Respect Human Life in All Its Stages

08-16-2015Weekly ReflectionFr. Brian Jazdzewski

Recent scuttlebutt in the media has provided coverage about exotic animals being killed and some efforts to prevent those actions. We have also heard, of more important value, about the unfortunate choices of Planned Parenthood, which did some rather nasty things with aborted babies all under the cover of improving human health. I hope you, like many other people of good will, found the paradox in these stories and have made choices to defend life; especially human life. As Catholics we have consistently taken the approach that all human life has value in all of its stages. Our phrase is: from conception through natural death. So, of course, the protection of innocent life, particularly the unborn, is of utmost concern. There is, however, a lot more lives to consider when thinking about the disabled, the handicapped, the elderly, the homebound, the hospitalized and the dying, just to categorize a few.

In recent weeks I’ve been aware of the endless list of parishioners who are either seriously ill themselves, or have a close family member who is ill. Honestly, Deacon Wendt and I hear about three new situations each week; that has been the pattern for a good share of summer. We do make an intentional effort to pray for our parish members. And, by way of reminder, we make an intentional effort to visit with those who are ill; we do need the person themselves or a close family member to invite us to reach out; neighbors, friends and hearsay unfortunately does not qualify. And, whether its known to you or not, Deacon Wendt spends a considerable amount of hours each week fulfilling his diaconal role by visiting homebound and infirm members of our parishes. Please pray for his ministry; the visits can be a bit exhausting at times.

Many of us know exactly what exhausting visits to homes of the elderly or infirm is about. Frequently the person is not in a really good mood, maybe they are really in pain, perhaps we just don’t know what to talk about, or whatever may be the cause of making these visits challenging. Those, and other reasons, are why we rationalize not calling or paying visits. We put it off until another day and then realize weeks have passed since we were in touch. Our priorities can distract us from tending to the lives within our midst until, someone dies, and then we are overwhelmed with the thoughts of what we should have been doing. Maybe guilt can be a motivator here?

Guilt, or its avoidance, can inspire us to do some things we would rather not do. Consider how good the roads and weather are this time of year, consider how we are not distracted by an academic schedule, Thanksgiving or Christmas, consider how we are not suffering from the common cold or flu. These real practical reasons ought to help us discover that now is the time to be visiting, now is the time to reach out to our elderly or infirm family members. Often we fail to remember that respecting life in all of its stages means we take time to spend time with our family members. Our time with them is not measured by what we talk about, our time is measured by the fact that we cared. Those brief moments may be all it takes for them to realize that someone cared, someone stopped to visit, someone stopped to call. That event may distract them for hours and alleviate the physical or emotional pain that troubles them so much. Use these beautiful days of summer and upcoming autumn to show respect for life from conception through natural death.