The increasing wave of suicide
in the country has become so
loud that it is no longer a secret
{and painfully so}, that suicide
is no longer a hushed word as it
was when most of us here were growing up.
Today, a five year old can almost tell you
the word to your face (it is sad). Open the
pages of our dailies or the internet, you
will cringe with shock. Suicide is often the
product a long time planning and thought
from a brain oppressed by fear, despair,
helplessness and even hopelessness. Vic-
tims and their families deserve prayers,
companionship and compassion from all
but particularly from their faith commu-
nity.
As it were, we have become a nation with-
out culture, values, morals or faith. The in-
stincts of survival have been replaced by
a strange and negative instinct of self-de-
struction alien to our values and faith. As
Christians we imbibed faith in God and
in His word – Jesus Christ as the absolute
solution to all our problems. But today in
the face of difficult situations in our lives,
we think suicide instead of our faith for
solution. Though speaking honestly, stud-
ies have shown that suicide is almost always
the result of a perfect storm of interrelated
factors, many of which have nothing with
an individual’s preferred beliefs and are not
under his or her direct control consciously.
A great majority of those who commit su-
icide have a mental or substance – abuse-
related disorder, Yet, that they are all made
in the image and likeness of God, one still
questions: What could induce a child of
God to take his or her own life without
recourse to God for support and strength?
Faith in God/Christ and not in suicide is
the only authentic solution in times of dif-
ficulty and seemingly obstinate problems.
The Christian is a human person made in
the image and likeness of God to live and
abide by his laws for his and for the lives of
others. To know him, love him and serve
him in this world and live with him forev-
er happily in the next {Cf. Q&A Baltimore
Catechism}. Do they have any right then
to take their life? A large number of those
who committed suicide were not only
young, but believers in the Supreme Being:
God. Jesus said if the disciples had faith,
they would tell the mountain to move and
it will obey them {Cf. Matt 17: 20}. What
effect does faith have in human actions;
can faith prevent one from committing
suicide?
In religious circles like ours, faith using
the same synonyms, will be considered
simply to mean trust, confidence, belief,
dependence in God and his Word – Jesus
Christ and their promises of eternal life
and of their presence in times of joy and of
woe. The Modern Catholic Encyclopaedia
pp. 309 – 312 explain that faith is used to
designate a religious attitude in general, but
most especially it includes believing in the
transcendent God or Jesus Christ as faith-
ful and powerful to keep his promises
In the Old Testament (OT), Abraham
expressed his faith in a God who uprooted
him from his kith and kin to an unknown
land. He totally believed that God will
fulfill his promises as revealed by him (Cf.
Gen. 12 etc} as we have read and still read
the story of Abraham’s faith journey with
Yahweh. And according to St. Paul, it is this
faith that is said to have justified him {Cf.
Rom 4:1-12}.
With faith Abraham waited on God
through his childlessness. And when the
child was born, after some years, he was
ordered by Yahweh to kill and sacrifice his
son, his only son (Gen. 22). His faith was
tested when God made this demand of his
son to be sacrificed. He became confused,
what and how would he ever tell this to
Sarah? Abraham went into a state of mel-
ancholy, of shock and depression. But his
faith guided him and through discernment
in all his encounters with God, his faith
prevailed. It was the same for the Prophets
and all the holy people we read about in the
Bible (OT).
King David is another patriarch who in
blind faith turned to God despite his sin
and feats of depression. It is believed that
he struggled with depression apparently
throughout his reign as king. He wrote
many dark Psalms (Cf. 1st and 2nd Sam-
uel), turning to God for solution. See also
Psalms, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 36, 42, 43, 44,
55, 69, 73, 121, etc. David is said to have
suffered from insomnia but he dealt with
these symptoms as one with deep faith in
God, product of religion. He overcame be-
cause of his strong and lively faith in God.
The story of Job is another journey of
faith which speaks very eloquently of the
ability of faith to prevent suicide. Please
read the book of Job in your families,
tell these stories to your children and do
not say that they are too young. After all,
you send them to school at the age of one
month, don’t you?
In the New Testament (NT) we see in the
opening of the Gospels of Matthew (Cf.
1:20-21 and Luke 1:28-34) the expression
of faith by St Joseph and by the Blessed
Virgin Mary who gave her faith in total
self-abandonment in faith to the words of
the messenger from God. She believed that
what the angel revealed will come true for
God will always fulfill his promises.
The apostles believed because Jesus told
them. “Put out into the deep” (“duc in
altum”) Jesus told Peter {Cf. Lk 5:6}, Peter
and his companions trusted Christ’s or-
ders, they cast their nets and caught a great
number of fish. Again the Gospels tell us of
Jesus constantly exhorting people to have
faith; for God is able. Monika K. Hellwig
opines that in biblical contexts such as we
have seen above, faith emerges as a vision-
ary way of living, with vivid awareness of
God’s presence, goodness, power and im-
mediate personal concern for even the least
of his creatures. As it is, Hellwig has it right
that authentic faith gives rise to authentic
Christian living in a way that one’s entire
actions are ruled and influenced by faith in
God. But can faith influence actions, have
humans deep faith enough to act according
to the dictates of their consciences or to re-
fuse the negative promptings of the enemy
of our humanity according to St Ignatius of
Loyola?
A publication by the world Economic
Forum (WEF) of 2nd July 2014 opened
by saying that: “faith permeates our world,
providing a moral and ethical compass
for the vast majority of people. Evidence
shows that beyond individual religious
practice – faith is increasingly moving into
the public sphere and may affect various
aspects of economic and societal life”. Of
course if faith is said to be capable of in-
fluencing economic and societal life, how
much more would it be able to influence
our spiritual lives as Christians to the ex-
tent of preventing us from committing sui-
cide even in times of distress? Will suicide
and not faith be the answer if the family, the
domestic Church {Cf. LG 11} had educated
and grounded her young ones in the faith.
What is suicide, how can we define sui-
cide? It is the deliberate act of causing one’s
own death or taking one’s own life. From
the Latin word “suicidium” which means
{“Self killing”}: taking one’s own life or
suicidal action which was with the intent
of ending one’s life for whatsoever reason
is suicide. Now, there are different types of
suicide which we all know. There is suicide
which is intentional and without coercion
– {self killing}, there is a refusal of treat-
ment with the deliberate intent which leads
to death and there is the assisted suicide:
and they are all suicide. Assisted suicide
could be euthanasia or homicide as the
case may be, but suicide all the same inso-
far as it is with the victim’s consent. Either
way, neither the culture nor the Nigerian
constitution nor the Catholic Church is in
favour of one taking one’s own life. Even
though the Church empathizes with the
family and the victim at a moment of in-
describable pain, yet suicide is never to be
encouraged or supported as no one has the
right to dispose of their life.
God is the giver of human life, an expres-
sion of his love and generosity. It is incum-
bent on human beings to reciprocate this
love by respecting and fostering the gift of
human life. Life is to be respected, digni-
fied and protected. No human person is
justified nor authorized to violate his/her
life as a means of escape from sickness or
as solution to any form of physical or psy-
chological challenge be it temporary or
permanent.
According to Kevin O’Rourke OP, al-
though human life is a great good upon
which other goods depend, Sacred Scrip-
ture and Catholic teachings state that hu-
man life is not the absolute good. At times
the choice of another good may justify
the indirect surrender of human life. But
clearly in such circumstances, one does not
choose death, but allows death to occur as a
last choice for a greater good. The examples
of such deaths are replete in the OT Bibli-
cal times; most prominent among them is
the second book of Maccabees 7. And of
course in the NT, we have the example of
our Lord Jesus Christ’s death for our salva-
tion, the example of the apostles, the mar-
tyrs who surrendered and still surrender
their lives for their faith, those who die in
the place of others; like Fr Maximilian Kol-
be for instance, etc. These laid down their
lives in witness to their faith, in situations
totally divorced from suicide.
Suicide is often caused by health disorder,
economic, financial crises etc. These are
very pathetic cases but the solution does
not lie in taking one’s life. It is escapism, it
is despair. It is causing family and friends
even dependents excruciating pain and
denial to be loved, rejecting God’s love and
throwing his gift back to his face. It is faith
in God/Jesus Christ that will bring help
and solution to the desire to take one’s own
life. Entrusting one’s self to God and being
attentive to the self-revelation of God (Cf.
Dei Verbum 5, 8) at such moments is an
efficacious solution. How can faith inter-
vene against one taking one’s own life?
That faith can prevent suicide builds on
the fact that authentic faith can influence
and indeed influences our actions. When
we speak of faith intervening in suicidal
attempt, it is not necessarily the faith of
the victim alone but a combined effort of
people’s faith, friends and family. In the
Gospels, we read of the healings our Lord
Jesus Christ performed because of the faith
of friends and family. See Mk 5: 21-22.
I believe as a religious that the initial
influence faith has in human actions be-
gins privately, within. It begins by mak-
ing changes known to the person alone
and within; through prayer, seeking God’s
grace to shape and reshape the inner life,
thus allowing divine grace to repair, renew,
restore, and reorientate us. On a personal
level, true faith in God influences our dai-
ly behaviours and decisions, our relation-
ships, how we talk to our family members,
our attitudes when we are driving, the way
we treat others and even ourselves. Of
course our big choices and wider attitudes
are equally influenced by faith: How we
use money, our likes and dislikes, how we
eat, what and where we eat, our friends,
discussions, dressing and even where we
send our children to school etc.
Again authentic faith influences our
judgment expressed in our actions which
makes it visible to others. Our reactions in
the face of alcohol/liquor, drugs, emotions
etc: We will act or make choices based
on our conviction that moderation in all
things is wisdom. And when through hu-
man ignorance or frailty things get to the
state of seeking escape, our faith that God
is not separated from the moment or situ-
ation in question comes to our aid. This is
why Jesus in the Gospels emphasized the
inseparability of faith from every miracle
he performed and in his teachings too.
The one with practical or authentic faith
will climb the mountain of the Lord {Cf.
Ps 24:4}.
Faith is not from the nebulous, it is a gra-
tuitous gift of God to humans (Eph 2:8-10,
2 Peter 1-1, Philippians 1: 29 and Acts 3: 6)
and it is nurtured in and by the family –
which according to Pope St. John Paul II is
a domestic Church in his homily of the 7th
October 1995 at the Aqueduct Race Track
[Cf. Lumen Gentium (LG) 11}. He said
that it is in the family that the first Cate-
chism about faith is taught – i.e. we learn
who God is and all his promises from the
family first before we hear about him from
outsiders etc. Our relationship of reckless
but confident self-abandonment in au-
thentic faith we learn from the family. Cor-
roborating the saying “the family that prays
together stays together”, in the same way, a
family that quarrels, fights, breaking each
other spreads the same among the little
and young children of the family. Where
there is lack of faith even the greatest acts of
religiosity will remain mere external shal-
low acts of drama. In times of difficulty etc,
faith will have no part to play because it was
never nurtured. Faith can only heal and
save if from the foundation it was nurtured
in and by the family. Does faith influence
human actions? Yes it does only when it
has been nurtured from the onset. It is a
tool against depression and of the thoughts
to end one’s own life.
Again, faith is practical; that is to say
that faith can and is expressed in practical
terms. Therefore, in times of hopelessness
and despair, the faith community should
be quick in identifying cases of her mem-
bers who are in depressive modes and
shield them against such attacks. First lift
them in prayer, then offer them your pres-
ence, medical support, employment and
other forms of material assistance which
translate to practical faith and plays the
same role [see James 2: 14-18}.
What role can Faith play in the preven-
tion of suicide then?
Do not be secretive when problems arise
in the family. As you turn to God in prayer
as an ardent Christian mother, unload all
your worries onto Him since he is look-
ing after you {Cf. 1 Peter; 5, 7}. Prayer is
an essential component of the life of faith;
it involves asking God persistently in faith
for what we need, with resignation to his
will. Blind Bartimaeus kept crying for the
Son of David {the scolding crowd not with-
standing} till Our Lord made that paste
from dust and His spittle and restored his
sight {Cf. Lk 18:35-43}. A woman of faith
prays persistently even when it is clear that
the cross of suffering is before her and is
not going away. It is at that point that faith
must not give up. For Our Lord it was the
cross of shame, humiliation and sacrifice:
yet His faith persevered till the end.
Pray for wisdom and insight to decipher
when your teen child, friend, husband etc
is going into depression and to find help
speedily.
It is very important to note that when
visiting victim’s families, faith should co-
operate with reason/intelligence. Do not
speak if your words will not build up and
provide calm/soothing, hope and courage
{Cf. Eph. 4: 29}. In effect, faith helps when
we are not judgmental; quoting how all
sinned and fail short of the glory of God
etc. No, faith demands compassion un-
derstanding, companionship, fraternal love
for the depressed. In this way, faith will be
plating its role.
The Church as Mother should always
examine practical suggestions proffered
to help victims and families. Faith in God
gives a sense of purpose. One with faith
would want to dedicate his /her life to
accomplishing something of the essence
of his/ her being: for the love of God, for
family, for self or even for accountability to
the God of love. Therefore, the Church as
a faith community can come to the aid of
persons with mental or depressive prob-
lems/concerns by creating enabling envi-
ronments where they can receive guidance
and spiritual counselling, for victims hear
voices other than those which concern
their faith. Spirituality born of faith will
help victims and family find meaning,
contentment and purpose in themselves as
well as in the difficult situation at hand.
Furthermore, as a faith community, the
Church through Caritas and other chari-
table organs has helped homeless persons,
victims of human trafficking etc. In the
same way, mental and depressive cases
should equally be given attention since
they constitute a major cause of suicide.
