Transcript of the Video Above

Daily reflections for Lenten Easter, written by Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI.

Six years ago (1993), in Canada’s prairies, not far from where I was born and raised, a man named Robert Latimer killed Tracy, his severely handicapped daughter.

He put her into the family truck, hooked a tube to the exhaust emission, sealed the windows and doors, and let her fall asleep.

In his mind, this was an act of mercy. He said he loved his daughter, couldn’t bear to see her suffer any longer.

Her death ignited a national moral and religious debate that has bitterly divided families and communities.
What’s the value of a human life such as Tracy Latimer’s?

Biblically, the answer is clear. When someone is deemed expendable, for whatever reason, at that moment, she or, he becomes the most spiritually important person in the community.

In the Jewish scriptures, the prophets emphasize the idea that God has special sympathy for orphans, widows, strangers.

The prophet’s message was revolutionary. God has a special sympathy for those whom society deems least important, and how we treat those persons is the litmus test of our faith, morals and religiosity.

Jesus takes this teaching a notch further, saying, whatsoever you do to the least of these, you do to me.
Jesus identifies God’s presence with the outcasts, with the excluded ones, and he tells us that we have a privileged experience of God in our contact with them.

The Tracy Latimers in our lives are in a privileged place where the rest of us can experience God.