Goodbye, cruel world?

Finances destroyed.

Reputation trashed.

Relationships painful or nonexistent.

Health doomed.

These are reasons why people think they should kill themselves and leave this world.

These are the words of Jesus in the Gospel of the seventh Sunday of Easter (John 17:11b-19):

I do not ask that you take them out of the world
but that you keep them from the evil one.
They do not belong to the world
any more than I belong to the world.
Consecrate them in the truth.
Your word is truth.
As you sent me into the world,
so I sent them into the world.

The world IS an evil place, but the will of Christ is not that we be taken out of the world: quite the contrary, He sends us into the world.

Even the most isolated contemplatives and holy hermits are fully engaged in life and fully dedicated to prayer for the Church in the world.

The world is an evil place. Although there is also good in the world and good in people, we must never let ourselves become attached to this world, for it will betray us.

If we identify ourselves with being prosperous or even just comfortable in this world, not only do we diminish our ties to the eternal riches of heaven, we open ourselves to letting financial setbacks threaten our very souls.

If we identify ourselves too much with being loved or even well thought of in this world, not only do we weaken our connection with the true love of God, we open ourselves to letting our souls be threatened by unpopularity or persecution.

We are not the center of the universe.

Our personal comfort or self-esteem is not the most important reality of existence.

What is important is the mission given to us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: a mission of love and truth.

Lifting up his eyes to heaven,
Jesus prayed saying:

Holy Father,
keep them in your name that you have given me,
so that they may be one
just as we are one.

When I was with them
I protected them in your name that you gave me,
and I guarded them,
and none of them was lost
except the son of destruction,
in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

But now I am coming to you.

I speak this in the world
so that they may share my joy completely.

I gave them your word,
and the world hated them,
because they do not belong to the world
any more than I belong to the world.

I do not ask that you take them out of the world
but that you keep them from the evil one.

They do not belong to the world
any more than I belong to the world.

Consecrate them in the truth.

Your word is truth.

As you sent me into the world,
so I sent them into the world.

And I consecrate myself for them,
so that they also may be consecrated in truth.

Suicide is not only a repudiation of God by the destruction of His precious gift of life, it is a renunciation of the mission given to us by Christ.

No matter what may afflict us, no matter what our failures may have been, we can go forward in faithfulness to Christ's mission of love and truth, walking hand in hand by His grace with the One who was tortured, rejected, and denounced.

Until Christ Himself calls us home, may we live in this world faithful to Him – no matter what.