I appreciate the circle back to original sin. My heart certainly breaks for this mother, and I will admit I have not had a child sick like she does. With our first pregnancy, the ultrasound indicated a calcium deposit on our unborn child’s heart that <1% of the time can be indicative of Downs Syndrome. The MD reading the scan informed us that this <1% chance would be a “justifiable reason” for choosing to abort our child. 20 weeks later our daughter was born without any signs or symptoms of Downs Syndrome. My point is that our “choice” would have been “medically justifiable” because of the <1% odd, <1%! Prenatal testing is certainly not error-proof and does lead to missed diagnoses and errored diagnoses.

Similar story to JMS. Prenatal testing of my wife indicated that my daughter had a 60% chance of Downs Syndrome. The doctors wanted to do a more invasive test that would make sure. I asked if there were risks to the baby…they said there were but they were small. I asked if the tests could be used to help the baby prenatally. They said no, “but then you would know”. I said no to the tests. They insisted on “genetic counseling”. I said no. Either our child had Downs Syndrome, in which case I’d need Downs Syndrome counseling not “genetic counseling”, or she didn’t and counseling was a waste of time. From what I gather, “Genetic counseling” seems to be code for eugenics. So I prayed and offered my child to God.

She was born without Downs Syndrome and is now a joyful 5 month old that is just joyfully discovering that there are other foods beside mother’s milk.:-)

Had I not questioned authority or not placed myself in the hands of the
ultimate authority of God, ... I don’t want to think I’d be capable of letting my fears cause me to ....

I disagree what we ever get into the situation “When we have a choice, sometimes all of our options are bad.  What if we have the freedom of choice, but nothing good to choose? “. That would mean that God has left you no choice but to sin. There is always a good choice….choose God. Sometimes that’s all you can do. Place yourself in God’s hands and let him do with you what he wills and teach you what he wills. It may not be easy and it may involve suffering, but if you truly choose God, you will be the better for that choice.

JMS, I find it disturbing that a <1% chance of Down Syndrome caused your doctor to assume that your child’s life would not be worth living. Are there no circumstances under which a child can simply be allowed to come into the world without a doctor telling his or her parents that their life will never be worth bearing? This is a sad state of affairs, indeed, but Simcha, I think you’re completely right in pointing it all back to Original Sin. Concupiscence is as concupiscence does.

I think a lot of people nowadays fall into the idea trap of, “God wants me to be happy.” I haven’t found that anywhere in the Bible.  People have used that to justify getting remarried after a divorce, or have an affiar, or do any number of sinful things.  It drives me insane.

JMS, we had a similar experience with our fourth child.  During an early ultrasound (due to size, our children are always large at birth), the doctor said the nuchal fold was large for dates, and he kept pushing genetic counseling, amniocentesis, everything.  We refused, politely, but agreed for another ultrasound at 20 weeks.  My OB, when he looked the early ultrasound over, said, “But there aren’t any other soft markers for Down Syndrome, I don’t know why he’d tell you there’s a chance for that.”  Sure enough, at the 20 week ultrasound it was clear and our child is a healthy, happy 7 month old.

Simcha a timely post a I got into a prolife / prochoice argument before getting out of bed today (phone. Fb. Nursling).

Anyway we have a special needs little one. Now we are followed by genetica and explained how important prenatal testing is. I can’t help but feel it’s to “Save us” from another sick baby.

However if my firstborn could have had her abnormalities picked up on in utero (which should have been) she would have had such a better / safer arrival into the world. She very nearly almost died before they figured out her heart defect. So my advice is, whatever non invasive prenatal testing you can have (yes I know this is about the invasive kind. I don’t mean take any risks)—know as much as you can so you can better protect your baby. Also I don’t recommend feeling blindsided after birth, but that’s a lesser reason.

Thank you!!  And thank you for going back to the source (original sin)!  It irks me when people wish things they can’t change were different and their wishes (prayers?) are so paltry(my son is suffering because of a horrific, degenerative disability.  I wish I had aborted him.). Why not wish for something good (I wish my son were healthy.)???  Why not go back farther?  You can’t change it anyway.  But this is how small we think when God is absent or powerless because we think it’s all up to us!
This IS a valley of tears (but what a valley!!).  And yet, “oh, happy fault of Adam” (though I still have a hard time embracing that one).  My son DOES have Down Syndrome - I didn’t want prenatal testing; it didn’t make any difference.  I love HIM and wish he were healthy.  BUt it comforts me to know that God knows what He’s doing and that, though he can’t “offer it up” himself, by virtue of his baptism, my little boy’s suffering is joined to the redemptive work of Christ.  and my mama’s suffering at seeing it is a manifestation of my love for him - and I CAN choose to offer that up, rather than run away from it.  It’ the choice I AM given.
Thank you for your wonderful article - as always!

Simcha - your writing here is incredible.  You put to words so plainly and clearly what my heart is so often crying out.

Good GOOD! Staightforward and completely un-lacking as always. The comment above with a reference to The Bible was spot on.

@karen: God does indeed want us to be happy.  The problem is not that—rather that modern man does not understand what happiness is or where it can be found, and so sublimates the eternal good for the temporal.

I read this article yesterday and felt moved to comment on the original piece because it amazed me that no one, not the author or any of the commenters, believed that love and suffering can coexisist—that if someone is suffering they cannot possibly also be experiencing love. I can’t even pretend to know what the author is going through as a mother, nor what any of the parents who have commented here have experienced by having a child suffer, and I certainly can’t pretend to know what the child himself experiences, but it saddened me how easily it seemed suffering could overwhelm love. Like the scandal of original sin, I suppose that is also the scandal of the cross.

Beautifully written, Simcha.

Wow—what a great read to start the day! Thank you for expressing so well what is so hard to verbalize.  Your post kicks butt, and points straight to God. As it should be, always. (And I apologize for using butt and God in the same sentence.)

Elizabeth is my daughter.  We had no indication from any pre-natal testing of any issue.  We saw no concern for 5 months and then my world fell apart.  She was diagnosed with a terrible disability.  She physically suffered for 20 years before she passed from this life and was born into Heaven.  I prayed everyday for her release from this pain but never would I have wanted anything but her in my life.  I was not worthy to be the father of such a child.  I will say a prayer for this mother and I know Elizabeth will prayer for her as well.  There is a soul crushing helplessness that only a parent can feel.  At Easter time when I think of the tears falling from Heaven for Christ on the Cross, I believe that God knew my pain but through his much greater Love allowed his Son to suffer for love of us all.  There is no one to blame and even if there was it doesn’t make coping easier.  The Peace which passes all understanding is the only refuge.

Choice is a settled matter for those of us who accept the Church’s authority. The cultural issue of allowing choice in a society that includes people who do not share our belief is not settled. Our Lord encouraged, lamented, advised, and extolled people to repent - but he never tried to force anyone. I cannot see how imposing our beliefs on others is consistent with loving our neighbor as our selves.

I think it’s on cases like this that both sides of this issues profoundly misunderstand each other.

The pro-choice side sees abortion as a good thing. It is a good thing to abort a child such as this, a societal good and a personal good. It is a good thing to abort an “unwanted” child as well, even if healthy.

So in this case, the mother herself is telling the world it would have been good, noble, if she had aborted her child. Good for him. Maybe good for society. And good for her. And she really goes to the mat with this one, as she even claims that she would have been ok with her own mother aborting her.

Of course, this all rests on the shaky premise that the being pre-birth is not a person yet. I say shaky premise because there are some of course who believe that there should be a trial period where parents could euthanise their newborns as well [see Peter Singer]. Perhaps the only reason this isn’t done is because it’s not legal. Our laws can affect affect our morality, they are not just a reflection of it.

This is the natural destination of atheism.

My heart breaks for this mother, I have read her story before. I pray she can feel God’s love for her and her child, even through this agony.

I think the biggest flaw in the original Slate article is that Rick Santorum himself as a child with a terminal birth defect as well. So yes, he and his wife are walking this road of agony along with this mother, and will most likely see their daughter die before them as well.

A++. Powerful good piece. Ann’s comment directly above is very astute as well.

This subject is so very close to my heart. My daughter was born with a severe heart defect, and she died at the age of four months. Her entire life was filled with suffering. I didn’t know of her defect before her birth, but I can say without the least hesitation that I would not have chosen to abort her.
The mother of the suffering child writes that her son’s life is completely without joy, that his life is nothing but pain. How does she know this? Who knows what he experiences in his soul?
I know that my daughter’s life was valuable, and that God allowed her suffering - and mine - for a purpose. When we begin to be the judges of what constitutes “quality” of life, we tread on dangerous ground.

Amen Simcha. Very well put. So many incredible comments too.

@Causus: You are right, i should have clarified, but it was time to start morning lessons here.  God does want us to be happy, but the definition of “happy” in our culture is very different from the happiness God has in mind for us.

Insightful and beautifully written, as usual.

It is interesting that some people have been formed to respond to seeing suffering with a wish for death.

One of my children spent almost two months struggling to live in an ICU at a big, busy hospital (he is fine).  While we were there the majority of the children who came in died.  Not easy, peaceful deaths, but scary, painful, frightening deaths.  I never knew such places existed.  Most of the nurses were wonderful people.  One in particular stood out.  She was in her 40s and a Catholic.  I asked her how she had the strength to work in such a place.

She admitted that many days after leaving work she would have to sit in her parked car and cry for a half hour before driving home.  But she said that she felt so blessed, when a child was suffering at the end, to have a chance to give whatever comfort and love she could.  She was so happy to serve.

It is not that we have to choose this suffering or that suffering.  It is that when we suffer (or see suffering) we have to learn to respond with love, not fear.  We just have to learn to love and desire life and goodness, no matter how painful, rather than to wish annilhilation.  We cannot flee, and when we really learn how to love, we don’t want to.

The biggest lie of modernity is that we can even hope for a life that is without suffering.

People who “question authority” are rarely seeking actual answers. The teachings of the Church are questioned all the time, but the question is never “why”—they’ve already reached their own answers and are merely rebelling rather than seeking to learn. This article brings to mind two quotes from Chesterton: “Real love always ends in bloodshed,” and “[Original Sin] is the only part of Christian theology that can really be proved.” It seems that the poor, suffering mother could be missing the point of her son’s life. The real love she feels through her own (and his) suffering, would never have been possible had she aborted him. Perhaps his difficult life is meant for her intellectual growth and for an elevated degree of real compassion and empathy that brings her closer to real love—closer to God. Perhaps the suffering brought on by Original Sin is not a flaw in the design, but rather the purpose of God, the whole point of His cosmic idea—that through suffering we find real love. It’s just so hard to see when we are submerged in pain.

Whoa.  What a piece!  This is profound stuff here.  @ Simcha: how is it that your writing just continues to get better all the time?  Thank you for the inspiration.

I’ve been thinking recently, too, about the effects of Original Sin on this world and on the impact of evil in general.  It started with the reading on King David’s census and how God, after giving him the 3 choices, sent a pestilence that wiped out (was it?) 75,000 people.  That struck me as just so cruel and I really had a hard time wondering how/why our Merciful Lord would do such a thing.

It’s dawned on me that it is simply the effects of evil. Evil persists.  it doesn’t happen in a vacuum.  It affects all of us.  A man murders someone in a robbery and his wife and three kids suffer.  They didn’t do anything wrong, yet they grow up with a rough life and 17 years later, the oldest boy finds himself addicted to drugs, his sister is 15 years old and is pregnant and a meth-head, etc. etc.  The youngest daughter, dead in a car accident with 4 of her friends.  All the effects of one evil act.

It would be heartless to talk about this woman’s (in the article) suffering in a positive way - except for one thing.  God DOES allow suffering precisely BECAUSE of it’s redemptive value.  But such suffering is NOT POSSIBLE to bear without God.  Without God, how could it make any sense? 

Is it any better to have your son born, Joy of Joys, totally healthy, the “best boy” in the world, only to watch him grow up to be murdered before your eyes on the Cross?  Talk about horror!  2000 years later, we detach ourselves from the reality of this event - it’s just a 2 dimensional story.  But the agony of His Mother…. whoa.  Unimaginable.  Outside the context of God - it would be fatal.  But Mary wasn’t outside that context.  So she was able to bear it - but, no, she was not spared that pain.

Isn’t Lent the perfect time to immerse ourselves in the suffering of Christ?  We never know when evil will touch our lives - whether we “deserve” it or not.  No matter what, it is always an opportunity to give glory to God. 

To survive the evil and suffering in the world, or make any sense out of it, we must use His strength.  We can do nothing without God.

Wow.  Fantastic.  Great use of the ax / knife metaphor. 

As a parent of a special needs child (but nothing as severe as that In the essay) I can sympathize a good deal.  It comes down to, do I trust God, or not?  Sometimes I do, but it can be hard.  Sometimes I don’t.

Jeni - I understand what you’re saying, especially if knowing would have helped your daughter.  I’ve heard it can help with planning safer delivery with spina bifida, too.  But even if we’re talking about non-invasive testing, I still think there might be a problem.  As I understand it, pretty much all the non-invasive tests are only screening tests, and carry very high rates of false positives, so that amnio is always suggested as a follow-up confirmation.  And I think we all agree amnio is too risky to be morally justified.  So wouldn’t routine screening mean many many parents spending months fearful of conditions their children don’t actually have?  Myself, I spent two days thinking the alpha-fetal-protein (sp?) screening indicated a problem (got the test by mistake) after my doctor left a cryptic message for me.  It was horrible - I’m never going to let them do that test again.  Or is the testing you’re talking about both non-invasive and definitive?

To all the mothers who commented regarding their doctor’s insistence on further testing and subsequent recommendations for abortion, I hope and pray that you have switched doctors (if a pro-life doctor is available).

To all young women seeking an OB/GYN, make sure that he/she is pro-life or you will be advised similarly to the women above.

My wife had been going to the same OB/GYN for years before we met.  After we married and were expecting our first child, I went to one of the initial doctor’s visits.  While sitting in the waiting room, I was made aware (I don’t remember the details) that the OB/GYN performed abortions.  The person who shared this with me tried to reduce my shock by saying, “Oh, don’t worry, he doesn’t do them here”.  My wife and I made the decision then and there that the same hands that kill babies would not bring our daughter into the world.  We found a pro-life OB/GYN and she delivered our first 4 children with him. 

I share the story above because I understand that women tend to have a certain connection with their OB/GYN and find it hard to leave him/her over some bad advice.  I think when the decision is put in it’s proper perspective (these doctors are all part of the culture of death), it’s an easier choice to make.

The only quibble I’d make is that I’d say that choice *is* a good.  It is the hallmark of free will and free will was given to us because God wants us to be *able* to choose good.  Able to love.  Without choice, there is no human love.  But original sin is indeed the reason that the ability to choose good is often clouded and the choices to be made, even those for good, sometimes fraught with heartbreak.

“And I think we all agree amnio is too risky to be morally justified.”

Huh?  No, we do not all agree on that, I have read moral theologians who disagree with you, and in fact the principle of Double Effect totally applies here. (And, remember, the risk of miscarriage is quite low; arguing that no pregnant women should engage in behavior that risks miscarriage would eliminate large swaths of perfectly acceptable behavior.)

I had the amnio because I needed to know whether my son had D.S., not to abort him but to give him the care he needed (and to give myself peace of mind).  If I had not done it, we would not have discovered his serious heart defect, we would not have had the cardiologist present at his birth to make sure he would be ok and that the hospital staff would know how to treat him, and we would not have had the surgeon aware of the situation and ready to perform surgery when it was needed.  We also would not have monitored the pregnancy so closely, which means we would have missed the signs that my son went into distress at my due date—and he would have died, no question about it. 

I don’t agree with a lot of what the mother wrote in the article, but she is absolutely right that these screening methods simply provide information.  The information is not good or bad, what matters is what you do with it.

There is now the ability to test chromosomes without amnio - just through the mother’s blood.  No longer any need for amnio to check chromosomes, just a simple maternal blood test. As a former ICU nurse, I can tell you that babies with serious defects do much better when the issue is known ahead of time.  Some people just want the test in order to be best prepared to deal with the baby’s needs as soon as possible.

Simcha, this is genius.  I read the mother’s essay yesterday and was appalled and saddened by it, because she’s obviously a devoted mother in near-unbearable pain.  But I could not have begun to put into words the searing truths you express in this essay. 

I’m not a Catholic, but for a while now I’ve suspected that you are the unsung Wisest Person in America. This just about clinches it.

Wow - There are so many profoundly wise and beautiful comments to this piece…. @ Steve “I was not worthy to be the father of such a child” being one of them.  What a testimony to the beauty of Catholicism, that there is meaning, there is hope, there is beauty, there is life, there is power…in suffering. As a hospice nurse and the mother of a special needs child, I attest that there is no greater love and no greater beauty than to stand with the sufferer, like Mary at the foot of the Cross, as they suffer and die.  It is transformational, resurrective, holy, when witnessed with the eyes of faith.  I don’t know that I’ve been so proud to be Catholic as I am after reading the replies of so many of your readers, who I presume are everyday Catholics.  Thank you Jesus for dying for us so we can all access this beauty and truth in the suffering of our lives.  Let us all pray for this mother to see the meaning and beauty and to be able to say “I was not worthy to be the mother of such a child.”

Through her son’s suffering this mother can ask herself how he is teaching her to be more patient, loving, understanding, tolerant, etc rather than wishing she had aborted him. He could very well be the key to her getting to heaven. If she had a choice and did abort him she could have aborted her chance to be closer to God.

Most people want to choose their suffering away rather than seeing the gift suffering can be.

The first thing that comes to mind is the irony that Santorum would be very sympathetic towards her, considering he has dealt with this himself.  Simcha, you hit the nail on the head with this one.  Her anger is not with Santorum, the Republican party or pro-lifers, her anger is with the unfairness of living in a world where such suffering exists and where there is no way to completely prevent or eradicate it.  Even if every pro-lifer and Republican suddenly dropped off the face of the Earth, prenatal testing were 100% effective in screening out everything beforehand and no one protested abortion, there would still be suffering.  Children and adults would still get sick or hurt. What pro-choicers, (and those who support euthanasia) demand is an impossibility, the unimpeded ability to avoid suffering at all costs.  Plus, I’m not 100% sure that living in an earthly world (as opposed to heaven) completely devoid of pain would be all that wonderful.  In the novel “Brave New World” people who lived their whole existence in that perfectly controlled utopia had lost something profoundly human.

Btw: I did a blog post on the issue of “Question authority” a few weeks ago which touches on some of your points.  Please check it out

http://intimategeography.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/questioning/

I have had the experience of dealing with the unimaginable suffering of my youngest, who is 17 and doing pretty well, now, all things considered.  Watching him go through everything he has had to deal with in his life, the hours and day in various intensive care units from neonatal on up and witnessing many, many surgeries and painful rehabilitation sessions and knowing that we will never be able to take any accomplishment however small for granted has been a humbling and excruciating experience.  I could never have gotten this far without the consolation of knowing that I could offer my suffering as a mother up along with our Blessed Mother’s suffering as she watched her most perfect of all sons suffer and die for us.  I tremble at the thought of having to go through such alone without our Blessed Mother’s help.  So I resolve to pray for this dear mother and all mothers and fathers who find themselves alone, without the sacraments or other succor in this life, and pressured into thinking that death is the answer to their suffering.  May they find peace and may their burden be somewhat lifted by the prayers of the faithful.

She could have had a healthy baby with no problems then say at six years old had a devastating desease or injury happen that left him in the same condition he is not.  What would she do like to have a choice to end his life of suffering then?  Even now she does not know what the child is feeling; he may not feel much due to the brain injury.  I feel for her pain and ask God to give her strength.

Brilliant piece, as always!  Thought provoking and heart wrenching.

Brava, Simcha!  It’s all so good, it could almost begin with “Amen, Amen I say to you…”

A boy was born in 1938 and he had deformed legs that had to be amputated. He learned to walk at the local orthopedic hospital. His parents loved him and treated him as a normal person. They always said “He didn’t know he was handicapped and they weren’t going to tell him”. That boy grew up to be a Botany and Ecology professor and he is my sweet Dad. He is a protestant man who is VERY pro-life. When I converted, the Church’s teaching was already there.

“I think a lot of people nowadays fall into the idea trap of, “God wants me to be happy.” I haven’t found that anywhere in the Bible.”

Spoken like a “true” Catholic.  Well, I am Catholic and I sincerely believe God wants me to be happy.  That is exactly the kind of attitude that turns people off from religion, and Catholicism specifically.  Let me guess, you to go mass with a head covering, kneel at all the right times, jump communion line so you don’t have to receive from a lay minister, kneel at the altar rail you wish was still there, and then spend the rest of the Sunday complaining about all those terrible modern Catholics who insist on holding hands during the Lords Prayer.

I am sorry to say that this mother is missing the point. In the opportunity we have to embrace suffering and offer it up for something greater than ourselves is where we find our salvation. Christ, my friends, was not levitated to Calvary, he carried that heavy cross every inch of every mile while bleeding, being hit, spat upon, falling repeatedly, thirsty, in short, extremely painfully.  And then, death and resurrection. Without the cross, there is no resurrection. Some times, in our lives, we suffer through our children. Let that suffering not be wasted in searching the reasons why we suffer. Let that suffering shape us into better, more compassionate, more giving people. Stop complaining about the hand we are dealt, embrace it, kiss it, and then carry it on your shoulder, every inch of every mile to Calvary and put it at the foot of the Cross. Sadly, the secular world, does not know this choice we have to embrace our suffering and turn it, with God’s grace, into something bigger than ourselves. Sadly, they don’t know the great power that comes with suffering.  Sadly, they will keep looking and demanding for another choice.

God bless you all and keep you during this very special time of Lent.
Cristina

@Nadster - we are ONE, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church.  Comments like yours are divisive or can be taken as such.  I am sure that is not your intent.

Pride is what keeps people away from the Faith.  Plain and simple.

A few years ago, one of my kids was REALLY mad at his sibling.  He expressed his acute displeasure by saying: “You’re going to BAD Hell” as opposed to just plain old Hell.  He really wanted to up the ante. We still laugh about it and inform each other of this when we are mildly disgusted with each other.  It’s sort of a family-wide joke.
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Three weeks ago, my sister’s son Mikey, who is seventeen, has Downs, AND a bone and muscle disease which renders him unable to walk, lay dying in the ICU.  He had just had an eight hour surgery inserting a steel rod into his back, because severe scoliosis was encroaching on his heart and lungs. He had aspirated vomit into his lungs and was in critical condition.  It just seemed so inexplicable that such a sweet and mischievous boy who has already suffered so much, and so many other problems could still be suffering SO much.  I texted my sister, who never left his side, assuring her of all our prayers and solidarity, and added: “Mikey is keeping ALL of us out of BAD HELL”.
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My parents have 26 grandchildren ages 2 to 25.  A whole bunch of them are in their teens and twenties now,so they have endless fun (too much) and really love each other, but they also have their petty squabbles, rivalries, and more than a few inflated egos.  When Mikey became critically ill, everyone stopped.  Dusty rosaries came out, and everyone sobered.  The troops rallied.  “Coolness” faded away and facebook messages calling friends and family to prayer became the battle cry.  My son Max posted a video he’d taken the summer before, of Mikey serenading his boy cousins while playing the guitar, lying prone, on the floor, with gnarled, deformed fingers.  It was a spontaneous composition, because Mikey was beside himself with joy that his cousins were there, loving him and giving him tons of attention. So the prayers went out everywhere.  Support came pouring in.  Whole monasteries and people all over the country.  Mikey rallied and came through.  He is not out of the woods yet, because of his lungs, possibility of infection, and the huge pain it causes him to sit up. For now, my sister Teresa nurses him around the clock.  He is smiling again. His groans of pain were hard to endure.
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How ironic that my sister, once a prima ballerina, who won scholorships to study and dance with the “greats” in New York and San Francisco has been “reduced”(world’s eyes) to this. When they discovered Mikey’s severe deformities in her fifth month of pregnancy,seventeen years ago, the majority of the doctors were flabbergasted that she wouldn’t agree to abort.  Some actually became angry, as did an uncle who is an atheist. Mikey had to be delivered by c-section because his legs were splayed oddly.  He was baptized in the ICU because they didn’t expect him to live.  My sister and I pumped breast milk for him.
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Now, Mikey can’t wait to get back to High School, where two of my kids and his brother go. He has to be watched carefully because every now and then, he takes off for a joy ride in the neighborhood in his wheelchair. He gave a hilarious interview to the entire school, over the P.A. system, about how he would be spending the Christmas holidays.  Even the gangsters forgot they were cool for a few seconds, and laughed with Mikey.
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My sister’s cross has been heavy lately.  But she has carried it with serenity and love.  She almost always has.  Sometimes, when she is describing all of his problems, she actually smiles in spite of herself or may even burst out laughing, saying “Gosh, it just sounds so awful to sum it all up.”  Mikey playfully calls her “hot mamma” and “mommy sunshine”. (He calls our mother Mommy too) When he’s mad at her, he tells her she’s NOT hot, and we all crack up. (Remember, he has no less than eight male teens and twenties, and their friends to corrupt him)  He lives for birthdays, balloons, and Christmas.  His face beams when his grandpa dresses up like Santa, though he sort of caught on this year.  Sometimes he is really naughty, picking my Mom’s flowers, flinging them around, and then fleeing the scene of the crime.  He grins at his grandmother when she yells at him, because she’s utterly unconvincing.
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We don’t expect Mikey to live too long.  He has sooo many things wrong with him, but he is a jewel in our family.  He is simply lovable—most of the rest of us. I don’t begrudge him heaven.  If anyone could actually *earn* it, it would have been him. I can’t wait to meet him again someday, when he is restored to the way God originally meant him to be, before he entered our fallen world. He’s more like our own little angel of expiation, pushing our ornery and contentious family, that much further away from “bad you-know-where”.  I wish I could add a picture of his joyful, smile.

If there really was a crystal ball, and we could see EVERYTHING in our future, would we want to look?  Would we want one up/down, yes/no, obey/disobey forever choice?  The angels had such a choice, and as we all know that did not turn out so well for some.  I agree, choice is not really the problem here.

There is a woman in my parish who has a son in his 20’s who is wheel chair bound.  He cannot speak, although I think he can hear those around him although it’s hard to tell as he doesn’t make much of a reaction.  He isn’t going to get married or have any physical pleasant experiences any time soon.  I look and see with the great love with which she wipes the drool off he son’s chin, helps him consume the Eucharist, and lugs his body, larger than hers, off his wheel chair and to the ground to give him a rest.  I see in this mother a love like no other and if I could only be half the mother she is, well, perhaps I might have a shot at getting into Heaven.  Truly any mother with a suffering child has a choice to pursue holiness like no one else.  I will pray for this mother that someday she might see this and be at peace.  Suffering brings forth life abundant.  This is something secular society misses and it is their loss for we all will suffer at some point in our lives.

@Nadster - You know Simcha never wears pants, only skirts (preferably jean, and below the knee).  And her husband won’t let their daughters wear pants either!  ;)

What an interesting story—a woman has regrets about not aborting her baby when she knew both she and the baby would suffer. Isn’t it one of the anti-abortion contentions that women invariably regret having abortions?
Also, do you believe in free will?

Question authority. Translation: Defy authority.
Freedom of choice. Translation: I have already made my choice, I now want you to validate it.

Most people make choices based on emotion or wishful thinking. Then we seek out reasons to justify the choice already made. And we ignore the reasons that do not justify our choice.

Many has been the time somebody asked me what the Church had to say about a subject and then they wanted to argue with the answer I found in the Catechism. I always say, “If you didn’t want the answer then why did you ask the question?”

NB - A month after giving birth to my first child we were at my husband’s grandmother’s home celebrating Christmas.  I snuck upstairs to find a quiet place to nurse.  I overheard my husband’s grandmother (almost 90 years old at the time) helping her 50 year old son who had severe Down’s Syndrome take a bath.  I always admired her quiet strength, but the depth of her love for her son in that moment brought me to tears.  How many times did she bathe her son, feed her son, show love to her son in those 50 years?  She taught me so much in that moment.

Simcha - love this article.

Many people have, rightly, discussed how caring for a suffering loved one gives us the opportunity to meet that suffering, to try to aleviate it, to offer it up, to grow in holiness.

Emily Rapp wrote that she would abort her baby to save him from HIS suffering. I commented on that article that she was then keeping him from her love, as well, and in the end wasn’t love more powerful than suffering? But I am curious about this: mostly everyone is willing to bear suffering for their child/spouse, but they don’t want their child/spouse to suffer. How do you respond to the author when she doesn’t care whether or not she is transformed by caring for the suffering (which I know isn’t appropriate, either), but just wants the suffering to stop for the OTHER PERSON.

This is absolutely what Simcha was talking about—an inability to understand or acknowledge original sin. But it’s also about totally misplaced love and compassion. How do you address this side of things?

That is the most asinine thing I have ever heard. This comment probably wont get published, but I cant help writing it anyway. EVE? Original sin? This is 2012. This is the United States of America. Medicine and science give us the opportunity to shape our lives so that we can live the way we want to. So we don’t HAVE to live in the dark ages. So we don’t HAVE to have this fatalistic view of life. This idea that as women we have to take the cards we are dealt OR throw ourselves into the “crevasse of hell”. I dont care what you believe. If God put half of the people that exist on earth (women) here only to endure whatever happens to them, then that is not a God I can agree with. I think God gave us brains to think and live in the most healthy happy way we can. If God meant women to live as powerless sheep, then he wouldnt have bestowed upon us the power to think, to reason, and to make decisions that we perceive are beneficial to our health, happiness, and families.

I reposted this on my FB. I questioned doing so because so many people are, you know, AGGGGGHHHH! But honestly, if you’re not a little mad at the end of this post, I think you’ve missed the point. Original sin sucks. And we don’t have a choice in that- we all have it- and even if we did get to choose that, can anyone honestly say they wouldn’t have ever accidentally sinned? I couldn’t. Good post. Even though it makes me grumpy. In a good way? ;)

@kasummer, Cut Simcha some slack; she is too busy with her children to keep up with the all that science and tech news, so she must have missed the big story about the invention of a machine that precents pain and neutralizes evil! 

(You would think she’d notice, though, what with all the joyful, pain-free lives we are all now living….Those nutter religious-types, sigh.)

@ kasummer
I guess I am missing your point.  If you think that we shouldnot talk about original sin because that is dark ages stuff then okay let’s talk about suffering.  If science is unable to relieve the suffering.  If all of the efforts of doctors and nurses and people who are inspired by the love of God or just the love of others to try and alleviate suffering fail; what then? 
If you make a decision that you perceived to be beneficial to your famil, children etc is there any chance that you sere wrong no matter how hard youtried to convince yourself it was right?  Of course.  2012 is just a number on a calendar it doesn’t mean that we have all the answers, that people will not suffer and that well intended poeple don’t do things wrong. 

I promise you that every parent with a suffering child is feeling incredible guilt that they can’t stop it and has thought at some point that they have to do whatever to make that suffering stop. 

God wants you to be happy (the Peace which passes all understanding) but he doesn’t also say there will be no suffering.  How do we suffer or watch our loved ones suffer and still be happy.  If you figure it out let me know.  I could use it. 

The moral ground of letting science eliminate all suffering with our current knowledge is pretty scary.  I am willing to put down a suffering animal like my dog.  I want to stop my child suffering but I don’t think love says put them down.  I think this is the point the author is pointing to not just original sin.

I understand the mother’s despair.  After watching and caring for my husband as he suffered and died from terminal cancer (a four year process) I can understand.  Even with a strong Catholic faith I came out on the other end a changed person that had emotionally detached from my husband and left my faith.  What kind of God would do such things? What kind of God would answer each prayer with an emphatic “no”.

Those who comment what this mother should be learning as she watches her child suffer so harshly sound ridiculously trite.  This woman is in despair.  This woman is burned out as a caregiver.  This woman sees only sadness and suffering.  Even Mary didn’t have to endure the likes for so long.  Cut her a break.

As I tell everyone who judges me: “Walk in my shoes.”

@ Steve, love might say stop their suffering, no matter what, but another kind of love—that which is not tainted with our own neediness—says we cannot take the lives of others based on our own assessment of the problem.  And we especially cannot extrapolate our own reasoning into some kind of moral “law”.

I’ve been reading Heather King’s recently published essay “Poor Baby: A Child of the 60’s Looks Back On Abortion” - it’s really a phenomenal read. This excerpt says a lot of the same and may add to the conversation here:

“Why not acknowledge that a good percentage of the babies who are ‘saved’ are going to become broken-down homeless people, illegal immigrants, and vicious criminals? That of course is no reason to promote abortion; in fact, that’s the very reason abortion is wrong. Let’s remember who we’re dealing with here, folks: the unfathomable human race. We’re all bothersome. We’re all, in our ways, broken. Which somehow makes it all the more imperative that we not lose a single member. We’re responsible for each other. We live and die by each other. We need all the help we can get.”

Prayers for peace for the woman in the article and her son. It must be, as Simcha aptly described, sheer hell.

Wonderful post, Simcha, especially:

“She has had her face pushed against the wall of horror which is mortality.  She does not like the choices presented to her:  either suffer this way, or suffer that way.  What is her answer?  “There ought to be another choice.”  Choice after choice after choice.  The modern person confronts pain and slices it thinner and thinner, hoping to put an end to it.”

Comments like from kasummer, especially: “If God meant women to live as powerless sheep, then he wouldnt have bestowed upon us the power to think, to reason, and to make decisions that we perceive are beneficial to our health, happiness, and families….” only demonstrate your point.

“We make our choice.”

kasummer’s problem is the outright rejection of what you have to say (“That is the most asinine thing I have ever heard”), pretty much proving what you just said. S/he outright rejects your point, then demands that there be another ‘choice’.

Sometimes people are so enamored of their ‘rights’ that they don’t/can’t even see that they’re intruding upon others.

Good commenting here.

@Lisa, I totally agree with your post.  The glib responses on this thread about how suffering is inevitable and it makes us grow are definitely being made mostly by people who have not experienced such horror yet, especially watching a child go through it.  This mother’s baby is the one suffering most and had no idea why.  The baby could not sit waxing philosophical about the value of suffering - that poor little one just suffered.  I believe everyone has a right to their beliefs and life view.  However, just as one poster stated that “pride” was what was keeping so many from the faith, I would contend it is the pride of the “faithful” that keeps so many from the faith - a pride that leads them to make such judgmental, harsh comments even though many of them haven’t a clue what they are truly talking about.  This mother deserves Christian charity in thought and attitude.  She doesn’t deserve to be preached at by people who feel “higher than Thou.”  BTW, “question authority” means, to me and many people, “question whether or not the people who are given authority are worthy of it” not “ask people in authority questions.”  Big difference.

@LH - “glib responses” “Pride that leads them to make such judgmental, harsh comments EVEN THOUGH MANY OF THEM HAVEN’T A CLUE WHAT THEY ARE TRULY TALKING ABOUT” Your comments sound a little judgmental and harsh, don’t you think?  Also, I have read a lot of the comments on this thread and nobody pretends to understand what the mother is going through probably because they lack the experience.  Therefore, all they are left with is to “wax philosophically”.  Nobody has been so crass as to dismiss the mother’s suffering as worthless and/or exaggerated (and if they have, shame on them).  They have simply offered a different take on how her suffering could be dealt with (along with prayers for her and her child) because they know of others that have dealt with it in that way.

@Lisa - my condolences on your loss.  I lost my father, also to a terminal cancer, 7 years ago at the age of 58.  As he battled the disease, his suffering, pain and discomfort over the last year and a half of his life was hard to watch.  It must have been even harder to endure.  Yet, during the entire time, he referred to his cancer as a blessing.  I don’t have the time to explain the depth of what he meant by this, but if you re-read some of the posts above, it might shed a light on his description of the disease.  My hope is that in light of my father’s view (as one who was actually suffering), you might have a different opinion of those commenting.  Instead of seeing them as ‘ridiculously trite’, maybe you might see them as sympathetic to the point of offering hope and alternatives so that the mother’s suffering is not in vain. 
Oh, and by the way, within the Catholic Church there is a belief that Mary knew exactly what her son was going to endure at the moment the angel Gabriel announced his conception in her womb.  That is what makes her “yes” all the more special.  She knew in that instant and for the 30+ years that followed that her only son would suffer and die a horrible death.  Yet, she bore that suffering because a greater good would come of it.

@LH - “glib responses” “Pride that leads them to make such judgmental, harsh comments EVEN THOUGH MANY OF THEM HAVEN’T A CLUE WHAT THEY ARE TRULY TALKING ABOUT” Your comments sound a little judgmental and harsh, don’t you think?  Also, I have read a lot of the comments on this thread and nobody pretends to understand what the mother is going through probably because they lack the experience.  Therefore, all they are left with is to “wax philosophically”.  Nobody has been so crass as to dismiss the mother’s suffering as worthless and/or exaggerated (and if they have, shame on them).  They have simply offered a different take on how her suffering could be dealt with (along with prayers for her and her child) because they know of others that have dealt with it in that way.

@Lisa - my sincerest condolences on your loss.  I lost my father, also to a terminal cancer, 7 years ago at the age of 58.  As he battled the disease, his suffering, pain and discomfort over the last year and a half of his life was hard to watch.  It must have been even harder to endure.  Yet, during the entire time, he referred to his cancer as a blessing.  I don’t have the time to explain the depth of what he meant by this, but if you re-read some of the posts above, it might shed a light on his description of the disease.  My hope is that in light of my father’s view (as one who was actually suffering), you might have a different opinion of those commenting.  Instead of seeing them as ‘ridiculously trite’, maybe you might see them as sympathetic to the point of offering hope and alternatives so that the mother’s suffering is not in vain.

 
Oh, and by the way, within the Catholic Church there is a belief that Mary knew exactly what her son was going to endure at the moment the angel Gabriel announced his conception in her womb.  That is what makes her “yes” all the more special.  She knew in that instant and for the 30+ years that followed that her only son would suffer and die a horrible death.  Yet, she bore that suffering because a greater good would come of it.

Awesome article, God bless you Simcha. And I love the fact that I almost got to the bottom of the page without seeing a negative comment.

@ Steve
I never said there is no suffering. There is. To live is to suffer - that is the human condition. However, to imply that prenatal care. prenatal testing etc. somehow may lead people to make decisions that may turn out wrong is flawed thinking in my opinion. I believe that we should take advantage of the science and the medicine we have and trust ourselves to make executive decisions based on that information (and any other guidance you choose). As for the politics of the situation - I fervently wish that government and religion were separate. I can think of several other countries on the planet where religion is mixed up with law and government. Can you think of any countries like that? How do you think it is working out over there?

PIMEEDITOR:
“I know that my daughter’s life was valuable, and that God allowed her suffering - and mine - for a purpose.”

Beautiful. Prayers for you and your daughter!

Anna Lisa, what an incredible and rending story. Thank you for sharing it.
.
Prayers for your sister and Mikey, and your whole family.

MB on Tuesday, Feb 28, 2012 3:39 PM -

Thank you for sharing this story!

NB :)

There are people, including Peter Sanger, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, who would likely argue Ms. Rapp has every right (perhaps even a moral obligation) to end her son’s suffering (and his mother’s) now by ending his life.

Sorry Simcha but if you are speaking of the Christian world, I think your reasoning here is bad theology.  Jesus Christ gave us the sacrament of baptism to wash away original sin and the sacraments to keep us in a state of grace.  So women are treated badly because men and women are not practicing their faith or have no faith not because of original sin. Jesus Himself said we shouldn’t be looking at each other as male and female, slave and free but members of the body of Christ- working together in love.  We have allowed men to remain Adam when we say we are just Eve.  We are not!  We are Marys.  Certainly not as sinless, but no longer slaves to sin. The picture this mom posted with her article shows a beautiful mother and child smiling. A moment of grace in a life of suffering.  Mom and her generation have been deceived into thinking they make the plan of life.  Her own story tells the lie of it so clearly.  There is a God and He wanted her and Ronan in this world.  So her real issue seems to be grappling with the mystery of God and His plan. Mother Teresa made it her life’s work to seek out the Ronan’s of the world because she believed, with all her heart, that the true least are in fact Christ Himself. And that HE CHOSE to disguise HIMSELF this way because He hungers so much for our loving compassionate response to His state! This Mom’s tears could be alleviated alot if she understood who it is she holds in her arms! Mother Teresa and her nuns actually experience(d) Christ’s presence doing this very thing. Mom can offer the suffering of this little one and her family back to God in reparation for sin in the world realizing more fully how much Jesus loved her and him and suffered for them or she can choose not to - but someone has to help her understand that choice first.  With friends who love God she can realize that Ronan’s and her existence is not geared only to the span of time on earth, that there is an eternal life where Ronan will see and run and talk and be with God forever! Rick Santorum would help her acquire this vision, not make her a slave of faithless men. His comments on the prenatal testing are a factual one not a moral one. Certainly having the information to help a child through prenatal testing is a blessing, as in the case of babies with spina bifida who are operated on in the womb, but the reality is that many children are being aborted because of the information received from those tests. In a culture where God is a distant memory and not our reason for being and constant help, many people are afraid of the cross of this Christ to themselves, the child and society so they have a test hoping to avoid it.  We then have stepped away from holiness and as a society are encouraging it.  It is very understandable and difficult and sad, but not a good.  Ronan will suffer surrounded by GREAT love. We will all suffer but not surrounded by that kind of love.  It is a moment of weakness, not love that would kill this child in the womb. And we need to strengthen her to see how many blessings Ronan brings and why he needs to be here.

@ kasummer - I too believe we must take advantage of science.  People are definitely doing God’s will (in my opinion) when they try to make people’s lives better through science.  My pet theory is that God made the universe perfectly complex just because he also made us curious and we will always need something to discover.  We agree completely on that.  But I also believe that we have to be pragmatic and recognize that humans can err and we need to have a Truth to help make sure we do not err to far.  Obviously the Nazi scientist did a great deal of research in the thought that their lives would be better. 

I actually was up quite a bit last night thinking about this blog.  If anyone needs it I can provide my experience with my daughter and why I am very comfortable saying I understand the pain of the woman inthe post.  She was in my prayers this morning.  I understand her pain and she needs charity but her suffering nor her child’s suffering make everything she says somehow okay.  There is an ultimate question here.  Is a life of suffering worth living?  This is thorny ground (CS Lewis “the Problem of Pain”).  If you are really Christian then the answer is yes.  Christ suffered and God didn’t stop that because out of His Love He knew it was for the best for us.  Then each of us is called on to make sure those who suffer are treated and respected.  If you decide that God doesn’t exist or what Christianity teaches is not true then letting someone suffer would be wrong.  A parent watching a child suffer for years or even hours is just being cruel.  That path is so evil to me that I cannot even develop it further.  Every fiber of my being screams out against that path. 

Christian love is not a reason to let people think wrongly and get themselves in worse places.  It means we step up andhelp the person and show them the value of that suffering through our love. 

kasummer, I did not miss yoru last comment.  I look around and don’t see any country that does not have significant issues either those without a separation of Church and state or those with.  I am a huge proponent of Democratic Capitalism in a tolerant society grounded in Christian faith.  Too much of any one aspect creates the potential for evil.  We need the balance of all four.  That is why I so love the Constitution.  These folks did a great job of setting up a foundation for our country to have the balance.  Sometimes we just wander too far a field trying to keep the balance but we are only human.

@ Pam
Wonderful post

kasummer—Can you explain how Simcha’s essay contradicts any of your last comment’s points, particularly what you were getting at in your initial comment?  Because after reading everything you have written I confess I am confused.

And I saw the river over which every soul must pass

to reach the kingdom of heaven

and the name of that river was suffering:

and I saw a boat which carries souls across the river

and the name of that boat was love.

Courtesy of http://rcspiritualdirection.com/blog/2012/02/28/river-of-suffering-st-john-of-the-cross#ixzz1nmpV0lbS

Oh dear Simcha, I’m not reading the comments because I know you are going to be absolutely shredded there ... so here’s my kudos to you for your courage and honesty once again.  So very right.  I speak from the experience of watching my spouse suffer from physical torment that will end only when he dies ... which could be tomorrow or could be in 40 years ... sigh ... pray for us, too.

Bravo. Thank you for this.

I read the original article at work this morning and couldn’t concentrate anymore. Thankfully, Leila at Little Catholic Bubble sent me this rebuttal and I feel so much better. You’ve mirrored the comment I left under that article but in a much more eloquent way. :) God Bless you.

At 36 years old, in 1996 I was recommended to go to genetic counseling because of my age and the associated risks that come with bearing a child after 35.  I was a college educated, 4th time mom and completely overwhelmed by the statistics that I was bombarded with after filling out a lengthy questionnaire, where I had to answer medical history questions about my in-laws and their families.  What was absolutely confusing was the percentages/odds of carrying/transmitting a disease/syndrome with the continuation of child in utero.  When I say that my head was spinning, I am not exaggerating.  I finally told the “statistician” to STOP!  I couldn’t go any further and was not the least bit interested in hearing about the endless possibilities.  I felt betrayed by my OB/GYN, that she would have prescribed this testing to perhaps save her self from a lawsuit. And truly sorry for the next woman who might fear her pregnancy and child after this kind of encounter.

I have held my dead child in my arms.  So much promise—victim of a world, wounded by original sin…I have stared into his lifeless eyes, lamenting so much unfulfilled possibility. I have looked upon his small casket, crafted with exquisite love by his weeping father, sitting on the rolling, grassy ground of a Catholic cemetery, near grandparents and great grandparents.  I smiled through my tears watching his siblings strewing white flowers on and around his small casket.
I have faced some of my worst terrors.  By exposing myself to these terrors, my Jesus, and His promises were put to the test: “My yoke is gentle and my burden light”.  Had he not gone before me, and had I not had the road map of my faith, it would not have been bearable.  It would have been terrible.  Meaningless.  Hell.
I picked my head up from His chest and looked at Him, half smiling and half triumphant, because it wasn’t *I* that put Him to the test.  It was *HE* who fulfilled His promise.  I couldn’t *WILL* the way I felt, I couldn’t take a *pill* to induce it.  “I caught YOU!”  I said to Him, “and now you are even more mine, because you have shared even more of Yourself with me.”
Oh death, you have been conquered.
Heaven or Hell.  It is our choice.  Here, and now.

By the way, Simcha, you are so kind and generous in your way of talking about the mother and her essay.  Not that I wouldn’t be more inclined to be, in person, say.  It’s just that the implications of her essay make me very, very impatient.  Whether she is making a political argument, or the other people are doing it for her, it is being made, and all based on emotional rhetoric, without any thought to the consequences of what it means.  It just makes me very angry.

@ anna lisa

thank you for sharing this.  I saw a drawing shortly after my daughter passed of a young girl with brown hair hugging Christ with a caption of “welcome home”.  I believe without question that my daughter and your son have felt that embrace.

Now they can pray for us while “perpetual light shines upon them”.

Thank you Steve.  Heaven will be such a happy reunion!  Thank you for your other comments above as well.  It makes me cry to write (and read)some of these things, but really, overall, they are happy tears, and I think that we as Catholics need to just keep on shedding that Christian light that we have experienced first hand,regarding the “scandal” of suffering and death. I feel like I would be remiss if I stayed quiet, to “guard” my private wound.  Elizabeth is lucky to have a Dad like you.

“The modern person confronts pain and slices it thinner and thinner, hoping to put an end to it.  This does not work.  It simply makes the pain, like a knife, sharper.”

Exactly.

anna lisa, I thank you as well. 

My comment posted before yours did, or I would have written those thanks instead of the silliness that I did.

Jerry: protecting the voiceless and the powerless from the tyranny of the powerful, especially when the matter is one of life or death, is not overreach.  It is all of mankind’s duty.  The alternative is anarchy.  How many people wouldn’t put a serial killer in jail for *his* choices?  If only because of the perception of the victims’ worth, remember they often prey on the socially outcast—runaways, prostitutes—who are less likely to be noticed or cared about when they go missing.
-
Laura, Shakespeare is pithy on this issue: “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”  Many of them seem desperate for it to be legitimate, because otherwise they’ll fall apart, believing themselves unforgivable (what I believe psychologists have termed a ‘defense mechanism’).
-
kasummer: okay, I think we’re all agreed about (ethically) pursuing medical knowledge, but what about when it still makes no difference?  What good is the information then?  I think we’re setting the human race up for disappointment if we somehow imply there’s always going to be a technical solution, and if we haven’t found it we just haven’t looked hard enough.  I don’t know if you’re a House fan, but I think of the episode where the character Amber realizes she’s going to die and there is nothing anybody can do about it.  Especially, she says something at the end of the episode about how she doesn’t want anger to be the last thing she will experience, which I found quite moving.  Yeah, I realize it’s just a TV show.  But is there not some point, are there not some situations, when even a real doctor sees the futility of railing against the inevitable?

Jerry: protecting the voiceless and the powerless from the tyranny of the powerful, especially when the matter is one of life or death, is not overreach.  It is all of mankind’s duty.  The alternative is anarchy.  How many people wouldn’t put a serial killer in jail for *his* choices?  If only because of the perception of the victims’ worth, remember they often prey on the socially outcast—runaways, prostitutes—who are less likely to be noticed or cared about when they go missing.
-
Laura, Shakespeare is pithy on this issue: “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”  I’m not surprised she has wondered if she is a bad mother for not having taken that advice; that’s what anguished, stressed, tired, and ultimately LOVING people do (and it almost goes without saying that we need to support her, because she is NOT a bad mother or bad person for giving her child life, even such as it may be).  Many of them who actually go through with it seem desperate for it to be legitimate, because otherwise they’ll fall apart, believing themselves unforgivable (what I believe psychologists have termed a ‘defense mechanism’).

kasummer: okay, I think we’re all agreed that pursuing (ethically!) medical knowledge is an obvious YES.  But what about when it still makes no difference?  What good is the information then?  I think we’re setting humanity up for disappointment if we imply that there’s always a technical solution, and if we haven’t found it we just aren’t trying hard enough.  I don’t know if you’re a House fan, but I think of the episode where Amber realizes she’s going to die and there is nothing anybody can do about it.  She says something at the end of the episode about how anger is not the last thing she wants to experience.  Yeah, I know it’s just a TV show.  But is there not some point, are there not some situations, when even a real doctor sees the futility of railing against the inevitable? (Catholic faith doesn’t require everybody to maximize their suffering…we just are opposed to killing as a ‘solution.’  It’s kind of a big cop-out anyway, don’t you think?)

If original sin is real and is truly to blame, then there is no need to try to protect it, it will take care of itself.  What’s the harm in trying to solve an insolvable problem?  By your logic maybe we should just give up on medicine entirely.  I mean we’re all going to just suffer and die any ways, why try to prevent any of it?

I also like the fake ‘I wouldn’t presume to argue with someone going through that horrible situation, but this is my argument against her…’

Also you seem to be arguing simultaneously that prenatal testing is bad because it leads to people having abortions, but prenatal testing is also bad because it failed to detect this particular condition and allow the mother to have an abortion.  I think this smacks of someone looking for reasons to believe a conclusion they’ve already come to in the face of a convincing counter argument.

Finally I think you are drawing a false equivalency between someone born without a leg and someone born in constant, never-yielding agony.

I know you know this Simcha, but re-reading I think about the fact that women are not the only ones punished by original sin, men are too of course.  It’s the fact that women are gifted with the childbearing that they are cursed by the fallen world’s twisted desire to turn all weakness into something consumable, that women seem to end up with the burden of the curse.

Here’s a moving piece by the same author, about parenting a terminally ill child:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/opinion/sunday/notes-from-a-dragon-mom.html

@Corita, no need for apology!  That kind of insanity makes me mad at times too.  What is scary is INDIFFERENCE.

Wow. Deep calls unto deep, Simcha.

No.  It’s original sin that they don’t like.  Is it oppressive?  Hell yes.  Is it unfair?  Hell yes.  Is it inescapable?  Hell yes.  Sooner or later, all of us are faced with the crushing unfairness of life, and presented with a cleft landscape:  suffering on one side, suffering on the other.  God willing, when it’s my time, I’ll know enough to beg Him to make the choice for me.  Without God, our only option is to dive straight into the crevasse—too look into Hell, and to say to it, “Yes.”

In a few brilliant words, you have given us the heart of the matter. Thank you!

Yes! The world looks for someone or something to blame, to rage against, when it’s God alone with whom they are really taking issue. (Speaking of the political manifestations, sometimes I listen to Occupiers raging, basically, that life is hard and that all should be provided for them, and what I see is angry creatures screaming at God, “Let us back into Eden! We DESERVE it!”)
As the mom of a very complex kid with “hidden disabilities” (autism, mental illness, and so on) who SUFFERS—his existence is painful, sometimes excruciating— and for whom I suffer, I have experienced an element of this first hand. Somehow with less physical suffering this seems to happen in more pronounced fashion: At first people invest concern and, convinced of the comforting modern myth that there is a pill or a program to “treat” every problem and alleviate suffering, they jump in with recommendations and, “Have you tried…?” Others, fortified by very common, squishy theologies to shield them from the discomfort of questions about life and God and realities they have had the luxury of avoiding, dive in with prayers and “standing on promises” (which may or may not actually exist) and a kick-butt definition of faith (think first half of Hebrews 11… not so much the saints commended for their faith at the end of the chapter—we don’t like to think about them simply enduring in faith). When those things don’t “work”—wait, you’re still suffering?!?—the answer is that there must be something wrong with YOU. YOU don’t have enough faith. You aren’t doing the right things, trying the right “treatments”, parenting the right way. And on and on. There’s something wrong with you. People turn away. They were keen to be part of a victory, but this reality of suffering? You represent something they don’t want to accept, so they reject YOU. It’s cruel. But, the fact is that, even though you never asked to be, you are now the human representative embodying things like, “In this world, good, faithful people SUFFER,” “life is sometimes brutal and anything but just and fair” and people have issue with that. You’ll do as a logical punching bag, but it’s God, it’s Satan, it’s a fallen, groaning creation.

“Original Sin” was finding out about good and evil and not just taking the word of one person who has an interest in keeping you stupid so you’ll be his “willing servant.” Religion is a drug that prevents you from seeing the world as it is, and makes you happy so you won’t do anything important. Date-rapists use drugs to make their victims passive too.

There are three types of prisoners: those who try to preserve themselves in horrible conditions, those who learn from their oppressors that they deserve punishment, and those who identify with their oppressors and start acting as secondary oppressors to their own people. Catholics are acting in the name of an oppressive God and believe suffering is appropriate for Non-Catholics. They don’t dare look at the suffering they inflict on others, but to the salvation they will receive for obedience. Sick.

moderator, I posted a comment this morning but it has not appeared yet.

Just got through reading “Mother Angelica - The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles” by Raymond Arroyo. Talk about suffering, both mental and physical!!! You might have seen her show “Mother Angelica Live” that she did after she had a stroke. Lots of suffering to her body and, also, to pride in the twilight of her life as she cannot speak all the wit and wisdom that she is known for. What a testimony ... looking to see what He was going to do with that suffering ... ended up with a cloistered nun starting EWTN and a worldwide shortwave radio network, 2 orders of nuns and an order of priests, etc. To top it off I opened the bible and my eye fell on this passage, “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony” John 4:39. Wow! And then I saw your column this morning. Double and triple WOW! God is God of all!!!

Yes the rhetoric of “Choice” gives the illusion that in any given situation there is an option that will conform to your wishes.  Any rational adult knows that is not true.  Only the mature ones accept and live with the reality of that.  In current slang of young adults, they “embrace the suck”.  Far too many never reach that stage.

In the wise words that conclude Gertrude von Le Fort’s “Eternal Woman”, “Again, as always, the Annunciation to Mary precedes the fulfillment through Christ, vision follows upon concealment, as redemption does upon the humility of acquiescence, as the unfolding of heaven upon its wiling acceptance, upon the Yes of the creature.”

(Eternal Woman, ‘Timeless Woman’, pg. 108, 2010 Ignatius Press, San Francisco)

Wonderful article.  I don’t have the time to read all of the comments but agree very much with the commenter that felt that “Genetic counseling” seems to be code for eugenics.  Being over 35 I was referred to a genetic counselor.  Thank goodness I didn’t care to find out, that since my husband is 1/2 Italian and my children would be 1/4 Italian, what in the world my kids could be a carrier of.  I prayed that they would have life and we would deal without whatever they “carried”. 

The saddest part of the mothers essay, I thought, was how each day she says “I wake up every morning with my heart breaking, feeling the impending dread of his imminent death.”  If only she could have the faith to wake up every morning, thanking God for the blessing of the LOVE she feels for her son.

I can’t help but think of the love Mother Theresa truly felt in her heart for those that she cared for.  She knew their suffering and gave them love until their suffering ended. 

Thank you so much for writing this.

Brilliant, Mrs. Fisher. Try as we might, there is no choice that will allow us to escape suffering entirely. That’s the beauty of redemption: it doesn’t promise to extinguish suffering in this life, but to give it meaning and value in ways that it otherwise would be devoid.

She is correct…question all authority, including Papal authority, Church authority, and the Conference of Archbishops.

This article hit very close to home because I just buried my mother.  My mother had unexpected complications after a minor surgery that led to irreversible tissue damage in her lungs.  We honestly prayed that God would give us clear signs as we sought to discern when we should shift from intervention to purely palliative care.  God answered our prayers but we had to accept that her healing would not happen here in this life.  I remain deeply grateful to the staff of the Catholic hospital who treated her with dignity up to the end.  Those who try to avoid or negate all suffering just add more anguish.

I have a child who has a progressive disease that is destroying his mind and body and could kill him at any moment.  For a different perspective than the mother of Ronan, check out my blog:
http://kaelsstory.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=1

sorry…here is the link:
http://www.kaelsstory.blogspot.com/