![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/162\/2013\/02\/little-sisters-219x300.jpg\" "\\"OLYMPUS")
<\/a>When you\u2019re poor for your entire life, it\u2019s possible to become somewhat inured to misery. If you keep your line of vision low, keep from looking too far to the right or left, and manage your expectations properly, then\u2014through practice\u2014it might even be possible to control the thoroughly natural desire to possess more.<\/p>\n\u201cWhat you\u2019ve never had, you never miss,\u201d I\u2019ve heard it said.<\/p>\n
But I wonder about the likelihood of such a thing when the poor grow old. For at that time, the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune are sure to be felt more keenly. When the labor required merely to exist is no longer possible, sufferings are more acute, as the meager distractions that toil provides are gone as well. The aged poor have a unique plight, caged mentally and physically within a prison of need.<\/p>\n
Like most inadequate Christians, I do a bit here and there to provide for them. For instance, there\u2019s a nursing home nearby that\u2019s run by an order of nuns, The Little Sisters of the Poor. I\u2019ve been known to volunteer there every once in a while, helping with yard work and assisting at their Christmas Bazaar.<\/p>\n
But ordinarily, I just send money. On the whole, my corporeal acts of mercy are known by the ease with which they\u2019re accomplished: One: Place pen to check. Two: Write name and amount. Three: Sign at bottom. Four: Mail.<\/p>\n
I never break a sweat.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s all right, because the Little Sisters do it for me. They\u2019re very good at such things.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve practiced heroic Christianity for a long time, going back to the French winter of 1839. St. Jeanne Jugan carried into her home a blind, paralyzed old woman who\u2019d been left in the street to die, thus founding an order whose charity now covers six continents. They\u2019ve been in America since 1868, with thirty homes and over three hundred nuns.<\/p>\n
If you ever get a chance to visit one of these places, do. Because they\u2019re the nicest, cleanest, most pleasant you\u2019ll ever come across. Best of all, they exist only for the poor, in hopes that some of their bruised lives can be healed by the gentleness with which they\u2019re attended.<\/p>\n
One of the most touching things the sisters do is to make sure that no one ever dies alone; when residents are near death, the nuns assemble at the bedside and pray them to a better place.<\/p>\n
It came as a blow when I heard that the Sisters might have to leave America. Because of the Obama administration\u2019s HHS mandate\u2014the Health and Human Services Agency\u2019s requirement that all employer health insurance plans cover contraception and abortifacients\u2014the good the nuns do was and still may be under threat.<\/p>\n
Like thousands of such institutions, up until this week the Little Sisters of the Poor didn\u2019t fall under the government exemption for compliance because\u2014in a supreme perversity\u2014the government did not consider them religious employers. Only groups with fifty or more employees that \u201cinculcated religious values\u201d as their purpose, and both employed and served members of their own faith exclusively <\/em>were considered religious.<\/p>\nThe nuns\u2019 vocation is to provide a home for the low-income elderly regardless <\/em>of faith, race, or religion. But with dystopian hubris, the HHS said this was precisely what disqualified them as a religious organization.<\/p>\nUnless they tended only<\/em> to those who shared their creed, they would have had to pay a crippling cost: drop employee health insurance (which the Sisters feel bound to provide) and pay a $2,000 penalty per employee<\/em>, or offer insurance without the objectionable coverage and be fined $100 per day<\/em>, per employee<\/em>, totaling nearly $2 million per year.<\/p>\nEither they betrayed their religious conscience or paid up for not doing so. As a mendicant order\u2014vowed to beg for bare subsistence\u2014this would break them.<\/p>\n
And while the administration has proposed a changed definition this week, due to outrage, the Sisters and similar groups are likely still affected. Regardless, it is not for the federal government to decide when their conscience should be implicated or what accommodation should satisfy them.<\/p>\n
Spare me the red herring about how unpopular contraception is among Catholics. Of what relevance is the popularity of a doctrine?\u00a0 It is not the most unpopular of all doctrines among mass-attending Catholics, but even if it were, that would not change the fact that the Church holds it as such, and so do the Little Sisters.<\/p>\n
Their personal<\/em> conscience is what the First Amendment protects, and being required to mount a defense of religious conscience is itself an abomination.<\/p>\nWhen did the administration become the arbiter of such matters? Our country\u2019s very foundation was motivated by just such tyrannical oppression: the state\u2019s mandating a particular religion and showing intolerance toward others.<\/p>\n
Even those who don\u2019t hold the Catholic view should fear this power. If the government can require secular adherence now, then it can certainly target something that you do<\/em> believe in later. Funny that those who would otherwise be screaming about the First Amendment are strangely quiet about what\u2019s happening here.<\/p>\nI doubt my last days will be easy ones; few are so lucky. Nevertheless, I\u2019ve amassed enough for some modicum of comforts at the end.<\/p>\n
But there are many who have not, and if I were one of those\u2014confused and uncertain and frail, hungry and unable to feed myself, cold and unable to find warmth\u2014I would hope for a place like that of the Little Sisters, where all these things would be provided for me, plus a gentle hand upon my brow as the nuns sang me to a kinder world.<\/p>\n
It will be a crime black as Hell if they have to leave America\u2014of all places\u2014because in the eyes of the state they are not\u2014of all things\u2014sufficient practitioners of their faith.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you\u2019re poor for your entire life, it\u2019s possible to become somewhat inured to misery. If you keep your line of vision low, keep from looking too far to the right or left, and manage your expectations properly, then\u2014through practice\u2014it might even be possible to control the thoroughly natural desire to possess more. \u201cWhat you\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1049,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,48],"tags":[80,129],"class_list":["post-2508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-g-harmon","category-faith-topical-categories","tag-faith-practice","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/162\/2013\/02\/little-sisters.jpg\" "\\"OLYMPUS")
<\/a>When you\u2019re poor for your entire life, it\u2019s possible to become somewhat inured to misery. If you keep your line of vision low, keep from looking too far to the right or left, and manage your expectations properly, then\u2014through practice\u2014it might even be possible to control the thoroughly natural desire to possess more.<\/p>\n