You Are Not Your Own

For a couple of weeks now, our Gospel readings (Mt 18:21-35, Mt 20:1-16) have kept us close to Peter: his confession of faith, his stumbling, and his call to be the rock. Peter naturally draws our attention because he is so recognizably human, recognizably like me: impulsive, courageous, afraid, and forgiven. Yet, in the second readings on these Sundays (Romans 14:7-9, Philippians 1:20-24, 27), St. Paul has quietly been handing us, right on schedule, exactly what we need to address a question our states have now placed before us.

Illinois has legalized what the law calls “medical aid in dying,” a form of physician-assisted suicide for certain terminally ill patients. The law took effect on September 12, 2026. 

I do not say that to frighten anyone or to make a political speech. I say it because this is now a real option that may be presented, gently and compassionately, in a hospital room or a hospice bed, to people we love: our parents, our spouses, and perhaps one day, ourselves. When that day comes, the culture around us has already prepared an answer. It is an answer with a very simple and appealing shape: “My body, my choice.” It is my life, my suffering, and my body. Therefore, the decision is mine, and mine alone, to determine when enough is enough.

St. Paul would not recognize the notion of “my body, my choice.” Not because he did not understand suffering. He was writing to the Philippians from prison, quite possibly facing execution, when he wrote, “I long to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” (Philippians 1:23) He was not pretending. He wanted to go. If anyone had reason to say, “My body, my choice,” it was Paul, in chains and uncertain whether he would see another season.

Yet he does not finish the thought by saying, “Therefore, it is my decision.” Instead, he continues: “Yet that I remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.” (Philippians 1:24)

Notice the turn.

Paul’s own desire is placed alongside the needs of the people he loves, and it does not automatically prevail. His life and his body are not private possessions to be disposed of according to his own preference. They are gifts entrusted to him for the sake of others. He writes, “Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.” (Philippians 1:20) Whichever way things unfold, his body remains the place where Christ is to be glorified.

Paul writes to the Romans a sentence that we all need to hear and discern as one of the most countercultural statements in the New Testament: “None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord. So then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:7–9)

We are the Lord’s. We are not our own masters. Catholic teaching does not mean that we must accept every available medical treatment, no matter how burdensome or ineffective. The Church distinguishes between intentionally causing death and allowing death to occur when treatment is disproportionate, excessively burdensome, or no longer beneficial. However, it does mean that we are not absolute owners of our lives. We are stewards of a gift entrusted to us by God.

Paul writes to the Corinthians even more bluntly: “You are not your own; you were bought at a price.” (1 Corinthians 6:20)  That is about as far from “my body, my choice” as a sentence can get. It is difficult to hear in a culture that has taught us, since childhood, that autonomy is the highest good and that the self-made, self-determining individual is the ideal. Paul is not interested in that ideal. He teaches that our living and our dying were never solely ours to control. We were bought, not earned, not self-created, but redeemed at the price of the Cross.

We must be careful here, because none of this is a word against people who are suffering. If you are in real physical pain, caring for someone who is fading, or terrified of what the coming months may hold, please hear this clearly: the Church is not indifferent to your suffering, and neither was Paul. Paul did not pretend that he wanted to remain in prison. He said that dying would be gain. The Christian answer to suffering has never been, “Simply offer it up and say nothing more.” Our answer is different: we will not leave you alone with it.

That is really what is at stake here.

The logic behind assisted suicide is ultimately a logic of isolation. It says that, in the end, this is your decision to make by yourself, about your body and for your own reasons.

The logic of the Gospel is a logic of accompaniment. It says that your suffering is not something to be efficiently eliminated, but something we must enter into together. That is what hospice care, at its best, actually is. That is what a family is doing when it sits at the bedside through a long decline. That is what the sacraments are for: Anointing of the Sick, Reconciliation, and the Eucharist brought to a bed when someone can no longer come to us.

The Church’s answer to suffering is neither abandonment nor the demand for useless treatment. It is compassionate care, effective pain relief, spiritual support, and the refusal to intend death as either an end or a means. The Church permits the refusal of treatments that are excessively burdensome or disproportionate, and it permits pain medication even when a shortening of life is foreseen, provided that death is not intended. Palliative care is not a failure to treat. It is a profound form of Christian charity.

It is important to notice that Paul’s reason for wanting to remain alive was not that his life still possessed “quality” according to some external measure. He was in chains. He may have felt useless, sidelined, or burdensome to the young churches he could no longer visit freely. Yet he says that his continued life is “necessary” for them, for their “progress and joy in faith.” (Philippians 1:25)

Brothers and sisters, that is exactly what our elderly, our sick, and our dying still are for us, even when they cannot see it themselves: necessary.

They are not decorative, merely tolerated, or burdens to be resolved efficiently. They remain necessary to us. A father who can no longer speak is still teaching his children how to hold a hand and sit in silence. The world tells the suffering and the dying that their worth depends on function, comfort, or capacity. Paul tells us the opposite: our body, right now, in whatever state it is in, remains a place where Christ intends to be seen.

So here is what I would ask us all to take to prayer.

First, if you are facing a difficult diagnosis, or caring for someone who is, speak with a member of the clergy, a Catholic chaplain, or a pastoral minister. Do not face this alone, and do not settle for a quick answer to a profound human and spiritual question. There are people here who will sit with you in this.

Second, if assisted suicide comes up around your dinner table or at work, do not be afraid to say the countercultural thing: We are not, finally, our own. Our lives are gifts from God, and they are to be returned to him in love at the time he permits, not ended intentionally because suffering has become difficult.

Third, and perhaps hardest of all, if someone in your life is declining, feels like a burden, or has begun to wonder aloud whether he or she should “spare everyone the trouble,” go and be with that person. Do not go merely to correct or argue. Go to listen, to accompany, and to help secure the care that person needs. Sometimes the first Christian response is not an explanation but a presence. Be present.

That is the answer Paul gives from his prison cell: not a slogan, but a presence. Not “my body, my choice,” but “whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” Simple because we are the Lord’s, we are called to belong to one another in love.

Christ will be magnified in your body, whether by life or by death. May we have the grace to believe that, and the courage to live as though it were true.