When she was writing in opposition to the Illinois assisted-suicide law that was just signed into law, the president of Illinois Right to Life wrote about a least-favorite topic of humans: death — and when preceded by suffering. (Even when death is sudden, I’ve yet to meet a human who has experienced no suffering.)
Mary Kate Zander wrote:
Certainly, death is inevitable—but it is also the will of God that the timing of such remain outside our grasp. It’s a tough argument to make, especially in a culture that does not tolerate religious arguments in the public square and values individualism and “choice” above all else. Even Christians sometimes support physician-assisted suicide when confronted by deep suffering and appeals to compassion. According to those who promote it, to “die with dignity” is to avoid the humiliations that coincide with death and impart suffering on loved ones. Why not avoid humiliation, when death is all but certain?
She cited a reflection from a great man who was likely a saint on what God does with our suffering:
Fr. Walter Ciszek, who famously documented his own decades-long suffering as a missionary in a Russian gulag, offers a profound case for enduring humiliation, which Christ transforms into glory:
It is only natural to resent humiliation. We recoil from humiliating experiences because they are an affront to the dignity of our persons—which is another way of saying that our pride is hurt. That is the key to the problem, and it is then that we do well to recall who we really are and who God is. If we see nothing beyond the experience except the hurt and the unpleasantness, it can only be because we have lost sight, for the moment at least, of God’s will and of His providence. For humiliations arise out of circumstances, situations, and people that God presents to us each day—and all these are but a manifestation of His providence. So, we must learn to discern in such things, even in the humiliations, occasions for a deeper conformity to the will of God. Christ had to suffer opposition and contradiction and, yes, humiliation in doing His Father’s will; yet he was constantly intent on forgetting self entirely and glorifying the Father by His actions. If we are truly to imitate Christ in our lives, we must learn to do the same.
She added:
In other words, “dying with dignity” is a euphemism. To choose one’s death is to deny one’s dignity, to deny redemptive suffering and the protection of providence. “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him” (Rom. 8:28). Any arguments in favor of ending a vulnerable human life will always contradict the dignity of the human person, who is made in the image of God.
Obviously, this is tough enough to believe even through the eyes of faith. But some of us have seen unexpected healing in suffering. Healing that would have been cut off had life been prematurely through assisted suicide — or just plain suicide.
Zander closed with another quote from Ciszek. Again, it’s a religious point, but if we believers aren’t buying into it, who is going to hold back man’s hand from destroying himself? Who is going to defend the disabled, the depressed, and despairing from a culture — and law — that would have them believe they are not useful?
Just as all men share in the disobedience of Adam, so all men must share in the obedience of Christ to the Father’s will. . . . It is not the Father, not God, who inflicts suffering upon us but rather the unredeemed world in which we must labor to do His will, the world in whose redemption we must share.
We don’t have to be suicidal. Civilizationally or personally. There is hope. Including in suffering and humiliation. There is more intentional dignity in them than perhaps on most of our best days. Because with our will, we unite our lives to God in the most intimate of ways, coming to understand His love for us like few – if any — other experiences can.
God Doesn’t Waste Humiliation and Suffering
From St. Thomas More:
“You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds… What you cannot turn to good, you must at least make as little bad as you can.”
“Every tribulation whichever comes our way either is sent to be medicinal, if we will take it as such, or may become medicinal, if we will make it such, or is better than medicinal, unless we forsake it.”
“Comfort in tribulation can be secured only on the sure ground of faith holding as true the words of Scripture and the teaching of the Catholic Church.”
“Don’t worry about me no matter what happens in this world. Nothing can happen to me that God doesn’t want. And all that He wants, no matter how bad it may appear to us, is really for the best.”