JUNE 14, 2010, MONDAY OF 11TH
WEEK: 1 K: 21:1-16; MATTHEW 5: 38-42
Yesterday, as I glanced at the newspaper in the library
annex, my curiosity was piqued by the headline that announces concern over a
major social issue in the Rochester
area: teenage suicide. The extensive article on the front page is accompanied
by a prominent picture of a local 17 year old high school senior who recently
came home, giving his mother whom he greeted warmly, then in his room hanged
himself. He was the first of three suicides in the same senior class at a
Webster high school. He is one of 63 persons between the ages of 15-24 in Monroe County
who ended their lives by suicide in the ten years between 1998 and 2008.
Suicide is the third most frequent cause of death in this age group today; in
the USA
of those between 15 and 24 12 % die from suicide. This does not include failed
suicide attempts. The paper published three extensive articles on this topic,
quotes, in addition to the parents and brother of one 17 year old suicide, various
other persons interviewed including the chairman of the Psychiatry Department
at U of Rochester Medical Center. In my own opinion, the fact that the chief
question in regard to the issue of suicide is not so much as mentioned points
to a major reason why such a plague has appeared in our modern society. No one,
including the family interviewed and the reporters who wrote these three
extensive articles, so much as mentions God, religion, morals, or the purpose
of life and of education. No religious authority is interviewed, no family
member or friend has anything to say about any of these very fundamental areas
that bear directly upon the subject. The moral and religious darkness is
completely and totally ignored in our current secular society. It is not surprising that all these articles
manage to do is draw attention to the problem, and give the vaguest of
suggestions on what to do about it. The schools should be less demanding on the
students, though it is far from evident that American students are studying too
much. The most the psychiatrist has to offer is “be forthright” in facing the
matter, whatever that means. Not a single word that would help deal with the
deeper roots of the problem; indeed, no indication that anyone so much as
suspects there is need for a more wholesome approach to human formation and
relations.
Why mention this matter in the liturgical homily? It seems
to me to have a lot to do with the first reading today. Suicide is the final
act of self-destruction. It is the last in a series of self-defeating behaviors
that are all too frequent in our lives. King Ahab of Samaria and his wife Jezebel provide a
classic example of such self- defeating behavior that begins with a relatively
small matter that of fixing desire on what belongs to another. Ahab gets sick
over a desirable piece of land. This greed leads to injustice and goes on to
murder. It results in the ignoble ruin of his descendents and the violent death
of his wife. The story is a vivid depiction of how sin is destructive even in
this life. Leaving God and his law out of calculation is already to take a path
that is self-defeating. Taking the easy way to attain selfish satisfaction is
the first step in a way that terminates in death.
In the Gospel today our Lord shows the opposite path. By
choosing to be patient, to deny selfish interests, even to submit to insult and
injury rather than seek vengeance or remain resentful, we can become truly meek
of heart. It was just such meek endurance of bad treatment, such self-denial that
Jesus not only taught with words but put into practice. His behavior did indeed
pass through death, but a death that was but a passage to eternal glory in the
light of the Father’s love. It is just such a death that we celebrate here
today at this altar. May we receive the grace in this communion to follow the
way of faith and meekness that ends in the fullness of life in the Kingdom of
the Father. &
Abbot John Eudes Bamberger
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