July 1, 2008. My first Canada Day as pastor at Christ the Redeemer.
To my delight, parishioners had invited me to go to Canada Place to hear their nephew sing in a popular musical group. I was really looking forward to the concert and the celebration.
Just before I left, the parishioner called to tell me there had been an accident on the Lions Gate bridge and it was closed. He told me to take the Second Narrows bridge instead.
But when I got to the bridge it was also closed: someone was threatening to jump off, and to help talk the person down, the police shut down all traffic, leaving the bridge full of cars on a hot summer afternoon. People could not go forward or backward for hours.
Almost all of you listening today live on the North Shore, so you know what this meant. Our entire community could not get to the city on one of the liveliest days of the year. More importantly, people missed planes, buses, and other engagements.
All because it was considered important enough to close down a bridge for six hours to try to save a life.
To save the life of someone who, almost certainly, was deeply distressed or mentally ill.
Don't get me wrong—I was well and truly annoyed. Even now I think they could find a better method than closing the entire bridge to secure the area around the person threatening to jump. But not for a moment did I question the motives of the police. Not for a moment did I doubt the importance of doing whatever needed to be done to talk someone out of what has been called the only irreparable decision.
But now, less than 13 years later, the poor soul on the bridge could ask the same public authorities who saved his or her life to end it.
I don't want to talk about politics today. I don't want to talk about assisted suicide. Our readings are glorious, and they would give me more than enough material for an encouraging homily as we enter the home stretch of Lent.
And in the spirit of Laetare Sunday, traditionally a mini celebration amidst the penitential spirit of this season, I would like to preach joyfully this morning, especially since my homily two weeks ago was a frank confession of my own discouragement as the pandemic neared its one-year anniversary.
But I can't. How could I face the Lord—how could I face you—without saying something about the House ofCommons passing a law that permits people who are not dying of any illness to seek assistance in ending their lives?
If you've been a Catholic for the past 40 or 50 years, you've watched us lose many battles in the fight for human life, most notably that of abortion. And I used the word battle deliberately because you have probably been invited by priests and bishops and dedicated prolife defenders to take action: To vote for prolife candidates. To write letters to MPs. To donate to organizations.
And it didn't work. It was so unsuccessful, in the end, that there was very little fuss made about this legislation this time around.
Not because we're just all tired out, but because thanks to modern polling we now understand that the problem is not our politicians—although they are certainly not part of the solution! The problem is Canadians, a solid majority of whom support legalized assisted suicide.
Announcing the results of a survey last year, one pollster put it simply: “Based on these numbers, it's all green lights for the federal government to move ahead.”
Our politicians know that most
active Catholics are opposed to this legislation. But they don't care, because the
majority of all others support it so strongly.
I'm not proposing some course of political or social action at this point. What I'm talking about this morning is opening our eyes in this darkness and facing up to what has happened.
Rather than a call to action, I'm sounding a call to reflection. To specifically Christian reflection on what has taken place in our society, on what will be happening in our communities.
To permit people close to death to choose death immediately was morally unacceptable, as we all knew when these legal nightmares began only six years ago.
And now we are plunging down the slippery slope as the law prepares to open the door to assisted suicide for people who are not dying, but who are mentally or emotionally ill.
People who are seriously depressed need our support, love. compassionate care, and medical intervention—not some easy way to end what may well be terrible suffering.
I could make this more dramatic certainly, but I don't see the point. It should be obvious to every one of us that the licensed killing of people with mental and emotional problems takes us to a very, very dark place.
So, what do we do? Weep? Well, frankly that's not a bad idea: the responsorial Psalm today suggests just that. Psalm 137 is Israel’s lament, sung sadly in exile. It’s time for us to recognize the alienation between us and the post-Christian—indeed anti-Christian—society in which we’re living.
While weeping won’t get us anywhere, it does help us recognize just how bad things are—how this country we love is, in some respects, a foreign land in which we live in a sort of exile.
If the events in the House of Commons this week haven’t broken your heart, you might well pray for the gift of tears, or at least the grace of feeling more deeply what has happened.
The readings today also lead us to other places where we can stop and think. In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul puts the focus on mercy. I don’t usually mention mercy except when I’m preaching about confession. But it’s a much bigger subject than that—mercy is part of who God is and how he works.
When we’re finished weeping, we need to ask God for mercy. Not just to ask him but to beg him. And not so much for ourselves as for others.
I’ve always preferred the Rosary to the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, but from today until Pentecost I am going to say the Chaplet every day. As most of you know, the main prayer goes “For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”
I am going to ask God to show mercy on Canadians, to be kind to us in Christ despite this latest act of national infidelity. Not just ask him but beg him.
This is not a fire and brimstone homily of judgment: today’s Gospel says that “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Still, people, even nations, are free to choose darkness over light—indeed to hate the light.
Therefore, now more than ever we need to let the light shine! We need to cling in hope to the words we read at the very beginning of the Gospel of John: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
A great cloud has overshadowed our country, but it has not extinguished the light. Clouds can part and reveal the sun.
We don’t share the Gospel with our friends, neighbours, and family members so their lives will be a little richer, or even a lot happier. We evangelize and proclaim so they can walk out of the darkness of the age into God’s marvelous light, as St. Peter calls it (1 Peter 2:9).
Like the rebellious Israelites bitten by deadly serpents on their journey through the desert (Numbers 21: 4-9), Canadians have been poisoned by the falsehoods of the culture of death. Just like the Chosen People needed the antidote offered by looking at the bronze serpent lifted up on a pole, our brothers and sisters need the healing antidote that comes from looking at Jesus, lifted high on the Cross.
Canadians are perishing. But God in his love gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
Lifted high on the cross, Jesus proclaims that suffering never has the last word.
My own last word today must be to those who live with mental illness, especially in our parish. They, and those who journey beside them, are my personal heroes as they face daily pain, often with more courage and perseverance than I can imagine having myself.
They are perhaps the Christians among us who are closest to Christ, who live out most intimately the Paschal Mystery of his suffering, death, and resurrection.
I can only say to you, suffering brothers and sisters, that we recommit ourselves to support you in practical ways and with as much understanding and compassion as we can manage.
Together, we walk forward in hope that together we may have eternal life.
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You can find a summary of our national nightmare here.
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