“I call heaven and earth this day to record against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your offspring may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19)
The Lord God Almighty is the Giver of life. This is the greatest of His blessings, and the life we now live is a prelude and preparation for everlasting life in His kingdom. This is why the gravest of all sins is suicide. The ordeal of suicide regardless of how it may be justified is the rejection of God’s gift of life. It is the ultimate defeat, the declaration that the price of suffering is too high. Each person baptized into Christ no matter how he or she had fallen away from the Church was set apart for the Kingdom of heaven: “For as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” That proclamation from the epistle of St. Paul is sung thrice as the baptized one is led around the sacred font. To put on Christ is to accept His cross as your own and to share in whatever sufferings come your way as you make your journey through this world and into the next. To wear a cross and to make the sign of the cross over your heart is to remind yourself of that spiritual truth.
Perhaps the most famous suicide of all time was Judas Iscariot. When we think of him, it’s usually in the context of his betrayal of our Lord Jesus. We may not feel sorry for him as he anguished over his infamous deed, trying to undo it by returning the price he was given for turning Christ into the temple leaders, nor do we all mull over the way he hung himself with a halter, falling into a pit and splitting his intestines. But Jesus did. “What you have decided to do, do quickly,” He said to Judas. Like our Lord, it’s proper and Christian to pity Judas and others who bring a curse upon themselves by suicide. Yet we must never endorse it as a solution to our problems.
The Church is quite strict in chastising the suicide. The canons order that the priest is to wear only a black stole [epitrahelion] and not to bring the body into the church, but to sing “Holy God, Holy Mighty…etc.” once at the side of the corpse and again at the place of internment. Why the severity?
- Suicide is a sin against nature. All living things desire to go on living. This is or should be true especially in the case of the human. Life in all forms radiates the glory of God.
- It’s a sin against society, beginning with the family. The suicide creates great anguish for all who had been part of his life. Everybody is affected, beginning with parents, children, spouse, friends and the community. Each says, “If I had only known. I could have prevented it with a word, a visit, or a phone call.” They don’t know how miserable that selfish act was.
- It’s a sin against the Church, the receptacle of the Holy Spirit. God is denied the opportunity to teach him or her a lesson about the soul through suffering and endurance.
- It’s a sin against self most of all. What appears to be a solution to all problems is the amputation of the soul’s adherence to the Holy Spirit, the cutting off of access to the Lord and Giver of life by rejecting His power and authority. You are alone by your own choice, and you will be alone not just in death, but also thereafter. Here is the ultimate alienation.
Once a year on the great feast of Pentecost, the day of the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Church prays even for suicides, pleading that this is so—that love is stronger than death, even when it is self-inflicted.