Thursday, March 31, 2005

Rest in the Savior's arms, Terri

Cardinal Martino is right

May the Lord bless and keep her. May his perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Forgive us, Terri. We don't know what we're doing. Father, Forgive us, we know not what we do:

Americans--The public, by 63 percent-28 percent,
supports the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube

We really don't know what we're doing:

By a significant margin the public views the removal of Terri
Schiavo's (search) feeding tube as an act of mercy rather than
an act of murder, according to the latest FOX News poll.

The new poll — taken prior to Schiavo's death — finds that a 54
percent majority sees the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube as
"an act of mercy" and almost a third see it as "an act of murder"
(29 percent), 7 percent say "neither" and 11 percent are
unsure.

Murder as an act of mercy--practically a textbook definition of euthanasia. Another fruit of "choice". Another Reasonable conclusion that furthers the worship of Thanatos and I-am-the-lord-my-god. Heavan knows we need more fools and we need them fast.

The Field awaits. Too many languish in the dark, and we must bring the light we bear to them. I need to take light-bearing more seriously. A few words scattered upon a blog does not evangelization make, at least on its own. I shudder to think at the opportunities to help Terri that I passed on by. Forgive us, Lord, for what we have done and what we have failed to do.

For Terri, the struggle ends in Eternal bliss at last. For her family, and our nation, the long road through this vale of tears continues. Ultreya!

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

As her last hours dawn...

The Judiciary's last chance for redemption falls

The Reasonable have spoken:

the White House and lawmakers "have acted in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers' blueprint for the governance of a free people - our Constitution."

You see, the constitution gurantees that the we the reasonable can eviscerate the declaration of independence and any semblence of natural law any time we wish. Because we say so.

Update:

Catholic Analysis has more updates.

He is not the first to call her pending death a "domestic 9/11". I find his observation that liberal and conservative social activists have united (a la Randall Terry and the Rev. Jesse Jackson) a particularly illuminating one. Even atheists at Liberal NY Newspapers get this. More Fools pop up every day. Thank God.

And thank God that in Christ Jesus Terri will soon achieve the ultimate victory. Thanks to Christ, even the hideous injustice that she is forced to endure will end in Resurrection. From the depth of the Enemy's heart comes the screaming fear that once again its greatest effort to darken humanity's horizon will end in abject failure before the healing power of Christ. Once again, the Church every reasonable person is ready to bury will jump from the casket in which she is believed to have been laid.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Easter Tuesday as Terri continues to starve

from CatholicSocialScientists.org, prophetic words from Pope John Paul II

Click "Read the latest volume here: Volume IX Contents and Text" Scroll down the articles, and choose "John Paul II on Confronting the Language of the Culture of Death" by William Brennan, Ph.D

Among the money quotes Dr. Brennan includes from the Holy Father:

“Causing death,” the Pope insists, “can never be
John Paul II on Confronting the Language of the Culture of Death/Brennan 8
considered a form of medical treatment, even when the intention is solely to comply with
the patient’s request. Rather, it runs completely counter to the health-care profession,
which is meant to be an impassioned and unflinching affirmation of life.”

“True ‘compassion’ leads to sharing another’s pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear.”

John Paul has repeatedly spoken out against the insidious nature of such legal
distortions: “One of the specific characteristics of present-day attacks on human life . . .
consists in the trend to demand a legal justification for them, as if they were rights which
the state, at least under certain circumstances, must acknowledge.” He refers to this
widespread practice as “the tragic caricature of legality” and “a corruption of the law.”

Read the whole thing.

Also, if your looking for more updated prophecy, check out Mark Shea


On a different note, I observe that strange times make for strange bed-fellows. The Reverend Jesse Jackson recognizes that this is a 'civil rights issue'. He has joined the family and hopes to persuade certain Florida State senators to reconsider their votes on earlier legislation. That legislation would have empowered Governor Bush to take protective custody of Terri and order her feeding tube to be reinstated, since it would have forbidden patients on feeding tubes to be disconnected from them without their prior written permission.

Terri is the new Stephan. She is a martyr in the making, who's life and seemingly inevitable, tragic death may hopefully prick the conscience of so many of we slumbering people of God. Unfortunately, if we as a society don't start awakening to the reality of thanatos worship that today's disciples of death--the Reasonable--engage in continuously, we will witness many more Terri Schiavos. Particularly when they accelerate defining persons up and the unworthy among us down.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Good Friday and Terry Shiavo

Kevin Miller says it well.

It's too easy to draw a conclusion on Terry Shiavo from the evidence in front of our eyes. The Reasonable people have done that already. Seeing the sheer apparent randomness of life, the preponderance of human and natural evil and the hurt that those with hearts must feel, They have concluded there can be no God. Therefore, everything is up to them. Meaning, guidance, effort, the whole of their life's and society's well being rests in their hands. That can be quite a burden. It makes for confusing interpretations. "What's right for you may not be right for me" could well be a psychological survival mechanism from forming a complex world-view without the benefit of any world religion. Of course, there must be some absolutes. The evil of suffering tends to be a consistent one.

On the surface, who can blame the Reasonable? Which of us wants to suffer? When was the last time we offered to take the heat from the boss for a co-worker that screwed up? How often have we volunteered to trade places with those Critically injured survivors of a three-car pile up? For myself, I can barely work up the compassion to clean the dishes after a hard day's work. None of us who are in our right mind like suffering. Whenever possible, we like to avoid it. But what can we do when it's inevitable?

Here is where the Fools must part company with the Reasonable. For the Reasonable see no reason to stop looking for a way out of suffering. Since suffering is the indisputable evil, avoiding or ending it becomes the preminent good. Anything that does the trick goes. Whereas we Fools insist on this crazy notion that God is real, that his love for us endows each of us with a precious dignity that none can deny or remove with impunity. On account of such foolishness, we recognize that God's will is the one meant to be done. That means there are limits we cannot breach, even to end suffering. There are even those times in which our suffering mysteriously serves to bring about the fulfillment of God's will. I say mysteriously because we often don't ever understand why such suffering is necessary. However, we trust our God. We are confident in His love for us. After all, he's already born a universe of suffering on our behalf.

It's fitting on this Good Friday to recall everything Christ has done for us. Every wrong we have ever done as a people and ourselves, and every wrong we will do, He has accepted person responsibility for. He has paid the price we owed when we chose to turn away from Life. He bore the consequence when we turned from Love of Him to lust for power. He did this through the excruciating torture that was Roman Crucifiction.

When we're confronted with suffering that we cannot avoid, we can join our suffering to his, and thus mysteriously participate in his redemptive death. Thus, we will rise with him in his glorious Ressurection. Such is the unreasonable "superstition" that we Fools believe. Fortunately, it all happens to be true.

It's easy for the Reasonable to miss this. Especially in a case like Terry Schiavo. They see a helpless woman. We see an injured sister. They see a crippled mind. We see a struggling heart. They see a person whom they're sure would not want to carry on in such a state. We see a woman that shines in her God-given dignity and life, and should continue up to and beyond the point in which her God calls her Home. They see a person who's suffering must be brought to an end. We see a person in whose suffering we must share, if we are to be Christ to her as we're called.

This in the end is the choice we face when we confront inevitable suffering. The Reasonable can justify taking her life any way that eases the suffering of their consciences--those that have enough conscience left. It doesn't change the fact that Terry Schiavo's life is being taken from her unjustly. In their effort to "end her suffering", Michael Schiavo, Judge Greer, and all of their Reasonable enablers deny her justice. More significantly, they refuse to share in her suffering, and thus miss an opportunity to meet the Savior. May God, and the rest of us, forgive them.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Over at Open Book

Lot of Terri updates

Our True Masters (TM) foam at the mouth as they demand that we who value Terry's life be reasonable. Still, I'd rather be consistent than reasonable. I suppose they'd have a point that Terry's life is not worth living--if they could ask Terry, or rather, ask a Terry who also is an apostate to her Roman Catholic Faith.

Perhaps they really want to take Michael's word for it. I'd call that charitable, if such benevolence didn't end in Judicially-sanctioned execution. Funny that, the same Masters that would light up the night sky outside an execution site topped with barbed wire and guntowers can't find candles to stand outside a Hospice. Mind you, I have reservations about the death penalty's use in our country--particularly in a capital sentence handed down upon an innocent. Like Terry.

The determination of our True Masters(TM) to complete the Enlightenment-born experiment in human-mastery-of-life-without- God (after hopefully taming that pesky post-modernism that keeps gnawing at the loins) truely boggles the mind. Take God out of the picture, as they have (whether they honestly admit it or not) and one can almost see their point. Why shouldn't a person's choice to end one's life be honored? What other standard is there. Of course, this again obviates the fact that the person didn't choose to be born, so to what extent is one's life one's own? In fact, without God, why can't the state come in and compel a person to live--or die--whatever that person might prefer?

They never seem to get that part.

All of which is why I find the Foolishness of God far more illuminating than any treastis on the superiority of humanity or the sacred choice of self. Unfortunately, I--and the rest of us Fools--don't get to make the decision that allows a sister in Christ to experience such illumination, or at least the possibility of it, in this life. They've already decided: the "husband" with the live-in girlfriend and kids gets to carry out Terry's "final wish".

Would that this were a time Jefferson was wrong.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Terry's struggle

Plenty of updates all over: here, here, and here.

Of course, the reasonable have spoken. I mean, of course, our reasonable elites. It's the law. The Judge has spoken. Her "right to die" should be honored. We must not threaten federalism, especially for partisan gain among those stoopid Christian right-wingers. It's her husband's choice.

So, once again, it is up to a fool to provide some clear counsel. And what could be more foolish than once again observing the simple truth of life: It's a gift we received. It is not ours to dispose of when we no longer find it to our liking. All the talk of how she would not want to live this way somehow manages to mangle this one simple truth.

She lives. She's not dying. Feeding her allows her to remain alive. If that's extraordinary medical treatment, then GHI is going to have a field day charging me daily co-pays for my three square.

The fact that we can call ourselves reasonable, and then argue with a straight face that circumstances can make life not worth living, shows just how completely lost we have become. If ever we needed the Foolishness of the Gospel, it's now.

Speaking of foolishness, there are ways the bravest of us can respond.