Pio's Proverb 141"THE HOLY FAMILY: our earthly mirror of the heavenly Holy Trinity

Surely, all truly married couples mirror the Trinity in some way: there is the one who loves, then the beloved and the love they share. When a child is conceived in the marital union of husband and wife, there is surely a clear mirror of the Holy Trinity since now you have the Lover, the Beloved and the Love, personified in the baby. In all families, there is a communion of persons. There is a relationship between husband, wife and child. Since the Holy Trinity is a communion of Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit who love one another so perfectly that they are perfectly one, perfectly united as One God with three Divine Persons who love each other from all eternity. So, when God creates the human family, we can be sure that He will mirror in us the Divine Communal Life of the Holy Trinity.We are not only made individually in the image and likeness of God, we are also as a family made in the image and likeness of God.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Family in the Church..which is herself a faith-filled family based on the communal family love of all Christians. Even those Christians who are not Catholic, still in soul belong to the Body of Christ which is the Church of Christ.

The Holy Family is the most perfect mirror of the Holy Trinity we have on this earth. One of the Persons of this family was Jesus, the Son of God, The Word made Flesh. The "Word was with God; and the Word was God; and the Word became Flesh and dwelled among us." John 1  So, in this earthly Family, one of the Persons of the Holy Trinity is present. He not only symbolizes the Son of God, He is the Son of God. Joseph symbolizes the Father in the Holy Trinity. Mary symbolizes the Holy Spirit since she is the spouse of the Holy Spirit who overshadowed her to bring about the Incarnation of Jesus in her womb.

What is so interesting in this family is that they are only concerned with loving the other members of the family. Each member of the Holy Family is devoted to the welfare of the other members. Each member is totally selfless just as the Holy Trinity Persons are devoted and love the other Persons in the Holy Trinity.

This total self-giving love and devotion reaches great sacrificial heights. Joseph remains celebate to honor Mary's vow of virginity and so that her virginity can be truly seen as a sign: "The sign of Jona" - that a "virgin shall conceive and bear a son and his name is Emanuel."  If Joseph and Mary were to have children, that sign would have been negated. So, here we have two loving people - married - who love each other and who are in love with one another who give up holy marital union for a higher cause. So, here we have a man sleeping next to his wife who is contented with giving her a hug and kiss goodnight and nothing more. Why? Because Joseph loved Mary more than himself...loved her mission...loved her very being as the Mother of the Messiah. Mary..who loved Joseph also gave up her natural desires that are good. Adam and Eve before they fell into sin were able to make love with a holy desire that was controlled. Mary gave all that up even before the Angel announced to her that she was "full of grace" - that is she was the "Immaculate Conception" because she was to be the spouse of the Holy Spirit at the moment of the Incarnation when she said: "Let it be done according to your word."

Therefore even before the angel came to her, she was totally dedicated and devoted to God: that is what virginity truly means: totally devoted to God.  In that sense, even grandmothers who become nuns are now "totally devoted to God" and are mystically "virgins for the Lord" - spouses of the Lord.

So, we have seen that Joseph was devoted to Mary. Mary also was devoted to Joseph; she washed his clothes and made his meals and slept near him at night. She was a good and faithful wife, devoted to her husband and her Child. Do you see that these two members of the family are totally self-less and devoted to others. There is not self focus here on one's own happiness. No, happiness for each member is total devotion to the others in the family. But that is such a perfect mirror of the Holy Trinity whose Persons are totally devoted to the others in the Trinity. It is this total self love in the Holy Family that so mirrors the Holy Trinity.

What of Jesus? " The child grew and became strong.." Luke 2: 48. Jesus, this Person in the Holy Family on earth is totally unique: he is the God-man. He is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity who has had a LONG ETERNITY of experience of how to LOVE in a family.

So, Jesus can love Joseph and Mary with a human and Divine Love at the same time. This is a great mystery. But Jesus did give us a hint about how He can do this: He said: "As the Father has loved me, so I love you....Love one another as I have loved you."  And: "Whoever welcome a child such as this for my sake welcomes Me. And whoever welcome Me welcomes Him who sent Me."

There you have it: the total formula for family unity and love.

Jesus, Joseph and Mary teach us even more: Humility!

 The Word of God in becoming Flesh as Jesus, the Christ, shows utter humility to come down from the heaven to live in a little hut with mortals. He further shows us how to work in silence and anonimity for 30 years. He sent no letters nor talked on radio or wrote any books. No, He stayed home and worked in the family business..quietly..humbly....and lovingly.

What of Jesus love for Joseph and Mary? His love for His family on earth is beyond our telling. But since He also adopted all of us into this family, He showed that love by dying a horrible death to save us and bring us into His Heaven Family in Heaven one day. Jesus' family love knows no bounds! We are awed..because He even said: "No man shows more love than to lay his life down for his friend." But Jesus did exactly that for us His friends. There is more: Jesus even died for His enemies....He even tried to bring His enemies into His family. You would think that Jesus would be more street smart. He was smart: He was Wisdom Incarnate. He even said: "Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing."  Only family members say things like that. Even to the very end, Jesus was ministering to the weeping women of Jerusalem, praying for his enemies that they would repent and be forgiven. He even tried to win back Judas in the middle of Judas's betrayal. Jesus just doesn't give up. He is totally a "dreamer of bringing all into His family". At end of the world at the last judgment, we shall see just how wise and merciful He is..and how right He was to reach out to sinners as if they were His family. Jesus only had eyes to see "family" because in the Trinity, Family is all that there is!

Holy Family, please pray for us...give us to love one another in humility and utter devotion as you did for one another. Please pray for our souls now and at the end of our days so that we can all be part of your Holy Family in Heaven with you. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

Peace and love, Pio  

Pio's Proverb 140: "As a man thinks in his heart..so he is." Proverbs by Solomon

When Solomon wrote: "As a man thinks in his heqrt..so he is", did he realize the the profundity of his words? Since he wrote in the Holy Spirit, it is possible that only the Holy Spirit knew the whole truth of what Solomon was inspired to write in this short but all pervasive summary of who a man is...who he really is in his whole being.

I was moved when Mongomery Cliff played a role in which he did not save his wife from drowning. He was sentenced by a court to die for his murder of his wife. As he was going to the gallows, he turned to the priest who was there to give him the last rites and said: "I did not do it...did I?"  The priests said something profound that  the condemned man took to his death. The priests said: "There was murder in your heart, son."   Since "murder" was in his "heart", so "he is" - a murderer. You would think the priest would have been more comforting...Perhaps, he could have said: "God has forgiven you for having murder in your heart that kept you from saving your wife", but the priest said the bare truth.  The writer of this screen play was writing for effect...maybe to satisfy the audience who did not have any mercy for him and wanted him to get what he deserved; but I would have been more merciful if I were the priest. I would have given him absolution as my final gesture and a prayer: "May God show His mercy on you and give you entrance into heaven."
But the writer of this play was not only putting words into the criminal's mouth, he was revealing his own heart. Yes, "as the man (writer) thinks in his heart...so he is.."  Thus the writer revealed that he was a man who was not merciful.

Hitler in his Mein Kumpth - "My Struggle" revealed who he was completely. Everything was there: hatred for the Jews, his erotic relationship with power. "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (writes).
He lost in the election to become channcelor; but he took over the power over the German People. All was present in his book. Why did not the people understand that this man was a menance to mankind. On the day he took his own life in April of 1945, Berlin and all the cities of Germany were in complete ruins. But all of that was present in his words, in his speaches. His heart was revealed. He rose to power because there were so many in Germany who wanted to get revenge for the First World War defeat and who hated the Jews. The said thing is that Hitler was merely reflecting what the Germans wanted. Not all; but these types also commited suicide on the day that Hitler did when the Russians were entering the city. Attacking the Russians to try to rule over Russian was the most collosal  blunder Hitler ever made. No one could sanely wage war on so many fronts. And the Russian people were not like the Americans. They came to wipe out Germany as if it were an ant underfoot. They violated German women and som many of them died from the abuse. Americans did not do that because what was in the hearts of the Amiericans was to end the war and start rebuilding the world devastated by the War. Again the truth is clear: "As a man thinks in his heart..so he is." That goes for Hitler, Stalin, the Russian soldiers and the German soldiers and the American and English soldiers. This Solomon Proverb that a man is what he thinks in his heart is so completely true for every man because as he thinks in his heart is how he acts out. A man does as he thinks; so he is as he thinks.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta had so much in her heart. She came to the incredible truth that in the poorest of the poor, there is Christ...His Body. She not only went to Holy Communion everyday. She held the Body of Christ in her arms in the dying poor who died in her arms with her comforting words and loving heart. Surely as she thought in her heart, so that is the woman she was. She blatantly blasted the world with her love and care of others. In India there is a cast system. The rich did not wish her to build her mini hospitals in a rich section of the city. They took her to court. They lost because the judge said, "If she does not build here, how will you take care of these poor people?"  Her opponents had no answer. They were moot. She built her hospital right in the rich section of the city because what was in her heart...was who she was..and no one could prevail over her love for the poorest of the poor - who were Christ to her...And she was totally correct. There was truth in her heart. She was a monumental woman of truth and love.

What is in your heart and mind today? What is in our hearts is the total substance of our prayer life. The sum of what we talk to God about each morning is who we really are. Please join me as I get up and go on our knees by our bedside and say to God:

"Thank You, Father, for a good and safe night's rest and that You have decided to give me another new day.  Thank You for whatever surprisesYou plan to give me today as a proof of Your love for me. I offer you all my joys and sufferings today and join my pains and suffering to those of Jesus for the conversions of sinners, the protection of the unborn and for all those who will die this day that the Precious Blood of Jesus will atone for their sins and give them hope for heaven without fear...even for the atheists or great sinners whom the devil thinks he has for sure. Let these souls turn to Christ and accept Him as their Lord and Savior because "Out of the body, present to the Lord." So when these souls come to see Jesus when they are out of the body and present to Him, let them see His love and mercy and run into this arms as did the prodigal son accept the embrace of the forgiving Father. All this we ask in Jesus' Name. Amen.

Love, Pio

Pio's Proverb 139: "Three Peters walking down the road"

When my friend, Peter Furbacher, and his dad, Peter Furbacher and I, Peter Zammit, were walking down a road on the Furbacher estate, I suddenly noticed something and said so all could hear: "No where on this planet are there three Peters walking side by side who care about and love each other!"

We all looked at each other...paused..and then had to admit..that this was totally true. Now what are the chances of three Peters to just happen to be walking together down a road together? I think that the chances are a million to one or more. Therefore, this little gathering of three Peters was not by chance. It was by Providence.

All the events of our life seems ordinary at the time; but in God's eyes, He has seen all of them from all eternity. Really? Yes, really. Did God the Father know the exact second of the exact hour of the exact day of the exact year that His Son, Jesus, would die? Absolutely. He knew the moment of Christ's birth and death. His birth because Jupiter and and star Regulus were close enough to seem as one largest star that came to a stop over Bethelem. How can Jupiter come to a stop? It does not really stop. But when it comes around in orbet and goes in the opposite direction, it seems to stop - at the precise time. So, that is the star that the Magi saw coming to stand still over Bethlehem. At the precise momen of Christ's death, the moon was eclipsed and seem to disappear. Also, there was a blood red moon that night as well because the moon only gets light reflected from the earth at that time...so it appeared red as does our sunset. But for all this to happen, God the Father must have known before the creation of the universe the precise time of His Son birth and death.  That being so, what of us who God's children?  Did God see us three Peters walking down the road together from all etenity? Yes, He did....and I also believe that He willed it so......to show us that His eyes are always lovingly on us.

Love, Pio 

Pio's Proverb 138: Christmas Trees Cut for Nothing and Who Lived A Little While To Talk About It.

While driving off of 15 mile to go South on Gratiot just a few days ago after Christmas day, I saw about 30 Christmas trees laying down in a neat row in a Christmas tree lot. These trees were all blue spruce and about 7 years old. No one bought them. They were beautiful. Why did no one buy them: two reasons: 1) they were probably priced too hight. 2) the business man cut two many trees.

Can you imagine two trees conversing on a hill side observing other trees being cut down.

One tree says to the other: "Why are all these beautiful trees being cut down?"

The other tree says: "They are going to be used as Christmas trees."

One: "But why sacrifice a life just for a few days of Christmas?"

Other: "Well, we smell Christmasie and look Christmasie, and we get to be all dressed up in lights and ornamaments. It is a glorious time."

One: "Do they plant us in their yard for next year?"

Other: "No..we are only used once. But it is glorious and spiritual. We are to symbolize Jesus and His star pointing to heaven".

One: "I am not sure I want to give up my life for a few days of glory...but maybe for Jesus' glory, I would."

Other: "Well, we do not have too much of a choice. Here comes the 'saw man' to get us!"

One: "Buzzzzzz!"

Other: "Buzzzz!"

A week later.......

One: "Why are we still here in this Christmas tree lot.....No one took us home to decorate us?"

Other: "I do not know. Maybe the business man was greedy and wanted to make a lot of money. He could have sold us for a dollar each..instead of $50 dollars each which no one could afford. But he kept holding out for more money. And now we are here cut down for nothing!"

One: "I do not see anything spiritual in him at all. He is only interested in making money off of Christmas and giving us away to some children to enjoy. What will happen to us now?"

Other: "We have just a few days to live because we have no water for our trunk. If we had been taken home, we could have lived for weeks."

One: "I feel so cheated. I have been cut for nothing. I could have lived for a hundred years or more and become a great tree and maybe then be taken down for the grand Christmas Tree for the City or for even placed in the Vatican Plaza. Now...we will go the dump.....it is just not fair...no fair....why..?"

Other: "Well, ...maybe we are a symbol....we can still be used in some way...."

One: "How will we be seen as a symbol?  ...a symbol of our owner's greed?"

Other: "Well, ...greed...yes, for sure...we are seen as a waste created by greed...But there is some deeper meaning for all this."

One: "What?"

Other: "We are a visible sign of a much deeper cruelty and greed!"

One: "What can be more cruel than to cut us down while we were awaiting spring and the hope of a great life?"

Other: "I think God allowed all this to happen so that people can see visibly the absolute greed and waste of aborting babies who are thrown away and cut down before they could even see the sun for one minute. We at least have had seven years of life. These little babies were cut down so doctors can make money and girls can have an easier life."

One: "How will anyone know about us being this symbol....cars drive by...cars just drive by...no one knows what you are thinking and telling me..."

Other: "No....you cannot be sure of that.....there is a man named Pio I saw go by in a car......He saw us and looked long at us.....He understood the symbolism and will tell many about us...our lives are not in vain..we have a purpose after all....after all..."

One: "I hope so...because I want to live......so much.."

Other: "That is the very point.....all the babies in the womb ..wanted to live so much...so much."

Love, Pio

Pio's Proverb 137: Thomas of London declared a Saint in just two years.

Thomas of Londom was born of Norman leniage on December 21, 1118 in London.. At age 36 Thomas was made chancellor by the young new King Henry II who ascended the throne when his father King Stephen died.

We do not have a portrait of Thomas at this time as we do of Thomas More because there were no Holbeins in those days. But here is a verbal description of Thomas:

He was "of slim growth and pale, dark hair, a long nose and a straightly featured face. ...Blithe of countenance was he, winning and loveable in his conversation, frank of speech in his discourses, but slightly stuttering in his talk, so keen of discernment and understanding that he could always make difficult questions plain after a wise manner." -- as written by Robert Cricklade in his "Icelantic Saga."
Henry also thought he could control the Church if he made Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury. But Thomas warned Henry that  as Archbishop, Thomas would be loyal to the Church and put her first and could not use his position in the Church for the King's  gain. But Henry was stubburn and continued to believe he could control the Church with the help of Thomas' strategic positioin in the Church.  But as Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas kept his word and opposed King Henry at every turn and verified by deeds that he would not let Henry take over the spiritual power of the Church.

Finally, King Henry realized there was no controlling Bishop Thomas and said in the hearing of his guard that he wanted someone to "rid him of the meddlesome priest." Assisins were all too egar win the favor of the King and slew Thomas while he was saying Vespers in the Cathedral.

Now there is a great danger regarding the State's polictical power and the Church: If the State tries to run the Church, it is doomed to fail because the concern of the Church and its agenda is as St. Paul said: "We preach Christ crucified "and "resurrected".  The State does not have this agenda. Even today, the State tries to show its power in the separation of church and state; but the First Amendment does not do not separated the Church and State since both are needed for the good of the people. So our founding fathers made God a great part of their governing. They said "We have inalienable rights endowed by the Creator to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Even when Supreme Court Justice, Hugo Black declared this separation of Church and State by closing for two years all Catholic Schools. But he failed in this edeavor, too.  Against injustice, the Church always wins because the "gates of hell will not prevail against her".  Henry did not win either. Even when he made the comment: "Who will rid me of the meddlesome priest?" that caused the death of Thomas while he was at service in his own cathedral, the Catholic Church declared Thomas a Saint in just two years because there were so many miracles taking place at Thomas' Shrine. Thomas was only 62 years old when he was martyred on today's date: December 29, 1170. Henry and his assassin went - as a public penance - to the Holy Land.  It is believe that both of them Both died there and are buried in Jerusalem.

All this proves that the Church always prevails in Faith and Morals. Even when the state tries to set the agenda for the Church -- as did Henry VIII try when he tore down the Shrine devoted to the memory of St. Thomas a' Becket...and even when he created new martyrs such as St. John Fishe and St. Thomas More -- the Catholic Church keeps on going and has for 2000 years and will continue to the end of time.

In 1538, King Henry VIII tried to destroy St. Thomas of Lond's Shrine. He had the body exhumed and burned; but in 1888, a skeleton was found on the sight that is now revered as that of St. Thomas. It just seems that the Saints just don't want to go away.

What about today? When Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black -  a devoted member of the Ku Klux Klan - declared the separation of church as the basis of his closing down Catholic Schools for two years, the nuns reversed this and opened them up again because the First Amenment did not declare a "separation of church and state, but only supreme court justices do.

Interestingly enough it was Supreme Court Justice Blackmunn who allowed abortion for Roe in Roe v. Wade, in 1973. But even he said that "..if the suggestion that a fetus is a human person can be proven, then the appellant's case (Roe) would completely collapse; for then the fetus would be protected by the 14th Amendment: "No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.."  So, now these very words are the basis of a new law before Congress. This law is called "Life at Conception Act" that will declare every and all fetus from the moment of conception a "human person." Roe v Wade will be completely overturned and all abortion will be illegal. Even if after this Act is passed by Congress and is subsequently vetoed by President Obama (who says that "women's right to abortion must be protected"), still 2/3 majority of the Congress will override his veto. [Please note that there is no legal document or any congressional document or any consitutional document that ever menions "a woman's right to abortion". There is no document because abortion is not a "right"; it is a "wrong".]  I deeply believe that there is no power on this earth that can stop the "Life at Conception Act" proposed by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky from becoming law! Why? Because the Holy Spirit wrote this law. 

God is not just looking the other way with abortion...as He did not look away when 6,000,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis. God suffered with the Jews and suffers with all 60,000,000  babies killed in the womb.  But in both cases, He sends saviors: Raoul Wallingburg, the American GI's who saved the Jews; and now He is sending Senator Rand Paul and Fr. Frank Pavone and all the pro-life workers. God will send His "Moses" to rescue His people.  He always has. He aways will. You and I will see all abortion clinics declared illegal. All babies in the womb will be protected by the 14th Amendment and by the Power of Almigty God. No Hitler nor Obama will be able to declare any innocent human being to be executed by the state. Pres. Obama in five of his speaces in mentioning our "inalienable rights....of life, liberty...and pursuit of appiness," did so while skipping the most important words of all: "endowed by the Creator". Pres. Obama skipped those words because like Hitler he wants to let the State create what "rights" men and women should have. If our rights are "endowed by the Creator", then abortion is nullified by his own words because the rights of the fetus IS ENDOWED BY THE CREATOR.  After the passage of the "Life at Conception Act", the fetus will have a CHOICE for the first time in 38 years.

SOLOMON'S COMMENT on President Obama's view of himself:

"All the ways of a man may be right in his own eyes, but it is the Lord who proves hearts. To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than Sacrifice.....He who makes a fortuen by a lying tongue is chaing a bublle over deadly snares." Proverbs 21: 2 and 6. 

And what shall we do with President Obama: "Expel the arrogant man and discord goes out; strife and insult cease." Proverbs 22: 10.

And who is President Obama really? "As a man thinks in his heart..so he is," so Solomon says. And what does the President think in his heart? His mouth speaks his heart. He skips the words: "endowed by the Creator" five times. He says that "women's right to abortion must be protected" when abortion is against the First and Fourteenth Amendments. No one has a right to kill an innocent defenseless person. So what is in President Obama's heart IS who he IS!  And who is he?  In his heart, he is a murderer...and speaks to please  pro-choice women. Let the merciful words of St. Michael the Archagel spoken to Lucifer be our words to this president: "May God correct you!"

In this Country, there is a popular saying of "Separation of Church and State" which is was never part of any of our Constitutional documents. There is a cooperation between Church and State because these two great institutions need each other. But today: the "hearsay doctrine of separation of Church and State" really means a "Suppression of the Church by the State." This is proven by these Court decisions:

1)  1962: School prayer censored.

2) 1973: Child's right to life under the 14th Amendment is canceled by Roe v.Wade: abortion is made legal  for any reason and at any stage of fetal development - even up to 9  months of gestation.

3) 1980: The 10 Commandments are censored.

4) 1987: Teaching of "Creation" in the sciences is censored.

5) 2004: Marriage between one man and one woman is re-defined to include same-sex couples which is an ontological impossibility.

6) 2005: The 10 Commandments are further censored.

All of the above Supreme Court Decisions are contradictions to the Judaic-Christian and Natural Law.

Jesus said that anyone "lives by the sword, will die by the sword." Well, this applies to the abortive swords that kill babies in the womb. It applies to the Word of God that cuts like a two edged sword into error and false doctrines. We as a Nation are moving away from God which makes us no better than China which openly says that atheism is the State religion. But we - with people like Obama in the Whitehouse - are moving very quickly towards a God-less, State-controlled Nation. God - please - help us!

Love, Pio

Pio's Proverb 136: CHRISTMAS and The Wisdom of Solomon

The coming of Jesus at Christmas was and is today the coming of Wisdom Incarnate. To conceive of Wisdom as a Person is different from Solomon who had the gift of Wisdom in his person.  What is the difference? Jesus is Wisdom, itself. He does not merely have the gift of Wisdom as did Solomon
Wisdom is intrinsic to His Divinity. When Jesus spoke, Wisdom spoke. Even Jesus said when there was an impass between Him and the Pharasee who would not listen to reason or wisdom concerning the resurrection: Jesus said: "Time will tell where Wisdom lies." Jesus had the Wisdom to tell his opponents that time would prove Him right. And Jesus did come in the "fullness of time."  That means it's is the fullness of time for us, right now. Christmas is only four days away. As I write, I can hear a Christmas choir singing on ewtn. Christmas is in the air. But more than that Christ must be born in us at Christmas. The angel announced to Mary the good news. Yes gave her consent, her "fiat" - "Let it be done according to your will." Her consent brought salvation for her and for the whole world.

But we have our own guardian angel, He announces to us every day some good news and directiion for our salvation. We must like Mary give our free consent. St. Augustine wrote: "God made us without our help but He will not save us without our consent." So Salvation is absolutely not possible without Mary's and our free consent. She could have said, Thanks but no thanks."  That is the response from millions who sees Christ presented to them through a co-worker, a friend, a relative, a pastor, a sister, a parent. These people who are given the opportunity to accept Jesus, say to Him: "Thanks, but no thanks." I have heard atheists tell me that.  When they say, "no", Jesus cannot become incarnate in their soul. But when we give our consent and yes to our angel, Jesus does come into our hearts spiritually and is incarnate in us in the Holy Eucharist.

But Mary said loud and clear: Let it be done according to your word." When she gave her consent, The Word of God became flesh in her; the Word became incarnate. Wisdom was there before the foundations of the world playing before God during the creation of all things. Now, Jesus is the Wisdom of
God.

Solomon wrote "The Book of Proverbs" 31 chapters that ends with the virtues of the Ideal Wife. He also wrote the greatest love story in history: "Song of Songs" - an autobiographical account of his love to a most beautiful woman. God is not mentioned in this book at all. Why? Because "God is love; and wherever there is love, there is God." There is no greater exchange of love in such poetry between a husband and wife as this work. It is so sublime that it has been used by St. John of the Cross as to depict his love between his soul and God, his soul being the beloved whom God cherishes like a His Beloved wife.

The "Book of Wisdom", written about a hundren years before the coming of Jesus, was the work of an unknown author who was a member of a Jewist Community at Alexandria in Egypt. He is unlike Solomon who began his work of "Book of Proverbs" exhorting the wise man to listen to these proverbs to advance in learning, knowlege, and who gives the foundation of all wisdom as "The fear (honor) of the Lord, is the beginning of knowlege." ..."wisdom and instruction fools despise."  Solomon's words fit perfectly all those who reject Christ who is Wisdom, Himself.  The author of the "Book of Wisdom" begins his work as an exortation of the reward of Justice: "LOVE JUSTICE, you who judge the earth; thnik of the Lord in goodness, ans seek him in integrity of heart...Because he is found by those who test him not, and he maniefest himself to those who do not disbelieve him."  These words are like John the Baptist making ready the way of the Lord. The Holy Spirit in this "Book of Wisdom" is preparing us for the Christ Child, the Wisdom of God.

King Solomon received the greatest gift of Wisdom into his heart of any man before or after him...until Jesus said in all truth: "But someone greater than Solomon is here."  Solomon had Wisdom. Jesus IS WISDOM.

Let us pray: Dearest Father, please give to all men and women and children of good will Your Peace and Wisdom to say "Yes" to Jesus so that He can be born in each one of us. Give us the humility of Mary to say "yes" to all that You ask of us and announce to us by our guarding angels. Give us the Wisdom to love one another because each one of us is "Jesus" in the world. He even said: "What every you do to the least of my brethern, you do to me." Thus we serve and love Christ in one another. If we refuse to love anyone - no matter what the reason or the hurt from that person - we reject Christ who said "Love your enemies and do good to them." Wisdom is this: "Love one another as I have loved you."  That is the bottom line of all  of Solomon's Wisdom, and Jesus's Wisdom - all in one Wisdom: Jesus.

O Father give us the Wisdom to love You and serve You with all our heart, soul, mind, wills, freedom and strength. Father, You gave to Solomon more Wisdom than you gave to any man; "no one before or after" Solomon was given more, except Jesus who was Wisdom Incarnate. Would You, Dearest Father, grant me this prayer: Would You allow Solomon in heaven to use his gift of Wisdom not only in the Books he wrote but also to use it now in our present day? You see my prayer today even as I started to write Pio's Proverb #1. Please let all the 136 Pio's Proverbs I have already written be impacted with Solomon's Wisdom so that he would have and will be able to impact what I wrote so that his gift of Wisdom would not be silent. Please let Solomon use his gift today to respond to present day situations. I know and appreciate the gift of Wisdom You have given to my from the Holy Spirit at Confirmation. I hope the Holy Spirit has helped me in all that I wrote. My prayer, today, is to ask You to let Solomon's gift to show stronly in my Proverbs so that Solomon in a sense would be writing them as well. Please let Solomon's gift of Wisdom be beneficial to the children of God today. Is this not letting Solomon and me participate in the Communion of Saints, A cherished doctrine of the Church. So, Father, would you please give permission to Solomon who is heaven to share his Wisdom with me so as to apply his Wisdom to present day situations such as abortion and the like. Solomon discovered the true mother in a dispute over one infant. Please let Solomon discover for us the truth in so many problems that confront our society - which is so vast. Please let Solomon have the joy of speaking today his Wisdom through these Proverbs I present now and in all the future Proverbs I submit. Let this a most joyous collaboration that will touch the hearts of everyone: from ardent atheists to devout monks. Please let Your Holy Spirit touch the hearts of those who have read and will read these Proverbs. All is really His work....without the Holy Spirit, not a word of  Truth could be written. I am merely a piano key that the Spirit presses down to make a note. If the Spirit plays a lovely melody, the key cannot take credit at all - not for a single note. All is in the Holy Spirit and by the Holy Spirit and with the HolySpirit for Your Honor and Glory Father, Amen. In Jesus' Name I pray. Through Mary, Seat of Wisdom. Amen.Thank you, Father, for already hearing my prayer. I love You. Pio.

Pio's Proverb 135: SUICIDE: Questions and Answers

My Dear Readers,

I have invited Benjamin Bourlier, Composer, Musician and Philosopher to a sit-down discussion on suicide so that many who are tempted in this way will hear some wisdom from this young man who has dealth with this issue from many perspectives and knows first hand the mechanisms of the mind that occur in people who are tempted to suicide.  I believe you will soon see that he is not only an expert in this field but also has a great compassion for those who are so tempted to suicide. He hopes and prays that many will be helped by his words.  My own prayer is that those so tempted will trust in God and not give into the tricks of the evil one who wishes to destroy people who are made in the image and likeness of God.  All those so tempted should also ready my Pio's Proverb 132: "How beautiful are you?"  You are precious. You are beautiful because God willed you into being, and God is Beautiful. He wants you to live and live to the fullest. St. Iraneus said: "The Glory of God is a mad or woman fully alive!"  Please stay "alive" for God, for yourself, and for your family and for your future family. If you have even one child, you will produce 25 ato 50 thousand people from now to the end of time. So, to kill any person is to kill 50 thousand future persons as well.

I will be making some comments during this session in  [brackets] as Pio's comments like a dialogue to Benjamin and you.

Here is Benamin Bourlier Wisdom as he answers questions I have asked him and more:

Peace and love, Pio Peter Zammit

Ben: On Suicide (for “Pio's Proverbs”)

            “Bottled up for days

in great sweat of being, seeking

to bind in speed – petere – desire,

to construct knowing back to image and

God's face behind it turned as mine

now is to blackness image shows

herself, desire the light

speed & motion alone are, love's

blackness arrived at going backwards the rate

reason hath – and art her beauty God the Truth”

- Charles Olson

Ben: Pio has again invited me [Benjamin Bourlier, 24, composer/pianist/writer] to compose a post as an extension of a conversation we had, or are having,  concerning the question of suicide. Pio was asking me a series of questions attempting to gain an understanding of the experience of suicidal thinking, of the desire – or as he called it, “temptation” – to die, which he explained is a desire he's never had, and which I admitted I've had (for better or worse) many times, as recent as a few months ago, and he suggested I write a post in the form of a question and answer, a format he believes reveals more of what's “in the heart”. Some of these questions are ones he asked me directly, some are ones I might expect him to ask, but all are questions someone who is considering suicide will likely confront in some way or another, I think it's safe to say.

Q: What is suicide? What is suicidal thinking? Why is there even the temptation of suicide?

A: My simplest answer, which is of course biased in its language re: my role as a creative artist but I think generally true: suicide is a poverty of the imagination.

[Pio's comment: If you read my "Pio's Proverb #162: "Imagination: How our's mirrors God's" aa well as read Benjamin's many comments on this particular blog, then you will see the depth of Benjamin's definition of suicide as: "suicide is a poverty of imagination" - as an bad use of imagination or a poor use of imagination since suicidal thinking is a separation of ourselves from all the possibilities of our own personal good and the good of the universe as a whole as well as the Goodness of God who put us here to "imagine more beautifully"! -- to see and "image" our being more beautifully.]

Ben: To my mind, suicidal thinking is the process of the imagination exhausting itself to the point of ruin, to the point of being incapable of at all conceiving of living consequence, of the most fundamental continuity (this can be within, without, by no means necessarily private or public etc). You'll notice many deaths conventionally/legally considered suicides aren't exactly suicides-as-such under this definition – many euthanasia scenarios, for example, the reasoning often being so much simpler and commonsensical (it is easier to understand, at least, why a ninety-year old patient dying slowly of terminal cancer may want to die peacefully than it is understanding why a seemingly healthy, promising fifteen year old may want to). Because, the truth is, when we bring up suicide, I think what we're really most disturbed and challenged by is this latter case, the suicide-via-depression, or suicide as the result of some outwardly inscrutable inner logic. Depression and this exhaustion of the imagination are perhaps synonymous this way. I don't accept that suicide can be called a “temptation”, having lived through depressive suicidal episodes, though in the case of familiar euthanasia scenarios the option becomes more basically tempting, simpler on account of the inevitability of an otherwise cumbersome death. Suicidal thinking while clinically depressed is very different, far more existentially exhaustive, where the reality of suicide is the reality of the imagination's fragility, its countered responsibility to articulate the world and overwhelmingly probable failure to do so, worn at the “rate reason hath”.

[Pio's comments: euthanasia be it at age 90 with a patient of terminal cancer is still suicide with just different reasons. But the result is the same: volutary termination of life before natural death. I believe that at age 14 or 90, this imagination of dying and carrying out is a temptation to escape some form of suffering that seems or is imagined is a greater suffering than the death imposed on oneself. Both in self-inflicted suicide or by a doctor inflicted it upon oneself, the result is the same: to escape where death is imagined the less of two evils. In both instances of these forms of suicide, the temptation is real. The imagination that present this escape could be not only from the self...but the fact is that Satan does have great access to our imagination. He has no access to our will or actions as such. He can only suggest pictures or thoughts to our mind that cause our emotions to awake. Suicide is an emotional reaction to these imagination. I deeply believe that suicide is very oftern suggested by the evil one because he knows this is a sin that does not have time to repent of...But only God knows if such an act is truly a willed and free act. Still the evil one will still try to see if he wins the soul or not. Bishop Sheen said it most succinctly: "At the end of the road of life, no matter what road we take, at the end of our life we will see one of two faces: Jesus' or satan's. Both will say the same thing to us: "Mine! Mine!"  Suicide for whatever the reasons has the same result: our seeng one of two faces and being eternally possessed by a loving Savior or a hateful devil. Suicide stacks the odds in favor of the devil winning.]

Q: Why wouldn't you consider it a “temptation”? Doesn't it wipe away all of one's earthly problems? Isn't it a tempting solution?

Ben: A: It is a solution only in the most impoverished sense. If you can recall ever being very deeply stumped by a question on a test, not because you simply didn't remember the answer but because the very logic of the question seemed inscrutable and absurd, where you get that sinking, cold-sweat feeling of isolation in your inability to proceed as classmates hustle through briskly all around you: the experience of depression and of suicidal thinking generally is much nearer, I think, to this event than to the event of a calculated solution. It is the kind of logic one invents for one's self in the event of absurdity.

[Pio's comment: Benjamin's insight in his analogy of isolation in one inability to proceeds as classmates hustle through briskly all around you is worth noting. It is a flow of insight into the mind that is faced with a world that is perceived as absurd and inscrutable which causes a depression that leads to the image of suicide...that is opting out of the test by leaving the testing room. But this imagination is a false one; and if one acts on a false belief (a delusion), then the results can be castastrophic for the person in that is death is eternally final. Such a extreme decision needs to only be pre-anethezied by surrounding that person with a loving family. When one of my three sons was tempted to suicide very seriously, I took him to Europe to show him to see the larger picture. He noticed and told me he never knew there were so many people in the world. When later - after much fatherly love and attention - he had to go on business to another state in the US after we came home. He told me later that he again was very tempted to sucide when feeling "ISOLATED."...I asked him, "How did you handle that temptation, son; and he answered deeply and heartfully: "I would never leave my family." So, the only way to help suicidal person, I believe, is to give them large anti-suicidal doses of great family love.]

Ben: I shared a quote from St. Augustine that had struck me with Pio: “My heart is much busied...amid this poverty of my life”. In Augustine's terms, suicidal thought is a heart made idle, un-busied, collapsed irretrievably. The outer poverty of one's life, as I read it, is a kind of blessing, a struggle in the classical cynic sense of redemptive, valuable experience. It is a simplicity or uniformity of obstacles. The capacity of the “heart”, to triumph over the obstacles of life without is probably the most powerfully redemptive feature of consciousness, the will to not only persevere but project one's inner light, to heal – the quote struck me as an ecstatic projection this way. One can think of the familiar stories of bravery and perseverance in the face of all kinds of worldly struggle, of people finding meaning in misfortune. The un-busied heart, though, void of its ability to form this meaning, standing emptily against the weight of indifferent worldly struggles, is quite literally the worst condition, it seems to me. There are so many times in life where all one has is the resilience of one's inner will, where one is totally, empirically lost without it. The depressive truly stands alone, in their vulnerability to any and all trauma. 

[Pio's comment: Isolation seems to be a recurring theme as Benjamin tries to share his insights with us. There is a part of the brain that detaches us from others as separate from others. If this part is stimulated too much, then this separation becomes "isolation from others" which becomes all the more acute. That part is called: "pareital lobe"     Also, the "limbic system" - is the most primitive part of our brain - the "fight or flight" mechanism and here is harbored anger, fear, resentment and depression. Neuro-theologians (MD's) say that prayer turns off the limbic system for our good.]   

Q: What is the benefit of suicide; what is the person looking to get out of it? And what about the soul? It seems to me, if someone didn't believe in an afterlife, they would want to stay alive as long as they could, because their body is their only vessel of awareness. But even if they did believe in an afterlife, they would they not want to treat life with as much respect as possible in preparation for the afterlife?

Ben: A: Well, honestly I don't know how to accept the categories of “body” and “soul”, especially in specifically religious terms. Do I believe in an afterlife? Well, no, not in the conventional religious sense of a sustain of my ego-identity beyond my body somehow, no, that doesn't make sense to me; my identity is so wholly dependent on my body; one might think of someone who, say, loses an arm at a young age, entirely the same in every other respect, but whose experience and emergent identity thereafter is significantly altered, so that if we imagine them sustained on into an afterlife without their body, we still have to conceive of them being shaped by their life with only one arm – they enter the afterlife differently, the same as any differentiated identity, organized in Dantean strata or however. Well, if that loss of the arm's so significant (and it is), what about this loss of the body itself? How can we conceive of the identity at all, it's been so radicalized? I don't think we can, not in the conventional sense. But neither is death the end. Which I say as much commonsensically as mystically. It simply isn't. I might say to myself that I'm presently experiencing the pinnacle of awareness the otherwise unconscious materials of my body can hope to achieve as it were, the peak of this wave of material sentience I enjoy as a human. I'm the arrival, continuously, of materials into the vessel of consciousness. But this arrival is something I'm mostly unconscious of, which I can't discretize in terms of my unitary, cyclic perception of reality. It's happening all around, constantly, the reformation of materials into what I recognize as other human beings and reality generally. My empathy with the species is an empathy, quite literally, with the all, with the continuously associative connectivity of material into and out of conscious states capable of specialized empathy, which is itself dependent on the transience and fragility of my ego. Scientifically speaking, material presently constituting me will be reconfigured into other conscious states, even within my lifetime.

Empathy is a radical experience, I understand this more and more every day. It is not mere social awareness or embracing one's responsibility to others etc, but insight into this continuous extension of consciousness, something one might very well access alone; thoughts that are new and fresh in me I understand now to be thoughts that must not have been any more evident in the world than that I would realize them just now, which I see has to be the similarly buried experience of other humans experiencing these thoughts and then struggling to articulate them in the world so that they would be any more evident than they are, for me, and in a sense failing to. I catch myself now, when I have a flicker of a new thought, gaining an insight into the sadness of this thought's ex materia human history, of the others for whom this thought was privatized because of its being no more evident in the world than that I thought of it just then. Language has made it thus.

My point in this re: suicide is that suicide is simply not the end. It's a strange irony to me that so much of the attitude of religious ritual is supposedly a process of coming to terms with death, an acceptance of death – in all religions, though one surely grieves the loss of loved ones, there are rituals of burial and of mourning and of acceptance – but yet somehow suicide is less acceptable, even a mortal sin. On a particular basis it may or may not be tragic, but it's not the end it's made out to be. It's the ego acting on itself, the thought the material uptake eventually has of limiting itself.

And again, we see how this confusion is essentially that of language itself; it should be clear that the Catholic notion of a judgmental afterlife where one's suicide because of its being a sin would limit access to paradise etc is something I can't accept – believing in such an afterlife at all, where your earthly life is at all relevant or even known, is already so inconceivable to me, why not believe in an afterlife you simply gain access to after-life, regardless of how you died?

[Pio's comment: quoting Ben above he says: "it should be clear that the Catholic notion of a judgmental afterlife where one's suicide because of its being a sin would limit access to paradise etc is something I can't accept -- believing in such an afterlife at all, where your eathly life is at all relevant or even known, is already so inconceivable to me, why not believe in an afterlife you simply gain access to after-life, regardless of how you died?" Please accept these loving comments, Ben, as offered for your consideration specifially. First of all, the "Catholic notion of a judgmental afterlife where one's suicide because of its being sin would limit access to paradise" is not what the Catholic church teaches. We must look at the notion of personal sin as "objective sin" and "subjective sin" to understand what the  Catholic Church fully teaches as to suicide. Objectively, taking anyone's life is against the Fifth Commandment: "Thou shalt not kill." Therefore, to kill an innocent person who is not threatening your own life would be an objective sin against the Fifth Commantment. However, suicide is hardly able to be very objective because the person is so destraught, so emotionally exhausted, so depressed, so stressed that objectivity is just not possible. Therefore, a suicidal person in commiting the act of suicide is not really committing a human act --"actus humanus". Rather the person who commits suicide is only commiting an act of a human -- actus hominis".  Suicide is not a fully human act because at that distressful moment, the person is not fully free to choose between right and wrong. Yes, he does know there is something not right about suicide; but to say he or she has committed a mortal sin that would exclude that person from paradise, would not be Catholic theology at all. It would be bad catechesis and not what the Church teaches. The Catholic church allows the Christian Mass and Christian burial in holy ground of a person who has committed suicide because the Catholic Church does not judge that person's action as objectively sinfull but more subjectively sinful if sinful at all. Sin presupposed a fee act of the will. A suicidal person does not have much control over his faculties of the will because emotion and depression or stress preclude such freedom. Secondly, Ben's comment "why not believe in an after life you gain access to after-life, regardless of how you died?"

Well, let us consider three examples of "how you die". 1) say a criminal kills a classroom full of kids and then -- when confronted by the police -- evades capture by killing himself (much like Hitler did to evade the Russian army occupying Berlin). Well, this suicide was not done to escape punishment and may be more responsible than a teen under depression. Still even in this case, we cannot be sure that person went to hell. Only God knows all the facts; but the point is this, how that man died does matter at to his access to the afterlife. He will have access to the afterlife no matter what. But in what state of happiness or not will he enjoy is another matter. 2) Say, a person in a holding up a bank and killing the manager, then gets killed in a hail of bullets, how this man dies does have a bearing on his afterlife. Should he have access to paradise? He will have an afterlife, because his soul will not be taken out of existence by God. The soul God gives us is forever. It has a beginning but never an end. 3) Say, a little girl like St. Cecelia get three blows from an executioner's ax; and when she was found recently, her body was incorrupt after nearly 17 centuries. Her fingers are placed to signify "three in one" image of the Holy Trinity. She witnessed (was martyred) to the Holy Trinity by her own blood. She lay for three days until she died. Her neck shows a deep gash -- the one that took her life. Now, how Cecilia died does have a very great bearing on how she will access paradise. So, how we die is very important.]

I  can accept the states of being and consciousness attributed to an “afterlife”, it has to be as a “through-life”, as it were, a “supra-life”, something need sentience, a body, and egoic self-awareness to access, but which you access through some epiphanic transcendence that glimpses the transience of the body, the ego, sentience itself. Death, for this experience, cannot be the finite barrier or entrance gate it's taken to be by so many religions. Death does not qualify bliss and agony and universal communion, awareness does. Think of any transformative experience you've had: did your death have anything to do with it? No, empirically it couldn't have. Death is not lived through. You wouldn't have consciously transformed if you hadn't come out on the other side of experience.

Q: What do you mean re: language? How is suicide a matter of language?

A: What comes to mind for me by way of illustration is the issue of animal – versus human – euthanasia. Now, with recent “species-ism” theories like Singer's, we can see how this distinction is an irrational bias to begin with, re: what we as humans see as the discrete hierarchy of life where human interest sits unchallenged at the top of the pyramid in all circumstances; the supposed incomparability of killing, say, a severely, morbidly deformed infant human versus, say, an adult pig, being a biased presupposition, since we know rationally speaking the pig's nervous system is just as much and very likely more capable of registering pain and suffering and awareness of its own murder than the human's – it is by no means necessarily more humane in the pig's case, that is. But overlooking that even, it seems to me the euthanasia performed at everyone's local veterinary clinic every day is justified (as humans reason it to be) only by the insurmountable rift of language. That is, you just can't explain to the abandoned dog that because it's considered an unfriendly breed and hasn't been spayed/neutered etc that it won't be adopted and you see how crowded the shelter is and all so we're very sorry but (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jJZaR_Irxc).

Significantly, the drug used to perform pet euthanasia, generally considered in fact the most humane form of euthanasia (nembutol/pentobarbital), is almost everywhere illegal for humans to obtain for the same purpose (you can evidently get it in Mexico). I read of an eighty-year old man who knew he was going to die a slow, painful, and expensive death from terminal illness having to travel to Mexico and essentially smuggle drugs back home in order to die in peace, while down the block a family dog with a brain tumor (or whatever) is put to sleep with the very same drug, that family convinced of this being  humane. Such is the irrational taboo re: suicide.

I haven't read enough Singer to know if he deals with this, but I feel thinking about suicide in terms of Marxist theory, and vice versa, is something that logically follows from Singer's ethical positions on euthanasia and infanticide, specifically the emphasis on quality of life and one's right to, in a clear-mind, decide whether one's life is worth living. If we look at oppression and exploitation in a global capitalist system, we inevitably encounter problematic issues of quality of life the same as considering the severely deformed infant: a severely, inhumanely oppressed worker in an Apple factory in China has very little prospect for living a fulfilled, quality life. The system of their oppression is so elaborate and inescapable that suicide becomes at once a viable revolutionary and existential response (more and more workers at these factories are in fact committing suicide due to severe exploitation); even though bodily and mentally they may very well have prospects for living a quality life, only by overthrowing the mechanism of their capitalist exploitation would they be able to – which, if we thus engage the complexity of Marxian revolutionary theories (Gramsci's theory of hegemony in particular), we see is impossible without revolt, of which suicide becomes the most immediate and (what's more re: the social whole) possibly the most effective expression.

Which, if we expand it, would open up a discussion of what most people consider the deeply disturbing idea of revolution-as-mass-suicide, the taboo of which we again see is simply irrational. Why, in other words, would this be any more disturbing than the tremendous violence and bloodshed so common to past revolutions? And how is it not a kind of powerful extension of what is otherwise humanity's most sophisticated form of protest, civil disobedience? Suicide under capitalism is a far more complex discussion than it appears, and is mostly skipped over as taboo, in deference to the obligatory life-affirming spirit of so much revolutionary rhetoric.

There are many such taboos and misconceptions. For example, the phrase “someone who is seriously considering suicide”. We all understand this means someone who's perceived to be gravely nearer to executing suicide, someone who might be on what prisons and hospitals call a “suicide watch”. But the truth is, all consideration of suicide is “serious”, we are all gravely implicated. We see the very worth of living come under question, fluidly, the stability of a reassured existence more alarmingly remote, difficult to conjure. Camus famously said the question of suicide is the only primary question in philosophy, as even asking any other suggests we've already answered this first one. We see the seriousness of the subject, the difficulty, isn't only in its solemnity but also what's revealed to be the deeply intense, concentrated intellectual exercise of cross-examining it. The commitment is severe, total, absurd.

Q: Is suicide absurd?

A: You might say absurdity is to suicidal thought what abstraction is to infinity: the conception of the former two, which requires a certain committed awareness, gives way to a profound, disturbing inner experience of the latter two, an experience for which there seems to be, for the person, no apparent end. The failure of language to keep up with the demands of this discussion is in my experience the most absurd and troubling aspect of waking existence in this regard, truly. The thought that experience is limited in this way, and that there exist questions the urgency of which language cannot satisfy, is for me inextricable from suicidal considerations, which makes such a conversation as Pio and I were having and such a post as this extremely delicate, as it is at its core both absurd and infinite (endless).

Q: What causes suicide?

A: Another stigma, the causal. The idea that suicide is something one conceives of as a “solution to life's problems”, a response to those problems, and that it is in this way a “temptation” with a traceable causality, is not generally true. Again, because of language limiting what we can knowably articulate, itself as much a cause as any. Suicidal thought and depression do not necessarily have to do with objective, eventual personal trauma or “life problems” in the ordinary sense, and can have as much to do with (for example) the abstract consideration of the absurd and the infinite, with an existential awareness. Much frustration has come about from well-meaning counselors/therapists/etc overlooking this, as a patient anxiously tries to answer the enormous question “what's wrong?” There are things our minds are just not mechanically set up to think about, yet we find we can direct the light of thought into these dark corners, these blind-spots, with great effort and discipline. All this effort can be in a sense its own trauma, a kind of exhaustive misapplication through which the self-regard necessary to go on living is exhausted out of its relevance. One finds an awareness so far beyond the local needs of the body, those needs become an absurd nuisance. Suicide by self-neglect – rather than self-violence – is thus the most common form, so much so it's often not even seen as such. Many people around you at any given time are likely committing some form of fatal self-neglect, convinced then at least of the limited relevance of their survival.

Q: You've mentioned forms of suicide. Why does suicide take different forms?

A: Aside from obvious opportunity, I don't know. The form of suicide is this absurd creative act. You hear kids jokingly come up with elaborate suicide plans where you really “go out with a bang”, the joke being putting all this effort into something that will ultimately kill you (of course this is less and less a joke in 21^st century America). Wittgenstein often mentioned a perfectly serious philosophical investigation that could be written entirely through jokes  (Why didn't he write it? Alas, he was unfortunately without a sense of humor, the joke goes).  And in this juvenile joking there's a disturbingly real sense of the more elaborate the plan the more worthwhile the act, that this is how the world truly evaluates suicide, as tragic only in its potentially melodramatic banality.

I can tell you from experience that I think of suicide as instantaneous. The point as I see it, being that you are going to die eventually anyway, is that you want to die right now, and so the form should be as near to instantaneous as possible (I won't bother with a list of such forms). Interestingly, these are often construed, in an effort to persuade against them, as more cowardly for their being more instantaneous. Which, as I see it, is nonsense – it's amusing, even, the way prolonged violence is perversely respected in human culture, even in this way. Suicide of any kind requires a kind of concentrated commitment that at least resembles courage; I think it was Hemingway that once defined cowardice as an inability to “suspend functioning of the imagination”, which is perfectly in line with my notion of suicide as a poverty of the imagination (acts of courage near suicide in this suspension, which will inevitably wear out if stressed enough), so that the notion that suicide is cowardly is definitively untrue – I think of Hitler's supposed suicide, for example, which more than anything seems just a way of further sensationalizing his villainy (that he was a coward too), and like so many rhetorical invocations of Hitler just smacks of un-truth, of conceptual fetish – to put it another way, how can we not afford ourselves the right to our own lives, yet claim Hitler denied us the right to his (to punish/kill him how we'd like etc) and was thus a coward?

There is no one form of suicide as there is no one essential suicidal thought, of course. Only an inscrutable result. There are common tendencies and complex patterns, but it's the particulars, the stuff of depression and suicidal thought, the day to day details, that matter most to the person experiencing them. My experience with depression, which began when I was very young, is particular and wedded to my unique experience, but is something I understand to be in many ways common to anyone considering suicide. We want to exaggerate our empathetic relationship by way of consolation, but this often does the exact opposite, trivializing the inner logic of the suicidal person, which – and this is extremely important – is not necessarily irrational. David Foster Wallace notes how people with an inability to overlook the reasonable consideration that their airplane may crash, for reason of logical consistency, are often described as having an “irrational fear of flying” (irrationally described thus, that is). In fact, these people may simply have an inexpedient rationality.

There are aspects of suicidal thought common to or engendered in human experience, and ways in which it is tremendously particular and individuated and craving precise definition; the nausea of waking, conscious life has to do largely with its insistence, its consistency and intensity and tyrannical indifference to subjectivity, and any consolation speaking from beyond this intensity – bland platitudinal warning and argument and moral judgment and so on – appears profoundly, disgustingly irrelevant, because the inner logic is so taught, so thorough in a suicidal state, far more so than we're accustomed to being when we're non-suicidal, as it applies to (truthfully) all waking life, all experience – you can't so much as lift a finger, for reason of the sudden absurdity of doing so (or if you do, the pain of this absurdity is deeply felt). 

Suicide is an existential epiphany. As you stare terribly at the blank you've left on the inscrutable test, you realize this blank to be the most elegant and honest answer imaginable. You accept your inner logic.

Q: If the discussion of suicide is so limited by language and categories, how does one go about talking to someone considering suicide?

A: I think if there's anything to be said to someone considering suicide, it must be said in such a way that contends with the intensity of the experience, while at once relieving it of some of that intensity through empathetic broadening. But can this be done? Do we gauge the success of this simply by the person's not committing suicide? Have we, I mean, genuinely helped them or have we just talked them down from suicide, because suicide is considered a heinous illegality or sin or whatever. In this way speaking to a suicidal person teaches us how perilous speech is generally – it's as much about the taboo of the illegitimacy of conversational language for dealing with the question as it is the taboo of morbidity. We want to know that we are not alone in life but that we are also somehow in control, that we are neither so-alone as to be lost to the suffocating responsibility of selfhood nor so-not-alone as to be indistinguishable and without privacy and sensitivity to self. If you've experienced suicidal thinking you know these twin macro-micro fears are essentially the same, and that there is no essential for/against argument for suicide as it can only be generalized in a way that doesn't speak to the experience (not to everyone's), the way blank or incomplete answers on tests are (illegitimately) generalized as wrong answers.

So I just have to say: I have no set moral stance concerning suicide. I do not think it's necessarily immoral, nor is it necessarily tragic, justifiable, avoidable, painful, painless...Successful suicide results in death, but death, as Wittgenstein says, is not an experience, as it is not lived through. Whether one believes in an afterlife of whatever kind, whether one understands death as finality or transformation or transfiguration or whatever, it is still “not lived through”, it is not framed on either side by waking worldly experience. This is very important: death (whether the result of successful suicide or otherwise) does not ultimately qualify suicidal thought, nor does it anything else. Death conceptually lends a significance to waking life that, yes, it otherwise might not have, but neither is this the only significance it might have.

Which is why when Pio suggested calling this post “Thinking of Suicide? Read this”, I asked it be reconsidered, as that title already suggests an argumentative stance that, to the reader in a suicidal state (at least, it would be for me in that state), is unattractively resolved, convinced. The most productive conversations regarding suicide, for me, have begun with mutual irresolution. Suicidal thought is at once tremendously dynamic and hugely stubborn, fixated, and can be, as Camus says, a following of logic to the point of death – which we forget is essentially the arc of life itself, the logic of transience, of mortality, and so not necessarily at all extraordinary, statistically or conceptually, not necessarily irrational if one broadens the scope beyond mere human concerns. Argumentative stances that appear rigidly convinced can seem by dint of their conviction either irrelevant or, what's worse, tragically vulnerable in their insufficiency.

Q: If you can argue your point on this, as you did in asking to rename the post, isn't that ability itself something to live for, something to flesh out and prolong? Surely there's no exhausting the intellect if it's aware of inexhaustible questions and conversations?

A: One of the worst feelings when suicidal is the awareness someone's conviction that suicide is empirically wrong is itself empirically wrong, that their logic is flawed or that you can easily dismantle it if called on. You don't want to, you don't want to be powerful in this way, not necessarily. You don't want to explain to someone who's convinced you simply don't understand that you do in fact understand, that that's precisely it: this burden of understanding, of awareness, of consciousness itself, and the enveloping burden of going on trying to communicate this consciousness somehow to others, others who are differently conscious and likely unable to receive the articulation as you privately conceived of it.

The truth is, intellect, regardless of the inexhaustibility of the subjects its versed in, is absolutely exhaustible, absurdly, as so often contradicts and is thus a liability to a growing global capitalist system that requires it not only be exhausted but that it be exhausted in an ever-predictable ever-refined way. Everything is increasingly set up against intellectual exercise, it's the plain truth. 

Which is why, ultimately, Camus' most-compelling opening gambit for this very conversation – that there is only one primary philosophical question etc – has, while it continues to impress me as a compelling argumentative strategy, left me unconvinced. We do not necessarily experience life this way. We do not necessarily wake up and consciously make the decision whether to live or die, that is just not the experience. That decision, in either case, is in fact very rarefied and deeply conditional, in ways that don't extend to all parameters of our conscious life. That we go about our day does not necessarily mean we consciously decided sometime before that the day was worth going about, any more than a person who lives with constant, suffocating thoughts of killing themselves (but hasn't yet) has chosen to live. Existentialism as a philosophical-literary tradition has always had, it seems to me, this problem of confronting only a few derivative tiers of absurdity, the tiers that are most attractive and of conventional literary interest. Confrontations with the absurdity of absurdity (of absurdity of absurdity...ad absurdum), because this becomes increasingly implausible and unsexy and disturbing and long long long, are extremely rare – David Foster Wallace's last, unfinished novel, The Pale King, is a sublime example of such a daring confrontation, which was in fact interrupted by Wallace's own suicide, very significantly.

Q: Alright, so if suicide is not necessarily right or wrong, why is it perceived as such a tragedy in society? Why is it widely considered a problem, something to be avoided at all costs?

A: Taboo, basically. The discussion of suicide often ends up just being a discussion of death. And one might say that death, something we collectively, fundamentally fear, and which we thus fetishize as taboo, is profaned in suicide by this seemingly absurd acceptance by another mortal soul supposed to fear death above all else. How can one accept what one is programmed to fear? The thought disturbs us, in its morbidity and perversion of will. But I think, more to the point, it disturbs us inasmuch as it's a failure. It's a failure not only to survive, but a failure to even want to. The urgency of the survival instinct and the prolonged effort of survival are doubly insulted. Here the species is, suffering and subsisting and reproducing, and the suicide seems to subvert the whole project. It offends us.

Q: So then does it offend us more in terms of death or in terms of the individual's decision to die?

A: Well, not only that, but, again the confused language of the categories: to what extent does the person die (even this, given all the religious assumptions of an afterlife, is not certain in conversation) and to what extent did they choose to die? The classic question of free will: alright, so the person kills themselves: to what extent? This seems absurd, but such is the discussion.

We can commonsensically perceive the man wavering on the building ledge is about to jump, not merely fall, but we wonder whether the rescuer next to him speaking calm life affirmations isn't nearer to suicide, figuratively and literally, than we are on the ground – he has, after all, willfully stepped out onto the ledge into the situation, without any expressed desire to die, but has, we think, “come to terms with death” in order to perform his task. All of us, on the ground and the ledge and anywhere, are mortal beings coming ever closer to death, yet we perceive these two up on the ledge as being temporally and conceptually closer to it. I think this is essentially an absurd illusion, the clear Hollywood distinction between the two. The roles of the jumper and rescuer are nowhere near as discrete as Hollywood would have us believe, but are rather continuously, fluidly exchanging. The rescuer might, for example, slip and start to fall, and the jumper might reach down to help them. The jumper might slip accidentally and, because of it being an accident, ask to be saved. One might think of that scene in (I hate to mention this movie, but) Titanic, where some officer compulsively shoots a passenger, and, consumed with shame, promptly shoots himself – the atmosphere of the situation is so urgent, rushed, and “nearer death” that one doesn't perceive this as a suicide in the ordinary sense. There are “just” suicides, where someone kills themselves in order to save another person, which are lamentable but accordingly less troubling than were someone to kill themselves for private reasons. That is, not all suicide is offensive even.

You hear people describe suicide as “selfish” which, again, is just absurd. This reaction is at most a form of “what's in it for me?” – that is, every bit if not more selfish than the act. 

In Bergman's film Winter Light, a man commits suicide, ostensibly shattered by a loss of faith, a sense of cosmic abandonment (he confronts a priest with his fears only to have the priest share his own fears and uncertainties with a terrifying and un-vocational honesty), and thus abandons his pregnant wife. The reality of worldly atrocities instills fear of a godless world of incomprehensible suffering in the man, which instills in the priest an intense urge to share his awareness of the same, which sures the sense of abandonment in the man, who resolves to die, thus tragically abandoning his wife and child.

(here is the clip, beginning after the spoken letter circa four minutes in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AYi5YW66sA&feature=related)

This circular abandonment, God of the world, the world of its people, the priest of his vocation and faith, the man of his will to live and of his wife, is tautological. There is no point of selfish perversion, rather everything unfolds out of itself. The sentiment of the suicide is one of absurd fatigue. The man hasn't simply ceased to love his wife and child, but has lost touch with (rather, seen beyond) the whole strategem of tautological relationships that enabled meaning at all for him. The relation of the abandonment no longer exists, he is incapable of himself abandoning or being received at all.

Q: What is the benefit of suicide? If you were in the position of that man in the clip, convinced of a cosmic pointlessness, how would it follow that suicide is the answer? Why wouldn't suicide, like anything else, appear meaningless and impossible to justify?

A: I think the basic answer is that one cannot empirically benefit from suicide. It's impossible. One cannot stand by the suicidal decision, one can't even receive relief – the whole mechanism of benefit is worldly and bodily and conditional. But I can say that I think the nature of this question – which is probably the best question one can ask re: suicide – is still overlooking something very crucial. The kind of pro's/con's delineation it suggests is requiring a kind of critical faculty, an imagination that suicide exhausts as absurd, impossible. Again, suicide is not necessarily a “solution”, it is just something that happens. It is one of many ways to end up dead. One might realize the absurdity of the question if you also ask: what is the benefit of death?

Q: So, if you were in the position of Bergman's priest, what would you tell the man?

A: What makes that incredible scene so painful, is that the priest is essentially brutalizing the man with honesty, and we realize that, in the language of the film, the man had come to the priest to be consoled with lies, lies no longer any more distinguishably profane than honesty. The priest is like a doctor bearing bad news to a dying patient, realizing in the process that he too is dying in exactly the same way, and overstepping all professional decorum needs to commune with the patient in exactly the vulnerable way the patient does him. The truth is disorder.

[Pio's comment: "Truth is NOT a 'disorder'; but the utterance of it in the mouth of fool is disordered." (A the Book of Proverbs states)  More precisely for our discussion, St. John said: "Do the truth; but do it in charity." So, the truth is not a "disorder" but the truth must be like a diamond that has the right setting. Peter told Jesus: "Far be it that this would happen to you. ...Do not go to Jerusalem!"  Peter was telling Jesus the truth and even seemed to think that he was being charitable; however, Peter was repeating the temptation from the Evil one to tempt Jesus to NOT go to the cross and redeem all mankind. Jesus respond quite strongly to Peter as He was really addressing the Temptor who stirred Peter's imagination to say these things. By giving voice to the voice of the Temptor, Peter gave life to a mere idea..but by speaking out the words of the Temptor, Peter gave life to them. Jesus response therefore was the Truthful one: "Get behind me, Satan!" I am sure Peter was taken aback!  The truth here was "brutal" and in this case should be.  However, Benjamin is right in saying that kindness should come first while speaking the truth to a man who is tempted toward suicide. The word of truth to a man who is tempted toward suicide must be a word of Love not merely facts or reasoning. How does one show love to a man tempted toward suicide? BY LISTENING NOT SPEAKING. BY LISTENING IN LOVE..WITH GREAT CARING AND UNDERSTANDING..EVEN REPEATING BACK TO THE TEMPTED MAN WHAT YOU HEAR HIM SAYING IN TERMS THAT ARE CLEARER THAN WHAT THE MAN IS SPEAKING TO YOU. THAT IS LOVE!] 

So, I don't know. I could only say this: because I have some juices of imagination still flowing at present, because I have investigations I still have the feel of continuity for, because moments of consciousness can still appear to me consequential, connected, ordered, I do not want to die, and don't want to see you die, because I am still capable of finding you interesting and relevant to my experience in ways you apparently aren't. But the truth is that you are not necessarily wrong. I feel, if anything, if you haven't experienced suicidal thinking, you're (for lack of a better phrase) missing out, whether your life is full and appreciative and aware or not. I think there is a severity and absurdity to waking life you either haven't recognized or haven't confronted yet. Suicide is very much about what it really is to examine a life and to require ecstatic deliverance. One's life is already on a mortal course. And contrary to the cliché that we have an innate desire to learn and to understand, we have a far greater innate desire to sit tight and unquestioningly accept the world, where no examination is ultimately necessary. You're exercising the most powerful critical mechanism you have, and whether you live or die you are presently accessing something of the best of you. Suicide, tragic or not, denotes a kind of investment or sensitivity one has to be alive enough in the first place to experience. And the truth is nothing I say will convince you to not commit suicide unless it strikes at some latent imaginative capacity that is far too much your inner property for me to be able to predict or indicate. Art has, I think, statistically higher chances of accessing it. You need good art.

- Benjamin Bourlier

[Pio's comment: Did you hear this profound statement from Benjamin -- these words of Hope -- which all young people should hear:

"Because I  have some juices of imagination still flowing at present, because I have investigations I still have the feel of continuity for, because moments of consciousness
can still appear to me as consequential, connected, ordered, I DO NOT WANT TO DIE, AND DO NOT WANT TO SEE YOU DIE, BECAUSE I AM STILL CAPABLE OF FINDING YOU INTERESTING AND RELAVENT to my experience in ways you are apparently aren't.....You need good art!"

Yes, Benjamin feels that if we truly confront life, then the concept of death will appear as a reality. That is true; but the Psalmist addresses this issue thus: "I PLACE LIFE AND DEATH BEFORE YOU; CHOOSE LIFE!"

These are my final words of comment for this magnificent discussion that came about by a simple dialogue between Bejamin Bourlier and me over a coffee table in my home. As I listened to the answered to my questions that I lovingly and caringly presented to Benjamin, I instinctively knew that his answers - [and my comments] were not meant for us alone...but all to be shared with YOU."

Peace and love,

Pio Peter Zammit  God bless all of you with abundant LIFE and HOPE, abundant imagination! ]

[See Pio's Proverb 162: "IMAGINATION: how ours mirrors God's" Please see Benjamin's comments on this blog which shows he is listening to me and I am listening to him: which the true antidote to suicide. Benjamin so much appreciated this blog on imagination as to write these comments from his heart:

"Pio, I think this may be your best blog entry! Certainly my favorite so far. I'm very fond, as an improvising musician, of your notion of the big bang as an improvisational spontaneity, and your notion of an (ever) accelerating universe as creative anticipation..."

 -- The end -- .or better said...The beginning...of a new life for all of us: you and me! Amen. And Tiny Tim really got it right when he said: "...God bless us all!"  God has! And says to you and me right now: "I gave you your life because I thought you would like it!"]

Again: Peace and love, Pio

Pio's Proverb 134: "Do you love Me?"

    Today's Gospel for the Mass of Blessed Pope John Paul II gives Jesus' three great questions to Peter and to all of us: "Do you love Me more than these?" ..."Feed my lambs"..Do you love Me?"..."Tend my sheep..."Do you love Me?" This last question was the one that Jesus was asking if Peter would love Him even unto death.

Why does the Church select this reading for Blessed Pope John Paul II?  It was selected because Blessed John Paul II answered those three questions as the successor of St. Peter.

Pio's Proverb 133: The Bad Thief: Where is he?

We all know the story of the Good Thief: Dismas who at the last minute accepted Jesus. But Jesus said: "Unless you are born again of the water and the Spirit, you will not enter the Kingdom of God." Well, then, why did not Jesus from the cross tell St. John to quick and get some water and baptize Dismas who had just accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior? No need to do that: Dismas was baptized already by desire; he was baptized by the Holy Spirit "hic et nunc" ("here and now"). Dismas was not only baptized by the Holy Spirit, he was the first saint to ever be canonized. Jesus said: "This day you will be with Me in paradise." A canonized saint is one that the Church declares to be certainly in heaven. Jesus did that whole process in a few words.

But what of the "bad thief"?  We do not even know his name? Can you imagine: if a person is on "death row", he would want to have a priest to hear his comfession or a minister to pray over him and reconcile him to God. But the bad thief did not want either. But the "bad thief" was sent a minister without his asking. Jesus - by the Holy Spirit - sent Dismas to convert the bad thief. The good thief admonished the bad thief and declared that they both were suffering rightly for their crimes but this man, Jesus, "had done nothing wrong".
Dismas said to the bad thief: "Do you not fear God!" It is amazing; but Jesus sent a criminal to convert a criminal because the two knew each other. They had shared the same cell. They shared the same fears. Dismas was the perfect minister for the bad thief. Everyone on death row would love to have the presence of Jesus in Holy Communion or at least in the Word of God spoken to him. But the bad theif has Jesus, Himself, the Son of God at his side. Did not the bad thief also hear the centurian say: "Truly this was an innocent man. Truly this was the Son of God!" Remember, both Dismas and the bad thief survived Jesus. Jesus had died first. The legs of the two thieves were broken so that they could not pushed themselves up for a breath. Jesus was too weak to push Himself up. But the thieves, therefore, died after the death of Jesus. Both of them were able to hear the centurian's great testamony and declaration of faith in Jesus. Most criminals curse their executioners because the executioners are hurting them. But Jesus was silent except for His words: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they are doing."

As far a the Gospel writers tell us, the bad thief did not repent. Rather, he said: "If you are the Christ, get us down from here; save yourself and us."  Now, let us look at those words more deeply. The devil when tempting Jesus said: "If you are the Christ, command these stones to become bread.." and "If you are the Christ, cast yourself down from here.."   Again, the devil speaking in the words of the bad thief gives Jesus His last temptation: "If you are the Christ..."  Then....another great temptation: "Show your power by coming down from the cross."  This is what the crowd has just said: "If you are the Son of God, come down from that cross; and we will believe in You."  Jesus could easily have come down from the cross and incinerated the entire crowd. But the Sacred Heart does not do that. Jesus even told James and John "No" to their request to send fire and brimstone against the town that would not accept Jesus. Jesus even joked about that request by calling James and John from then of "Sons of thunder!"  No...the Sacred Heart of Jesus pierced by the lance was exposed. The rays of mercy - Blood and Water - came from His side. Sister Faustina, centuries later would actually see those rays of mercy. For God is never more God in our lives as when He is forgiving us. But God will not force us to love Him. We have free choice. We can freely reject Jesus. Jesus has not come for peace but for division: for us to choose good or evil, life or death, to choose Jesus or Satan.

But what happened to the bad thief who continued to be used by the devil even to the very end. Was not his conduct a sign of who he was following?  We cannot put anyone in hell...not even Judas...for we do not know the state of a man's souls seconds before his death. Could not the bad thief - seconds before he died - have looked over at Jesus and said: "My Lord and my God!" We will never know on this earth; but one day we may just meet the "bad thief" in heaven...along with Judas. In all the 2000 year history of the Church, there is no process that condemns a person to hell and declares him or her to be in hell. No...the Church does not do that because of Jesus' words of mercy to the woman caught in adultrey: "Has any one condemned you?" "No sir," she said. Jesus replied: "Neither will I condemn you. Go and sin no more." Jesus is not the accuser. Satan - whose name means "The Accuser" is the one who accuses us. Jesus is busy redeeming and forgiving us.  Jesus even tried to get Judas to repent by telling him: "Friend, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss." Jesus was giving Judas a chance to repent right then and there. With every temptation there is a "way out" because God never let us be tempted beyond our strength.

So, did St. Dismas and the bad thief ever share the "same cloud" in heaven?  They shared the same cell, the same cross and the same Jesus at thier deaths. Let's see. We may be very surprised to see people in heaven we never thought could ever be there: the bad thief, Judas, Hitler......let us just see. Amen.

{Please note that there are some people in Hell. Our Lady of Fatima showed Hell to the three children who jumpted back in great fear. She said: "This is where poor sinners go because there was no one to pray for them." The children asked out Lady: "Why don't they repent?"  Our Lady said: "They do not want to."  So, these are souls that even at the last moment - "out of the body and present to the Lord" - they reject Jesus' offer of His merciful forgiveness. A saintly soul saw one of these final encounters where a man who led a blasphemous life all his life, and Jesus asked him: "Will you now accept me as your Lord and Savior?"  Jesus was willing to forgive all to save him from Hell for all eternity. The man answered with blasphemies and profane language. Jesus sadly lowered His hand thus letting him go to Hell which the man freely choose instead of accepting the Holy Spirit's offer of Mercy and Forgiveness. This is an eternal sin: the sin against the Holy Spirit's final offer of total forgiveness. But God cannot force someone to accept Jesus's Love. Remember, Jesus already suffered and died for this man sins. But the man refuses the atonement that Jesus has already made for his sins. This refusal is in that supreme moment of "out of the body and present to the Lord" is irrevocable just as the bad angel's decison was irrevocable.}

Let us pray:

Lord, Jesus, please be with every man and woman on death row today and always.  Let them see You hanging there beside them and see You dying for them. Let them all - and all people in the state of mortal sin - totally repent by accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior by accepting the Holy Spirit's forgiveness and Mercy..and then take Your hand, Jesus, as You lead them into Paradise. In Your name. Amen."

Love, Pio