Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz
and this is Ascension Presents. Today's topic is really,
is actually incredibly serious. I want to talk about the questions of
what happens when someone takes their own life? What is it that the Church teaches about those who commit suicide? Is it, they're lost to God forever?
Is it, they automatically go to hell? Or what is it? And the thing is I really want to be
sensitive to this question because I imagine in this day and age,
there probably isn't one person who is watching this who hasn't been touched by either the temptation to commit suicide, has maybe even tried themselves, or knows someone
who has committed suicide. I mean, it's almost all of us
are affected by this. So what does the Church teach
with regard to suicide? Well, the first thing is that— In the beginning of the day,
middle the day, end of the day, our lives are not our own, right,
that we belong to another. Whether you believe in God or not,
I mean there was a Creator, he exists and so our lives are not merely our lives,
that we're responsible to another. We answer to another. Because of that
my life is not my own and it's not mine to take and at the end of the day,
that's it. And so I may not
take an innocent human life, whether that be someone else's innocent human life
or my own innocent human life. And so Scripture and the Church teach
that taking your own life, one's own life is a grave sin. So here's the thing about grave sin. If I know something is a grave sin
and I freely choose to do it anyways and I die in that state,
then that's separation from God, right, that's what we call hell.
I don't want him, I don't want his will. I don't want to belong to him
and so I've turned away from him. So if I die in that state,
then, yes, hell is the consequence. Now here's the thing
when it comes to suicide is yes, I have to knowingly and freely choose to do
this evil thing of taking my own life, an innocent human being's life
because you're innocent, right? But the interesting thing is
we don't know that information. We don't know if a person
did this knowingly. So if you have a friend, a family member,
someone you know who took their own life, we don't know if they knew
that this was gravely evil. Second thing, we don't know if
they were free. Virtually every article
that I've ever read on suicide talk about how the vast majority of people
who take their own lives are suffering from
some kind of mental illness: they have depression, they have anxiety,
they have bipolar, some kind of thing that has led them
to this place of desperation, led them to this place where
they might actually not be free to say "yes" or to say "no"
in complete freedom. Now, here's the thing.
Caveat. Little side point— If you experience mental illness, like depression, anxiety, bipolar, whatever that thing is, number one,
there's nothing to be ashamed of. I just don't understand how
in our current context, right, we know stuff about the brain,
we know stuff on neuroscience, we know stuff about hormones that affect us
and how our past can affect us, there is nothing to be ashamed of if you experience depression, anxiety, bipolar, any kind of mental illness. Number two, if you do experience this,
almost every article again that talked about how mental illness— those who commit suicide are often affected by mental illness, virtually every article also said that almost every one of those suicides could have been prevented if those people have gotten
the right kind of help. So if that's you,
if you experience any kind of mental illness, please A) do not be ashamed
but B) please get help because there's hope.
I mean truly. Now, you could say, "Well, I went to a counselor.
I went to a therapist and it didn't help me at all." Well— I'll just say this gently. If you or I went to a doctor to fix our broken leg
and they couldn't help us, we wouldn't say,
"Well, I guess doctoring doesn't work." We'd go to a different doctor.
We'd go to a different person. We would seek out help because not every doctor
is going to be perfect just like not every priest is perfect
and not every person is perfect. So please those two things if
you have mental illness: do not be ashamed of this
and number two please get help. Almost—I would say, every person
who's committed suicide could have been helped. We don't know what's going on inside, right? We don't know if the person who committed suicide
knowingly did this or freely did this. In fact, the Catechism says
there are certain mitigating factors: One being mental illness. Another being fear of torture,
under duress, these kind of stressors that could be on a person's life
that could mitigate their freedom and therefore, mitigate what we call—the big word is—culpability, like their own being at fault
for this kind of thing. As an example, St. Augustine, I think it was,
back in the fourth century, fifth century, he once said this. He said, "We don't know what happened between the bridge and the water." Like a person could have jumped
and then repented. They could have jumped
and said, "I'm sorry." In fact, I came across a story. The Golden Gate Bridge is, I think, the second most location of suicides in the United States, maybe even in the world. There was a story of a man who was
28 years old and he had already had one suicide attempt. He went to the Golden
Gate Bridge and he jumped and he said this, he said, "The moment," he said, "I can still see my hands leaving the rail and in that moment, I
knew so clearly that all of my problems that had previously seemed so unfixable
were completely fixable except for the fact that I had just jumped." He repented.
Actually, I heard other people and on the way down, they were praying,
"Jesus, please help me." "God, I'm so sorry." We have no idea
what's going through someone's mind. It could have been possible
that they had repented. Now this man lived. Again, everything that seems so unfixable
was completely fixable. In fact, in most people—studies who've been people who have survived suicide attempts or have made it through without actually even attempting suicide, they look back and said, "Oh man, I was tempted to try to find a 'permanent solution' for what was ultimately temporary problems." All those who did not commit suicide
look back on their lives and say, "I'm so grateful that I didn't do that because all of the things that I was afraid of, overwhelmed by, they all passed me by,
they all got resolved somehow and I'm still here and I'm glad that I'm alive." I want to talk about the TV series—or, the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why. I look back at this girl's life and think like, "Oh my gosh, just get through high school.
It's going to get better." Like everything that—I mean,
she was wounded in many, many ways, but virtually everything that was
going on in her life with the right help,
with the process of time, it was going to get better. And yet, in that moment,
she took her own life. That's why I want to say something
about 13 Reasons Why and it's something that if you've been affected by suicide
if someone you love has taken their own life, sometimes there's this weird emotion;
we experience grief of course, right, but sometimes the emotion that we experience
as survivors of those who have committed suicide is not just grief
but it's anger. It's intense confusion,
because why? Because this TV show 13 Reasons Why— again, yeah, I brought it up to raise the question
and all these kind of things, Like here's my big problem
with this TV series. The whole series
is a revenge story, right? It's this girl who's been wronged and so what the 13 Reasons Why are— this is why this is your fault. This is why my death is your fault
and your fault and your fault. YOU'RE the reason why, right? And so the pleasure—kind of like the pleasure, I guess—and not a lot of pleasure but the pleasure we take in this series
is that she's getting even, she's taking revenge on the people who hurt her,
the people who are her enemies but here's the crazy thing about suicide. Your enemies don't care. The people who don't love you
don't care. The only people who get hurt
are the ones who actually love you. That's why this TV series, for
whatever kind of merits it might have, I don't think it has many—
is this simply a revenge story and that is foolishness. I mean it's dumb. And yet here as the survivors,
what do we do? What do we do? We can experience grief,
we can experience anger. But we also have to experience hope. And hope means
we're going to pray. And this is what the Church actually does. The Church commends to God's mercy
all those who take their lives. Why? Because we don't have the inside information
but God does. And so because we don't know,
we're going to choose hope. This is the Christian choice. So if you know someone
who has ever taken their own life, please choose hope
and pray for them. If you are someone who is tempted
to take your own life, please choose hope and get help. There are people who want to help you. Not everyone,
because not everyone is perfect. But there are people who want to help. From all of us here at Ascension Presents,
my name is Fr. Mike. God bless.
