Read the full version at www.usccb.org/endoflifecare.

Let’s not be too hasty in defining who is “the wicked one” and who (namely us) is just! We are very quick to label others as evil, because we tend to label ourselves as good guys. We don’t like it when we are brought up short by a prophetic voice that brings us some bad news about our own behavior. We don’t like to be reproached for transgressions of the law or charged with violations of our training.

The core of the Eucharist never changes. The Mass is Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. The bishops at the Second Vatican Council brought together these three mysteries in a description of the Mass recalling the Last Supper, the sacrifice of the cross, and Easter Sunday.

From time to time, newspapers and magazines will offer, as an item of “filler,” various laws that are still on the books but seem silly to us in our day and age. In one California city, it is illegal to have two indoor bathtubs in one house. Clean water, a precious commodity when the law was written, is now readily available, so the law seems silly. But the human value of protecting and preserving precious resources is still around, evident in many conservation laws that seem sensible to us.