HOMILY

2^nd july 2006 – 13^th sunday of ordinary time (b) – day for life

 

              Ninety years ago yesterday, at about 7.30 in the morning, the Battle of the Somme commenced. The loss of life was terrible. The allied powers had been bombarding the German front and had assumed that there would be no German resistance left, but they were very wrong. When the order was given for the British and French soldiers to go ‘over the top’, the Germans were there and just mowed them down in a hail of bullets. The Battle went on until November and by the end of it a million servicemen were dead. It was, of course, just one battle in a war that left ten million dead. It’s estimated that some 62 million died in the Second World War which was fought principally against the racist Nazi regime of Germany. The numbers are difficult to comprehend. And it has been argued, persuasively I think, that the experiences of war in the 20^th century contributed greatly to the loss of hope and the loss of the sense of the sacredness of life that we have experienced in recent years. The answer to every problem seems to be: ‘more killing.’

              One of the ironies of history is that, in World War II, the Allied Powers were fighting to defeat a regime that was implementing a programme of eugenics: the so-called “cleansing” of the human race of those of inferior intelligence or genetically inherited diseases. And yet this is what is being practised now on a grand scale, particularly in this country.

              Last month it was reported that British doctors had developed a new test to detect genetic disorders in embryos. But rather than seeking to correct the disorder, the problematic embryos are excluded and only healthy ones are used for implantation during the IVF process. As Josephine Quintavalle of Comment on Reproductive Ethics commented: “It is not about taking an embryo and curing it, but about diagnosing and then throwing away.” A spokesman for the British Council of Disabled People warned: “Screening out autism would breed a fear that anyone who is different in any way will not be accepted. It would create a society where only perfection is valued.”

              In the Daily Mail recently, a mother of an autistic 11-year-old, Danny, said she was “appalled” by the news of the test. She knew from personal experience the difficulties of having a child with autism but said that “the ‘problem’ lies not with autism itself but with the way in which our society responds to it.” She said: “Yes, caring for him can be draining and isolating, but I can unequivocally say that Danny is the best thing that has ever happened to me and the idea that we might have somehow been ‘better off’ if he had never been born is intolerable.”

              There are strange contradictions in the attitude of society today to people with disabilities which is summed up by the motto of today’s Day for Life: “What is the use of access ramps to buildings, if I don’t have access to life?” On the one hand there is a Disability Discrimination Act which requires any service provider to ensure equal access to people who are disabled, and yet an unborn child’s life can be terminated for something as trivial as a cleft lip. Many of you will remember Pat Berry, one of our parishioners who suffered all his life with Cystic Fibrosis. If he, as an embryo, had been subjected to the tests which are available today, he would have been washed down the sink, and so would many of his family too. Yet he lived a full life and all who knew him were enriched by his friendship.

Since the Catholic Church defends the sacredness of all human life from its beginning to its natural death, regardless of the condition of that human life, it is to be expected that there will be a greater number of people with disabilities in Catholic communities. It is therefore a duty for us to welcome them, and to support and assist them in whatever way they need. They can feel themselves to be a burden. They can experience frustration and isolation. They share the same ambitions that able bodied or able minded people have, yet access is often difficult or impossible.

              When it comes to care, particularly if they become seriously ill or in danger of death, they are more likely to be victims of euthanasia by neglect than others as their lives may be considered of lesser worth.

              The Church’s and Christ’s approach to human suffering is so different to that of the secular world of today. The response to problems in the secular world – an unplanned pregnancy, a possible defect in an unborn child, suffering experienced at a later stage in life… is kill, kill, kill. The Christian response is: life, love.

              The reading from the Book of Wisdom today tells us: “To be – for this he created all.” To be. To live. All things are created by God for life, and to serve life and produce life… The more life, the better… even if is not perfect. “God (made) man imperishable, he made him in the image of his own nature.” We live forever. The embryos considered ‘not fit for purpose’ that are washed down the sink, the babies that are killed before they are born because of their disabilities – they live forever. They have souls. “It was the devil’s envy that brought death into the world, as those who are his partners will discover.” There are many partners of the devil today, dear friends, promoting a culture of death. But there are many heroic partners of Christ who are so generous and self-sacrificing for their disabled family members and friends, and parents who have fought for their little sick children, showing a love which knows no bounds, doing everything possible for that child, witnessing to the fact that that child is worth everything, “made in the image of (God’s) own nature.”

Christ raises up. He went to the little girl in Capernaum whom everyone else had given up for dead and said: “Little girl, I tell you to get up.” And she got up. And we need, in our own way, to encourage one another, regardless of our abilities, to “get up”, not out of a wheelchair, not out of a limited brain capacity, but to join fully in our community, to be accepted as fully alive and worthy of our love.

Fr John Boyle

Brookfield Road, Ashford, Kent, TN23 4EU. Tel/fax: + 44 (0)1233 622399.
email:  stsimon@stsimon.org.uk blog: South Ashford Priest