his son, who came not to be served but to serve, and it is a great path to sanctification”.
As Christians on life’s journey we have ever before us the model of how Jesus faced suffering and death.