[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 68 (Thursday, May 26, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 26, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             THE ROSE MASS

                                 ______


                          HON. SONNY CALLAHAN

                               of alabama

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 26, 1994

  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to 
share the sermon of a great friend of mine, Archbishop Oscar H. 
Lipscomb. I believe all who read this will find it as uplifting as I 
have.
  The third annual Rose Mass was celebrated on March 13, 1994, at St. 
Patrick's Church in Washington, DC. The principal celebrant was His 
Eminence, James Cardinal Hickey, the Archbishop of Washington. The 
homilist was the Most Reverend Oscar H. Lipscomb, the Archbishop of 
Mobile. Named the ``Rose Mass,'' this annual celebration takes place on 
the fourth Sunday of Lent, a Sunday when the vestments worn by the 
celebrant are rose-colored. The rose has also come to symbolize life 
whose precious care is entrusted to the healing profession.
  The Rose Mass is organized by the John Carroll Society to invoke 
God's blessings on the medical, dental, nursing, and allied health care 
workers and the many health care institutions in the archdiocese of 
Washington. In addition, the mass provides an opportunity to give 
thanks for the splendid work of the volunteers of the Archdiocesan 
health care network. This network is composed of a multitude of 
dedicated workers of all religious persuasions infused with an 
ecumenical spirit in their care of the sick.
  The John Carroll Society, named after the first Catholic bishop in 
the United States, was founded in 1951. Composed of 880 members, the 
primary purpose of the society is the enhancement of spiritual, 
intellectual, and social fellowship among lay men and women dedicated 
to the service of the Archbishop of Washington. The society draws its 
members from all areas of professional and business life in the 
metropolitan Washington area.
  The enclosed homily was delivered at 10 in the morning in Washington 
on March 13, 1994, at the third annual Rose Mass at St. Patrick's 
Church by the Most Reverend Oscar H. Lipscomb, the Archbishop of 
Mobile. The same day--in the afternoon--at the Cathedral of Mary Our 
Queen in Baltimore, MD, the archbishop delivered this same homily as a 
part of the first Rose Mass in the archdiocese of Baltimore.

             Homily for Mass on Rose Sunday, March 13, 1994

              (By Oscar H. Lipscomb, Archbishop of Mobile)

       We are truly his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to lead 
     the life of good deeds which God prepared for us in 
     advance.--Eph. 2,10.
       Father Benedict Ashley, O.P., whose name conjures up the 
     brightest and best in our current medical-moral theology, 
     offered us a remarkable resource for the healing arts in his 
     work, Theologies of the Body: Humanist and Christian, 
     published in 1985. As preliminary to his comprehensive and 
     penetrating presentation, Father Ashley asked the question: 
     ``Can we create ourselves?'' Later in the text as part of a 
     complex tapestry woven from pre-history, history, philosophy 
     and theology that reaches to the present, this author gives 
     an answer that is both startling and full of challenge to all 
     persons of faith. It has special meaning for the health-care 
     professional who, as one with Christ Jesus through word, 
     sacrament and work is invited to share in the work of 
     creation.
       With a vision of ``the whole human community across space 
     and time'' offering a framework for universally valid ethical 
     and moral norms as points of reference, Father Ashley 
     responded:
       ``This universal morality, far from negating our human 
     capacity to create new cultures and to advance technological 
     control of nature, is what makes it possible for us to form 
     such cultures in ways that will meet basic human needs. 
     Hence, to answer the question * * *: `Can we create 
     ourselves?', it must be affirmed that we can truly create 
     ourselves if we understand this `creation' to be neither the 
     destruction of nature nor the forgetting of history, but a 
     perfecting in new ways of what has already come to be by 
     constructive natural processes and a purification and 
     incorporation of historical cultural achievements into our 
     present and future selves.''
       In a later important specification for our purposes today, 
     and in keeping with the words of our Scripture reading on 
     Rose Sunday, the learned Dominican noted: ``The God of 
     Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Father of Jesus, however 
     creates the world freely. It wholly depends on him for every 
     aspect of its being and he in no way depends on the world, 
     yet he is present to it not merely by his power but by a 
     personal presence of knowledge, love and providence.''
       The personal empowerment and invitation that Jesus gives to 
     his disciples makes the task of such ``creation'' a real and 
     compelling one for each of us. Ourselves re-created by the 
     gift of God's Spirit in Christ, we are truly called to re-
     create the world around us. ``I am the vine, you are the 
     branches. He who lives in me and I in him will produce 
     abundantly * * *. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved 
     you. Live on in my love.'' And even more explicitly in St. 
     Paul, ``You, then, are the body of Christ. Every one of you 
     is a member of it.''
       There is a special likeness to Christ in doctors, nurses, 
     indeed, in all who fill a place in the profession of health 
     care. Christ's gift from the Father is life, life in 
     abundance, life to the full, This life that is destined never 
     to see death is joined intimately to that life and health 
     that is your province: fragile, joyful, mysterious in its 
     opportunities and dangers, mortal in its outcome--but is not 
     its real end. You, by your skill and art enhance this life as 
     it waits upon and works toward the Christ-gift of life. Your 
     role is played out in faith confident of God's final loving 
     but often unable to gasp its meaning and presence at a given 
     moment. Such moments of wonder and worry, skin to doubt, are 
     not unlike the seventy years of exile in Babylon until King 
     Cyrus, an unlikely instrument, helped Israel to re-create 
     itself as the people of promise. He uses us, too, as his 
     instruments, unlikely as we seem to be.
       Truly, ``creation'' anew in Christ gives us a crucial part 
     to play in ``the life of good deeds which God has prepared 
     for us in advance.'' What an unmistakably ``good deed'' it is 
     to reach out to those who need help in the special 
     circumstance of illness. The many faces of sickness, and its 
     many stages, have one universal characteristic: the one who 
     suffers, who needs help, is confronted with his, or her, 
     utter lack of self-sufficiency. They need others. And those 
     who would truly serve them well must be, again in 
     configuration to Christ, persons for others. Such a 
     configuration is not easily come by. Our society and its 
     values militate against it as part of our emphasis on self, 
     individualism and personal needs. It is sad that a quality, 
     selflessness, which many experienced, and still experience as 
     a hallmark of the healing arts is today so badly at risk.
       An article in America last January cited Dr. Lawrence 
     Ronan, himself a primary-care specialist at Harvard who 
     directs a residency program at Massachusetts General and is 
     severely critical of training that erodes the ``quality of 
     mercy'' in medical practitioners.
       ``Dr. Ronan thinks that unless medicine and those who pay 
     for it change, even fewer will choose the intimacy of primary 
     care. `The kids see this 15 minutes with a patient and the 
     chaos of insurance forms and they say, ``That's not why I 
     went to medical school.'' And that's sad, because when these 
     kids write essays for admission they all use the word 
     ``service''. They say, ``I'm going to care for you.'' In some 
     sense, the generalist spirit runs in everyone who comes into 
     medicine, and yet we turn out very few generalist.'''
       The America article went on to state that medical schools 
     are at least trying to instill compassion in their students. 
     It listed such elements as courses in medical humanities, 
     ethics and behavioral modifications as well as earlier 
     exposure to patients and even role playing on the part of 
     students ``to put themselves in the skins of the sick.'' 
     I would suggest, again for persons with faith and a more 
     than casual encounter with the Lord, that a primary 
     resource remains underdeveloped. We sacrifice for those 
     whom we love. And we who are loved by Christ are empowered 
     to love those to whom we are sent, for whom we are 
     responsible, because they are there to be loved. They need 
     it. Jesus would give it. And so must we if we have been 
     created in Christ to do the handiwork of God. And the sick 
     will sense and respond to loving care as a dimension well 
     beyond care that is therapeutic or custodial.
       It is this love of Christ of which St. John speaks in the 
     Third Chapter of his Gospel that offers us light amid the 
     gathering darkness that clouds questions of human life in our 
     society at its origins and when it runs its final course. For 
     it is the Son of Man, lifted up by the will of the Father, 
     who offers us the promise of eternal life and victory over 
     death itself. So much does He love us and at so great a cost. 
     It is not right, reason and rhetoric unaided that will 
     convince a mindset reaching out today with increasing 
     conviction for euthanasia. A powerful example of such 
     persuasion was offered by Richard M. Doerflinger last year at 
     the twelfth bishops' workshop on medical-moral problems in 
     Dallas. He said:
       ``The vision of life as a gift of the Creator is shared by 
     Catholics, Protestants, Jews and many others, and is 
     reflected in the founding documents of our nation. But I 
     understand that it is not shared by all. To those who find it 
     unappealing I would say this: If life is not a divine gift, 
     it is at least the most basic and fundamental of the human 
     goods which societies like ours are established to protect. 
     And it is precisely an ethical devotion to this good that 
     makes the physician a member of a profession, rather than 
     just another technician with a good-paying job. Life is basic 
     because it is the pre-condition for every other human good 
     and human right, even freedom. You cannot enhance someone's 
     freedom by taking his life, because corpses have no freedom. 
     Freely taking your life, like freely selling yourself into 
     slavery, is the ultimate self-contradiction of freedom, not 
     its ultimate triumph.''
       Imagine the mysterious power added to such reasons offered 
     to a person considering euthanasia by one who could say and 
     show to the person in pain, and beyond hope: ``Please don't 
     choose to die. You mean so much to me. I love you.'' They are 
     God's words and we need to find the strength to make them our 
     own.
       At the other end of the spectrum, where life begins, I 
     heard such words in a first-person narrative of a local 
     Mobile columnist. Jay Grelen, with his wife, Cindi, shared 
     with our community the wonder, pain and mystery of God's gift 
     of life:
       ``The second time, I understood the french fries.
       ``The first time Cindi learned she was pregnant, two days 
     after Valentine's Day 1989, she telephoned and invited me to 
     lunch. She told me her news. I sat there stunned, she 
     says, and inhaled the fries.
       ``So it's a week after Valentine's Day in 1992. We had 
     moved from Denver to Lexington, KY. Cindi had gone to the 
     doctor, who diagnosed a sinus infection. And something else.
       ``Instead of antibiotics, she came home with a bag of 
     french fries for me and a huge grin on her face.
       ``This time, our 2-year-old daughter helped inhale.
       ``The Friday that Cindi learned she was pregnant, we began 
     to dream and plan. Where to put the new baby? When to tell 
     Samantha? We couldn't have loved this new member of our 
     family more if the baby were already in the crib.
       ``Four days later, on Tuesday, Cindi went for an ultra-
     sound, which confirmed our happy news.
       ``On Wednesday, she began to bleed and cramp.
       ``We went to the doctor's office. Cindi sat there thinking, 
     `I'm losing my baby.' All the while, from another room, came 
     a strong, regular `ka-thump': It was a monitor, picking up 
     and broadcasting the heartbeat of another body in its 
     mother's womb.
       ``But our news was good. No dilating. Uterus slightly 
     swollen. Blood test better than expected.
       ```I'm still off my feet,' Cindi wrote in her journal that 
     day, `but ever so much more hopeful.'
       ``Thursday, 9 p.m. Cramps and bleeding worsen.
       ``Half-past midnight. `I'm in great pain--physically and in 
     my soul', Cindi wrote. `I'm losing my baby.'
       ``Friday, 6:30 a.m., one week after the positive pregnancy 
     test. Suddenly, the pregnancy was over, the baby was gone.
       ```Guilt and horror sweep over me,' Cindi wrote later of 
     that moment, `and I can't fathom what to do.'
       ``Cindi endured that dark night alone. I slept through it. 
     And for many days, she felt she was alone, that I was 
     emotionally asleep.
       ``I had my cry later that morning, in the rocking chair in 
     our first-born's room, and then I was through.
       ``But Cindi knew, in a way that only a mother can know, 
     what had been inside. She had felt the new life sprouting, 
     the hormonal surge, the joy. And Cindi knows, in a way that 
     only a mother can, what we lost.
       ``But joy and life do return. Three months later, Cindi was 
     pregnant again. Now, our second daughter nears her first 
     birthday. We have seen life come, we have seen it go. We see 
     life running--or in the baby's case, crawling--circles around 
     us. Because of what we can cradle, and because of what we 
     can't, we understand more fully the miracle of life, whatever 
     the stage.''
       We are truly his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to lead 
     the life of good deeds which God has prepared for us in 
     advance.

                          ____________________