2nd Ordination Anniversary Today

46th Wedding Anniversary of In-Laws-- Order for the blessing of matried couple outside Mass

Taught Baptism Class & Blessed a Vehicle Today

Returning to St. Catherine's in Vallejo

I was on a temporary "on loan" assignment at St. Joseph's in Vacaville.  My official canonical appointment is St. Catherine's in Vallejo.

I was the only deacon serving in a parish that was a little smaller than St. Catherine's.

These nine months were a blessing.

Today, I made announcements at all St. Joseph's Masses.  About 2 weeks ago, I made a somewhat similar announcement at St. Catherine's.

Fr. Jess and Sis. Chris B. told me, "Welcome home!"

Here's a picture with Clarissa, who was one of the sacristans that helped me along with someone named Patricia who Fr. Cleetus and I nicknamed "Mother Superior".  She stitched this herself.  I will use it to remember my time at St. Joseph's.

St. Raphael, Pray For Us!

Preaching Against CA Physician-Assisted Suicide & Euthanasia-- Toward a Civilization of Love (Homily #61)

Homily 61c (12pm Mass)

Link to "I Baptized Baby Savannah in NICU While Daddy Eric Welker Held Her - Mom Lynn Died in Childbirth" HERE: http://marysdeacon.blogspot.com/2016/06/i-baptized-baby-savannah-in-nicu-while.html

Homily #61b (10am Mass)

Homily #61a (830am Mass)

HOMILY #61

“Preaching Against Physician-Assisted Suicide & Euthanasia:

Toward a Civilization of Love”

Deacon Dennis Purificacion

St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Vacaville, CA

10^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

June 5, 2016

This past year alone, I’ve been personally affected by multiple end of life issues.  A close elderly family member told me that he is sick and even dying.  I attended the funeral of a miscarried baby named Charity.  I also baptized a newborn named Savannah in danger of death at the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit before her major surgery.  Savannah’s mother named Lynn, my high school classmate, died in childbirth.  And as a deacon, I’ve also help bury several people this past year that I have known.

You yourself may personally know people dealing with end of life care issues: a grandparent, an aging relative, or a close friend.  Or you yourself may be facing difficult decisions about end of life care.  These end of life issues are most critical today, and today’s Gospel at Mass and today’s readings point the way as to how we as Christians and as people of the Resurrection are to address end of life care.

(1) First, we will reflect on the Word of God as the source dealing with end of life.

(2) Second, I will preach against and condemn the California State Legislature’s immoral “End of Life Option Act” as a (to use the words of the California Catholic bishops) “travesty of compassion”. 

(3) Third, I will proclaim basic Catholic teaching about end of life care. 

Let Holy Mother Church raise her voice once again in defense of the weak, the sick and dying, the voiceless, and especially the vulnerable elderly!

I

In the First Reading, when Elijah raised the body of a dead son, the doubting mother thought that Elijah came only to condemn and judge her.  She said, “Why have you done this to me….  Have you come to me to call attention to my guilt and to kill my son?”  

When Elijah prayed that the “life breath return to the body of this child,” the mother saw that Elijah was looking out for her well-being.  The point here is that those that serve God must protect end of life issues, even when others think badly of their motives. 

When Jesus in today’s Gospel “stepped forward and touched the coffin” he told the dead boy, “Arise!”  For us today, we may not have the power to physically raise the dead to life again, but we do have the power to spiritually raise the Culture of Death from the pit.  The Responsorial Psalm today said, “O Lord…, you preserve me from among those going down into the pit.”

II

A injured animal licking its wounds that you are trying to help might misconstrue your intentions and actions, run away from you, and even attack you.  The same is true for the Church trying to raise up those spiritually dead and dying in their sins.

You might ask, can the Church make statements about the State?  Well, not only can the Church make those statements, but we the Church must proclaim the Good News and the Civilization of Life and Love.  Give to Cesar what belongs to Cesar, and give to God what belongs to God!  End of life care belongs to God. 

We Christians will gladly give to society and the State that is Cesar and obey just laws.  But the Church doesn’t just have the right, but she has the duty to speak on moral issues in the public forum.  Just like Jesus and Elijah who were present in end of life care, so too we must be present in today’s end of life issues.

On June 9, 2016, California will enter a new era of the Culture of Death with the first-ever legal implementation of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.  Do you know what a euphemism is?  A euphemism is word that sounds good but really isn’t, like so-called “death with dignity”.  The so-called End of Life Option Act makes it sound like one has good health care choices, but it is not good because it will bring death on a massive scale.  Let’s cut through the smoke screen.  This law negatively affects especially the elderly that are sick and dying.  The new law will allow doctors to prescribe drugs with the "expressed purpose of aiding" (Bishop Jaime Soto, 5/312016) someone to kill themselves and commit suicide. 

Think of Robin Williams’ suicide.  Robin Williams, who was depressed, under this law would have been given a lethal dose of pills to kill himself.  (This talking point sent out from the Diocese was removed for 10am & 12pm Masses.) That is physician-assisted suicide.  The Netherlands, where this has been legal for decades, is where California is now wrongfully heading.  What began as just a few extraordinary cases now becomes routine where 130,000 people die each year.  Here’s the worse part: Up to 20,000 are either killed or helped to die by doctors, and over half of them did not asked to be killed.

Think about this: Health coverage, which is already expensive, will now have an economic motive to send people to their death through an inexpensive suicide.  People that are suicidal are depressed and have mood swings.  They should be helped and given care, not killed to take care of their depression and anxiety.  During this Jubilee Year of Mercy, we should show our compassion and, like the Gospels, rather raise up those that are in the death of depression and suicidal and breathe life into them.  When patients suffering from terminal illness are given proper care, their desire for assisted suicide gradually disappears.  (These talking points sent out from the Diocese were removed for 10am & 12pm Masses.)

A good alternative is Catholic health care which is one-third of all health care in the United States.  Palliative care means helping others manage pain.  "We should redouble our efforts to promote palliative care" (Bishop Jaime Soto, May 31, 2016) for those in need.  Do you have family and friends in this situation?  You too can live out today’s Gospel simply by being present to them.  Perhaps now is the time to make that phone call to someone you’ve been meaning to call and, like today’s Gospel, breathe life into their weary spirits that are down in the pits, that are sick or are already mentally even in their coffin.  Who can you help spiritually raise from the dead?  Say to them: Arise, you do not need to kill yourself.  You are loved!  I love you.  And God loves you.

III

This leads to my third and final point: Catholic teaching on end of life care.

Each human life from natural beginning to natural end is a gift of God.  Eric, the father of the baby I baptized in the hospital and who lost his wife Lynn during childbirth said to me, “Why do we have to wait for a crisis to happen before we realize that life is a gift?”   Your life is a gift.

Your life is a precious gift that should not be intentionally and deliberately terminated just because things seem inconvenient.  Those whose lives are diminished or weakened – the sick and handicapped – deserved extra special respect.  They deserve a preferential option for the poor and sick. 

One critical distinction will help guide end of life care.  There is a difference between ordinary care and extraordinary care.  I repeat: There is a difference between ordinary care and extraordinary care.

We are morally bound to provide ordinary care. Even if death is near, the ordinary health care is owed in justice to the sick person and cannot be legitimately interrupted.  Ordinary care are ordinary things like food, water, air, basic aspirin, basic medical equipment for artificial things like feeding tubes, needles or Band-Aids, or human things like warmth and human contact, etc. to sustain life.  Using painkillers like morphine for example to alleviate chronic pain and suffering, even at the risk of shortening one’s life, can be morally acceptable as long as death is not intended.

Extraordinary care are those medical procedures that are extremely burdensome, dangerous, or disproportionate to the outcome.  And discontinuing extraordinary care can be morally legitimate, when the patient makes the decision.  As in the case of removing extraordinary life-saving machines and letting nature take its course.

The Terri Schiavo case, where a woman was deprived of basic food and starved to death in Florida, is a good example here.  According to U.S. Bishop Robert Vasa, before she was murdered:

QUOTE “The Catholic Church teaches that hydration and nutrition are simply water and food.  These must always be provided as long as the food or water itself or the method of delivery is not unduly burdensome to the PATIENT.  There does not appear to be any indication from Terri [Schiavo] that the provision or the method of provision of food and water is burdensome to her.  

…   

[I]t would be murder to cause her death by denying her the food she still has the ability to digest and which continues to provide for her a definite benefit - life itself.”  END QUOTE

The distinction between ordinary care versus extra-ordinary care will help you in making decisions from a Christian perspective.  For harder cases, you can contact your local diocese for help.

In summary: (1) Just as Jesus physically raised the dead to life, we too can help people today be spiritually raised from the pit of depression and suicide; (2) Give to Caesar and the State what belongs to Caesar and the State, and give to God what belongs to God.  Human life and end of life care belong to God, not the State.  (3) The distinction between ordinary care vs. extra-ordinary care will help us make Christian decisions about health care.

Let us, the members of the Church, have Jesus use us to spiritually raise up those in the pit, so that, like in today’s Responsorial Psalm, those spiritually dead that we resurrect may rise to new life and sing together with us for all eternity: “I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.”



"Deacon of Monitions" for Fr. Raj Derivera's & Fr. Jeremy Santos's Ordination; Fr. Raj's First Mass

Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary 2016
Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament
Sacramento, California

(photo by Jong Arcega: http://www.jongarcega.com/)

(a closer shot of me standing in front of Fr. Raj)

(photo by Sean Salvatin)

 http://marysdeacon.blogspot.com/2016/03/deacon-soon-to-be-raj-derivera.html

I Baptized Baby Savannah in NICU While Daddy Eric Welker Held Her - Mom Lynn Died in Childbirth (Homily #60)

Baby Savannah's mom, Lynn Welker, surprisingly died after giving birth to her.

"Savannah, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

I was blessed, honored and privileged to have been part of this difficult chapter in the Welker Family. 

They were high school sweethearts.  I knew them as Navy cadets at Milpitas High School NJROTC.  I was a year or so ahead of them.

After walking in, I hugged Eric for a couple of minutes.  I cried.  We cried together.  I cried because, as a father of little kids and an infant myself, the thought of a shivering child crying moved me.  The thought that Lynn wasn't there physically to take care of her newborn moved me to tears.

Eric is a young widow now.  He spoke.  I listened. 

He said, "It takes a crisis to realize how much life is a gift." 

I administered the Rite of Baptism.  The hospital chaplain asked Eric if it was okay to take pictures, and Eric was fine with it.  I am not posting all of them here.  I did as much of the ritual as I could.  I blessed the sterilized water.

Homily #60

Gospel of Mark Ch. 10

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me."  We believe that your Mommy is here with us in the communion of saints.  We pray for your Daddy, for J and N.  And we want you to have a successful surgery.

(That was the shortest homily I've ever given.)

Thank you, Eric.  Thank you, Lynn.

I told Baby Savannah before leaving, "Thank you for letting me be part of your life."

[Added to this blog on 7/25/2023: Eric remarried Nessa Brasil Hunt, and they asked me to officiate their marriage on July 22 HERE:        ]

[Added to this blog on 6/6/2016: I cited Eric's words to me in a sermon/homily I later preached at Holy Mass on June 5 HERE: http://marysdeacon.blogspot.com/2016/06/preaching-against-physician-assisted.html.]



+ Eternal rest grant unto Lynn, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her.  May she rest in peace.  Amen.

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39th baptism was a danger-of-death (emergency) baptism.

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I am a married Catholic permanent deacon.  If I can be of service to you, I can be reached below:

CONTACT

Deacon Dennis Purificacion

Blog: queensservant.blogspot.com

St. Catherine's Catholic Church

Vallejo, California

(707) 553-1355