First published April 5, 2007
I’ve always enjoyed Holy Thursday the most of all Holy Week liturgies. I guess the music at Mass had a lot to do with it. We get to sing: Table Song, Bread for the World, Now We Remain, We Have Been Told, Take and Eat, We Remember, and as a Psalm, Our Blessing Cup (my most favourite setting by Bob Hurd). I also really love the washing of the feet. Once, while at York University I had my feet washed. While a simple act, it was very humbling.
When we re-enacted the Passion for Good Friday, or for specials like INRI (airing Good Friday @ 9am, 6pm & 10pm ET), I also always enjoyed best the scene of the Last Supper. I loved saying the words: “baruch atah adonai, eloheinu, melah haolam…” “blessed are you Lord, our God, King of the Universe….”, which are the words of the blessing of the bread and wine, which Jesus would have used. I learned these while working at a Jewish Summer camp one summer. Before and after every meal we prayed: “Blessed are you Lord, our God, King of the Universe who brings forth bread from the earth.” And then, “Blessed are you Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.” I used to love that simple prayer.
Last Sunday, Sheri, the boys and I gathered at our friends’ home for the first of many (we hope) Pesach celebrations, or Passover meals together. None of us are Jewish, but as Christians, we wondered why we don’t celebrate all Jewish holidays. Afterall, the Jewish people are our spiritual ancestors. Jesus did come to bring a new covenant and we believe that the Mass, the paschal sacrifice, replaces the Passover meal. But, it is also good to remember.
“We remember how you loved us, to your death, and still we celebrate for you are with us here. And we believe that we will see you when you come in your Glory, Lord. We remember, we celebrate, we believe.” These are the words of the refrain of Marty Haugen’s We Remember. That is part of what we are called to do when we “do this in memory” of Him: remember. And the Jewish people are so good at remembering.
During Passover, we remember the exodus from Egypt. We read the Haggadah, or “story”. This is the story of Moses and of the Jewish people who were enslaved in Egypt; The story of the 10 plagues and of the crossing of the Red Sea. It is a story of liberation, of redemption and of salvation. These are the four cups of Wine that are poured and drunk during the meal: the Cup of Blessing, the Cup of Memory, the Cup of Redemption and the Cup of Hope and Salvation. It is this last cup, at the end of the meal, when Jesus said, “this is my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all, so that sins will be forgiven.” The Jewish people understand suffering and sacrifice and atonement.
Some more contemporary Passover celebrations remember the six million Jews and others who were killed in Europe by evil forces. Evil forces that turned against all that is sacred to Jews, Christians and all other people for whom human life is sacred.
On Sunday, my family and I, and our friends remembered with reverence those men, women and children who have died at the hands of tyrants. We remembered all those who suffered persecution, injustice, poverty and shame. We remembered Anne Frank who said, “It’s really a wonder that I haven’t lost my ideals because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” She wrote this three weeks before she was sent to a concentration camp, a camp where she died.
Most of all, what struck me was how many times we gave thanks. At one point, after the reading of the Haggadah, we all read the “Dayenu”, “for that alone we would have been grateful”. It goes something like this:
How thankful we must be to God for all the good He has done for us.
If He had brought us out from Egypt, and had not fed us the manna in the desert…
Dayenu, for that alone we would have been grateful.
If He had fed us the manna, and had not brought us before Mount Sinai…
Dayenu, for that alone we would have been grateful.
If He had brought us before Mount Sinai, and had not given us the Torah, the Law…
Dayenu, for that alone we would have been grateful.
If He had given us the Torah, and had not brought us into the land of Israel…
Dayenu, for that alone we would have been grateful.
Oh that we were so thankful about everything.
I’ve always believed in the importance of being thankful. We want our children to grow up with this habit. But after celebrating the Passover meal, I have a new idea of what it means to be thankful after a meal. The Bible commands us to give thanks to God after eating a meal. It says, in Deuteronomy 8:10, “When you have eaten and are satisfied you shall thank the Lord our God for the good land which he has given you.” and so, after the meal, we gave thanks, but it’s not called, “thanks after the meal”, it’s called, “blessings after the meal.” How did we give thanks? Well, how the Jewish people give thanks: we praised God for His goodness, for “his kindness is everlasting”, using the words of many Psalms, and we blessed the Lord. We didn’t say, “bless us, oh Lord and this food”, we said, “blessed are YOU, Lord our God. Blessed are You! You are most awesome, you are the best.” Baruch atah adonai, eloheinu melah haolam…
Then after eating and drinking and praying and laughing we asked God to “inspire us to nobler living and to draw us closer to Him.” We asked that we may plan and live our daily lives with the “same zeal that we have prepared for this day.” I can’t imagine a better celebration to have been the “Last Supper.” To have been the institution of the Eucharist and of the priesthood and to prepare Jesus and all the disciples for what was to come in the next couple of days. May we too be blessed and empowered by tonight’s Eucharistic Celebration for what is to come in the next three days.
Pedro
First published March 30, 2007
We love receiving emails and phone calls from our friends and viewers! Just this week I heard from a priest who received our message regarding our documentary, Turning the Tide: Dignity, Compassion and Euthanasia, which will premiere on S+L this Sunday, April 1st at 9:00pm ET (and rebroadcast on Wednesday April 4th at 9pm ET). The documentary features several people who, because of personal experience, claim that if Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide were to be legal, they would be the targets. They also speak on behalf of the most vulnerable: the elderly, the terminally ill and the disabled.
One of these people is Bobby Schindler, Terri ’s brother. For those who may not recall the Terri Schiavo case of two years ago, she was a young woman, who due to mysterious circumstances (to this day, no one knows what happened to her), had a “collapse” when oxygen could not reach the brain, which led to brain damage. You will recall that some people claimed that Terri’s collapse was due to her alleged struggles with an eating disorder. Some claim that her husband, Michael Schiavo is to blame for her “passing out” that morning, some 16 years ago. Skip ahead 14 years, after receiving virtually no therapy and no treatment (she was basically warehoused in various nursing homes and hospices), by court order (and the wishes of Michael Schiavo), she was dehydrated and starved to death. She died on March 31st, 2005.
The email I received, expressed concern that Bobby Schindler was in Turning the Tide, because, this email claimed, Terri Schiavo was not euthanized: She was in a vegetative state, showing no brain activity, and therefore she was already dead.
At first, I was a bit confused; hearing from a Catholic priest who said that what happened to Terri Schiavo was not Euthanasia. But in reading his explanation, it all became clear. The issue with Terri was whether she was already “dead” and simply had to be “let go”. For her brother Bobby and her family, she was clearly not dead. She was responsive and had brain activity. For Michael Schiavo, she might as well have been dead, had no ‘quality of life’ and had expressed a desire in life not to be kept in such a state.
But let’s not be confused. The position of the Church is very clear. Our priest friend is right. When someone is already dead, ie. if they require extra-ordinary care, as in a respirator, without which they would not be alive, then, in effect, they are already dead. Disconnecting them from this machine is not euthanasia, it is not murder. It is letting them die a natural death.
I don’t think there is much of an issue here. We don’t need to see brain activity to determine if someone is dead or not. If the lungs and heart are working on their own, as in the case of Terri, then, the person is alive. The only care Terri required was a feeding tube, so she could eat. In the absence of the feeding tube, she could have been fed by hand, like we feed infants or other people who cannot feed themselves. Despite what the laws in most states say, this is not extra-ordinary care, or medical treatment. This is feeding. It is ordinary, basic care.
And what of brain activity? Who says that those with no brain activity should be killed? Besides, as you will see very clearly in Turning the Tide, Terri was responsive; she follows the doctor and her mother with her eyes. She follows a balloon with her eyes and she turns her head when asked. She even vocalizes in response to her mother’s voice and to music.
So, what happened to Terri Schiavo? The courts decided that her husband could determine her fate, despite the fact that there were others, namely her parents and her siblings, who would have gladly brought her home and cared for her, and since she was considered a “non-person”, with no brain activity (which could be disputed), they detached her feeding tube and starved her to death. That is not a natural death. That is euthanasia.
We love getting your emails and phone calls. Please continue to do so. You can also add your comments to this blog.
And let us know what you think of Turning the Tide. We love that you are watching. But we love it more when you write to tell us about it.
PEDRO
First published March 23, 2007
This is a Lenten Reflection that we aired as part of the S+L Magazine in 2004. These couple of days, I’ve been thinking about loss and life, growth and God’s Grace, mercy and plan, so since it’s Lent, I thought it would be good to remember these words.
-Pedro
This morning my son came into our room, upset because something he had built had broken. That little boy used to be me – trying so hard to hold on, grab on, cling on to moments – trying so hard to stay a child forever – to not have to ever change… “It’s ok”, my wife, Sheri, said to him, “you can fix it. You can re-build it”. “No!” he cried, “it was hard work”. It was hard work.
And so it is… we work so hard to figure out who we are, where we fit in, in this world, and where we belong. We work so hard to figure out the rules but they keep on changing — the world keeps on changing — we keep on changing, no matter how hard we try to stay the same…
“Father, take this cup away from me… but not my will, but yours be done.”
Growing up was full of endings and beginnings: winters and springtimes, leaving home, going to university, finding work, getting married having children… Children who continually take me right back to where I started… Children who continually remind me that I am not perfect, that I need help — that I need God…
“Father, into Your hands I commend my Spirit…”
And every day life is full of mini-struggles: mini-desert experiences, mini-agonies in the garden, mini-crucifixions, mini deaths — deaths that are oh so necessary to bring forth new life.
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
And how can we teach our children this? How can we help to make it easier for them? Just when they begin to feel at home, we uproot them by send them to a new school. How can we help them feel safe and at the same time help them accept that change is inevitable — change is necessary…
“It’s ok”, I said, “you needed to put it away anyway.” “But it was hard work!” he said, crying now. “You need to take it apart so you can build new things,” Sheri said.
It’s the taking apart that is so painful, so scary. And I am just now beginning to understand that I am not ever me at any given moment — rather, I am always changing. This is what is hard to teach: that life is change, change is growth, growth is love, love is God, and God… God is life.
“It was hard work,” he said, again and again, crying as we held him. That’s all we could do: help him feel safe — giving him a bit of strength for the journey that is to come.
“It was hard work,” I said, “Come, let’s build a new one” and with that, despite the little death that had just happened a new life was begun…
First published March 16, 2007
If you didn’t give up going to the movies for Lent, here are two suggestions:
I just saw a great film: Bridge to Terabithia. What can I say without giving it away? It is a wonderful, fun, meaningful tale of friendship and hope, faith and despair, kindness, compassion, loss and growth. It is not a religious film. I don’t even know if the author of the book or the film makers intended it to be so, but it left me feeling the same way I do after a meaningful spiritual experience. I felt the same way after watching another film many years ago: Before Sunrise. In it, two strangers meet on a train in Europe and spend the night together while waiting for the next train. But don’t get me wrong: they don’t ‘spend the night together’ in the way that expression is often used. Instead, they talk and walk and get to know each other. One may think that doesn’t make for much in a film, but for me, it was very much the kind of experience that makes us grow. Plus, it’s a film with no profanity, no nudity and no violence. Imagine that!
I recommend everyone to go see Bridge to Terabithia or wait for the DVD to come out. It is a definite must for all kids ages 11-13. But parents, make sure you go with them; there may be lots to talk about afterwards. If you liked Narnia and How To Eat Fried Worms, you’ll love this one.
Another film that just came out in the U.S. and England is: Amazing Grace. This film tells the story of William Wilberforce, the Member of Parliament who was responsible for putting an end to slavery in England. It is also the story of the hymn, since Wilberforce was inspired by the song’s author and former slave trader John Newton. I just found out that the film opens in Canada on Friday, March 23. I’m not sure if it will show in many theatres but it is distributed by Odeon Films. Go check it out.
Amazing Grace is one of those films that was made with the purpose of spreading the Gospel. Although it isn’t part of the Hollywood Machine and doesn’t have a blockbuster budget, this is part of the trend started by Mr. Gibson with the Passion of the Christ. Movies like this provide a chance for Hollywood execs to make money while the Good News is still spread. But that means that we, you and I, have to fill the seats. So, when Amazing Grace is released, go see it the first weekend it is out. That will ensure that it will continue to stay in the theatres and that other faith-related films will continue to be made.
Happy movie-viewing!
PEDRO
deacon pedro 