Sermons from the Latins/Sermon 12
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany.
Suicide.
"Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith." — Matt. viii. 26.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex. : 1. Process of despair. II. Popular sentiment. III. Church's stand.
I. Fifth command : 1. Suicide is murder. 2. Worse. 3. God sole arbiter of life and death.
II. Crime: 1. Against Nature and society. 2. Self-preservation. 3. Scandal and cowardice.
III. Causes and remedies : 1. Judas. 2. Materialism. 3. Christian education.
Per. : The restraining influence of Christianity.
SERMON.
"If God so bounteously feedeth the fowls of the air, if He so gorgeously clotheth the flowers of the field, how much more you, O ye of little faith! "
Loss of faith in God's protecting providence, loss of love for God and humanity, loss of strength to endure life's temptations and hardships, consequent sins innumerable and revolting crimes, no joy in the present, no hope for the future, despair and a suicidal death, these are the rounds in the fatal stairway by which many a poor soul has gone down to hell forever. There is something simply awful in the growing tendency of the modern individual to take in hand the precious gift of life and fling it back in the face of his Creator. A growing tendency, I say, for as society gradually and logically resolves itself into its two great moral constituents, Catholicity and Infidelity, the out-and-out infidel becomes more numerous and more reckless, and his final symptom, the suicidal mania, assumes a more intense form. Witness in our own country the steady flow of thousands from Protestantism into absolute infidelity, and witness at the same time the hundreds and thousands of these same men and women, aye, and children, too, who annually launch themselves violently into eternity. So much of an institution has self-destruction become that the suicide is extolled as a hero, weak-minded women shower sentiment and flowers on his casket, weak-kneed ministers pour out their sickening eulogies, and even wise men and good shake their heads and say: " Poor fellow, there was nothing else left for him to do; his last act was the redeeming feature of his life." Why, there actually exist societies of men, bound, in certain events, to suicide by oath. Last week one of our leading dailies asserted that neither from Scripture nor from reason can suicide be proved unlawful. Out west a monster of a woman recommends self-destruction to the insane and deformed, and should they refuse, she urges they be murdered, even though the victims be her own children. Not long ago, in France, an army officer, degraded for high treason, found a sword and revolver placed ready in his cell, and thousands of French apostates howled and gnashed their teeth at him, because he declined to redeem, as they thought, the national honor by taking his own life. The defaulter, the criminal brought to bay, sentimental lovers and seekers after notoriety, captains of sinking ships and generals of routed armies, and even men with every worldly advantage, but still tired of life, all seek in suicide a happy release, and are popularly extolled for their self-respect and bravery. Facts like these show the popular tendency.
But there is one institution, the Catholic Church, that takes a bold stand against this horrible modern mania. She spurns from her sanctuary and her consecrated soil, the vile body of the suicide, she bans his action as an outrage against society, against Nature and against God. She denounces him as a selfish coward, and while charitably recommending him to God's mercy in her private devotions, she neither entertains herself nor holds out to others much hope of his ultimate salvation. In a word, though from a popular standpoint there be crimes of a darker hue than suicide, there is none other by which from a Catholic standpoint a man so utterly renounces his religion and his God.
" Thou shalt not kill." Christ Himself tells us that all of the ten commandments are summed up in these two: " Thou shalt love God above all things, and thy neighbor as thyself; " " Thou shalt not kill," therefore, is but a negative way of asserting the positive duty of justice and love man owes to his fellowman. But not only to his fellowman, but also to himself does man owe this duty. " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The one and the same law, therefore, equally forbids murder and self-destruction, and consequently the deliberate suicide is as guilty in the sight of God as the perpetrator of murder in the first degree. And since, as St. John says, " Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer," therefore, also whosoever desires to take his own life but stays his hand for some purely secular consideration, is a suicide in the sight of God and equally with the murderer forfeits, for the time at least, all claim to eternal life. Nay, more, suicide is more heinous even than murder. The nearer the relationship between the murderer and his victim the more revolting the crime. One citizen kills another; shocking! A man slays his brother; horrible! A mother strangles her child; demoniacal! A man commits suicide, embodying in his own person the red-handed destroyer and the writhing victim, and you will find no word in any language strong enough to fully express the hideous nature of his crime. Suicide is a direct usurpation of God's most exclusive prerogative, as sole arbiter of life and death. In the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy, verse 39, God says, " I alone am, and there is no other God besides Me. I will kill and make to live. I will strike and I will heal, and there is none that can deliver out of My hands," and in the Book of Wisdom, chapter xvi., verse 13, Solomon exclaims, " It is Thou, O Lord, that hast power of life and death, and leadest down to the gates of death and bringest back again!" Since, then, the union of spirit and matter, to form the composite man, is in nowise subject to man's choice, neither is his preservation in existence, which, after all, is but a continuation of the creative act. To assert that man, on attaining the use of reason and freedom of choice, may lawfully reject the gift of being, is to stultify the action of the Creator and arraign Him of tyrannous injustice in having afflicted us for years with existence without possibility of escape. Man is lord of the universe, yes, but his dominion over created things cannot be said to include his own life. In fact, dominion implying, as it does, two distinct terms, the possessor and the thing possessed, cannot possibly exist between factors so essentially one as man and his own being. Besides, the law of man's dominion over mundane things points, as to an end, to his own preservation in existence. Now, every schoolboy knows the ethical axiom, that the end of the law cannot fall under the law, and consequently no man can have over himself absolute powers of life and death. Man is for God, as the lower creatures are for man, and even as they acknowledge man's dominion, so must man acknowledge the dominion of God. God's words to the newly-created Adam are deeply significant. He placed him in the earthly paradise, " to dress it and to keep it," saying, " I have given you dominion over all creatures. Of the tree of life thou mayest eat, but of the tree of death thou must not eat." Man's function as high priest of the universe is not to destroy, but to preserve, not to disobey, like a faithless steward, the will of his master, and usurp his rights, but to order all things through himself and with himself to God.
Brethren, suicide is a crime, not only against God, but also against Nature, and society. Every form of animal life, and even the members of the vegetable kingdom, instinctively resist destruction. Nature's primary law is self-preservation. Now, the natural law is simply the eternal law of God reflected in the instincts and judgments of His creatures. The light of the setting sun and its glowing reflection in the western ocean are not more identical than the natural law and the eternal law. Under Nature's guidance animals struggle for existence, nourish themselves, propagate their species, and in general strive to attain their highest material development. But the highest perfection of man, half animal, half angel as he is, involves the subordination of the natural to the supernatural, the making of his material nature into a kind of Jacob's ladder whereby his soul may climb to higher things. But though this elevating of the spirit above the flesh be praiseworthy in the spiritual sense, nothing will justify a man in separating his soul from his body in the literal sense, however exalted his motives. For life is the standing place, the fulcrum of all his efforts upward, and without life he would be as one who should attempt to stand on empty space and move the world. It is an eloquent commentary on the reasoning powers of many that irrational instinct is a safer guide, for brute beasts never destroy themselves, whereas the suicide is led by a mistaken judgment into irreparable misfortune to escape some lesser evil. This proves, too, the absolute universality of Nature's first law, " preserve thyself," for self-destruction, after all, is but a mistaken means of self-preservation. But how, you ask, how do you explain these words of Ecclesiasticus, chapter xxx., verse 17, " Better is death than a bitter life, and everlasting death than continual sickness " ? Brethren, many things highly desirable in themselves become evil when procured by unlawful means. The death of a tyrant is a popular blessing, but his assassination a horrible crime. Death is often a happy release, but death in the order of Nature. A mother may wish her child's death-agony ended, but should she strangle him she is guilty of infanticide, and the man who lays violent hands on himself is, as we have said, more guilty in the sight of God than the most atrocious murderer.
Brethren, besides the law of Nature, there is also the law of society. Aristotle taught that the citizens belonged to the state, so that self-destruction would be an infringement of state rights. Now, although no modern government holds such a claim, still every well-ordered community must demand a practical application of the precept, " Love thy neighbor as thyself." Still more, as regards suicide, I firmly believe a man is bound to love his fellowman even better than himself. To procure one's own good, or apparent good, by means that is sure to shock and scandalize the community is, I take it, unworthy of a Christian and a man. St. Paul was the ideal citizen, and it is St. Paul who says, " If by eating meat I scandalize my brother, I shall never eat meat in aeternum." And here it is the suicide's selfishness shows itself. His life has become a burden, difficulties confront him, disgrace stares him in the face, he becomes sentimental and morose, he despairs, and ends it all in death. And men, mind you, are wonderfully imitative; suicide easily becomes epidemic, and will you tell me that he who leads that grim march to destruction has nothing to answer for for those who follow? But what cares he? What thought has he of the children left destitute, of the heartbroken wife, of the mother's gray hairs bowed in shame and sorrow, of the hundreds financially ruined by his folly, and the thousands of young souls scandalized by his mad act? Men say, " What courage he must have had to do it," but truth to say, he was an arrant coward. He shirked life's sacred duties; when the moment came for him to charge on the rank and file of this world's difficulties he turned and fled like a hireling. We may bend and we may bleed under life's crosses, but the silent, patient bearing of them calls out the noblest qualities of our natures and is the true test of heroism. The man who, with the eyes of his country on him, amid the frenzy of battle and to the sound of martial music, seeks glory at the cannon's mouth, would probably prove anything but a heroin the long drawn-out endurance of this world's trials, with no hope of commendation or reward this side of the grave. Courage cannot be tested in a single act, least of all the act of a suicide.
Brethren, it remains to briefly point out the cause of suicide and its remedy. Judas betrayed his Saviour, and went out and hanged himself. Loss of faith in the supernatural, loss of hope in the future, loss of charity for God and mankind, in a word, materialism is a fruitful source of this, as of every other crime. What is the remedy? Education of the mind? No; for it often happens the most highly cultured kill themselves. No, the remedy is education of the heart, Christian education. Hold up to a man the high ideals of the Christian faith, imbue him with its spirit of self-sacrifice, teach him the value of his soul, the transitory nature of this life, the existence of a hereafter of happiness or woe; in a word, teach him his duties to God, his neighbor and himself, and never, trust me, will his hand be raised against his own life. Amid the trials and afflictions of this world he will forget his own while alleviating those of others, and even in the worst possible crisis he will hearken to the voice of his Redeemer, " Come to Me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you and you shall find peace for your souls."