Thursday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 488

None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.

For if we live, we live for the Lord,

and if we die, we die for the Lord;

so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.

For this is why Christ died and came to life,

that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

We often hear this New Testament reading during funerals. The death of a loved one leaves a gaping rent in the fabric of human relationships, and Saint Paul reminds us of our dependence on one another. Whether I am helpless and needy or strong and resourceful, my life means nothing without those around me.

This issue, in one form or another, often comes up in my discussions with the Veterans in the substance abuse program. Many of these men and women have little experience of religion and their "belief system," such as it is, reinforces a life of loneliness, a one-way track into isolation and misery. They aspire to "go it alone" like "heroes" and "individuals." I remind them that the word individual is genetically related to divide and division.

When one fellow boldly declared, "We are born alone and we die alone!" I asked him, "Wasn't your mother there?"

Health professionals see with increasing concern an epidemic of loneliness in the United States. Many people readily abandon spouses, children, family, friends and church to pursue financial opportunities in distant places. Some, like the Oklahoma farmers who fled the 1930's drought, and the African-Americans who fled the southern states, have little choice but to migrate. That "flight" continues today as small American towns disappear. 

Many old people, who chose to keep their families small and affordable, have only a virtual connection to their distant children and grandchildren, via electronics. Missing the touch, smell and bother of intimate family, they find solace in animal companions. Often, in their bitter disappointment, they insist that dogs are better people than people. 

Unfortunately, some Christian expressions celebrate the heroic isolation of Jesus as if we should imitate it. He appears to have come from nowhere and is going nowhere. Certainly the Gospel of Saint Mark describes an isolated Messiah, but it also shames Christian disciples for deserting the Lord in his hour of need. Saint Luke, on the other hand, describes a man with family and friends who is neither isolated nor abandoned. Even during his passion and death the disciple Simon of Cyrene helped him; and sympathetic women followed him to Calvary., observed his crucifixion from afar, and the place of his burial. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is always in deep communion with his Father, and willingly gives himself to the Father. 

A renewed appreciation of the Holy Trinity must remind us of what God said in the first place, "It is not good to be alone." The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit continually defer to one another. There is no Father without the Son; nor Son without the Father; and yet there is only one God. 

As they struggle to set aside the habits of substance abuse, I urge the Veterans to seek substantial relations with their loved ones, and to sacrifice their isolation for the welfare of others. Some have been astonished to hear me insist that, "Your individuality is a deathtrap." In the VA's SARRTP (Substance Abuse Rehabilitation Residential Program) they experience true friendship and mutual support which opens the path to freedom.